Automation Features of New Client Area

Posted on June 6, 2007 by admin

With the new client area brings something I have wanted for a long time – automation! In this post I will briefly outline the automated processed carried out automatically by the client area. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment – HostedFX will always listen.

Account Creation/Suspension/Termination
- New accounts will be automatically created, and the details emailed to you, after the first payment is due.
- Accounts will be automatically suspended after a payment is 2 days overdue.
- Suspended accounts will be automatically unsuspended the second an overdue invoice is paid.
- Accounts will be automatically terminated 90 days after the last payment was received.

Billing
- Invoices will be generated 7 days before the payment is sent.
- A reminder will be sent 1 day before the payment is due, if it has not been paid.
- An invoice ‘overdue message’ will be sent if payment reaches 1 day late.

That’s basically it. If you don’t agree with anything, please let me know :)

Posted in General Updates, Software | Leave a comment

[MUST-READ] It’s Good To See You

Posted on June 4, 2007 by admin

Well, what a 24 hours it has been.To be honest, I don’t know where to begin but I’ll give it my best try.

The Explanation
Firstly, we had a huge network attack where basically every dedicated server at our datacenter went down. This was the result of a DDOS attack on the datacenter’s network. We later found out that there was literally thousands of IP’s flooding the network and therefore clogging up apache, meaning that none of the sites on our server would load. The ironic thing about this is that our server has not been down once during the attacks – the load has been perfectly fine.

However, our apache was clogged due to the persistent connections which prevented other websites from loading on our server. I’d like to give a special thanks to one of our clients, Make, who was a fantastic aid in isolating and fixing the problem with the IP flooding.

As you all know, this is a first outage of this kind for HostedFX, and hopefully a last. This is a rare occurance for the datacenter, who have assured me that they will put in place measures to avoid future repeats of this incident. I can only thank you for your loyalty during this time as this is something that was out of our control.

The Reward
All of our packages have just recieved double the amount of bandwidth. Even though this incident was not under our influence, I can completely understand your frustration and therefore see this as ‘payback’, if you will. All accounts now have the following amounts of bandwidth, dependant upon your package:

- Bronze: 60GB  - Silver: 120GB – Gold: 180GB

Once again, I can only thank you for your loyalty and patience during this tough time. Now we look to push forward together, with many upgrades and additional features planned for HostedFX.

Kindest and warmest regards,
Gareth Hodson

Posted in Announcements, Issues | Leave a comment

[Notice] Backup Hard Drive Replaced

Posted on June 2, 2007 by admin

This is just a quick message to let you know that we have just finished having our backup hard drive replaced on Server 1. There were a few SMART errors on the previous backup drive causing problems and slow points on the server during our daily backups over the past 2 days. As you know, HostedFX is committed to providing the best service for you and your website and have acted fast and efficiently with the datacenter to organise a replacement.

The replacement of the drive took place earlier this evening and resulted in just 9 minutes of downtime. We thank you for your patience during this time.

Posted in General Updates | 3 Comments

Update Awstats…Anytime You Want To!

Posted on May 26, 2007 by admin

A few of our clients have recently requested the ability to update their awstats via their browser. Before, Awstats simply updated once every 24 hours. As an Awstats user myself, I can appreciate how frustrating (or is that my impatience?) this may seem.

I’m pleased to announce that all clients may now update their awstats – wherever they want, whenever they want to! To do this, simply login to your cPanel, navigate to Awstats and click ‘Update now’ at the top of the page. With one click of your mouse, you will be able to access up-to-the-second statistics for your website.

Once again, HostedFX listens to what our customers want, and delivers.

Posted in Software | Leave a comment

HostedFX Introduces PHP5!

Posted on May 23, 2007 by admin

We now have PHP4 and PHP5 on all of our servers. Both versions have been installed side by side (PHP5 was added after) and because of this in your cPanel you will only see PHP4.

In order to utilize PHP5 simply save all of your files using the extension .php5

If you wish to use solely PHP5 and not PHP4, instead of having to save your files using the extension, simply add the following line to your .htaccess

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php

And this way all of your files will default to PHP5.

===================================
PHP 4.4.6 (cli) (built: May 11 2007 16:47:19)
Copyright © 1997-2007 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v1.3.0, Copyright © 1998-2004 Zend Technologies
with the ionCube PHP Loader v3.1.24, Copyright © 2002-2006, by ionCube Ltd., and
with Zend Extension Manager v1.0.9, Copyright © 2003-2006, by Zend Technologies
with Zend Optimizer v2.6.2, Copyright © 1998-2006, by Zend Technologies

===================================
PHP 5.2.2 (cgi) (built: May 23 2007 17:30:43)
Copyright © 1997-2007 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright © 1998-2007 Zend Technologies
===================================

I hope you’re as happy about this as I am :)

Posted in Software | 5 Comments