[Eug Wanker]

I'm cancelling my .Mac account because it is too glitchy and too expensive. (It costs CAD$139, which is US$126, plus tax.)

I use: iCal syncing, Bookmark syncing, and Address Book syncing. I also use maybe 10% of my 1 GB disk space.

My issues: Syncing often is offline or glitchy in that one of my 3 computers isn't consistently recognized, or if it's recognized it won't completely sync. I like the webhosting, but its interface is irritating, and people downloading from me on Windows machines said sometimes the links don't work properly. Or if they do work, once in a while the download will quit mid-stream. (This is a few months ago, so maybe that's better now, I dunno.)

Bookmark syncing isn't that important for me, but I would like to keep my 3 computers consistent in terms of iCal and Address Book.

How best to do this?

Also, any advice for a good cheap site for web storage?

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

gmail offers a gig of online storage.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

gmail offers a gig of online storage.

It's 2.5 GB actually, but AFAIK, that's only for email, no? I have a gmail account, but I see no way of hosting files.

[Mastrap]

I've said in in the past and I'll say it again: dreamhost.com for hosting.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

I've said in in the past and I'll say it again: dreamhost.com for hosting.

Any issues with them? They seem much cheaper than the local hosting sites. (I note you are in Toronto, like me.)

I'm also considering the possibility of hosting from my own iMac, but that's not ideal.

Now to come up with a good domain name...

eugwanker.com is open, but I want something that's kosher for work.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I use pair.com as does all my clients. Not the cheapest but 100% reliable in the 6 years I have had them.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

It's 2.5 GB actually, but AFAIK, that's only for email, no? I have a gmail account, but I see no way of hosting files.

http://gdisk.sourceforge.net/

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

http://gdisk.sourceforge.net/

Interesting. It's only set up for personal use though so it's not exactly what I'm looking for.

MInd you, maybe I can use a pic-hosting site plus gDisk to suit my needs.

I'll still look into dreamhost.com though.

[Eug Wanker]

Flickr photo hosting test:



I'll still want to get my own domain though.

Now, what about iCal and Address Book?

[Mastrap]

If you do go the dreamhost route PM me, I get $90 for every customer I bring in and I'd be more than happy to share that 50/50.

I've used them for three years now, with no problems whatsoever.

[MaxPower2k3]

I haven't used it personally, but you can give MySync a try, which claims to offer "Mac-to-Mac syncing capabilities of .mac, without .mac"

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by MaxPower2k3

I haven't used it personally, but you can give MySync a try, which claims to offer "Mac-to-Mac syncing capabilities of .mac, without .mac"

Looks interesting, thx. It seems I would have to use my laptop as an intermediary between my desktop at work and my desktop at work though. It doesn't look like this app will sync off remote networks easily.

Originally Posted by Mastrap

If you do go the dreamhost route PM me, I get $90 for every customer I bring in and I'd be more than happy to share that 50/50.

I've used them for three years now, with no problems whatsoever.

OK if I do go with them, I'll pm you. Maybe it would be good for another donation to your friend's cause.

[Mastrap]

Excellent idea. I'll send you the code you'll need via pm.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Now, what about iCal and Address Book?

iCal: any web server that will enable WebDAV for you

AddressBook: a little more difficult. You'd be left with some shareware that will shuttle the AB database from one machine to another, or a Groupware solution that will create entries to an LDAP server.

Edit: another AB sync possibility is using a cell-phone as an intermediary.

[davesimondotcom]

Another vote for Dreamhost... they rock. I've been with them since 1998 and I do not hesitate to recommend them.

[besson3c]

What is so great about Dreamhost? There are an infinite number of web hosting providers that can provide you with web site hosting at a good rate with good customer service. What's the big deal here?

[starman]

Back when I was looking for a provider, I didn't use dreamhost because it didn't support something I needed. I don't remember what it was....php, cgi...something

Make sure to check your needs before going with any provider.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by besson3c

What is so great about Dreamhost? There are an infinite number of web hosting providers that can provide you with web site hosting at a good rate with good customer service. What's the big deal here?

