DiscountASP.NET Hosting

HostingCon 10 Year Club

Hosting Industry, Inside DiscountASP.NET

hostingcon-10-year-clubTakeshi EtoI went to HostingCon last week which took place in Miami Beach, Florida. I picked up my badge and found this yellow tag on it.

Turns out it’s HostingCon’s 10th year anniversary and I’ve been going to this event every year since it started. I was honored and felt like an old geek at the same time! I saw a handful of like geeks walking around and commiserated with some of them.

So why do I travel all the way across the U.S. to hang out with hosting competitors? It may sound strange but I like going to this event just because it’s great to check in with all the other hosting companies.

While we are all in the same hosting business, there are many different technology niches and customer segments, so all of us approach hosting at different angles. There is plenty of room for everyone and we can all learn from each other.

But what’s more important is that we all share the same issues too – be it dealing with spam, software licensing, hardware, DDoS attacks, abuse issues, and regulatory issues. Many of these issues are bigger than one host and it takes many hosts working together with other vendors to help improve things for the entire hosting segment – which also translates to making hosting work better for all customers.

In fact, HostingCon was the place that the i2Coalition first started – as an idea during a lunchtime gathering of like-minded hosting professionals a couple of years ago – at first to deal with the SOPA act in a collective way.

We decided to participate as a founding member and the organization is now helping educate our elected officials on what we do as hosting providers and how we contribute to the economy and jobs and is helping guide federal policies that affect all hosts and their customers.

Luckily, next year the event will be in San Diego which will make traveling a little easier.

Add Takeshi Eto to your Google+ circles.
Visit DiscountASP.NET to learn more about our ASP.NET hosting services.

 

SoCal Code Camp San Diego 2014

Code camps and conferences

Calvin WongThe SoCal Code Camp San Diego happens June 28th and 29th at the UC San Diego!

DiscountASP.NET has sponsored all the SoCal Code Camps (LA, SD and OC) for many, many years. They’re local events to us. They’re organized by local user groups and attended by local developers, so we’re always happy to offer our support.

This year, we’ll be there on Saturday the 28th sponsoring under the new Everleap banner. If you haven’t heard, Everleap is our new elastic cloud hosting service. We’re very excited to introduce our new platform to everyone attending.

This will be the very first code camp I’m attending. I’m a code camp virgin with a bit of sweaty-palm nerves, but I’m excited to meet members of our local development community. To ensure I don’t run afoul, Everleap has decided to send me with chaperons. Michael Ossou, one of our own developers, and John Meeks, manager of our affiliate programs, will be in attendance with me. Michael will also giving a presentation on JQuery and SignalR.

Michael is an engaging and entertaining presenter, showing off a really cool application. I’ve seen the presentation myself and you don’t want to miss this one.

You have questions about cloud hosting? Do you have a nagging curiosity about the people behind your hosting service? Does your current host suck? Swing on by our table!

See you there!

SoCal-Banner

Add Calvin Wong to your Google+ circles.
Visit DiscountASP.NET to learn more about our ASP.NET hosting services.

June Updates

Announcements

Ray HuangHere’s a list of our Web Application Gallery updates for June:

Acquia Drupal 7.27.32
DotNetNuke 7.2.2 Community Edition
Joomla 3.3
mediaWIki 1.22.6
mojoPortal 2.4.0.3
Moodle 2.6.2
nopCommerce 3.3
phpMyAdmin 4.2.1
SilverStripe CMS 3.1.4
Umbraco CMS 7.1.1
WordPress 3.9.1

nopCommerce 3.3 requires the .NET 4.5.1 Framework in order to run, so feel free to open up a support ticket to have your hosting account moved.

Add Ray Huang to your Google+ circles.
Visit DiscountASP.NET to learn more about our ASP.NET hosting services.

Introducing Everleap

Announcements, Hosting Industry, Inside DiscountASP.NET

Michael PhillipsIf you’re a DiscountASP.NET customer, you’ve probably already heard about this, but for the rest of you, we’re really excited to announce something new: Everleap.

It’s cloud website hosting! Okay, I know what you’re thinking: “Hey man, there’s nothing new about cloud hosting!” Well, that’s not exactly true. There is something new about true cloud hosting. Take a look at how Everleap works.

everleap_sharedCloudServerThink about it, most cloud hosting that you see is sort of a hybrid not-really-cloud-at-all kind of thing that isn’t very far removed from traditional shared hosting. They call it “cloud,” but by their definition we could probably call DiscountASP.NET “cloud,” and as you know, it really isn’t.

Then there are the real cloud services; Azure, Amazon, and the handful of others that aren’t Azure or Amazon. If you have used one of those big cloud services you know that virtually everything that you might consider necessary to run your web site is offered as a separate service, metered and billed separately. And forget about support. If personalized support is available, it likely comes at a hefty additional cost.

EL_vennDiagram_A_v01With Everleap we set out to provide all the technical benefits of the big cloud providers along with the all-inclusive bundled services of traditional web hosting. So every Everleap site includes things like SQL, MySQL, SQL Reporting Services, SSL support, email and DNS service, and our excellent Technical Support that you know and love from DiscountASP.NET is included. Things you will most definitely pay extra for at the big cloud providers.

When I say Everleap is something new, it really is new. It’s the first hosting service built on Microsoft’s Windows Azure Pack. In the coming months you’re going to see other hosts coming out with Azure Pack offerings, but those will be generic, out-of-the-box plans. It isn’t possible for them to do what we’re doing at Everleap because they don’t have the experience that we do.

