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State of Site5 August 2010
Happy (hot) summer! We post a State of Site5 update once a month to let our current and future customers know what we have been working on the past month and what we will be working on the next month.
SiteAdmin 2.0
Work continues on our highly-anticipated revision to SiteAdmin appropriately named SiteAdmin 2.0. Other internal projects have come to their conclusions which means more time able to be spent on SiteAdmin 2.0! We recently released a preview for the new interface; it’s conveniently located within your existing SiteAdmin control panel. If your account doesn’t utilize SiteAdmin or if you don’t have an account with us currently, please feel free to check out the SiteAdmin demo.
If you haven’t already, check it out!
VPS
The launch of our VPS product has been very successful! Since launch, we have been handling VPS set ups manually to ensure we have the correct, best process in place for our customers. This month, we will be enabling full automated VPS ordering!
Centralized Email Platform
As discussed last month, a lot of work has gone into our centralized email platform. With the recent upgrades and improvements, stability and performance both have been superb for everyone involved!
WordPress Themes
We have released two new WordPress themes! Boldy continues our trend of premium, high-quality themes and features an image slider predominantly on the homepage. Simplo, as its name implies, is a simplistic twist on our premium themes by offering a simplified look and feel. Simplo works straight “out of the box” and features six color options configurable within the theme’s options page.
Download both themes from our WordPress Themes site.
HostingCon
Ben, Joel, Graham, and I made the trek down to Austin for the annual HostingCon convention this past month. Working in a remote environment like all Site5 staff do, it’s always great to be able to see people in person. In fact, this was the first time Ben, Joel, and I had actually met Graham in person! The convention had some pretty good panels and sessions, and the networking is obviously a fun aspect as well.
The Planet had a partially-disassembled rack mount server at their booth. Whoever could put it back together in the fastest time won a netbook. Graham took part and didn’t do too shabby! For a while, he had the third fastest time at the convention.
We celebrated Ben’s birthday while in Austin at the cPanel party. Somehow he got a halo over his head..
Happy 2010 everyone!
Just like we do every month, we’re taking a moment to update everyone on the State of Site5. As usual we’ll tell you what’s been happening since our last update, and what we’ve got coming ahead this month and into 2010.
Since our last update we’ve released some really great free WordPress themes for our customers, so check them out and if you like them feel free to use them; we made them for you! Also, last month we doubled the diskspace and bandwidth on our reseller plans! Check out this post for more info. And for those of you who work with a lot of audio and video files, we’ve pre-installed the ffmpeg-php extension on all of our shared and reseller servers. You can find out how to enable it here.
For the coming month, we are continuing to work on three big projects: As we mentioned last month, testing of our new redundant hosting product and the updates to SiteAdmin are progressing nicely. In addition we’re also preparing and testing so that we can migrate all of our existing users to our fancy new centralized mail setup. We hope to have updates for you on all three of these fronts before or in our next State of Site5 post.
Last, we wanted to give you a little behind the scenes info from our new support desk. One of the biggest changes is how quickly and easily we can look at how we’re doing with ticket volume, response times, and, of course, your feedback. For example, here’s a snapshot of volume and wait times by hour for December ‘09:
We’ve done a lot over the last year to make those wait times as short as possible, and now with this kind of data we can fine tune our scheduling, our policies, and the way the support desk itself operates in order to make wait times even shorter. But being fast isn’t enough, and we are already planning version 2 of our support desk; it will do some very cool stuff to improve the accuracy of those responses, so stay tuned.
And that’s just a small taste of what’s in store for this year. We’re very excited for where site5 is headed in 2010, and we can’t wait to help you have a great year too!
Every month we post a State of Site5 here on our blog to go over what we have been working on the last month and what we have planned for the next month. You can view all the past State of Site5 posts here. Please leave any comments here on the blog or in the official forum post.
New Help Desk
As you know we launched our new customer help desk last month and I finally have some screenshots and details for everyone!
The first is the home screen followed by an example ticket and what it looks like internally. The personal information has been removed of course.
The new system has a ton of improvements that help our staff do their jobs easily and efficiently! We have a lot more plans to improve and tweak the help desk throughout the year. Most of these changes won’t be visible to customers, but they are all aimed at making the support we provide faster, more accurate, and making us better able to recognize patterns, and problems even faster than ever.
