Questions...

Guest

Ok, now I know I can post, I can ask my questions!

I am the leader of an MMO kinship and we recently set up a site using Streamline. It as been an utter disaster - don't know what's wrong with their SQL server but we get repeated timeouts and blank pages. Their tech support is astoundingly useless. It's been like this the entire month they've had our site.

I'm ready to cut my losses and start over, so I'm looking for a webhost which has the facility I've taken for granted until now; when you click on a story, a forum or post a message you don't get a blank page in response without multiple refreshes.

Our needs are this; we use PHP5 and one SQL database (we have a Postnuke website, patched to all the latest releases). The website is pretty small - probably less than 50 hits a day. After a whole year, our SQL database is under 10mb in size. Price is also an issue! Some people will contribute but I have to be able to pay for the whole thing myself. Ideally we'd like to pay for 2 years up front (though having had my fingers so badly burned with Streamline, I'm a little less convinced at the moment - though I can't find any negative reviews for Nethosted and one of our members has recommended you).

We have a domain which we registered through Streamline less than a month ago. I have my own Nominet account - does that mean I can bring my domain name here, even if we're in dispute with Streamline? (I want my money back, but I don't think it's going to be easy...). Or do I need a new domain name? Our current site is www.theelders.org.uk

(be prepared to hit the 'refresh' button a lot if you visit)

Are there people using Nethosted who have an SQL database who can share their experiences?

Any help or advice gratefully sought. We have someone who can set up (or move, really) the site but this is not my area of expertise. I'm just sick of a website that won't work and a tech support that is functionally useless. And I wish I'd checked reviews more carefully, as I now see that very many Streamline customers are experiencing precisely the same problems.

Thanks in advance for any help

Caroline

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 5651

Caroline,

Thanks for your interest in NetHosted! Firstly let me apologise for you not being able to sign up for these forums. I'm afraid however that I can't reproduce the problem you were experiencing. When I click the signup button I do indeed see the image I would expect.

Regarding your hosting query:

Any of our plans can cover your needs as outlined with ease. I would recommend our Basic Plan, this comes in at £34.95/year including VAT. We can certainly do a two year contract.

When you say you have your own Nominet account do you mean you are a tag holder? I just queried your domain and it is currently residing on Streamline's tag. You will need to request that they update the tag to yours (if you have one) or preferably ours (NETHOSTED) there should be no need for a new domain name they have no reason to refuse the tag change request as far as I can see. Nominet are also very good at resolving disputes like this if they do refuse.

I'm confident we can provide a *much* better service than the one you have experienced with Streamline.

I hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,

Andrew

Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:46 pm Post subject:

Ermm... I'm afraid I haven't got a clue what a 'tagholder' even is.

Incidentally, I'm astonished at your rapid response! It's Sunday afternoon, for heaven's sake! Is Nethosted your whole life?!

Ok, is it possible to run me through how we'd do it? In baby steps, preferably. Is it possible to avoid downtime on the site? Do I have to get Streamline's co-operation (that would likely take days, even before I start mumbling about refunds). Do we set up the site on Nethosted, run some tests and then just transfer domain ...err ..pointers, or whatever they are? (This might sound bad, but thanks to our hassles I know infinitely more about this than I did a month ago!)

Can we pay for a year and then (after I ask people for contributions - which might even pour in if we've got a website that works) come back to you and pay up a second year? Our site was initially hosted on a member's site, but he left the game and although the site worked fine he wouldn't respond to contact and we couldn't change anything. So my Master Plan was a kind of "fit and forget" system that no-one would need worry about for a couple of years.

Thank you for your fast response. Thank you anyway for just making it possible to communicate with a human being about this!

Caroline

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 5651

Caroline,

Quick responses are aided by a laptop + wireless

Well if you're not sure what a tagholder is that would mean you're not a Nominet member! Therefore you should request Streamline update the IPStag on your domain to ours: NETHOSTED

A transfer costs £5. Therefore if you were looking to purchase our Basic Plan the total cost to you for the first year would be £39.95 including VAT.

This is what I'd suggest:

1) Order our Basic Plan and a domain transfer for your domain.

2) Update the tag to ours via Streamline (or at least request the change).

3) Upload your website to our webspace, we provide full access even before your domain is pointing to our service to allow you to set everything up before you do point your domain.

4) Once Streamline has transferred the domain into our tag and after you're happy that everything is setup on our space correctly we can update your nameservers to point your domain to our servers.

You certainly can pay for a year only to start with, we're flexible in that department.

Glad to help!

Thanks,

Andrew

Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:23 pm Post subject:

Ok, well I want to do this but i do need to wait to hear back from the poor guy who will have to set it all up again. As he was the one who first suggested cutting our losses and moving, I'm reasonably sure he will go for it.

Back to the domain name business: I have a Nominet account for this domain and it says I can change the Registrar. Specifically, it lists Streamline as the current registrar and then says:

"If your registrar is unable or unwilling to make this change for you, we can help. You can use this service to move your domain name(s) from your current registrar to another. Please be aware that by using this service it does not cancel any contractual agreement(s) you may have with your current registrar.

During this process you will be asked for the new registrar’s unique identifier, which is also known as the tag. For example, NOMINET. If you do not know the tag you would like to move your domains to, there will be a search facility to help you find it later on in the process.

This service will cost you £11.75 including VAT."

So, if I struggle to get a response from Streamline (which, frankly I always do apart from a cut'n'paste response which is always "Our engineer is looking into it") does that mean I can do it myself? I would lay a huge bet that Streamline will charge me at least that amount...

Caroline

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 5651

Caroline,

Thanks for getting back to me. No problem re: the wait.

Regarding your tag change query: it seems to me that Nominet will be able to change the tag for you if Streamline drag their feet over the issue. Hopefully it won't come to that though!

Thanks,

Andrew

NetHosted Customer Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 57

NetHosted Customer Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 57

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 5651

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 5651

Caroline,

Further to my earlier reply, I just thought I'd mention we have a tool called "Fantastico" that will allow you to install the latest version of Post-Nuke with just a few clicks of your mouse. Should make your web developers life a bit easier!

Thanks,

Andrew

Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject:

Yay! Thanks for that. I've copied the address of this thread to him, but I understand he's suffering from pleurisy at the moment, so I guess I can't flog him back to work at it yet!!

Thanks to G Jones too, for your input.

I'll be getting back to you!

Caroline

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 5651

Caroline,

No problem, hopefully we can welcome you onboard soon!

Thanks,

Andrew

Guest

Your post is music to my ears (Few clicks of the mouse) to get at least the PN core installed fast would be a godsend. We have a few modules added over standard but all are a doddle compared to the core. I'm sure we will go into logistics later but being able to upload the site (or at least the added modules) prior to domain switch is exactly what i was hoping for (plus the sql imported tables for pnphpbb etc).
I will leave rest of this stuff to Caroline but i look forward to not having to contact tech support often

NetHosted Staff Joined: 24 Jun 2005 Posts: 274

Glad to hear this, fantastico really does make life a lot easier for the base installs

Hope to welcome you here soon, would love to give you a much better webhosting experience than you've had so far!

Regards,

Darryl

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject:

Soon I will run out of questions, but I do have one more - how long does it take to shift the domain name? And if I do it through Nominet, is it likely to be quicker.... Actually, what a stupid question. How is it possible to be slower than Streamline...? And as they'll charge me anyway, my instinct is to just do it through Nominet.

We're definitely coming to you guys. All it's about now is timing (and having a sick web lackey who's still whining about pleurisy

)

Caroline

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