

Linode giving $100 credit to first 1,000 new customers to sign up this Friday - asb
http://blog.linode.com/2010/12/15/linode-100000-giveaway/

======
RBr
Deals like this are a double edged sword.

They really are great for people who have been sitting on the fence.

But new customers who recently signed up... those new customers all feel
shunned and wish that they had of waited.

~~~
Xuzz
I just signed up Sunday. I feel betrayed :(. Maybe I can just cancel my
account and move somewhere else that has a new-customer deal for the holidays.

~~~
jodrellblank
"I got exactly what I agreed to.

I feel betrayed!"

~~~
Xuzz
Betrayed isn't the right word, but it certainly doesn't make me happy :/.

~~~
sudonim
That's irrational. You found the service valuable at the price point you paid.
They're running a promotion where new customers get a credit. Another persons
deal doesn't make yours less valuable... it's perception.

~~~
Xuzz
I know it's irrational. That's not my point.

~~~
jodrellblank
So fix it. You see something happening which makes you feel bad, presumably
you don't want to feel bad, so find the bug in your thought processes and
correct it.

How would you like to feel instead? Happy that the trade you did was fair at
the time, and also happy for the people getting a good deal? Sounds good.

There's your unit test: imagine linode offer. Current result: feel bad (q:
how, precisely?). Desired result: feel good.

Now all you need to do is fix it as if you were fixing a bug report - explore
why and how you feel bad (observing what actually happens in your head instead
of what you think ought to be happening) and what you would need to change (in
your head, not in the world) so you can feel good instead. Keep trying things
and rerunning the test of imagining the linode offer as a check of whether you
have successfully changed anything.

The essence of mindhacking in one HN comment. You could pay a therapist loads
and not get to that heart of the matter, which is the old stereotyped Buddhism
trope that the world is fine and if you feel bad, it's your job to fix your
feelings, not the world.

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woogley
I've been using Linode for over a year, and I have to say they really are the
best when it comes to VPS. The distribution choices are great, the emergency
AJAX shell is great, and everything (in my experience) is automated to the
point where I haven't even logged a support ticket yet.

If you'd like to ask more about my experience, please do so. In return, I'd
like to shamelessly ask you use my referral link when you sign up:
[http://www.linode.com/?r=200d6bb341711532c638b475e536b0205ce...](http://www.linode.com/?r=200d6bb341711532c638b475e536b0205ce17f63)

I could always use another free month!

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mdolon
If anyone has any hesitation about switching to Linode, I've been using them
for the past 2 years and have had an exceptional experience. This is after
using both Slicehost and Media Temple - Linode has been the most reliable for
me so far, in terms of both performance and speed/latency. Their control panel
is also pretty sweet, I'm not sure if you can see a demo from the main site
but if anyone wants, I can post a couple of screenshots.

~~~
albahk
Screen shots would be nice - I've been thinking of moving over from
Mediatemple DV but do not really want to spend too much time configuring a
server from the command line.

edit: screenshots on the linode site <http://www.linode.com/features.cfm>

~~~
mt_Sara
Sorry to read you're thinking of leaving us! Have you been unhappy with your
(mt) service? If there's anything we can do to help, please let us know by
calling or messaging us on Twitter (@meditatemple). We'd be happy to hear some
feedback or offer some support/advice.

------
asb
I imagine this is prompted by Amazon's free usage tier. I hope it's successful
for Linode, though with the AppSumo credit and now this I can't help but feel
a little envious of the new users.

~~~
blhack
No reason not to :). I got in on the free amazon AWS and use the machine as a
dev server.

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jrockway
Does anyone know how Linode's latency from Chicago compares to Slicehost
(which is 20ms round-trip for me)?

At work, I'm stuck with servers that are 100ms+ away, and they are unusable
over ssh with that latency. I'm willing to switch to Linode, but only if I get
box-under-my-desk-like speed :)

~~~
blhack
Forgive me for being kindof ignorant here, but wouldn't this be pretty heavily
dependent on _your_ connection? If you're close (logically, as in network
hops) to their datacenter?

Here: <http://www.linode.com/avail/>

That's a list of their systems. If you want to test the latency, ping one of
them. For instance I'm on qwest's network in Phoenix, AZ. My ping time to

dallas1.linode.com is 40-45ms.

atlanta1.linode.com is 85-100

They're named by city...dallas1.linode.com fremont1.linode.com
atlanta1.linode.com etc. etc.

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lwhi
This is pretty clever.

They're going to get more than 1000 people signing up.

The order of magnitude above 1000 people will probably more than make up for
the $100,000 they stand to lose.

Extending this idea, if I was the person involved with this deal, I'd also
include current customers.

If they allowed this, the order of magnitude of new sign-ups (above 1000)
would only be increased.

People who sign up for a second Linode are worth just as much as people
signing up for their first Linode - there's potentially less risk, because
current customers already have an established relationship with Linode, and
are most likely to continue using their services once the credit has been
spent.

~~~
citricsquid
I think they're more hedging their bets on customers using the service for a
few months and replacing their current (if they have it) host with Linode and
once their credit runs out being so invested in Linode as a service --
realising it rocks and having their stuff all there -- they won't have a
reason to move and if they choose to it'll be a pain to do so.

