This is a momentous occasion. Not only is it the first ever March 2007
DreamHost Newsletter, I also happened to notice this is newsletter #100!
Assuming you do computer science-style and count the first newsletter as
#0. Which I do as a computer scientist, not as a person who didn't check
into this in February 2007.
To celebrate this amazing milestone, I thought maybe I'd do something
special this month. I thought maybe, just maybe, it's time for a change!
Just as the first 100 newsletters were marked by an uncharacteristic
level of immaturity and offensiveness, broken up only rarely by small
bouts of 2nd-grade humor; the NEXT 100 newsletters shall be renowned for
their political correctness, stuffiness, and complete absence of any
compelling reason to read it.
Then we'll switch back!
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1. 101 Points of Panel.
Now, the first action item for this new era. To celebrate this 101st
newsletter and the accompanying flip-flop of newsletter style, we have
formed a committee to study the feasibility of including a list of the
101 new features we added to the web panel this month.
The committee deliberated for the entire month, and finally, just
moments ago, came to their final decision.
No.
Instead, they have decided, the newsletter shall include only the bottom
19 new web panel features, as they are judged least likely to offend,
confuse, or entertain.
And they are, in order.
#18. Bigger Fonts across the new panel re-design.
#17. More contrast in the colors across the new panel re-design.
#16. All the actions in tables have descriptive text again.
#15. The local time (U.S. Pacific) is included on each panel page.
#14. It is also included on DreamHostStatus.com
#13. DreamHostStatus.com posts have severity and resolved statuses.
#12. Your custom webmail logo also appears on failed logins.
#11. Webmail has a purge link next to your junk mail folder.
#10. Webmail shows what email address you are logged in as.
#09. Webmail once again supports Japanese.
#08. Announcement Lists will be paginated if you have lots of them.
#07. You can review and edit pending Announcement List messages.
#06. You can see pending Domain Registration requests.
#05. There is a link to Lock/Unlock all your registrations at once.
#04. You can hide failed incoming domain registration transfers.
#03. Subdomains are under their domain in the Bandwidth Usage area.
#02. You can keyword filter your email on the "Reply-To:" header.
#01. You can set your recipient to user#domain.com for FormMail.
#00. Disk usage is no longer listed in MB anywhere on the panel.
If you would like to find the other 82 new features we failed to mention
here for fear of causing undue hubbub, they should be pretty obvious at:
From this lofty new perch atop the pedestal of calm and righteousness,
it is sometimes hard to imagine there are web hosts and registrars still
left in the world who would stoop so low as to provide years of free
registrations in a shallow attempt to gain market share.. only to then
no longer have the resources or, dare I say, the _integrity_ to provide
the service they have promised.
It is through such reckless business practices and blatant disregard
for the well-being of their customers that RegisterFly finds themselves
about to lose their ICANN accreditation... tomorrow:
Again, I just cannot BELIEVE some hosts would stoop so low as to provide
free services just to trap unwitting consumers into their inevitable
death spiral.
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3. The Most Popular Suggestion of the Last Two Months.
In order to rise above the rabble, one must differentiate and in a way,
segregate themselves from them. Only then can they attain true peace and
order in this turbulent Indian Ocean we call life.
It should really come as no surprise then that the most popular
suggestion of the last two months, as voted on here by you, Happy
DreamHost Huddled Masses:
https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.sugg
Is the one "Keep sites with adult content on different servers from the
rest.".. by almost a 3 to 1 margin over the second place suggestion.
Now, we've never been one to infringe on the First Amendment, nor have
we particularly interested in proactively policing our customer's
content. And we don't know if the popularity of this suggestion is out
of a desire to keep one's own shared-hosting site far away from busy
sites which may be taxing the load, or a worry of contracting some rare
form of digital herpes by sharing a host.
We're going to assume it's the former. And so, we did a little audit and
found that possibly isolating as few as 0.1% of our sites to their own
servers could dramatically reduce the load for the other 99.9% sites.
Literally; the ratio is actually 999 to 1.
Especially after the little network incident we had on Wednesday night:
we've decided a separation of some sort would be in the overwhelming
best interest of the Happy DreamHost Customer community as a whole.
We have already developed a system to start pinpointing sites with the
potential to be isolated, and in the next few weeks will further refine
the process to best attempt keep everybody's sites happy and healthy in
their own little hosting neighborhoods!
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4. New Charities!
As a respected member of the Web Hosting newsletter community (we hold a
position on the board), it is important to set a good example for the
other newsletters.
Which is why, we always offer two charities up at:
https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.charity
for customers to donate to via their hosting bill. Being such godfathers,
we then _match_ all donations made. In fact, for the last three months
we raised $689.19 from 27 contributors for MIT's OpenCourseWare project,
and then matched it, as well as $2159.45 from 48 contributors towards
SafeDarfur.org, which yeah, we'll probably match too.
Now, it's too late to Save Darfur for you, but you can still go and
donate towards the two new charities we have available:
http://www.camplaurel.org/
and
http://www.roomtoread.org/
The first "empowers children, youth, and families affected by HIV and
AIDS" and the second "attempts to help rural children in developing
countries by providing books, libraries, and computer labs."
When you're such a community leader like us, you really have no choice
but to think of the children.
Just as a new era in newsletters dawned today, so apparently dawned a
new era in DreamHost Site of the Month winners. Gone are the flashy
portfolio sites and media streamers of yester-month. Here to stay are
such winners as:
http://www.masonryspecialistsinc.com/
Can there really be a more solid site on which to build the foundation
of all future DHSOTM winners, than this one, a Masonry website? I don't
believe it could be so. If you've got a similarly stoic, serious, and
sturdy site to submit, the future beckons you at:
https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.dhsotm
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Respectfully Yours,
Josh Jones
P.S. Can't handle the maturity and serenity exhibited this month and
every month up through June 2015? You may unsubscribe by adjusting your
contact preferences here:
