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thePurpleGiant · Apr 27, 2004, 09:01 PM

Okay guys, I did this a while ago in the web development forum around here and had quite a positive response from a number of people.

Recently I have been getting into themeing (using, not creating) our Macs, so I have spent a bit more time lurking in this GUI customisation forum. I've noticed that a number of themers are using thier iDisks or free hosting for their websites (often themers just starting out, or who can't justify paying for hosting their 'hobby')

Well, as my way of giving back to the community, I would like to offer up to 10 Mac-themers free hosting for one year on our 'Enhanced' hosting plan. Completely free, no questions asked, one year, no obligation or expectation to continue after your year, although you are most welcome to. You can check out all our plan details at:

http://www.jbinteractive.net.au/hosting/details.html

Screenshots and a live demo of our control panel can be found by following this link. To make use of this hosting you will require your own domain name, however these can be purchased for under $10US at places like godaddy.com, so this shouldn't be an issue.

Interested people can either send me a PM or email me personally at jeremy@jbinteractive.net.au.

Questions are welcome. Hopefully a few of you can make use of this offer.

phillryu · Apr 27, 2004, 09:07 PM

That sounds really great, except the monthly bandwidth limit. I don't think that's going to be enough to host popular themes.. because MacThemes.net swallows 10+ a month, and that's with all images hosted remotely lol. What happens if a themer goes over?

Jaos · Apr 27, 2004, 09:13 PM

Dang only if I had a domain

Nice of you to do such things

thePurpleGiant · 09:46 PM

Originally posted by phillryu:
That sounds really great, except the monthly bandwidth limit. I don't think that's going to be enough to host popular themes.. because MacThemes.net swallows 10+ a month, and that's with all images hosted remotely lol. What happens if a themer goes over?

Yeah, I realise that for the more popular themes that the bandwidth would be limiting. For themers just starting out it would suit nicely. Or if they simply host their site with us, then link externally to host the actual theme file. (Does xthemes.net still host themes?) Remember though 1MB theme * 2000 downloads is still under the 2.5GB monthly transfer, and that should be plenty for a lot of themers.

We're very flexible with our bandwidth. The system sends out a warning when the limit is close to being reached, and allow bandwidth limits to go over by 10% each month. After their limit is reached they could either:

a) redirect their site to a different URL
b) shutdown the site until the end of the month with a 'Bandwidth Exceeded' message
c) pay for excess bandwidth.

However given that this offer is completely free, we would be a little hesitant to actually charge for excess bandwidth, so a or b would be most likely.

Originally posted by Jaos:
Dang only if I had a domain
Nice of you to do such things

Godaddy currently has .com's selling for $8.95US/year, if you were to purchase a domain we would be happy to host you

wibs · 01:23 AM

just so people know what they're getting into when it comes to bandwidth, I'm averaging about 15GB per month, including a couple of individual days that touched 4GB alone. The only public themes available on digitalramen are the 2 versions of latium, so keep in mind that these definitely aren't even mainstream. also keep in mind that they're mirrored on other sites like interfacelift. that's quite a bit more than 2.5GB a month, and I can't even imagine the numbers for a site with a ton of popular themes, like maxthemes.com.

i don't want to give the impression that i'm deriding this hosting offer - a year of free hosting is pretty damn generous

. Just letting people know that they're still going to need another source to actually host the themes. I used to work at a news site doing over 1GB a day serving almost nothing but text (not counting those days when something special was going on), which does get expensive, so people need to be very aware of bandwidth and not just assume that a couple GB per month will be enough.

Patcarla · Apr 28, 2004, 02:08 AM

Yeah, bandwith is the real limitation.
I don't know what is my average but with 3 themes+ desktops, I have so far more than
10000 visitors per month (that keeps increasing especially since my themes are being ported to PC stuffs).
With peaks at more than a 1000/days when new stuff is released.
So I would say that like wibs I'm at about 15-20GB /month even
though I have mirror dld links at differents places.
I can imagine that top themers like Max/swiz go easily over 50GB a month..
That's the main reason that keeps me with . Mac (no bandwith limitation that I'm aware of)

mac15 · Apr 29, 2004, 06:50 AM

check my sig

Twister · Apr 29, 2004, 02:23 PM

Since everyone else is giving out free hosting... i'll speak up too.

A friend has starting offering up free hosting (with PHP) and there is great support forums to go along with it. Your site can be about anything you want and it's add free too. If you wanna check it out you can at http://www.jrwrestling.com/forum/ No it's not just a wrestling site, that's just his main biz.

TwisterMc

MindFad · Apr 29, 2004, 04:37 PM

Originally posted by thePurpleGiant:
Godaddy currently has .com's selling for $8.95US/year, if you were to purchase a domain we would be happy to host you

DUDE, I can transfer my domain for $6.95 and get a free one-year extension? Is there a catch or something?

Hot damn�I'm all over that, man.

One thing I noticed about GoDaddy�the site certificate doesn't come through in Safari, and then the images break. Works fine in Firefox, though.

JoE950 · Apr 29, 2004, 05:41 PM

man, guys, just host the web sites, post the theme kits on xthemes (and/or anywhere else) and call it a day..

or like mac15 said, check his sig. funmac is a giver to the community as well. everyone loves free stuff!

great offer though.

sniffer · Apr 30, 2004, 09:56 AM

Bandwidth doesn't seem to be an issue on .Mac. Anyone remember the Tokyo longest line movie thread? That video is (still) hosted on .Mac and I am sure it got serious many hits in the days it got picked up on the many news sites around. Quite impressive.

Weezer · Apr 30, 2004, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by sniffer:
Bandwidth doesn't seem to be an issue on .Mac. Anyone remember the Tokyo longest line movie thread? That video is (still) hosted on .Mac and I am sure it got serious many hits in the days it got picked up on the many news sites around. Quite impressive.

However it was in apple's best interest to leave that movie up...If it had been a really popular web movie of a man jumping over the grand canyon or something you never know if apple would have killed it..

Brien · May 1, 2004, 12:17 AM

I'd just like to chime in that XThemes still hosts themes (all you have to do is fire off an email and we can throw it up on our servers.. we plan on addind automated uploading as well as redirecting if you have hosting, as is the default now). And, at the risk of breaking my own vow of silence, the next version will also include a sort of Bio page for themers (thanks Phil for the initial idea waay back).

...Shameless plug? Maybe

...

mac15 · May 1, 2004, 12:22 AM

I hosted a heap of files via .mac, one of them is huge! 56mb

check it out here http://www.macminute.com/2004/01/10/mayer

wibs · May 1, 2004, 02:08 AM

Originally posted by brien:
...Shameless plug? Maybe ...

that's the whole point of this thread, people plugging the stuff they're giving away for free. there's always some kind of squabble going on in public forums, but it's always nice to see people offering what they can for no other reason than because they can.