~~~
lwhi
True, but if they extended the deal to current customers they'd still have the
same outlay ($100,000) but the buzz + new signups would be increased.

I suppose it could be argued that current customers are more likely to sign-up
for a second linode independently from any offer; but in counter to that, some
current customers might be dissuaded from signing up for a second linode in
the near future because the perceived value proposition has been lessened.

I think allowing current customers to sign up for a 2nd linode would be a win-
win for Linode (and people like me who currently use them).

------
lwhi
It scares me when they come out with great deals like this. Will there be a
tipping point, when Linode cease to be great because they're overstretched?

~~~
blhack
I doubt it. My guess is that they have a usage-per-server stat and don't go
over that.

For example, 10 VPSs per physical server, no more. If we're going to up 1000
new VPS, we're going to need 100 new physical servers.

~~~
sparky
GP may have meant "great" in terms of support; that's one of the most often-
cited benefits of Linode over other providers. They appear to give a crap
about their customers and are very responsive over several open communication
channels (forums, IRC, etc.). That may or may not scale if they were to
someday have 100x the customers.

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tianyicui
The world clock for non-US HNers:
[http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=17&...](http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=17&month=12&year=2010&hour=9&min=0&sec=0&p1=179)

------
ebtalley
Ohohohohoh merry Christmas to me. I am so jumping on that, luckily its my
company that bought the existing accounts. 44:40:01, 44:40:00, 44:39:59

------
stilldavid
Almost 100% identical to what SparkFun did a year ago:
<http://sprkfn.com/n305>

~~~
jedsmith
Without shipping charges!

------
duck
I missed the AppSumo deal and have been wanting to switch over from Slicehost
so Friday seems like a great day to do that.

------
paraschopra
Linode hasn't been best lately. They suffered far too many outages and network
issues (especially Fremont data center). We have been seriously considering
moving to a dedicated setup because of network issues. (Also the fact that
they are inflexible -- we want RAM but not hard disk capacity; they can't help
us).

~~~
dotBen
Hurricane Electric 1 in Fremont is, IMHO, a notoriously bad DC - I wouldn't
host anything in there regardless of whether it was with Linode (I'm a fan) or
another provider.

If Fremont was a random choice of the 4 US DC's Linode offers, I would
consider putting in a ticket to be moved to another one of their DCs (they'll
do it painlessly for free).

~~~
cmelbye
Also, isn't it completely filled to capacity? I think they're unable to refill
Linodes there very often due to some reason like that.

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Kurtz79
Is it me or putting the figure "100,000", is meant for people to mistake it
for "100.000"?

But, if I'm not mistaken, there is nothing like it in reality, it should
really be "100,00" unless the Fed are planning to introduce new currency that
is 1/10 of a cent...

~~~
jluxenberg
In the states, "$100,000" is one hundred thousand dollars. They are giving
away $100 x 1000 = $100,000.

~~~
Kurtz79
Oh, my bad, I thought the figure meant $100,000 (interpreted as 100 dollars +
000 cents) each customer.

~~~
taylorbuley
They have Linodes in the UK. Honest mistake :)

~~~
ashleyw
The "100,000.00" format is also used in the UK.

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sjtgraham
Local time for me is GMT. Looks like I won't have to be the early bird to
catch this worm. Nice.

------
msluyter
I take it a lot of people are going to be sitting with their mouse poised over
the submit button as 9am rolls around, and if you're lucky, you'll get the
100$? Surely there's a better way to handle this; it's sort of an annoying
gamble, imho.

------
duck
<http://www.linode.com/avail/>

According to this they are going to be 121 nodes short. I'm sure they are
working on that as I write this though.

~~~
jedsmith
Asked and answered:

[http://blog.linode.com/2010/12/15/linode-100000-giveaway/#co...](http://blog.linode.com/2010/12/15/linode-100000-giveaway/#comment-81663)

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Robin_Message
Huh, so I was going to ask today whether Linode or EC2 made sense for running
a personal server. Thanks Linode, you hopefully just made my choice easier!

~~~
ekidd
As somebody with a Linode and an EC2 account, here are some other things to
consider:

\- Linode's DNS manager is pretty decent, and I've historically used it for
both Linode and EC2 machines.

\- EC2 t1.micro instances are frustratingly underpowered if you have a CPU
spike, and they may "freeze" for as much as a second at time. I'm not
convinced that Amazon is price/performance competitive at the very low end.

\- EC2's ability to back up volumes to S3 is very handy.

\- EC2's ability to spin a new system up alongside your old one, transfer the
old IP address to the new system, and then spin down your old system is great.

So if what you want is a low-end Linux box that's online 24 hours a day,
Linode can be an excellent choice. And a $100 credit will go a fairly long
way.

~~~
caker
FWIW, one can swap/move IPs between Linodes within the same facility, too.

------
eduardo_f
I love Linode, but I don't get anywhere close the type of bandwidth I get with
100tb.com. Can you recommend other high-bandwidth hosts?

~~~
akent
$200/month is their cheapest plan? Not really in the same league as Linode
then.

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jh3
Great, now I might signup for a Linode account.

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purephase
Dagnabbit. I just signed up this morning. That being said, their services are
pretty slick.

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dbingham
What if I already have a linode? What do I get :p

~~~
FluidDjango
Some great new (HN) neighbors?