We have been up to our elbows in the technology underlying Azure Pack (Antares) for almost two years. We have built a world-class infrastructure to support the load balancing and flexibility available with Azure Pack, but not only that, we’ve also built our own Control Panel that allows us to quickly make adjustments and add features, something those generic guys aren’t going to ever be able to do.

Everleap is a premium service, something many of you have been asking us us to build for a long time. Well, here it is. And if I don’t say so myself, it’s really cool.

Add Michael Phillips to your Google+ circles.
Visit DiscountASP.NET to learn more about our ASP.NET hosting services.

The Importance of User Groups

Code camps and conferences, Inside DiscountASP.NET

Michael OssouAs you probably know, for the past decade we have been sponsoring, championing, visiting, & speaking at Conferences, Code Camps,  and User Groups around the country. Some are large like the upcoming Dallas Day of Dot Net, and some consist of just a small group of passionate people.

Yesterday, Calvin Wong posted this about our most recent trip where I was presenting on the topic of ASP.NET SignalR. Every time I return to the office from one of these trips, I can’t help but think about how much the developers that don’t attend these events are missing out on.

Since the early days of microcomputers, User Groups have played a huge role in our industry. They are a fantastic environment to learn new things, meet like minded people, exchange and promote new ideas, and see what direction the local community is moving in. Now I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. I’m just hoping to convince some of you to start attending.

Oh – and as for Calvin’s claims about my driving…you can clearly see from the video there was no zig-zagging or any other such Dukes-of-Hazzard type maneuvers going on!

What you can also see around the 2 minute mark is Calvin framing the Sony building where one of the talks was being held. Once he found his framing, he shut off the camera and tried to convince me to jump out the window and parachute down. He rambled on about his “Vision” and the YouTube course on “Getting Started with Pyrotechnics” that he just finished.

Then he showed me the storyboard he was working on:

Calvin-Notes

Add Michael Ossou to your Google+ circles.
Visit DiscountASP.NET to learn more about our ASP.NET hosting services.

2 Guys, 5 User Groups, 491 Miles

Code camps and conferences, Inside DiscountASP.NET, Video

Calvin WongMichael Ossou, one of our developers and frequent contributor to this blog, gave a presentation last year at the SoCal Code Camp. The presentation, titled “Obama, JQuery, & ASP.NET SignalR: Getting Started with the Real-Time Web”, was received so well that Michael decided to take the show on the road. He asked me to join him because, well, he needed another body to use the carpool lane. We were invited to give presentations to five groups in the Southern California area.

That was a lot of pavement covered. I had fun meeting all the organizers, members and customers! But the time on the road is another story. Michael is a fearsomely angry driver, zig-zagging and red-lining all over those 491 miles. If there are more presentations ahead, I’ll need hazard pay. And Michael needs decaf.

I brought my GoPro and we put together this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E16GXI1ewYg&rel=0

February 11th – Inland Empire .NET User’s Group
 James Johnson heads this smart and energetic group. DiscountASP.NET has sponsored this group for many years, but this was the first time either Michael or I got to meet James and the other members in person, and we’re glad we did!

March 3rd – Los Angeles .NET Developers Group
This group is (co-)organized by Hattan Shobokshi, who also now organizes the SoCal Code Camps. We’ve known Hattan for quite a while now, but we’ve never been to one of the group’s meetings before. Unfortunately, Hattan was out of the country couldn’t attend Michael’s presentation. We had a great time meeting the rest of the group. And we look forward to seeing Hattan during the next SoCal Code Camp.

March 5th – San Diego .NET Developers Group
We had a blast down in San Diego. The SD .NET group is run by Woody Pewitt and Kim Smith-Rohlfs. Woody is a fixture in the SoCal dev community and a real hoot! DiscountASP is a long-time sponsor of this group as well, and all the member were very grateful for all the pizzas we’ve bought them all these years.

March 10th – HTML5 Developers LA
We want to thank ShaRon Folio for inviting us to present to the HTML5 group. The presentation was held at the gorgeous Microsoft offices on The Reserve in Playa Vista (replete with Xbox One gaming stations). We would also like to thank Adam Tuliper, who hosted on behalf of Microsoft.

March 12 – jQuery LA
Natalie MacLees organizes this fun group that meets at in two locations, in Westchester and Chinatown. We met them in Westchester, in the eccentric orange-colored office of Q, where “coffee is for closers!”

Add Calvin Wong to your Google+ circles.
Visit DiscountASP.NET to learn more about our ASP.NET hosting services.

The politics of dessert wines

Inside DiscountASP.NET

Michael PhillipsWe get a lot of treats here at the office. Whenever anyone goes on vacation outside the country (or even inside the country) they often bring back some sort of edible tidbit or another for everyone to devour.

Recently Dmitri brought in some Маcсандра Crimean dessert wine, which ranks pretty highly in terms of treats. For some of us, anyway.

Dmitri is originally from Moldova, a place that had its own run in with the Soviet Union back in 1990 or 91, so I’m sure he has an opinion on what’s going on in the Ukraine/Crimea right now.

In fact, he was kind enough to update the wine bottle with a new location…

Russian wine?

Russian wine?

Add Michael Phillips to your Google+ circles.
Visit DiscountASP.NET to learn more about our ASP.NET hosting services.

   RSS Feed

   Blog Archive

   Community Forum