

Free development servers for startups/hackers - DanBlake
http://www.theplanet.com/sand-castle/

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mahmud
That's generous of them, but prgmr costs me $6 (actually, I went ahead and got
the $20); not to mention several shell accounts that I have with open source
projects, LUGs and friends.

Just last night I plugged a USB disk into a dead Dell laptop where half keys
where missing from the keyboard, and it was an instant Slackware server,
tucked under the wifi router.

I myself offer free shell accounts to Lisp programmers, if they agree to be
put in /etc/sudoers and do some admin chores, like helping others, if/when
they can; I have a bunch of Common Lisps, slime and emacs ready to go :-)

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spicyj
They have to _agree_ to be put in sudoers? I'm sure you'll have lots of
trouble finding people willing to have root access on your server.

~~~
blhack
I am going to go ahead and assume he means his friends have to agree to help
each other out with admin tasks.

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andrewtj
According to the rep I chatted with this is only open to residents of the US
and they've run out of servers for the program.

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bdickason
Just chiming in that we've hosted Gameriot.com and a number of other mid-tier
(500k-1.5m unique) sites from ThePlanet for about four years now. We actually
originally had a free hosting deal for two years when they went after their
'gaming' segment with Insomnia365.com. That was awesome :)

Their support is solid, boxes are fast, and the only complaints I have are
with their RIDICULOUSly (as in more-so than Verizon) complicated
bills/invoices, the fact that they only accept credit card as payment, and the
occasional hardware failure that gets resolved slower than I'd like.

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ivanstojic
I am suspicious of free services/offers which require me to give up my credit
card info :-(

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coverband
If I was in their place, I would be suspicious of applicants who refuse to
give credit card info while asking to consume a $200/month free service. ;-)

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dnsworks
$200/month free service? Try more like $40. Those are servers who were fully
amortized 2-3 years ago and otherwise would get sent to the $49-$99/month
scrap bin where their margins are actually pretty incredible (the only real
cost is the $12-$15/month they pay to power and host the server).

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dotBen
Hmmm:

Dual Xeon 2.4, 1GB RAM,

Ok the ram is a little under-generous but can you point me to where I can get
a dual Xeon 2.4 (=8 core) server for $40/month?

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blhack
>can you point me to where I can get a dual Xeon 2.4 (=8 core) server for
$40/month?

<http://www.joesdatacenter.com/Dedicated_Servers.html>

It's a dual Xeon 3.0 with 2G of RAM and it's $60.

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chopsueyar
But does Joe have fanatical support?

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niels_olson
Is CentOS really the developer's choice? Last I used CentOS for a web server
was about 2 years ago and we switched to Ubuntu because the CentOS repos were
getting rather stale. Then the lead developer dissappeared, or something. How
did that shake out?

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mmazing
I use CentOS on all of my live/dev servers, and it's wonderful.

It may seem stale, but I think a better term is - "incredibly stable". The
servers haven't been rebooted in 4 years, and the only downtime has been due
to programming errors or (web) software updates.

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pibefision
Great marketing tactic for a hosting company that is well known. +1

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moolave
This sounds like what we do. Only that we can run on different operating
systems and perform real time data replication and server migration through
virtual appliances. =)

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moxiemk1
I'd imagine this is feasible because they are getting more value in free
advertising from this than the cost of running the servers.

2.4-3.2 Xeon can mean a _lot_ of things. My guess is that these are old
servers that they'd otherwise firesale to avoid having to pay dump fees.

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consultutah
I signed-up, but then they sent me a verification email asking me to send them
a photocopy of my id and credit card. I'm a little bit worried. Did I get
suckered?

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consultutah
I'm trying to cancel this account and the guy doing it doesn't have a clue how
to close an account. I will NEVER use the planet for anything and I will rail
against how incompetent they are.

I got suckered one way or another.

~~~
consultutah
Here is the entire transcript. Yes I was mean, but man, really?

