DRS Website Hosting / Introduction - "Hello World!" - Developers

[B]Billing Update: [/B] We've disabled our prorated billing structure, as some of you have been reporting incorrect invoice amounts and negative balances. - Ty H.

Well, here's a somewhat funny story for you guys. :) Today, while connecting to our main server via SSH, I realized that, after five attempts, I was entering the correct password on the wrong administrative account. The end result? A perma-ban of my IP address. Thankfully another staffer was online at the time, and removed the block from my administrative account. You see, we don't whitelist IPs, as if a whitelisted computer gets compromised, it could become a major security risk. Anyways, figured I'd share this with you guys. We try not to hold any information back from you, even the super embarrassing stuff. (like getting banned from your own system) Oh, and I apologize for the lack of news lately. We've been running a small ad campaign on Google, as well as a few smaller forum websites and communities. So, most of my time has been going towards maintaining the campaign. We'll run a few Facepunch exclusive discounts soon, in addition to the current 50faces code found on the original post. - Ty H.

Glad to see you're back :)

[B]First Come, First Serve Promotions[/B] Within the next couple of hours, we will be hosting an onslaught of high-value coupon codes. However, these codes can only be used a single time, so you will have to act fast. Stay tuned for more, and be sure to follow us on [URL="https://twitter.com/DeRoyalServers"]Twitter[/URL]. - Ty H. [I](note: only twenty codes will be available, and these codes will not be of equal value. The first five codes will contain the largest discounts, while every code after the first five will be of a random amount. A new code will be generated after the last one has been used)[/I]

We will update this post once a new coupon has been unlocked. [B]First Coupon - 3for12[/B] [I](can be used a total of 5 times)[/I] This coupon will recur every month for twelve months, saving you a total of [B]$44.64[/B]. Direct Link to Cart - [url]http://www.deroyalservers.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=17[/url] This post will update again once the above coupon has been used five times. - Ty H.

[B]UlarHost & DeRoyalServers[/B] UlarHost is an upcoming website hosting provider that'll specialize in 'limited' hosting services, rather than 'Unlimited'. The creation of this new provider does not affect DeRoyalServers in any way, and both DRS and UlarHost are essentially the same thing. UlarHost is simply our answer to the various forum-based websites on the internet that do not allow unlimited providers like DRS to post onto their boards. UlarHost will operate on a pay-as-you-go pricing structure, much like DRS. However, UlarHost will also offer support for longer prepaid payment terms, including annual and semi-annual payments. [I](some of our current clients have been requesting this feature, but because of our heavy use of no-contract promo/marketing, DRS is unable to offer prepaid options)[/I] UlarHost is a branded term, essentially representing our parent company; Sidular Interactive. If you want to learn more about UlarHost, please follow @[URL="https://twitter.com/UlarHost"]UlarHost[/URL] on Twitter. We won't be posting UlarHost related announcements on our Facepunch thread. [B]In regards to DeRoyalServers,[/B] we are no longer providing support-related services for the domain names sold through DeRoyalServers, and will limit domain name registration to only appear as an option during the actual checkout process, rather than having domains appear on their own separate page. Quite simply, we do not and never will specialize in domain name registration services, and would much prefer to focus entirely on enhancing our own hosting network. You see, we resell our domains through a domain name reseller, which requires us to actively maintain our reseller account with a positive credit balance. Having to ensure that we have an active balance limits our ability to simply maintain the services themselves, as we'd have to log into a third-party control panel to manually check our balance, and to manually add more funding as to cover future domain registrations. That's just a task we would rather not have to do. So, for all of our future clients, we strongly urge you to register your domain name at another registrar. You are always welcome to register with DRS, just remember, we do not provide support for domain registrations. You would be on your own. - Ty H.

Well reading that, sorry for putting you through the trouble with my two domains before.

[QUOTE=FrankPetrov;40489910]Well reading that, sorry for putting you through the trouble with my two domains before.[/QUOTE] Hey, no need to apologize. It was a learning experience. :) We're more than able to provide the same level of support to both of our domain and hosting customers. It's really just a preference of ours to stick with what we know best, and quite honestly, domain name management is an alien operation to us. (aside from the basics, of course) We pride ourselves on being able to offer professional and responsive support services, but when we're reselling through a third party, we must rely on their response times to get a resolution. Sadly, ResellerClub isn't the speediest of services. (I personally sat idle in a 'live' chat for an hour, and received no response) When DeRoyalServers has live support listed as being online, it means we truly are 'online' and will reply almost instantly. It also means that we'll be able to dedicate hours upon hours with a single client until his/her problem has been resolved. (longest live support session we've had so-far lasted just under five hours. FrankPetrov, didn't we have a three hour session together?) Just to clarify, we will not discontinue domain name registration entirely, and all domains that have previously been registered will continue to function and renew properly. We will simply hide our main 'domains' page from our site-side navigation, as well as from our footer. - Ty H.

