The migration to the new server is nearly complete. We've got a real server now, in a real data center, with massive amounts of bandwidth and all of that fun stuff. And just how am I going to pay for this, you ask? Jetpants, that's how.
Yes, I've started a hosting company, and I'm calling it Jetpants. Well, technically it's not a company yet, but maybe someday. Anyway, the important thing is that most of the wonderful people I've been hosting for the last few years for free have agreed to pay me to host them to help offset the costs of the server. I'll still be eating a lot of the cost myself, but I hope to gradually host more and more people until the server begins to pay for itself. Someday I might even turn a profit, which would be a new thing for me.
The thing is, I don't want to offer hosting to just anyone. For now, I'd prefer to host people I know (or friends of people I know). I like the idea of slowly building a small community of people who know each other, rather than just a bunch of random strangers. So I've decided to do this by referral. You can't get hosted by Jetpants unless someone who's already hosted by Jetpants refers you.
If you need hosting, like the sound of $6.95 a month, and know someone already in the Jetpants cult (including me), keep an eye on Jetpants.com for the details.
Comments
PostgreSQL?
Hmmm... any chance of running PostgreSQL? What about FastCGI?
Sure
I'll install PostgreSQL if you want it. FastCGI too. Even Rails if I can get it to behave for once.
Yeah, Rails...
What about Java? Is there a JVM for BSD? I've never looked...
Java on BSD
And I totally agree about Rails. The fact that it's such a pain in the ass to deploy and maintain is what's kept me from using it.
Maintenance...
Well, actually, once you've got your server set up to run a Rails app, deploying it and maintaining it are not really that bad. They've even got a whole app that automates a lot of the process of rolling out a new release, modifying database schemas, etc. Of course, note how all of that presupposes that you've got a functional Rails-serving box.
Rails
http://documentation.rubyonrails.com/
Re: Maintenance
PHP is the most popular language for web development because it's insanely simple to deploy and maintain. I want that kind of simplicity in Rails.
Page design
Do you use a program to assist in making your page designs/style sheets for sites like jetpants.com? or do you do it all by hand?
I've always been very impressed by the quality and look of all your different sites.
Re: Page design
Thanks. I do it all by hand. Sometimes I put one hand behind my back. I'm that good.
Re: Maintenance
I guess I should have said "rails apps", not "a rails app". I meant the whole fastcgi thing, etc. PHP's level of simplicity would be really nice, though... how do companies like TextDrive (which offer RoR hosting) do it?
Re: Maintenance
It looks like TextDrive uses lighttpd for Rails hosting, although I can't be sure. If necessary, I could have lighttpd listen on another IP address and use that for Rails.
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u r evil but i'm a freeloader and i don't need jetpants lol
re: lighthttpd
How many spare IP addresses do you have? Would it work to just run it on a different port, and use mod_rewrite to forward requests through Apache to lighthttpd? Or is that a totally crack-headed idea? (Equally possible, I suppose)
Re: lighttpd
I've got enough spare IPs to use a few for special cases like this (but not enough to start doling them out to users). And yeah, whenever a possible solution to a problem involves using mod_rewrite, there's a 90% chance it's a totally crack-headed idea. ;)
Eminently quotable
That's totally going on the quote board. :-D
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Winko.com is definitely some japanese company's site that i stumbled upon due to early morning typos. I hate to say it, but that site may just be more awesome than this one. All hail president Anker Hung.
winko.com
Holy hell, you're right. Winko.com is the shiznit.