Thank you for choosing The Planet, please stand by while we connect you to the
next available agent… You are now speaking with Samir Salim! Samir Salim: Hi
my name is Samir Salim. Samir Salim: Hello, Thank you for contacting The
Planet! to further assist you, May I please have your Orbit Username/ID? you :
Hi Samir, I want to completely delete my account: XXXXXXX Samir Salim: Do you
mind holding for a moment while I access your account? you : not a problem
Samir Salim: For verification purposes, What high school did you go to? you :
richfield Samir Salim: Great, Can you please verify the Email and Billing
address on file? you : jeff@consultutah.com you : PO BOX 970219 you : Orem, UT
84097 Samir Salim: Thank you, and who am I speaking with? you : jeff Samir
Salim: Thank you Jeff, now you are wanting to delete your account? you : yes
Samir Salim: Do you mind holding while I research that you : not a problem
Samir Salim: Thank you for holding, I will be with you in just a moment, your
patience is greatly appreciated you : ok Samir Salim: Are you wanting to
cancel the service? you : yes Samir Salim: Have you submitted a cancellation
request? you : i canceled the cloud server service, but couldn't see how to
submit a complete cancelation request. That's why i'm talking to you Samir
Salim: How long ago did you submit the cancellation request you : minutes ago
Samir Salim: Once the systems updates again, it will automatically close the
account you : can you delete my credit card info from the system you : ? Samir
Salim: That can be processed in orbit Samir Salim: Is there anything else I
can assist you with? you : no it can't I tried and it won't let me delete the
cc info you : hello? I need you to delete my cc info and my account Samir
Salim: You will have to create a ticket \ you : isnt that what I'm doing?
Samir Salim: once the ticket is created we will process that request you : I
HAVE submitted a ticket. Samir Salim: Sure, is there anything else I can
assist you with? you : have you deleted my account yet? Samir Salim: We will
get to it as soon as possible you : that would be now Samir Salim: I do
apologize, but it will be processed in the order it was received you : the
billing dept seriously cant do this? what kind of inept business is the
planet? Samir Salim: We are working on the ticket right now, please stand by
for any updates Samir Salim: Is there anything further I can assist you with?
you : I am just waiting until my cc info is gone and the account is deleted
Samir Salim: One moment you : yes, I am waiting Samir Salim: Thank you for
your patience Samir Salim: The ticket has been updated Samir Salim: Is there
anything else I can assist you with? you : I signed up because of a mention of
The Planet on Hacker News. I am currently commenting there on how difficult
and time consuming it is to close an account with The Planet. you : I will be
posting this entire transcript and the ticket information there too. Samir
Salim: You will have to submit a cancellation request in order to cancel your
service you : I did that. you : But I am asking for you to close my entire
account. Samir Salim: Once the request is submitted, the information will be
deleted you : How do you close the account you : The request was submitted an
hour ago Samir Salim: Once you submit a cancellation request and when it is
processed you information will be deleted you : The cloud server has been
deleted. but the account has not. you : How do I close the account you : ?
Samir Salim: I am looking into that for you right now Samir Salim: I do
apologize for the delay, we are still looking into your account Samir Salim:
Thank you, your patience is greatly appreciated you : OK, I'm waiting 5 more
minutes. Then I will post this entire transcript to Hacker News where I first
found out about The Planet and I will contact the Texas Better Business Bureau
about this. Samir Salim: Do you have an IP for the hardware you acquired? you
: I never had any hardware. It was just a cloud server account. That cloud
server is gone. I want my credit card info removed from your site and my
account completely closed. you : Repeat: I want 2 things: you : 1. My credit
card info removed from the site you : 2. The account closed you : That's it.
That's all. Samir Salim: Thank you for you patience. we are still trying to
process your request you : Please tell me in your own words what you are
trying to accomplish for me. At this point I don't think you understand what I
want. Samir Salim: Thank you for holding, we will have the account cancelled
after midnight Samir Salim: your credit information will then be deleted from
the account you : midnight which time zone? Samir Salim: CST you : ok, i will
check in 2 hours then Samir Salim: Is there anything else I can assist you
with?

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dnsworks
They first announced this what, a year or two ago? I was wondering if they
ever got any headway. Or am I mistaking them with LayeredTech?

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keefe
not just no, but hell no.

it's not like a vps I have control over is expensive enough to justify the
risk of exposing data to an unknown party.

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Tichy
What do you mean?

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keefe
They're probably just trying to drum up hosting business and many people will
call me paranoid, but I prefer my work stay completely private until it's time
to go public and I'd rather be more sure of privacy by being a proper
customer.

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Tichy
But how are you more private with a VPS? That is what I don't understand.

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keefe
Well, assuming this is a reputable company, theoretically it's the same as a
VPS. I think (perhaps too much) about leaks, possible ways that information I
want private can get public, which is perhaps a vestige of the habits of my
youth. The likelihood is that this company is just giving a free trial to sell
hosting later, but theoretically they could do all sorts of poking around
especially if you start getting traffic. If I'm spinning up a server on EC2 or
Slicehost, I'm a paying customer of a known reputable company, I can safely
assume it's in their interest to respect and guard my privacy. So, I need to
balance the cost of a VPS against replacing those knowns with unknowns and I
prefer to keep it simple, which is perhaps paranoid but I prefer to keep that
mentality, because I know if I ignore the 1% chance 100 times, then it's
pretty well guaranteed that one of those times, it wasn't something I should
have been ignoring.

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Tichy
Other commenters said that theses are one of the biggest hosters around,
though.

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keefe
lol well, it was more of a quick visceral reaction than a detailed analysis, I
probably would have forgotten about it if you didn't ask for my reasoning :]

I've actually got half a dozen computers more powerful than the one they're
offering just laying about my apartment right now, I have a nasty habit of
collecting hardware.