[QUOTE=DRServices;40490391]We're more than able to provide the same level of support to both of our domain and hosting customers. It's really just a preference of ours to stick with what we know best, and quite honestly, domain name management is an alien operation to us. (aside from the basics, of course)[/QUOTE] If you need help with DNS or hosting it, let me know by PM. Props for focusing on what you know best, too many hosting companies try to do it all at once without necessarily being able to.

[QUOTE=gparent;40490611]If you need help with DNS or hosting it, let me know by PM. Props for focusing on what you know best, too many hosting companies try to do it all at once without necessarily being able to.[/QUOTE] [URL="http://1and1.com"]All at once[/URL], huh? I've had one too many horror stories with them, even had them threaten to take me to court. (collection agency and supposed 'terms of use' violation on an account that literally only had a single .php document, index.php) ResellerClub handles virtually everything domain-related, including DNS management. (we simply forward the DNS request through their API) That's why we'd rather not offer support for their domains, as aside from DNS and general forwarding and redirection settings, everything else must be handled through the ResellerClub control panel. If it's something complicated, like the failure to transfer a domain, we'd have to dig around the RC control panel for a solution, and if one cannot be found, we'd have to wait an hour or more for their support to actually get back to us with troubleshooting instructions, which we must then troubleshoot, and eventually get back to our client with a solution. It ends up becoming an unnecessary waste of time for both us and our clients. - Ty H.

[B]New Datacenter[/B] Our current datacenter of choice is no longer offering us the same discounts for their already quite inexpensive services, so we may be ordering new dedicated servers at another center, most likely 100tb.com. If anyone is looking for a wonderful datacenter to host your own operations at, we strongly recommend Joe's Datacenter LLC. We've been hosting at Joe's for years now, and have had absolutely no complaints. They offer fantastic unmanaged services at very inexpensive prices. (unmetered 100MB port for just $50 extra, and 1 Gbps port coming standard on all colocation servers) The servers that they provide are fairly low-powered, but for the price, you truly cannot beat Joe's. (dedi rental starting at $35) [url]http://joesdatacenter.com/[/url] As for 100tb.com? We'll likely order a few servers over there once the one we have at Joe's has been used up. This isn't exactly news-worthy, as we're simply announcing our eventual support of a new datacenter. However, I figured it wouldn't hurt to keep you guys in the loop. - Ty H.

[B]Starter Plan - Officially Live[/B] The DeRoyalServers Starter Plan (also known as Starter Hosting) is now available to the general public. We've also made some modifications to the plan. Updates are in [B]bold.[/B] Name - Starter Disk Space - [B]2[/B] GB [I](was 1 GB)[/I] Bandwidth - 60 GB Databases - Unlimited Subdomains - Unlimited Parked Domains - Unlimited Addon Domains - Unlimited FTP Accounts - Unlimited Email Accounts - Unlimited Price - $[B]10.00[/B] per year [I](was $7.50)[/I] [B]Why the price increase?[/B] Quite simply, we want more money. :dance: Realistically, it's because the previous price of $7.50 would result in a rather severe loss of profit. The server costs alone would result in a monthly loss of over $100, and that's assuming we somehow managed to get a minimum of 300 customers hosting with us. If we don't reach 300, the loss would be much, much higher. That's why we've decided to raise the price to match that of our competition, while also increasing the amount of disk space available to again match the competition. (competition, in this case, is Lithium Hosting) [B]So, why make it live?[/B] No one was biting back when this plan was available via a direct link. The goal is to increase general sales, and possibly secure a few hugs along the way for being super awesome and inexpensive. :) The Starter Plan has been added to our site-wide navigation bar. Here's a direct-link - [url]http://www.deroyalservers.com/starter.php[/url] - Ty H.

Might want to update the page you've linked, then [img]http://comentarinformal.info/images/2013-05-03_16-04-52.png[/img]

[QUOTE=Coment;40514030]Might want to update the page you've linked, then [img]http://comentarinformal.info/images/2013-05-03_16-04-52.png[/img][/QUOTE] Thanks, the page has been updated to display 2 GB instead of 1. Also, I've updated the original post (this thread) with updated plan information. The format of the post has also been changed. Please let me know what you guys think of the OP update. Is it too basic? - Ty H.