Very high storage and bandwidth, up to several terabyte. I run a popular podcast and several domains from the same account and I am not even close to running out of space.

Unlimited domains from one account.

Unlimited databases.

Both your storage and bandwidth increase month on month.

Very geek friendly.

Excellent support.

There are probably others out there just as good, but Dh works for me.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Originally Posted by MaxPower2k3

I haven't used it personally, but you can give MySync a try, which claims to offer "Mac-to-Mac syncing capabilities of .mac, without .mac"

Looks interesting, thx. It seems I would have to use my laptop as an intermediary between my desktop at work and my desktop at work though. It doesn't look like this app will sync off remote networks easily.

I've never researched the details much, but isn't something like this what VPN setups are for? That is, couldn't you make your office computer think it's part of your home LAN at the same times that MySync is scheduled to run? Or does it get way more complicated than that.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

Very high storage and bandwidth, up to several terabyte. I run a popular podcast and several domains from the same account and I am not even close to running out of space.

Unlimited domains from one account.

Unlimited databases.

Both your storage and bandwidth increase month on month.

Very geek friendly.

Excellent support.

There are probably others out there just as good, but Dh works for me.

These providers are in a constant game amongst themselves trying to offer the best specs to entice unknowing customers. The truth is "unlimited bandwidth" is a misnomer. If everybody transferred several terabytes of data each month, the provider would go out of business - period. Unlimited bandwidth really means "as much as the average person is realistically going to use". However, many places that have metered bandwidth are going to offer more bandwidth than the average person will be able to consume too.

As far as storage capacity, adding storage capacity is relative cheap. There are many providers that will provide you with as much storage as you need.

As far as unlimited domains, does this mean that you are allowed to host as many CNAME domains through your same account, or separate websites through your same account? If the latter, what does DH do about people basically sharing accounts?

As far as unlimited databases go, see storage.


I'm not trying to put down DH, I'm sure they are fine... I'm just saying: don't get sucked into the specs game and meaningless stats like "99.9% uptime". Find a provider that you feel good about.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug

I've never researched the details much, but isn't something like this what VPN setups are for? That is, couldn't you make your office computer think it's part of your home LAN at the same times that MySync is scheduled to run? Or does it get way more complicated than that.

A VPN will allow you to connect to a remote network and become a part of that network as if you can plugged your computer in to that network. However, if your home computers are behind a router, these machines are not visible by the remote computers unless you get into port forwarding.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by besson3c

A VPN will allow you to connect to a remote network and become a part of that network as if you can plugged your computer in to that network. However, if your home computers are behind a router, these machines are not visible by the remote computers unless you get into port forwarding.

I'm willing to bet that Eug is savvy enough to figure out how to set up port forwarding on his home router, if he doesn't already know how to do it. After that, is it just a matter of setting his home iMac to be the VPN server?

The other possibility is that perhaps he can use VPN to connect his home machines to the office network. I just didn't bring it up because it seems most people hate doing anything that requires asking IT people for settings or, more importantly, permission..

[davesimondotcom]

besson3c -

I've been a happy Dreamhost customer since 1998. Here are my reasons for loving it:

1. It's cheap - <$10/month and I host as many domains as I want on it. Currently, I have at least 5 full domains, a few subdomains (test sites) and a few that are set up as forwards for email for my wife, mother-in-law and my dad.

2. Yes, I know it's "easy" for them to add bandwidth and storage, but they do. The longer I'm there, the more I get. And there is no way that any of my sites will become popular enough to hit the ceiling I have after 8 years.

3. They listen to suggestions. They add support for things people need. The basics are there - MySQL, PHP, etc. They support Rails now and have "one click installs" for other handy things.

4. Good support. I would say great support, but there isn't a phone system. But they react VERY fast to any reported problems. The last three times something has happened, they told ME about it through their status server before I noticed anything was wrong. Handy having an RSS feed from them.

