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samarudgeon [dead]

In the original Reddit post, the client explicitly said that he was not provided access to full backups, and the backups he was provided access to were database only and damaged. The company's Twitter account also posted these tweets when asked about their incorrect WhoIs information

http://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/statuses/10354110805063270... http://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/statuses/10354195936432947...

That is, whatever way you look at it, unprofessional and inappropriate. This company is clearly run by ether a 15 year old in his bedroom or someone who really shouldn't be in business, or both

samarudgeon Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

There was no intention to track him down, someone posted a comment asking to check on the WhoIs to find out the owner. I do not want to figure out their phone number, I merely noticed it's clearly incorrect (against the ICANN T's & C's)

samarudgeon Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

From the looks of it, the company offers no other payment options other than PayPal and didn't provide any information otherwise (I.E. "We need this now, please wire us the money, here's our account details")

samarudgeon Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

What?!? This information was on the PUBLIC WhoIs database, it's avaliable to anyone. I did this to show the contact information for the site, anyone could have done this but I did it so no-one else had to.

http://www.whois.net/whois/thiswebhost.com

samarudgeon Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

I don't think that's the issue, the issue was that they suspended accounts and sites that had already been payed for, and the only payment method the company offers is PayPal so there was no reasonable way for the customer to pay the outstanding ballance immediately (About $5 from the looks of it). He also offered proof that the small outstanding ballance would be payed within a couple of days.

Yes if it was +$100 maybe more serious action should have been taken, but it was just one domain on an account that, up to that point, had never had any issues with payments before (I'm assuming that but the support guy is so defensive I'm sure it would have been brought up before now). Even so there is no reason to just straight out cancel someones entire account without even contacting them, for all they knew the payment could have gone through without a problem.

samarudgeon Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/jk195/stay_the_f...

He explains that there was a valid reason for not being able to pay the bills (I.E. PayPal having a problem). This* then suspended all of his accounts (Including the ones that had already been payed for) and, from the looks of it, were very unhelpful in resolving the situation.

Yes, if the PayPal payment didn't come through the domains should probably have been suspended as they hadn't been payed for, but not the entire account and certainly not denying access to backups

samarudgeon Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

WhoIs lookup shows him as the domain owner

Registrant Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson ()

Fax: South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB

Administrative Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson (domains@thiswebhost.com) +1.5555555555 Fax +1.5555555555 South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB

Technical Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson (domains@thiswebhost.com) +1.5555555555 Fax +1.5555555555 South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB

Also he appears to be using a fake phone number on the WhoIs, am I right in thinking you're not allowed to do that?

samarudgeon AeroFS - File Sync Without Servers

Like I say, I use Sparkleshare instead of Dropbox and also have a Drobo for central storage, this isn't something I want to do because I can already do it, I was just pointing out it could be a problem for some people

samarudgeon Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

A few months ago, I was told by Rackspace that "We're not responsible for looking after your hardware" after they'd removed, and destroyed, a working hard drive from a dedicated server instead of replacing the disk that had failed, regardless of the price, all hosting is 'bargain basement quality', some are just more bargin than others =)

samarudgeon Ask HN: Why is it so easy for Anonymous to hack websites like that of Sony?

At the time they were hacked, at least according to multiple sources, Sony had no firewalls and were using old versions of Apache and RedHat that hadn't been updated to the latest security patches. So yes the Sony sysadmins are incompetent, but I think the leaders at Anonymous are a bit smart too. You also have to consider that if 100 people are looking for a security hole in the same piece of software, they're probably, eventually, going to find it.

samarudgeon AeroFS - File Sync Without Servers

See that seems like a bit of a downside to me, I like being able to pull down things from my Sparkleshare server onto my laptop when I'm out, but I don't have my computer on all the time (Infact, most of the time, when my laptop is on my computer is off and vice-versa). I still think it's a great idea but having some cloud storage is a definate plus.

samarudgeon AeroFS - File Sync Without Servers

Theory is great, BUT if it isn't storing anything, then at least one device/computer with an up-to-date version of the folder must be online at all times. Is that correct? If not how does it sync without storing the data remotely?

samarudgeon Ask HN: Suggest a platform for a status page (eg. like status.linode.com)

I've actually used Tumblr for this quite a bit, I've set up a Nagios output to update the Tumblog (Via the Tumblr API) for automated alerts.

samarudgeon Ask HN: What was the first website you ever built?

When I was 13 (2005) I put a webcam in my guinea pig cage linked up to an old laptop running Linux and Apache with DynDNS. Fun days

samarudgeon Class-action complaint against Kissmetrics and others for use of Flash LSO [pdf]

This brings up an interesting point about tracking services. If a user selects 'Do Not Track' in their browser (Providing it supports it), does that mean do not track them at all? Or do not track them as a unique user? May sites still use software like Webalizer/AWStats or similar to track users, it would be very complicated to set those up not to track users that send the 'do not track' headers

samarudgeon [dead]

The idea is awesome, I can see loads of handy maths and computer tools coming allong (RAID calculators, size converters, arithmatic functions etc.)

samarudgeon Ask HN: Do you use antivirus on your Mac?

BUT MACS DON'T GET VIRUSES </sarcasm> I do on my MacBook (Clam), not on my iMac but all my web traffic is routed through a proxy that does virus scanning. I should probably look at getting some to cover viruses from other places

samarudgeon Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

I was under the impression (though I may be wrong) most standard video types are converted by some in-house closed source software developed by Google, but then if it's an odd/obscure format their software can't process they fall back on FFMPEG. Even if they do use FFMPEG I'd guess it's heavily modified to suit their needs/infastructure

samarudgeon Ask HN: Desperate Python Hacker Seeking Help and Suggestions

Maybe being blunt, but if you're seriously about to be out of house and home because you can't find a job, you need to lower your fence. Aspiring to be a programmer/hacker/startup guy is great, but even a job stacking shelves in a shop would give you enough money to survive on while you continue looking for a job you'd enjoy (Or working on your own projects). Put it this way, living on the street gives you hardly any chance of getting somewhere you want to be. Having a house and a crappy job for a few years while you get back on your feet is a much better choice.