New SiteAdmin Interface And Backend
We are working hard on upgrading SiteAdmin’s core backend to include a lot of new features and we also are working to update the user interface. We are going to start testing the new interface and features by the end of this month and we will post updates here as we get closer to launch.
The first screenshot is the interface if someone is logged into BackStage. The second shows what it will look like if they log directly into SiteAdmin. Keep in mind this is still being developed, and a lot of improvements and changes are still coming. That being said, I would welcome any feedback or suggestions in the comments or official forum post.
Redundant Hosting
We are still hard at work on this new product and are now in the final stages of testing our virtualizaing software! We are aiming for a launch date of January 15th and I will have more information on that later this month. This is the same technology we will use in our planned VPS product, so after this Redundant Hosting is released, VPS will be soon to follow!
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State of Site5: November
Every three months we post a State of Site5 blog post to outline the changes we have made over the last three months and what we have planned for the next three months. Starting this month we are going to change the frequency of these posts and start making a State of Site5 post once a month to keep everyone updated with what we are working on.
This State of Site5 marks the 1 year anniversary since Joel and I took over Site5 and I hope everyone is happy with the changes! You can view the past blog posts on what the Site5 team has been working on here, and we’re excited to tell you we have a lot more planned for the coming year!
First, here’s what we have been working on over the last three months:
1. We will be launching our new customer support desk this week! This is one of the bigger projects we have been working on this year and it allows us to improve support in a number of ways. For the launch it will improve our staff’s efficiency, allow us to track performance better, and hundreds of little tweaks that will streamline our support process to make it faster and more accurate than ever. Later this month we will post screenshots and more details so you can see the insides of this project. Over the next 12 months we will be improving the support desk even further to give our customers more details on what is going on with their tickets, how many are waiting in the queue, and a lot better tracking of repeating server issues, etc.
2. We launched our new central mail system about one month ago which is another monster project we have been working on! Currently it is live for all new clients since October 1st and we are using this time to make sure everything is running correctly and fix any issues that come up. So far we have only had a few issues with mailman which were fixed right away and everything is looking fantastic! We will continue this live testing for the coming months and, once we are satisfied that it’s ready, we will be announcing our the schedule for switching our existing user’s to this setup. I will make a dedicated post with further information on the mail migration when we are ready. Our goal is to make this migration 100% seamless for our clients.So what benefits does this central mail system give our clients? Here are some of the biggest:
* If your web server is down due to a problem your email will still be up since it is running off separate hardware.
* Increased spam filtering options for both incoming and outgoing mail. This makes it a lot easier to prevent any blacklisting or disruptions for our customers.
* Email services on a separate hardware grouping means less load on web servers.
* Very high level of hardware and software redundancy for the email system to prevent any data loss or problems for our customer’s email.
* Increased customization of our webmail system to give our customer’s a better UI and options!
* And a lot more!
3. We also have been working hard to improve the Site5 website so that it is easier to navigate to what you need. We also added a page on Site5’s green web hosting so you can see how we are an environmentally friendly hosting company.
4. Over the last three months we have hired 6 new staff members! We would like to welcome Jeremy, Ben, Maria, Orien, Gabi, and Charles to the Site5 team!
5. Server issues have stayed low except for a bug we found in our kernel this month that caused a lot of reboots. That is now fixed and there should be no further issues with that. You can read further information from our COO and CTO on that issue in our forum here.
6. We also have a number of odds and ends we would like to mention! For our U.S. customers we now offer Google Adwords advertising credits and as soon as Google has the same offer for our international clients we will set that up. We also now offer the WHMCS billing solution for our resellers for only $10 dollars a month. Just email sales if you are interested in that option.
For the next month we are going to be working on quite a bit, here are some details:
1. We are working on upgrading SiteAdmin to include a lot of new features including an upgrade to the file manager and a lot more! We are testing these and should have them deployed by the end of the month. After this update is out, we will be improving the UI of SiteAdmin and doing all we can to give our customers the tools they need.
2. We are testing hardware and software now for our VPS and redundant hosting solutions, and those tests will continue over the next month. We hope to have further information on this later this month as well as some concrete dates to give out.
Visit Site5 today!
At Site5, we value each and every one of our customers. We want nothing more than to see your website succeed! To help in promoting your website, we are now including up to $75 in Google AdWords™ credit free to every customer!
