I worry that a $200/month deal, even with the possibility of some discounts, might lead to some HUGE board culture changes that I don't feel like we can commit to without careful consideration by the whole community -- and I'm not comfortable with making that kind of choice.

That's true, as far as it goes. But the additional problem is, can the board continue as we've been doing? Have we outgrown the $20/month options?

(Edited to delete pointless question.)

I'm very nervous about making a decision in this abbreviated timeframe. If we rush into this, things don't go well, we maybe cause problems for Fangeek's other customers -- we're spending a lot of money to make Kristen miserable.

Have we outgrown the $20/month options?

Yes, but we haven't outgrown the $50-60 options that people are throwing around.

Yes, but we haven't outgrown the $50-60 options that people are throwing around.

I had no idea those options were available. Which is why I feel hopelessly unqualified to answer anything. I'll shut up now and delete that last question.

(Edited because done, and revising to make it clear what I actually was going to do.)

I'm very nervous about making a decision in this abbreviated timeframe.

Me too. On the surface, it seems like Rob's offer is at least as good as Kristen's and it comes without a (now) 24 hour deadline.

Put me in the corner with Theodosia. We have sufficient broad expertise among the Stompies that I'm happy to go with them.

I'm also with Wolfrom on the "let's not cause Kristen our friend any more grief than necessary" wagon. I'd hate for Kristen to stop coming by because we're such a pain in the ass for FanGeek. That's no fun for her, and it deprives us of Kristen!

So if I'm not missing something, iStrata is a much better deal wrt bandwidth.

I am cautious now about the lowest-bid provider. As we found out with HR, the lowest bid may not equate to a willingness to provide service. That doesn't mean iStrata is bad, either; I don't have any information.

Morning folks!

So I'll just tell Steven thanks but no thanks?

I'm a little confused with how this fixed bandwidth stream works over at iStrata. It seems that it's essentially like we'll be running on a T1 connection at all times. That's considerably slower than the connection we have now.

Also, this VDS sounds...not quite right. According to the site, a VDS "appears to have its own processes, users, files and provides full root access". But, if it's only "appearing" to, does that mean that we reside on a server with other VDS and share resources with them? Because that's pretty much what we have now.

Anyway, just questions I'd probably want to ask before you guys make a decision.

Kristen, I don't think there's any conclusion as yet. We still have a day to mull over the possibilities, right? Noon Friday board time, IIRC.

I'm all for using the Stompy/Techgeek Expertise in this decision. I don't have any direct experience with servepath to offer up, so I'd say FanGeek/IH and Istrata are the leading contenders based on the discussion so far.

I'm also confused about the "virtual dedicated server" question. Does this mean access to the root directory?

Also, this VDS sounds...not quite right. According to the site, a VDS "appears to have its own processes, users, files and provides full root access". But if it's only "appearing" to, does that mean that we reside on a server with other VDS and share resources with them? Because that seems to be very similiar to what we have now.

The big difference is that we get to run our own web server and our own database, which we can use however we like. If we do bad things to the mysql server we wouldn't be affecting anyone but ourselves. There would be limits on how much memory and CPU we consume, but those limits would be enforced by software, not by a service agreement. We would be incapable of violating them, and we wouldn't be in danger of getting kicked off.

Also, did you talk to Steve about our immediate problem, the error messages we're getting? I still contend that it's a problem on their side, not ours. Does he not believe us when we say that? Does he have evidence to dispute our claim? Is he not willing to fix it?