5. Referral program - nice way to keep my hosting paid for. I give my clients something they need (good, reliable web hosting) and I get a kickback in return. Clients never mind that I get $90 for them signing up because they get hosting cheap.

6. Free domains. Every once in a while (I can't remember if it's once a year or what), I get credit for registering a free domain simply for being a customer.

[El Gato]

Well, with having absolutely no idea what I was doing, I was able to set up a WebDAV server on my Dreamhost account and publish a .ics file that iCal was able to subscribe to, all under 5 minutes. Still having trouble trying to figure out how to get Outlook to subscribe to it on my girlfriend's PC, but at least the Mac side of things worked flawlessly.

Looks like this would take care of most of what you're looking for, Eug. Just need to get an LDAP server running for your address book and you'll be good to go.

[Eug Wanker]

Wow. Excellent suggestions everyone. Keep 'em coming. Now I just hope Apple will refund my .Mac payment.

That server idea sounds sweet, but I'm still leaning to using that shareware program, using my iBook as an intermediary.

Also, I've never configured a VPN tunnel but I figure it shouldn't be that hard. It'd be nice to have access to my home documents anyways when I'm at work. I assume that the Finder browser should work fine to access my home iMac's shared drive this way?

[voodoo]

.Mac just isn't worth it IMO. I gave them 2 years. They are too expensive for what they offer and regular hosting services offer more or less the same thing, but cheaper. The only difference being if you're a complete computer illiterate. Then .Mac may be easier than a regular host. Still more expensive.

I don't recomend it in its current incarnation.

V

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Wow. Excellent suggestions everyone. Keep 'em coming. Now I just hope Apple will refund my .Mac payment.

That server idea sounds sweet, but I'm still leaning to using that shareware program, using my iBook as an intermediary.

Also, I've never configured a VPN tunnel but I figure it shouldn't be that hard. It'd be nice to have access to my home documents anyways when I'm at work. I assume that the Finder browser should work fine to access my home iMac's shared drive this way?

The Finder is so slow, I often have an easier time using SSH/scp/sftp, but YMMV.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by El Gato

Well, with having absolutely no idea what I was doing, I was able to set up a WebDAV server on my Dreamhost account and publish a .ics file that iCal was able to subscribe to, all under 5 minutes. Still having trouble trying to figure out how to get Outlook to subscribe to it on my girlfriend's PC, but at least the Mac side of things worked flawlessly.

Looks like this would take care of most of what you're looking for, Eug. Just need to get an LDAP server running for your address book and you'll be good to go.

If Apache is configured to allow .htaccess files to override the default privileges, all that it takes is an .htaccess file containing a few lines of text to enable WebDAV. it's not that tough to do.

It's a very nice touch that they have things setup for easy WebDAV configuration, but it isn't a huge technical marvel.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by davesimondotcom

besson3c -

I've been a happy Dreamhost customer since 1998. Here are my reasons for loving it:

1. It's cheap - <$10/month and I host as many domains as I want on it. Currently, I have at least 5 full domains, a few subdomains (test sites) and a few that are set up as forwards for email for my wife, mother-in-law and my dad.

Free DNS CNAMES, or multiple independent websites hosted under the same account?

[Mastrap]

The latter. Unlimited domains.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

The latter. Unlimited domains.

How does this work, you just define your own virtual host declarations based on the directories you've uploaded? What is stopping somebody from going in with somebody else and hosting all sorts of sites under the same account?

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

How long have you people been with Dreamhost and how long have they had the exact same hosting prices?

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by besson3c

How does this work, you just define your own virtual host declarations based on the directories you've uploaded? What is stopping somebody from going in with somebody else and hosting all sorts of sites under the same account?

Nothing. I host both of my business sites, a podcast, my wife's mail account, a charity site and several friend's sites from my account. Dreamhost doesn't mind.

All you do is tell dreamhost which domains you want them to host and they go ahead and create the home directory for you. The rest is up to you.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

Nothing. I host both of my business sites, a podcast, my wife's mail account, a charity site and several friend's sites from my account. Dreamhost doesn't mind.

