Author: Jack Scott

Quick Hosting Reviews

Over the last few years I’ve used quite a few different hosting providers, so I thought I would give a few quick reviews of them all, so I can share my experience with them.

Silentflame Web Hosting

During the time I was with Silentflame during 2007-2008, I was very happy. Although the service was a bit slow for me, I suspect that this was purely because I was on the other side of the world. The novel thing about this service is the fact that it gives away all it’s profits to charity. It’s a great idea, and one that I think we should see in more businesses (perhaps a tithe would be better though). No native IPv6 on their services yet, unfortunately.

DirectSpace Networks

I only had a VPS with DirectSpace for about a month or two, before I switched to a different provider. I was fairly happy with these guys, never had any issues that weren’t resolved promptly. The biggest criticism I had with my service was that the CPU allocation was too low. I had severe speed issues from the lack of time my processes had to run. No native IPv6 either.

ServerPronto

I had a dedicated server with ServerPronto for around six months this year, and although I no longer have it, this server performed very well for me over the time I was with them. They do have a somewhat convoluted exit process (it involves filling out a paper form and sending it to them snail mail along with a copy of some ID) but this is no problem to navigate, and unlike what others are saying on the Internet, does not result in your identity being stolen and your credit card being abused. The main selling point of ServerPronto is the price, they are extremely cheap dedicated servers. That said, quality does not appear to be an issue. No unexpected restarts, hardware never failed, and the network is very fast. No native IPv6 here either.

The only reason I got rid of this server was that it was costing more than an equivalent VPS and I wasn’t really using it. I’ve since turned the money over to other VPS services, increasing the number of services I can test.

Nullshells Networks

I’ve used Nullshells Networks’ web hosting for a few years now, and I am extremely happy with the service. All the services I had with them (web and email hosting) have always worked flawlessly, and if I’ve had any queries, the owner of the business has been more than happy to help out. I have only two nitpicks; one is the lack of IPv6, and the other is the fact they use a self-signed SSL certificate. While the lack of signing of an SSL certificate is no technical problem, and while I’m savvy enough to check the certificate and add an exception, it is a bit unprofessional. I’m still using Nullshells for my web and email hosting.

For my full review of Nullshells from around a year ago, click here.

Mammoth VPS

Overall I’ve been very pleased with Mammoth VPS, which is an Australian-owned company with servers located in Sydney’s CBD. While they are more expensive than other offerings, this is simply because the bandwidth in Australia is much more expensive than it is in Europe or the USA, so this is no fault of Mammoth. I have had a few issues with unexpected reboots, but apart from messing with my uptime statistics, this is no real problem. It’s always nice to support local businesses, too. No native IPv6 yet, but almost nowhere does.

BuildYourVPS

I’ve only had a BuildYourVPS (actually TOCICI) VPS for a couple of days now, but I wouldn’t recommend them, based on what I’ve experienced so far. When I first signed up, it took 4 rebuilds of the VPS before I could even log in via SSH. I’m assured this is not a regular thing, but I’d take care. After it was set up, the VPS did work very well. No CPU cloggage issues like on most other VPS providers. The network was extremely fast (as you’d expect from having the servers located in a US west-coast Internet exchange). One thing I did notice is that the server is behind a NAT. Fine, I guess, except that it makes some network configuration tasks a bit more confusing, and that the gateway IP they use is actually a special-use IP reserved for testing. Ouch! Zero marks for that one. On the up side, they do support native IPv6, albeit on request.

Edit 8/10/2010: After playing around a bit more with BuildYourVPS services, I’m happy to report that the issue with server builds has been fixed. All my other complaints were simply OpenVZ issues. Pending a few more weeks with the server, I’d be happy to give them a thumbs-up.

A Contradiction In Beliefs

So there I was with my pen hovering over the email address field on the membership form, and I just thought to myself, “what on earth am I doing? I know it’s the wrong thing to do at this point in time.”

It’s difficult sometimes to rationalise an inconsistency between two beliefs. That’s the problem I was having. I wanted to become a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, but I just can’t bring myself to sign on the dotted line because of one glaring issue: the environment. The LDP (and classical libertarianism in general) offers no special consideration to the environment, basically just considering it a tool for the use of humans. A tool that will, hopefully, be treated well by the human community that recognises that the environment is necessary for life. I’m fine with this logic.

Unfortunately, recent events (such as the scrapping of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Australian federal parliament) show that the community at large is not ready to show the recognition the environment needs in order to sustain human life into the future. Even if some sectors of the community are ready (where I live in southern Tasmania has a fairly Green tinge) others are not (such as highly-polluting corporations and conservative voters) and this latter category is where the balance of power on this matter is currently held.

I think a lot of damage has been done to the environmental cause by pseudo-science and irrational behaviour on the part of the supporters of this cause. An example is the Cleaner Car Rebate, a scheme proposed by Labor in the current federal election campaign [ABC News Story]. It offers $2000 for owners of pre-1995 cars to update to new cars. It’s completely idiotic.

First of all it takes money away from Solar power (which is far from perfect, but a good step in the right direction). More importantly though, it will increase pollution and emissions. It takes a lot of materials to build a car. Steel, Aluminium, Plastic, Leather, Oil, all of which have to be sourced from out of the ground (except the leather, which has to be grown), shipped around the world, assembled, then delivered to the customer. This is a huge amount of emissions. Not to mention the wastage from throwing out the old car. Then there is the fact that once these materials have been built into a car, they then can’t be used again for anything else. Some can be recycled, but a lot can’t.

