V9.05 May 2007

0. Introduction.
1. Your OWN DreamHostStatus Feed!
2. Power Switcheroo!
3. Tiny Panel Changes!
4. Ruby on Rails Upgraded!
5. Vote On Us!
6. DHSOTM

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0. Introduction.

Wow, is it the May 2007 DreamHost newsletter ALREADY? I can't believe it!

And, is it SUMMER already? I can't believe it either! Well, actually, I
can (even though it's not). Because for the last 168 hours I haven't
been allowed to eat any carbs. No bread, no pasta, no cake, no chocolate
cake, no cup cake, no pound cake, no funnel cake, not even a crumb cake.
I'm on such hard-core carb lock down, I'm not even allowed to listen to
Short Skirt, Long Jacket or Sheep Go To Heaven, Goats Go To Hell. Damn!

Now, why would this all be? Well, a week ago my wife decided it was time
to switch all her winter clothes for her summer digs. In the process,
she told me she discovered she had a "muffin top". I was excited for her,
thinking this was something to eat! Minutes later I had somehow gone
from the highest "about to eat baked goods" peaks of pastry pleasure
directly down to the lowest "you ain't going to see no muffin tops for a
long long time" valleys of South Beach DOOM.

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1. Your OWN DreamHostStatus Feed!

Just when MY feed options are becoming drastically reduced, yours are
getting hysterically multiplied! Because now, in one of the most voted-
on suggestions of this decade, you can actually get your own, CUSTOM,
dreamhoststatus.com RSS feed for your own account!

Everybody but my mother thinks we're crazy for just posting all our
problems out in the open at:

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/

And the truth is they kind of have a point. It DOES sort of makes us
look bad. Cause we are. BUT, it also scares and confuses customers who
don't realize that "replacing hardware for cheezit" doesn't matter a
lick when THEIR web server is cheeto. SO, we've created a custom link
for each and every one of you to get an RSS feed of just the posts that
affect you!

That link is available by logging in to the panel at

https://panel.dreamhost.com/

and clicking the "Account Status" link in the top right hand corner!

Don't forget, you can also use a program like:

http://rss2email.infogami.com/

or a service like:

http://www.rssfwd.com/

to get the new posts delivered, like a fresh, hot, doughy, sugar pizza,
to you via email. Perfect if, like me, you're too fat to use a real RSS
reader.

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2. Power Switcheroo!

Some of you might remember how DreamHost itself has been on a low-watt
diet for going on close to two years now. I'm not just talking about us
eating only leafy green electricity either, I'm talking about us eating
ANY electricity at all.

Well, those lean days are slowly and surely coming to an end. In Phase
One, we were restricted to not consuming any new power at all. In Phase
Two, we could only consume certain power whereas other power was still
off limits. And now, with the event mentioned below:

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/05/25/power-redundancy-implementation/

we are at long last entering Phase Three, where we can and WILL consume
with maniacal ferocity until all remnants of our twiggy power footprint
are gone and we return to our previous magnificent bulk, complete with
billowy mane of golden locks of 20 foot cat5!

I can only hope that someday I personally will be in such an enviable
position and be able to eat a french fry.

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3. Tiny Panel Changes!

It's pretty semi-cool how tiny changes can lead to large differences.

For example, we changed the login page to https://panel.dreamhost.com/
to match the all-new look, and all of the sudden our panel loads a lot
faster. It may have been related to us finding the last few bottlenecks
in our database back end as well, but I'm sticking with my theory about
the new css for the login page.

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=users.access

We also moved the "Access Privileges" page under "Users" where it
could make more sense, and made it easier to add privileges by only
requiring the email address of the person you want to share with, and
all of the sudden I'm on the South Beach diet and can't even eat teeny
weensy little bagel bites for breakfast anymore.

Which is a VERY large difference.

For the VERY worse.

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4. Ruby on Rails Upgraded!

If you're like me right now, one week into a no-carb diet, just the
thought of running "rake freeze_gems" conjures images of frozen bananas
dipped in chocolate and Pralines and Cream sundaes covered in whipped
cream and fatty, fatty, bacon.

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/05/15/ruby-on-rails-123/

It's a good thing we upgraded Ruby on Rails to version 1.2.3 a full two
weeks before this muffin top thing ever hit. It might have been hard to
type "gem install rails" with pig grease and cream all over my body.

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5. Vote On Us!

On another note, it seems like somehow, someway, something, somebody got
nominated for some "Bloggers Choice Awards"!

We're up against some stiff competition from Google for the "Best
Corporate Blog" and Google again (via Blogger.com) for the "Best
Blogging Host".

They've got a head start, but we haven't really been stuffing the ballot
box yet, have we? No we haven't! There's nothing like a good old-
fashioned "get-the-vote-out" link party to sway the masses!

Read all about it at:

http://blog.dreamhost.com/2007/06/05/shameful-plug/

Fritos.

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6. DHSOTM

May's DreamHost Site of the Marmalade is somewhat a departure from our
usual fare of flash portfolio/online radio winners. In fact, it's a bit
of a controversial winner, because it's the first time I've ever seen a
DHSOTM winner who on the front page has a HUGE logo for "Vote AskApache
DreamHost Site of the Marmalade".

Now, that sort of thing is highly frowned upon around here. You would
never catch US stooping to such tactics just for the chance to win the
authorization to put a smarmy gif on OUR web site. I'm THIS close to
disallowing the whole thing, but I guess we'll let it slide this one
time, as there is some pretty useful content over at:

http://www.askapache.com/

and it's nice to go to a DHSOTM winner who's site doesn't make my PII
666Mhz Celeron dump core all over my broiled chicken salad without
croutons. Er wait. I just found out he "won" not just by promoting the
contest at his own site, but by putting direct links to the "vote"
option at our discussion board and the wiki. DISALLOWED!

The new winner is:

http://www.hypercombofinish.com/

A weekly pixel art web comic generally dealing with video games. And I
guess by weekly I mean, last updated December 27th, 2005! But hey, at
least they're not shameless promoters!

As long as you promise not to use cheesy (but delicious) tactics to pump
up YOUR votes, submit your site any time you feel a bit peckish at:

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.dhsotm

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Your Egg McMuffin Top,
Josh Jones

P.S. Already got a tight body? Unsubscribe from this newsletter just by
managing your subscription preferences at:

https://panel.dreamhost.com/id/?tab=contact

P.P.S. What would be diet without EXERCISE! For proving your DreamHost
loyalty by reading this far, you are now entitled to ONE YEAR OF FREE
HOSTING! But wait.. there's a catch.

All you have to do is show up before the end of our Dream Machine (see
the blog!) final regular season game tonight @ 9pm @ 227 N Lake Street,
90026 or our first playoff game tomorrow night @ 7pm @ 817 Yale St,
90012 and if we win (which is a given) you tell us your domain and
bammo, ONE FREE YEAR of whatever hosting plan you're on right now!!

Dream Host customer newsletter

Dream Host newsletter - V9.05 May 2007 - May 5, 2007