Need a web designer

[Mynight]

Choose a new host. There's so many reviews of their craptitude out there. Pingdom and my own of show latency at > 150 which is pretty crap. A new host could probably make it a lot faster as well.

I thought gzip was built into Apache guess it could be turned off but why.

How much do you have to spend?

 

[Diddums]

Well I spoke to technical support and they told me that I don't have apache at all, I'm running on Linux with PHP 5.2. Is there a way I can check?

I'm definitely moving hosts, these guys are awful.

To spend? Well, it's all relative really. As much as is needed, within reason of course.

 

[Mynight]

Well I spoke to technical support and they told me that I don't have apache at all, I'm running on Linux with PHP 5.2. Is there a way I can check?

I'm definitely moving hosts, these guys are awful.

To spend? Well, it's all relative really. As much as is needed, within reason of course.

I'm not that clued up on server software but I thought you had to have something on top of Linux to make a webserver normally LAMP Linux, Apache, MYSQL, PHP. I guess there's also nginx and lighttpd (few others).

Edit: you're on nginx;

How busy are you? Page views?

Afaik

 

[Diddums]

Not much, it's only a small community driven forum atm but I'm hoping to expand it a bit, hence why I would like it running smoothly first.

I dunno. I'll continue bashing my head against this wall tomorrow, something must click eventually.

Thanks for the help

 

[antijoke]

Do you just have domain hosting with Fasthosts or do you rent your own server off them too?

 

[Diddums]

No, just domain hosting. It's only about £9 a month, but if I have to pay a bit more for a better host, then I'm game. I can't be bothered with this lot any more, they're tragically useless.

Now to find out how to do Gzip on Nginx....

 

[antijoke]

Go with Vidahost. It's who I use for my site (which has kind of reached a dead end since I started working lol) and they seem fantastic!

I know quite a few people on here use them as well.

 

[Mynight]

Damn that's actually quite expensive.

However I'm getting confused now.

Did you buy the domain from fasthosts or did you point it at their name server when you bought hosting separately?

Vidahost gets solid reviews from people here. I don't use them personally but have considered it.

 

[Diddums]

Cool, will do.

How hard is it to transfer everything over? Doable in a day?

Mynight > everything through them.

 

[Mynight]

Cool, will do.

How hard is it to transfer everything over? Doable in a day?

Mynight > everything through them.

Doable in an hour or two max. The only long part is waiting for DNS to propagate.

Erm I wonder if they're going to be a bitch about the domain name .

Was the domain sold "free with hosting"?

 

[antijoke]

There will be a section on the signup to transfer a domain to the new supplier.

 

[antijoke]

As Mynight says, it's going to be worth checking Vidahost how long the domain (if at all) is tied to them before you transfer it away.

And don't let them offer you special prices/deals/incentives to stay either.

 

[Diddums]

I won't, thanks for the heads up

I'll call Vida in the morning, see how this all pans out. I paid separately for the domain name so I can't see that being an issue.

The only thing is, if I'm running Nginx now and move to Apache, won't there be conflicts?


Sorry for all the questions, just want to make sure I've got all my ducks in a row before I make a mess of things!

 

[Mynight]

There shouldn't be as your site looks pretty simple I don't think there will be any conflicts as you're only using PHP and MySQL for the backend from what I can tell.

https://www.vidahost.com/page/transfer-to-vidahost

Looks like they'll cover it for you.

If you bought the domain separately there won't be any issues. They tend to lock down domains when they're included in offers for web hosting .


£9 a month well you'll save 2/3 of your money with vida .

 

[Diddums]

Cheers mynight, I'll get on to that this weekend, hopefully it all goes smoothly

 

[Mynight]

No worries. Anticonscience was more help as he offered to have a look . I just ran some tools and advised from there.

Erm quick note about your ads on the banner ones you need to increase the gap between them and content. Adsense gets very stroppy about placement and its best to stay off the radar completely. Only needs to be about 15px.

So top ad needs space on the bottom between it and the "site specific" area.
Bottom ads needs space above it.

 

[Diddums]

Never knew that, thanks!

I'll add it to my list of things to do / get done, no idea how I'd go about adding space but I'm sure it can't be that hard.

Mystical creature, Adsense. Still, it covers the hosting bill so I can't complain

 

[Mynight]

Never knew that, thanks!

I'll add it to my list of things to do / get done, no idea how I'd go about adding space but I'm sure it can't be that hard.

Mystical creature, Adsense. Still, it covers the hosting bill so I can't complain

Just alter div padding simple . Adsense is wonderful but it's a fickle beast step one foot out of line and you're done for life.

 

[Th3M8dH8tt3r]

Give me a call. 07889 882850. There's no need to transfer domain and it can take a bit of time for the domain to be released once you've authorised it etc. Can shift the site to a new host in 10 - 15 minutes + time to download and upload files.

If you wanted, can have a look at the site in general and advise on where performance improvements can be made.

 

[Diddums]

Ok just to update this.

First off thanks for all your help and advice, I couldn't have done it without you (seriously, I couldn't have)!

I got rid of Fasthosts and am now with Vidahosts as recommended here. I'd just like to say that their service is beyond excellent. A chap named bruce Taylor has been helping me sort things out as the site went terribly wonky during the move and he has been nothing short of brilliant.

I feel a bit bad for asking so much of these guys but they seemed glad to help so will be getting my recommendation all the time from now on. This level of service for less than a fiver a month is astonishing.

Well done Vidahosts, you guys are exellent!