[ILUG] [way-ot] darklite.com should, never, ever, be considered for web-anything

[adam beecher]

> Except it's not really Irish - oh I'm sure darksite.com is an Irish company,
> but the only thing Irish about their hosting services is that an Irish
> company is taking a cut for providing a virtual domain on a box in the
> States (they use albanza.com). Now I've nothing against this, as such, but
> the implication that they're an Irish hosting company I find a bit galling.
>
Which should answer the original question to some extent -- unless the box or
space *has* to be on an Irish network, you're invariably better off going
elsewhere - possibly the UK, and probably the US. Most Irish web hosting
companies come under two categories:

1) The type Niall mentions above - resellers for other hosting companies,
usually stateside, and usually fairly sparse on the details of where their NOC
actually is.
2) Atrociously expensive, possibly because of the high cost of bandwidth in
Ireland, and the blame here can be laid squarely on eircom and the
telecommunications regulator.

So if you *do* have to host in Ireland, do a bit of research first. Some of the
firms - and the hosting companies they resell for - are quite clever -- they put
false information in the WHOIS database, and use nameservers with completely
different hosts, usually untraceable. Spend a bit of time with nslookup,
traceroute and whois before you buy. If you find a few hosts that *are* actually
Irish - and they're rare - get *complete* pricing and contract details from them
all first. Shop around, and don't be afraid to lie about the prices you got
elsewhere - they're screwing us, so screw 'em right back. Same goes for hosts in
other countries.

> Now, I don't know these people from Adam
>
I should hope not! "I didn't do nuffing yer honour."

Most of the time they *don't* have to be in Ireland though - on a good host in
the US the difference in download times is hardly noticeable. The last time I
ran on an Irish machine was oh so long ago on an IOL account, and ever since
then my prospective clients have expressed their surprise at the fact that our
sites are hosted in the US. And yes, I always tell them beforehand, in fact it's
usually the first thing I tell them.

Anyway, re: the original enquiry, if they *don't* have to be in Ireland I'll
pass on my - somewhat limited I suppose - experience. I've tried Hiway - when I
was starting out - and found them quite good for the basics. I had to leave them
eventually, but I think that was because I wanted to move on up, rather than
poor customer service. Then I moved to Vservers, who were brilliant at the start
and sucky at the end - they got big, they got taken over, and they got crap
customer service as part of the package. Most of them didn't understand the
questions, never mind be able to answer them. BSDi at the time by the way - I
don't know if they do Linux now.

At the moment I'm with a small outfit in Colorado called Net Infrastructure
<http://www.netinfra.com>. Dedicated PII, 350Mhz, 64mb RAM, 10gb HD, 70gb
transfer (sh'ya right, like I'll use it), $170 a month. I got that by haggling
like a bastard, and it's their old price, but I'm happy out - I'm looking at
taking another machine with them shortly and possibly more. When I started with
them, it was only a couple of guys, but they're expanding now, and I can still
email the head honcho and bitch and whine if I have a problem. But I can't say
what they would be like with a new customer. They do reglar hosting too, but I
ain't tried it so I can't recommend it.

Tell 'em the guy who owes 'em two Cork City FC tickets sent ya, and they'll tell
you to bugger off. :)

adam