All you do is tell dreamhost which domains you want them to host and they go ahead and create the home directory for you. The rest is up to you.

That's a nice policy. I do this with a couple of clients of mine, but I've never gotten the sense that this sort of perk is typical.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

How long have you people been with Dreamhost and how long have they had the exact same hosting prices?

3rd year, same price. Why ?

What I LOVE about DH is that you get full SSH shell access.
You can do anything you want on your domain, setting up your own apps etc.

My Spamassassin installation on four different IMAP accounts runs great.
Also running my own WordPress. DH is the best.

-t

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by what_the_heck

3rd year, same price. Why ?

What I LOVE about DH is that you get full SSH shell access.
You can do anything you want on your domain, setting up your own apps etc.

My Spamassassin installation on four different IMAP accounts runs great.
Also running my own WordPress. DH is the best.

-t

Because typically when there are killer offers like this they get a TON of new users signing up and the service becomes ****.

[Buck_W]

Anybody familiar with http://www.webmasters.com

[davesimondotcom]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

How long have you people been with Dreamhost and how long have they had the exact same hosting prices?

They haven't raised the price a single cent in the 7+ years I've been a customer of theirs (since December 1998.)

They have, however, added tons of features.

For $10/month I'm hosting a bunch of domains, some full host, some just email, others parked.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

Because typically when there are killer offers like this they get a TON of new users signing up and the service becomes ****.

Often, yes.

But DH has been going strong for years. I haven't noticed any decline in service, rather the opposite. They are constantly improving their features and give you more bang for the buck.
Their bandwidth and storage is going up far more than with other providers.

I have started with DH a little over two years ago with 5 GB storage.

Here is where I am now:

25280 MB Disk (Grows 160 MB / week)
1246 GB BW per Cycle (Grows 8 GB / week)

The longer you stay, the more your storage and bandwidth grows. Pretty cool, methinks.

-t

[El Gato]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Wow. Excellent suggestions everyone. Keep 'em coming. Now I just hope Apple will refund my .Mac payment.

That server idea sounds sweet, but I'm still leaning to using that shareware program, using my iBook as an intermediary.

Also, I've never configured a VPN tunnel but I figure it shouldn't be that hard. It'd be nice to have access to my home documents anyways when I'm at work. I assume that the Finder browser should work fine to access my home iMac's shared drive this way?

There's also options like OpenExchange and Zimbra if you want to run your own server.

I've played around with Zimbra a bit, but both seem like a decent alternative to setting up a MS Exchange server and would let you share calendars and contacts across multiple users. I've only dabbled with this, but maybe someone else on the board that has had some more experience working with these can shed some light on their ease of use.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by El Gato

I've played around with Zimbra a bit, but both seem like a decent alternative to setting up a MS Exchange server and would let you share calendars and contacts across multiple users. I've only dabbled with this, but maybe someone else on the board that has had some more experience working with these can shed some light on their ease of use.

I looked into Zimbra a bit.

If I understand correctly, it uses its own server and protocol, so you can't use any other email app besdies their web-based. It's NOT just an front-end to an IMAP server like roundcube.

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by what_the_heck

I looked into Zimbra a bit.

If I understand correctly, it uses its own server and protocol, so you can't use any other email app besdies their web-based. It's NOT just an front-end to an IMAP server like roundcube.

-t

That's not true. Zimbra includes Cyrus + Amavisd + SpamAssassin + ClamAV + Tomcat + MySQL + some other stuff. While you can setup Zimbra to co-exist with your existing mail services, it is designed to replace them and basically be an enterprise level "blackbox" server.

Once installed, you can use whatever client you want, although there are only connectors for Outlook and iSync right now (possibly Thunderbird too, I haven't checked).

The most Mac friendly Groupware solution other than Zimbra seems to be OpenGroupware, as it is written in WebObjects and much easier to install than OpenExchange.

[memory-minus]

Dreamhost!

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Once installed, you can use whatever client you want, although there are only connectors for Outlook and iSync right now (possibly Thunderbird too, I haven't checked).