[QUOTE=DRServices;40513691][B]Starter Plan - Officially Live[/B] The DeRoyalServers Starter Plan (also known as Starter Hosting) is now available to the general public. We've also made some modifications to the plan. Updates are in [B]bold.[/B] Name - Starter Disk Space - [B]2[/B] GB [I](was 1 GB)[/I] Bandwidth - 60 GB Databases - Unlimited Subdomains - Unlimited Parked Domains - Unlimited Addon Domains - Unlimited FTP Accounts - Unlimited Email Accounts - Unlimited Price - $[B]10.00[/B] per year [I](was $7.50)[/I][/QUOTE] Is it just $10 for the first year or is it for every year from here till 404?

[QUOTE=P1raten;40514551]Is it just $10 for the first year or is it for every year from here till 404?[/QUOTE] It'll just keep going on until you either cancel, or upgrade to the Jester's plan. (unlimited) - Ty H.

Just wanted to post a minor update; when signing up for the Starter Plan, you will have the option to automatically install either WordPress or Drupal to your account. No additional interfaces are needed. Simply select your script, and get going right away. We will also add support for more scripts in the future, including phpBB forums We hope this makes hosting more accessible, even for those who have absolutely no experience with website hosting services. - Ty H.

3 months and nothing negative to say about this service.

[QUOTE=Worre;40516526]3 months and nothing negative to say about this service.[/QUOTE] Thanks for the kind words, Worre. :) (or more specifically, the lack of any negative ones.:smile:) - Ty H.

[B]DeRoyalServers - Benefits:[/B] [I]The Long-Overdue Rundown of Awesomeness[/I] We realize that we've been scattering information about our operations everywhere on this thread, but none of this info has been properly expressed in great detail. So, this entire post will be used to properly describe our website hosting platform, as well as the benefits DRS provides. Our motives, objectives, goals and mindset will all be explained within this single post. [B]Platform[/B] We strongly believe that a website hosting provider should provide [I]websites[/I], and specialize in doing so. Providers such as HostGator, GoDaddy and 1and1 are prime examples of what we would consider to be [I]hosting providers[/I]. Basically, we consider a website hosting provider to be more of a corporate entity than an actual provider of services, as they tend to approach all aspects of their business as a commercial product, rather than as a consumer service. Essentially, they're in the biz to make money, and will provide services upon services of additional add-ons and charges just so they can make an extra dollar. A website hosting platform, on the other hand, operates solely to provide a valuable service to those that require it, and does so at a price that allows for the provider to properly expand without increasing the price of the service itself. A platform does not artificially limit the amount of resources a website is capable of using, nor does it charge you extra for services that the provider can literally enable within their control panel. (such as unlimited email accounts or databases) Quite simply, a platform is an honest provider that exists solely to provide services that others may find useful, and to earn enough revenue to continue the operation of these services. [B]No Resource Restrictions[/B] We've been throwing this around quite a bit lately, both on our website itself as well as on these forums. DeRoyalServers does not limit the amount of RAM, CPU or Hard Disk Space that any single website or account is capable of using, nor will we kick a website off of our network if they use more than we can properly provide them.[I] (remember, 'unlimited' is just a marketing term. We are still limited by our available hardware)[/I] When we encounter resource demanding websites, rather than kick them off of our network entirely, we'll migrate their website over to a more powerful dedicated server. If the website still requires more than a single shared server can provide, we will freely dedicate an entire high-powered server entirely for their usage, essentially turning their shared hosting account into a powerful dedicated server without any kind of additional fees. (root access is unavailable, but can be enabled on request) As a traditional business, offering such a service would result in a major loss of profit. However, for us, we simply need enough to maintain our services, and expand when needed. Basically, if we earn $5,000 and give away $1,000 in free servers, that's still $4,000 in profit. We don't consider that to be a loss of any kind. [B]Goals[/B] We're an optimistic bunch, and our blinding optimism has generated some rather unbelievable goals. DeRoyalServers is intended to be a small piece to an overall much larger puzzle, one that is both simplistic and complicated in nature. We wish to create a service that actually focuses on honesty and customer satisfaction. We'll do everything in our power to ensure that we never receive a single negative review, as negativity implies failure on our part to provide a valuable service. This form of failure is simply unacceptable. So, you could say that our goal is to create a sort of world peace... at least, a peace within our world of services. :P --- [B]TL;DR [/B] DeRoyalServers provides a platform that is honest, open and friendly. [I](how's that for a super short version, huh? Seriously, if you skipped to this part of the post, go back up and read the entire thing. Don't be lazy)[/I] If there's any questions or uncertainties you have with our platform, please let me know. - Ty H.

It's been getting a bit awkward every time you use the signature. I joined fp because it had no signature and you're forcing yourself to add a signature. it would be awesome if you can stop.