But all that is largely beside the point. We should be encouraging people to get rid of cars altogether, not replacing them with new ones. We should be encouraging public transport and bicycles and all these good things. Which brings me back to my dilemna. Should I support a party that I otherwise agree with, except for that one of their principles completely fails to take into account the human condition and would therefore be destructive to something I value highly?

Sometimes, there is just something bigger than the self.

Zzz? Zzz!

This has to be the most entertaining federal election of all time… not. Both major parties (the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal/National coalition) agree with each other so much there’s nothing major left to argue about.

They’re both going to give us offshore processing of asylum seekers (though we have to decide between Nauru and East Timor). Personally, I’m appalled by the fact we are even considering either of these options. These are human beings we are dealing with here. We should be welcoming them with open arms into our country. No terrorist is going to come by leaking boat, so they pose a relatively small danger to the existing population. It’s all just a load of fear-mongering by the major parties, and I’m disappointed.

Both are making huge stuff-ups with Climate Change. The L/N coalition can’t even decide if it exists or not. The Labor party is having trouble committing to anything, and that’s showing through with climate change. We’re going to get a citizen’s assembly of 150 people to decide for us. This is a matter where normal citizens do just not have the information available to make the right decision. I (if I may) call myself a well-informed voter, and I don’t have the information for the job. The one man who does, Ross Garnaut (who wrote a report on this for the government), got his solution to the problem blown into a million pieces in parliament.

Both parties are completely over-using their campaign slogans.

One of the leaders is a backstabbing whining bitch; the other is also a backstabbing whining bitch.

There isn’t just a small number of people agreeing with me either. Here’s one of them.

At the election, I’ll be voting Green first. I think it’s the only rational choice. I don’t agree with every single policy they have, but the parliament needs a mix-up and a bit of discussion rather than simply disagreeing on the identical policy. I have no idea if they are running candidates in Tasmania, but if they are, the Liberal Democratic Party (basically a libertarian party) will get my second vote, simply because I think we need to stop turning into a nanny state.

So, unless something interesting happens, that’s all I really have to say about the federal election.

Note: As of the time of writing, the LDP’s website appears to be down for maintenance. I think they may need to fix that, being an election on and all…

The Hobart CBD’s Real Problems

At the moment there’s a bit of discussion floating around in the local papers and on the TV about the state of Hobart’s shopping precincts. In particular, a lot of focus has been on Hobart’s Elizabeth St. Mall, and the crime that happens there in broad daylight. Apparently this crime is killing off the CBD as shoppers are scared away. That’s only a small part of the problem. Here’s what’s really happening…

Firstly, the Internet. 10-15 years ago you needed to go into the CBD to do quite a few of the non-everyday purchases you made, such as stationery, clothing, books and jewellery. There were smaller shops in suburban shopping malls sure, but if you wanted something specific, into town it was. Now, these same purchases can be made online, saving the purchaser time and money. A few days ago I bought a new fountain pen online. I selected from an absolutely huge range (1000+ items), quite a few cheaper than retail price, and I didn’t have to leave home during the cold of winter. A few days later it arrived on my doorstep without any other effort on my part. Seeing as I would have had to do research online anyway, I saved quite a lot of time. There are maybe some things I wouldn’t buy online (such as formal clothing, which ideally would be tailored, and at the very least should be tried on before purchase), but for a lot of items, the Internet will do fine.

Secondly, getting into and out of the Hobart CBD is the pits. There are three main choices. First up is driving the car in. This is bad for the environment, for a start. More importantly however, in this case, parking is just annoying. There isn’t enough of it, most spots being taken by people who drive in for their nine to five jobs. Which leads me in to the second option: catching a bus. There are plenty of buses going along the main routes into the city, but relatively few anywhere else. From my house there are two buses heading into town, and both are before nine in the morning. Which makes shopping a bit inconvenient, seeing as the shops don’t open until nine. There aren’t any buses back again until after three in the afternoon. Metro Tasmania can’t really be blamed for this, as it’s a chicken and egg problem. They can’t put more buses on unless people are already using the ones they have. The only other option is riding a bike, which if you live on the Eastern Shore (as I do) is hampered by the Tasman Bridge, which was certainly not designed with cyclists in mind (I’ll admit I’m slightly uncoordinated, but coming away with flesh wounds is excessive). Hobart is also incredibly hilly. Basically, it’s easier to drive the car to somewhere where there’s lots of parking, which is where land is cheap, which is out near the airport. It’s not difficult logic.

Finally, as more shops keep closing, less people will want to come in to just browse. As there are less people browsing and buying, less shops will be able to sustain themselves. Evidence for this can be seen in the downturn in the CBD after half of the Myer building burnt down.

I love Hobart’s CBD, don’t get me wrong. But unless the Hobart City Council changes policies (which they are starting to wake up to) then there is nowhere to go but out… to the airport.

Facebook Pages ARE NOT Websites

There’s something I need to get off my chest. You may have guessed what it is by now.

I’m getting really sick of news outlets calling Facebook pages ‘websites’. It’s really demoralising to the people who actually own websites and put effort into maintaining them. I mean, it even costs money! I bet you don’t get the people who create pages spending money on them.

So, Southern Cross News, WIN News, and even ABC News (this one, I admit, surprised me), please just stop confusing pages and websites. If you really want to get pedantic, a Facebook page is indeed a webpage, but it’s not a website. Facebook as a whole is a website.

It also alarms me that the easier it gets to create content on the web, the stupider the content gets (I’m talking about this and this). Which makes me wonder: were the book publishers and the newspaper publishers right? Has the quality of published work suffered because of the Internet? The fact that they might just be right… well, that scares me.