So, Apple Mail wouldn't work, and no webmail client that uses IMAP ?

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by what_the_heck

So, Apple Mail wouldn't work, and no webmail client that uses IMAP ?

-t

Any IMAP client will work, this thing is based off of Cyrus.

The connectors are for accessing the Groupware-type functions - shared calendaring, address book, etc.

The iSync connector (currently in beta, I believe) will allow you to sync stuff on your local machine to Zimbra via iSync. iSync handles iCal and Address Book data, so this will work just fine with any client that supports iSync (and/or vice versa).

If anybody wants a .Mac or MS Exchange replacement, Zimbra would be perfect, although you'd need a server, and the connectors are only available with the paid version of Zimbra.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c

If anybody wants a .Mac or MS Exchange replacement, Zimbra would be perfect, although you'd need a server, and the connectors are only available with the paid version of Zimbra.

Thanks, good information.

So, if I'm not willing to pay for the connectors (and hence, the groupware functions will not work with iSync), what kind of real advantage would I have over IMAP ?
I think the webmail interface is nice, so that's a plus. Anything else ? I came across Zimbra when I was looking for alternatives to SquirrelMail. Right now, I'm testing RoundCube, but it's still very slow. I don't think I'd want to switch to Zimbra just for the web-interface.

-t

[Eug Wanker]

Maybe I'll just take my iPod mini to work more often, for iCal and Address Book syncing. (It works both directions right? I can't remember.). It's often nice to have it for backup of other documents anyways.

I'd use my phone, but unfortunately it doesn't sync all the info.

[Socially Awkward Solo]

For images at least. No limits no registration:

http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by what_the_heck

Thanks, good information.

So, if I'm not willing to pay for the connectors (and hence, the groupware functions will not work with iSync), what kind of real advantage would I have over IMAP ?
I think the webmail interface is nice, so that's a plus. Anything else ? I came across Zimbra when I was looking for alternatives to SquirrelMail. Right now, I'm testing RoundCube, but it's still very slow. I don't think I'd want to switch to Zimbra just for the web-interface.

-t

You could check out DIMP, it's part of the Horde project and is their AJAXed out version of IMP currently in CVS. We use IMP here at the University, primarily because it was flexible enough to match our needs.

The only advantage Zimbra would have over straight IMAP, AFAIK, would be the web interface (which provides access to all of the features Zimbra offers, including the Groupware features). The connectors are simply for interfacing with external clients. I'm evaluating Zimbra for our University and haven't gotten into great depth with it yet, but based on its target audience and general design, it would only make sense to you if you want to replace your entire email infrastructure with it. Note that there is an open source edition of Zimbra, but it doesn't come with the connectors.

Doing so is not a bad idea. Cyrus is a great IMAP server. ClamAV is a great anti-virus solution, SpamAssassin is great, amavisd is a great interface to both SpamAssassin and ClamAV, and Postfix is easy to use. In fact, I would recommend running each of these. Once you had all of these parts installed, you could understand them independently. When you run the server, each of these processes shows up in their own space - there is no massive monolithic Zimbra binary, Zimbra is just a wrapper for these services, and will therefore inherit the quirks and virtues of these individual services.

If you wanted to make your existing services work with Zimbra, you'd probably have to start playing with paths and trying to match these services to what Zimbra would be expecting. It's probably best to take down these services and install Zimbra, especially since they have made very intelligent decisions about which services in include.

Hope this info helps, I'm still learning about Zimbra myself.

[turtle777]

Ok, I might not be as deep into it as you are.

Right now, I'm using Courier IMAP server on Dreamhost with Postfix and Spamassassin.
Clam AV is not needed, since I work exclusively on a Mac

DH also provides SquirrelMail (SM), which is ugly as sin. I'm basically looking for a replacement for that. IMP looks better than SM, but not as "nice" (eye-candy factor) as RoundCube.

I'm not sure what amavisd does, I tried to understand by reading the webpage, but that's probably over my head and something I shouldn't worry about right now.

-t