[QUOTE=jung3o;40552209]It's been getting a bit awkward every time you use the signature. I joined fp because it had no signature and you're forcing yourself to add a signature. it would be awesome if you can stop.[/QUOTE] Heh, alright then. I mostly added in a signature because there was a chance that more than one person would use this account to post updates, and I wanted people to understand who was posting. Doesn't look like that'll happen now, though.

[B]Live Support Changes[/B] Apologies for not updating you guys on this sooner. We will be migrating away from our current live support platform (Zopim) and switching over to the internal WHMCS system, which should provide us with more long-term benefits at a much lower cost. We've been planning this move for about a week now, but have only recently decided to go with WHMCS's internal solution. So, I couldn't announce anything until today. We will continue to use Zopim for about two more weeks, but will not be as active as we once were. If you need to contact us, and if we're not online, please instead submit a support ticket from your client area. We have multiple agents on standby at all hours of the day, so ticketing is the preferred method of communication. (Zopim only allows a single agent) Best of luck; - Ty H. [I](I'm a rebel, and my signature is an act of defiance) [/I]

I'm not a customer and probably won't be (nothing against you or your company, I run all of my stuff on VPSs and NGINX), but I just wanted to say that it's nice to see a company who actually continuously participates in communities :)

[QUOTE=Banana Lord.;40620219]I'm not a customer and probably won't be (nothing against you or your company, I run all of my stuff on VPSs and NGINX), but I just wanted to say that it's nice to see a company who actually continuously participates in communities :)[/QUOTE] Thanks for the kind words of appreciation, Banana Lord! It's always a pleasure to be able to update you guys on our latest happenings. The more ways we can communicate, the easier it is to ensure that everyone is always updated on our operations. (Twitter only goes so far) Also, to help ensure that jung3o doesn't murder my family and steal my marbles, I won't include a sig this time around... besides, you know who's posting. :)

[B]Updated Unlimited Policies + Custom Plans[/B] We've updated our unlimited hosting policies, and made this information more publicly visible on our website. Please note that we've yet to update the rest of our site with updated unlimited terms and policies, so the information provided in our Terms Of Service is currently outdated. (will update post when we've updated the terms site-wide) Additionally, you are now able to order a custom hosting plan tailored specifically to meet your required space and bandwidth. This is mostly intended to be an alternative to our unlimited hosting plan, as some people have a problem dealing with providers that offer 'unlimited' services. [url]http://www.deroyalservers.com/knowledgebase.php?action=displayarticle&id=18[/url] If you have any questions about our policies, or would like for us to give you a free doughnut, please reply back.* - That Guy (aka Ty) *While Supplies Last - No Doughnuts Are Currently In Stock.

[QUOTE=DRServices;40644916][B]Updated Unlimited Policies + Custom Plans[/B] We've updated our unlimited hosting policies, and made this information more publicly visible on our website. Please note that we've yet to update the rest of our site with updated unlimited terms and policies, so the information provided in our Terms Of Service is currently outdated. (will update post when we've updated the terms site-wide) Additionally, you are now able to order a custom hosting plan tailored specifically to meet your required space and bandwidth. This is mostly intended to be an alternative to our unlimited hosting plan, as some people have a problem dealing with providers that offer 'unlimited' services. [url]http://www.deroyalservers.com/knowledgebase.php?action=displayarticle&id=18[/url] If you have any questions about our policies, or would like for us to give you a free doughnut, please reply back.* - That Guy (aka Ty) *While Supplies Last - No Doughnuts Are Currently In Stock.[/QUOTE] You would be ok with somebody using a full dedicated server to themselves?

[QUOTE=ReThinkVPS;40650332]You would be ok with somebody using a full dedicated server to themselves?[/QUOTE] I'll kindly direct you to [URL="http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1216736&p=40544979&viewfull=1#post40544979"]this[/URL] post, look under the bold words of *No resource restriction*.

[QUOTE=eternalflamez;40650804]I'll kindly direct you to [URL="http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1216736&p=40544979&viewfull=1#post40544979"]this[/URL] post, look under the bold words of *No resource restriction*.[/QUOTE] Yes I read that I just wanted to double check that they will upgrade you to a dedicated server at the price of normal webhosting.

[QUOTE=ReThinkVPS;40650332]You would be ok with somebody using a full dedicated server to themselves?[/QUOTE] That is correct. If your website requires more resources than our current shared setup can provide, we will freely migrate you over to a more powerful dedicated server with fewer shared accounts. If that server still is unable to provide you with a reliable service, we'll reserve a dedicated server exclusively for your use, essentially giving you dedicated power at a shared hosting price. Please be aware that, although we will transfer your site over for free, transfers themselves may cause a short amount of downtime between migration. We also try to make sure that website transfers between servers only take place if they are in fact required. So, a transfer cannot be done on request. If you have further questions, please reply back. :)