Existing customers — we didn’t forget about you! If you haven’t already, you will be receiving an email containing your code.
AdWords™ makes it simple to:
* Reach audiences at the very moment they’re expressing interest in what you sell.
* Target customers only in the geographic locations where you do business.
* Know when your advertising dollars are working – and when they’re not.
* Change your campaigns and ads quickly, easily, and whenever you want.
* Get your ads up and running in minutes
* Stay in constant control of your marketing budget.
For more information, including the Terms and Conditions, please visit our site5.
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Site5 Green Hosting
Site5 has gone green! Site5 now offers green hosting solutions!
All of Site5′s hosting options are green, so feel free to check out our Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Dedicated Servers.
Site5 is Green!
Here at Site5, we pride ourselves on being environmentally responsible and, since our founding in 1999, we have worked hard to keep our operations efficient and to limit our impact on the environment. We also understand we can’t eliminate that impact, so we work with several organizations to counter what we can’t avoid.
One Tree Planted For Every Hosting Account
For every new hosting account at Site5 we will plant one tree! We spent a lot of time researching other options for offsetting our impact, including Renewable Energy Certificates, and feel like we’ve made the right choice. Lots of other companies are offsetting some of their energy use with RECs. At this point, however, the effectiveness of those certificates is unclear, and the purchaser’s actual energy use is still almost entirely generated by greenhouse gas producing fossil fuels. If better REC options and/or new options for purchasing renewable energy become available to us, we will eagerly take another look.
In the mean time, the trees we’re planting have a clear and cumulative effect on the environment and on greenhouse gas levels. The average tree inhales 26 lbs of carbon dioxide per year and exhales enough oxygen for a family of four for a year. Trees also reflect solar radiation back into space and increase cloud cover, both of which help counteract global warming. We have partnered with MokuGift and the UN Environment Program for this project. Planting trees through these groups has the added benefit of teaching sustainable agriculture in impoverished parts of the world.
Green Employees
All of our systems are designed around a remote workforce which is the greenest possible option for a company. This means that we have no office or computer equipment to heat, cool, and light year round. Perhaps even more importantly, none of our employees ever have to drive to work. Our employees work on their own computers and in their own homes, which is far more efficient then having them drive to a separate space and use an additional set of computer equipment.
Green Company
We are proud to say that we are virtually waste free as a company! Thanks to our remote workforce, we produce none of the waste that comes from a typical office environment. The only waste we haven’t eliminated is a small amount of paper which is recycled, and this is due to our bank, and a few other organizations we work with, not being completely paperless yet. Once they go paperless we will not generate any physical waste!
Green Servers
The vast majority of the impact Site5 has on the environment is through the electricity our servers and related equipment use. Luckily for us, with today’s energy prices, being green and being cost effective can go hand in hand. We are constantly working to reduce our costs and our impact by leveraging new technologies to lower power consumption, using natural DC cooling technology, and using virtualization software to scale efficiently.
Site5 is once again on the hunt to add members to our team. If you’re looking for a challenging career in the web hosting industry, Site5 is the company for you.
One thing to keep in mind – Site5 is not your average company. Site5 is filled with talented people and teams that like and want to work. Site5 is progressive, original and proactive. Site5 is exceptional and we’re in need of exceptional people.
How do we create such a dynamic and enjoyable work environment?
* We only hire great people.
* Our employees are dependable and reliable.
* We encourage learning additional skills.
* The management team actually cares.
Sound like a company you’d like to be part of? Excellent – because we’d love to meet you!
We are looking for candidates meeting the following requirements:
* Love of helping people and love for the internet!
* Experience with cPanel and providing technical support to people using it. All skill levels.
* Experience with cPanel and all its subsystems (Apache, BIND, MySQL, PHP, Exim, Courier and many more).
* Experience with broad set of web hosting topics.
* Responsible worker who can work remote.
* Good communicator and able to follow instructions.
* Understanding of sales and able to handle tickets that involve both support and subtle sales pitches.
* High Speed internet connection
* Phone
* Exceptionally well organized.
* Ability to multi-task.
* Ability to succeed in a fast-paced environment.
* Fluent in English (written and oral).
Support is currently provided via ticket system and live chat. There is a possibility phone could come into play later this year.
