V10.04 April 2008

0. Introduction.
1. New Easy One-Click: phpBB forum!
2. New One-Click: OpenX ad server!
3. New! Merge all your MySQLs onto same server!
4. We are now Blu (and still Green)!
5. New Charities
6. DHSOTM


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0. Introduction.

Finally, I can write the Happy DreamHost April 2008 Newsletter in peace!
All month I've been constantly HARASSED by my conscience saying, "why
not try and get a newsletter out in the actual month that it's for this
time, eh Mr. Sexy Awesome?"

Then last Thursday, the voice mysteriously ceased! Just to be sure it
wasn't going to come back, I decided to play it safe and wait until the
next churro-themed holiday before starting on this thing. Luckily (for
you guys), Cinco de Mayo was only a weekend away!

In fact, last month's newsletter was so late, I'm amazed we got ANY
features in at all for this one! In double fact, I now need to take a
second to bask in my amaze-itude Mayo...


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1. New Easy One-Click: phpBB forum!

But, before I get TOO amazed, I'd better see what these new features
actually ARE. Because if they're just more things like last month's
"we're sorry we suck all the time", then I've probably jumped the gun a
little bit in my awe-struckiness.

Let's see, first off we've got one of our tried-and-true One-Click
installs now available as an "easy" one-click install... phpBB!

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=goodies.installer

Again, the benefits to the easy one-click install are many-fold (two):
easier setup and easier maintenance!

The downside is less customizing themes and adding plug-ins, but hey, we
already included a bunch of decent-looking phpBB themes and um, maybe a
plug-in too?

And hey, if you're already using phpBB... now is always a great time to
check if you're up-to-date, and if not, upgrade and add yourself to the
email notifications of upgrades! It's just one click from our panel...

phpBB forum spam as well as server exploits are a pretty HUGE problem
around these parts! We're a little excited because the more people that
are using this centralized managed version, the better de Mayo!


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2. New One-Click: OpenX ad server!

So, that feature was maybe only half-amazing, half-Vince Carter. This
one is a little bit more of one and less of the other, but I'll let the
audience decide which half is which half and which half is the other
half:

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=goodies.installer

... is the place to go again for the newest (advanced) one-click we've
added to our collection, "OpenX" (an open source ad server)!

If you've got a website (or bunch of websites) you want to show ads on,
but for some reason you don't want to use Google's AdSense and want to
manage it all yourself, there's a chance OpenX is for YOU!

And maybe YOU will even figure out how it all works, because I tried
installing it myself and I couldn't figure out where you find the code
snippet you need to actually call your ad server!

I'm stupid de Mayo though!


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3. New! Merge all your MySQLs onto same server!

I lied when I wrote "New!" in this headline, the only thing NEW about
this feature is that I never mentioned it before when it went live who
KNOWS how long ago! Also, this feature really only affects OLD
customers, since all NEW customers ALREADY have all their MySQLS on the
same server.

But, if you're an older customer and you'd like to combine your
databases onto the same server (the benefits of which being you can
manage them all from one hostname, with the same username, which means
having just one login to phpmyadmin, and being able to do selects across
databases too I suppose), you can now do so from the Manage MySQL area:

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=goodies.mysql

Just scroll down until you see a button that says something like:

"Merge all databases and hostnames on A:B to X:Y"

and then click that! The merging won't be immediate, and in fact is done
manually (to make sure everything goes smoothly) by one of our database
dudettes in the middle of the night-o de Mayo!


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4. We are now Blu (and still Green)!

I think Dallas submitted us to this weird "World Blu" contest for the
"Most Democratic Workplaces 2008", which is very annoying to me because
I thought I was in charge here and I don't want ANYbody doing ANYthing
without it being dictated by me.

Well, since he already went ahead and submitted it, I figured we might
as well win, so I went from 4' by 4' cubicle to 4' by 4' cubicle and
made each and every one of our just under minimum wage "happy" employees
fill out the survey with all 5 out of 5s.

And, like in China, my centralized plan is working. We of course made
the list:

http://www.worldblu.com/scorecard/list2008.php

and now I think Dallas is talking at "WORLDBLU LIVE 2008" in NYC in
October. As suggested and then voted on by our employees, he will be
holding a rubber chicken (de Mayo)!


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5. New Charities

The PROOF that I was a KEYBOARD'S BREADTH away from putting out this
April newsletter in actual April, can be seen in this DH status post:

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2008/04/29/new-charities-tomorrow/

Because up until now, new charities had always meant only one thing...
new newsletter. But bravely I held off, giving everybody a chance to
enjoy one last super-lame-email-free weekend in the month. I couldn't,
however, hold off from changing the charities!

Kidd's Kids raised $499.01 (thanks anonymous penny donator!) and MIND
raised $274.67... sorta okay, I suppose. Fortunately, the new charities
are much more likely to inspire massive giving:

Communities in School: fighting against dropping-out.

SPCA-LA: The society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, L.A.!

This means you can now donate to either of those charities directly from
your DreamHost bill.. plus we'll match it!

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

Be a good samaritan de Mayo!


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6. DHSOTM

Another thing that comforts me a lot about this month's newsletter is
that this month's Cinco de Mayo I mean DreamHost Site of the Month winner
is:

http://www.danielpitner.com/

... a flash-enabled personal portfolio site! Be warned, there are some
scary snakes on the site and even some Christianity too! I may consider
it the first NSFW DHSOTM winner, ever, LOL!

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

Go there and submit your OWN site de Mayo!


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Goodbye-o de Mayo,
Josh Jones

P.S. Did I fail to amaze? Are you not a Mexican American? Then maybe
this newsletter wasn't quite your cup of agave and you'd like to unsub-
scribe-o de Mayo?

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

URL source: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/V10.04_April_2008

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