RyanKearney.com Will Be Shutting Down
Over the past 21 months or so I have provided multiple types of web hosting to individuals, most of which I reached out to on Reddit. In that time I’ve hosted quite a bit of sites from numerous amounts of people. Today I must unfortunately announce the ending of my hosting services due to the time I must invest in my new career and home relocation. Fear not, however, your information is safe, and your hosting will remain active until December 31st, 2011 at which point I will be taking the server offline. I will provide assistance in backing up all of your data including any email and databases you have, as well as provide personal assistance in migrating all of your data to a new web host. Please open a ticket in the client area or contact me at support at ryankearney.com with any questions or concerns you may have.
In an effort to help in your transition to a new host, I am offering promo codes to use with HostGator, the host I will be moving my site to. Read below for more information on getting a discount on a new hosting account.
FAQ
You Suck
Yes, I realize how this may be an inconvenience for you, however I will provide you all the assistance you need in migrating to a new web host. If you pick another web host that uses cPanel (which most do), there’s virtually nothing you have to do to transfer your data.
Seriously I signed up like yesterday and now this?
I understand the notice was short, and I’m posting this as soon as I discovered I will no longer be able to support the server with my new responsibilities.
Give me back my money
Everyone will be refunded their most recent months payment upon request. I say upon request because it will be easier for me to manage refunds that way since PayPal does’t really give me any easy way to issue batch refunds to everyone, at least not that I know of. If you are paying yearly you will be refunded for the months you haven’t received, rounded up. For example, you bought 1 year of hosting 1.5 months ago. This means you have 10.5 months of hosting left, rounded up to 11 months, multiplied by the price per month ($6.95) and then subtracted from the annual price ($69.50). This comes to $76.45 which means you will be refunded the full $69.50. The rounding up should cover any PayPal fees in the transaction.
What’s going to happen to my email?
If your email is hosted on my server, I will do my absolute best to make sure you experience zero downtime in emails. The first step would be to secure another email server (Google offers this amazing service for free), then change your email servers to point to the new one. After the switch is made we can then transfer all of your email over to the new server if it supports it (Google does).
What about the domain name I purchased?
All domain names will still be able to be managed. This includes your ability to change assigned name servers and modify WHOIS data. I will provide everyone who has a domain name registered through me with a link they can use to manage their domain name once I take the server offline.
Where will I go?
I highly recommend HostGator (Note that this is an affiliate link, don’t click it if you’re mad at me and don’t feel like helping me out). Having used HostGator for years before I went out on my own, I can attest that they have both amazing prices as well as support. I can provide you with two coupon codes to use.
RYANKEARNEY25
Using RYANKEARNEY25 when selecting your desired shared package will give you 25% off of your first invoice.
RYANKEARNEY994
Using RYANKEARNEY994 will get you $9.94 off of your first invoice. This means you can end up getting your first month worth of hosting for $0.01 if you go with their “Hatchling” or “Baby” plans.
HostGator also uses cPanel which means you won’t have to learn a new management interface to make changes to your website.
What happens if I can’t move by December 31st?
Anyone who has yet to move off of the server by December 31st will have their entire account backed up and stored remotely so it will still be available to them upon request. A cPanel backup can be very easily restored to any cPanel host. All of your email, files, databases, accounts, and other information will be saved in this backup.
LastPass vs 1Password Part 2 of 3 – LastPass
Unlike 1Password, LastPass is SaaS or Software as a Service. Instead of being stored on your computer, your passwords are stored with LastPass in an encrypted form. This certainly has its advantages and perhaps disadvantages depending on how you feel about it. There are multiple ways to access your LastPass vault. The most common method would be to use your in-browser extension to access your LastPass vault.
How to: Quickly reach your 32GB bonus space for Dropbox for next to nothing.
Dropbox offers 2GB of online storage completely free. The free plans have a referral limit of 8GB resulting in a maximum of 10GB of free storage plus 250MB if you complete the getting started steps. If you convert to a paid plan (starting at $9.99 a month) then the amount of extra space you can get from referrals doubles to 16GB. In addition, instead of receiving 250MB per referred user, you gain 512MB. The increased bonus is retroactive so your bonus space will double once you make the switch.
Free & Better Alternatives To MobileMe
MobileMe is Apple’s attempt to help users keep their data in sync. However, there is one problem with MobileMe: It costs $99 a year. While many users may be able to justify spending $99 a year to keep their data synced between their devices, others may find it outrageous and, as it turns out, there are free alternatives.
LastPass vs 1Password Part 1 of 3 – 1Password
This is the question that has been plaguing me for quite some time: LastPass vs 1Password. Two very similar applications with two very different methods of execution. They both have their strengths as well as their weaknesses. Before I begin, a brief summary on these two great applications.
Ubisoft DRM Authentication Servers Go Down
You can view the Ubisoft forum rage here.
I’m sure we all saw this coming. It seems as if Unisoft’s DRM authentication servers have gone down. What’s this mean? For the past 16 hours, users who legitimately purchased Assassins Creed 2 are unable to play the game, at all. Needless to say this has angered many Assassins Creed 2 owners. When Ubisoft’s new DRM system was announced, this was one of the top concerns with it. Assassins Creed 2 has been out for no longer than a week and is already having severe issues. With an 86% uptime, Ubisoft’s DRM servers have the lowest uptime percentage of any server I’ve ever seen. Ubisoft is learning first hand why people pirate their games, especially games with excessive methods of copy protection. More…