The available positions are all full-time (40 hours per week). Compensation is dependent on previous experience. We offer health/vision/dental insurance to USA-based employees 90 days after employment. Successful candidates will be paid as W2 (IRS employee status) employees if located in the United States or, if located outside of the USA, as contractors. We expect Site5 to be your sole job as these are not pay-per-ticket positions.
No hiring agencies or outsourced support companies please.
To apply, please send a cover letter, resume, and references to careers@site5.com — be sure to mention this post! Your cover letter does NOT have to be extensive, but it should tell us something about you and what sets you apart from the rest of the qualified candidates. Please include your salary requirements and availability in your cover letter. Only selected applicants will be contacted. No phone calls please.
Thank you!
As can be seen at weblog.site5.com:
Django is now installed on all of Site5’s server fleet! We also offer a number of different Python versions. Currently we offer version 2.6.1 and 3.0 as well as some older versions.
We also looked at offering mod_wsgi instead of FastCGI but it is not ready for the shared hosting environment. We can setup Mod WSGI on our managed dedicated servers if you need it and we will keep an eye on that projects to see about adding it when it is ready for the shared environment. If you have any requests or suggestions please let us know too, just leave a comment!
Site5 Review:
Today I put in a support request to Site5 for a minor issue and I received a response back in 18 Minutes with it completely resolved. Awesome support and service!
Status: Waiting on Customer [ Reply to ticket ]
Department: Level 1 Support
Opened at: Fri Apr 17 10:35:36 CDT 2009 (about 2 hours ago)
Last activity: Fri Apr 17 10:54:14 CDT 2009 (about 2 hours ago)
Ticket messages: 2 (1 by Site5 staff)
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Site5 Dedicated Servers
Here are Site5 ‘s current server offerings, they have recently drastically reduced their dedicated server prices:
Site5 Managed Servers
Celeron 2.0
1024MB RAM
1x80GB Hard Drive
1500GB Premium Bandwidth
5 IP addresses
cPanel/WHM or SiteAdmin/MultiAdmin (with Fantastico!)
Setup Fee: $29
Monthly Fee: $99
Dual Xeon 2.8:
2048MB RAM
2x80GB Hard Drive
1500GB Premium Bandwidth
5 IP addresses
cPanel/WHM or SiteAdmin/MultiAdmin (with Fantastico!)
Setup Fee: FREE
Monthly Fee: $199
Dual Quad Core 5405 Harpertown
8192MB RAM
4x750GB Hard Drives
3000GB Premium Bandwidth
cPanel/WHM or SiteAdmin/MultiAdmin (with Fantastico!)
Setup Fee: $500
Monthly Fee: $550
Unmanaged Servers:
Celeron 2.0
1024MB RAM
1x80GB Hard Drive
1500GB Premium Bandwidth
5 IP addresses
cPanel/WHM or SiteAdmin/MultiAdmin (with Fantastico!)
Setup Fee: $50
Monthly Fee: $89
Dual Xeon 2.8:
2048MB RAM
2x80GB Hard Drive
1500GB Premium Bandwidth
5 IP addresses
cPanel/WHM or SiteAdmin/MultiAdmin (with Fantastico!)
Setup Fee: FREE
Monthly Fee: $169
Dual Quad Core 5405 Harpertown
8192MB RAM
4x750GB Hard Drives
3000GB Premium Bandwidth
cPanel/WHM or SiteAdmin/MultiAdmin (with Fantastico!)
Setup Fee: $1500
Monthly Fee: $425
Managed Services:
99.9% Network Uptime SLA Included!
Free Hardware Replacements (We replace anything that fails) Included!
24/7 Helpdesk Access Included!
24/7 Technical Support Included!
Free Site Transfers for Existing Shared/Reseller Clients + Included!
24/7 Proactive Server Monitoring Included!
Free installation of Apache, PHP, Perl, MySQL, SSH, DNS, POP3, SMTP, Webmail, etc. Included!
Initial Security Hardening Included!
Server Optimization Included!
Server-Based Anti-Virus Included!
Server-Based CFS Firewall Included!
Anti-DDoS Firewall Rules Included!
Free Backup Restores for Faulty Hard Drives * Included!
CentOS 4.6 Operating System Included!
Regular OS Patches/Updates Included!
cPanel / WHM Included!
ClientExec Billing System ^ Included!
Root Access Not Included!
Site5 Coupon
Welcome to Site5-Coupons.Com where you will find the latest site5 coupon to save big on site5 hosting!
