06-30-2011, 07:25 PM
Hello there. I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents as VP of MacHighway. Firstly, Zoidberg, thanks for giving us a look and consideration. As a Matt Groening fan, you may be interested to know that all of our servers are named after Simpsons characters.
For the most part that's true. We run cPanel which is the world's most common (and supported) hosting platform. The servers run on Linux, which is mostly inconsequential on the user end, since you won't be interacting with the server's OS. What sets us apart is that if you browse around our site you will see that all of the software we reference are Mac titles. All of the support we offer is specifically written for people using Macs, the video tutorials are for people using Macs and we are Mac users ourselves. We know what software you are using, we also know what software to recommend to accomplish certain tasks. When you run into a problem, we know how to troubleshoot it rather than issuing the typical "it's because you're on a Mac" response that seems popular with other hosts.
That is correct. You may remember the days of the GHz gap where Apple was having to defend itself over claims that their hardware was slow because their processor speeds weren't upwards of 1 GHz. At some point, Apple quit trying to explain the truth of the matter and instead met the expectation of the shopper. The same is true here. There are *always* limits and the advertisement of unlimited can be justified but there's always the fine print. The truth is that for 99.99% of our customers, bandwidth limits will never be an issue. The customers' usage will never impede on the server's internal limits or infringe on the speed of any other customers' site. If you are in that .01 percentile, hopefully it means that your site is popular enough to be able to cash in on that traffic so that you can afford dedicated bandwidth. If not, it may be time to take down the DVD quality movie you've uploaded to your hosting server.
This will be true with any hosting environment, shared or otherwise.
I can't take anything away from Hostgator, nor would I want to. They do many things right.
That said, we regularly shop other hosts to see how we can improve our own services. Many of the biggest companies out there have very convoluted sign up processes that require you to decide whether or not you want to purchase ambiguous & misleading add-ons, sometimes at the expense of gathering crucial details regarding your hosting. One recent experience with a major player in the hosting industry took us all the way through the order and to receipt of payment 1. without asking what our domain name was, 2. without provisioning hosting (which was the service was ordered) and 3. without issuing a username and/or password (probably because they hadn't provisioned hosting.) A 20 minute phone call rectified these issues (hosting was provisioned within another 24 hours) and to this company's benefit, the representative was very courteous.
When you sign up with MacHighway, we will provision your hosting within 1 business day at the most. Most orders are activated within an hour. We do our best to make sure that we have the information needed to get your site up and running with ease.
We also offer a 30-day money back guarantee on our hosting services for new customers. If we're not meeting your needs as a web host, we will refund you in full for the hosting.
I hope this helps answer some of the questions and concerns posed in this thread. If I can be of any further help - I'm all ears (eyes).
clay wrote:
but when it comes to web hosting, there's really not much (anything?) that can be Mac-centric about it.
For the most part that's true. We run cPanel which is the world's most common (and supported) hosting platform. The servers run on Linux, which is mostly inconsequential on the user end, since you won't be interacting with the server's OS. What sets us apart is that if you browse around our site you will see that all of the software we reference are Mac titles. All of the support we offer is specifically written for people using Macs, the video tutorials are for people using Macs and we are Mac users ourselves. We know what software you are using, we also know what software to recommend to accomplish certain tasks. When you run into a problem, we know how to troubleshoot it rather than issuing the typical "it's because you're on a Mac" response that seems popular with other hosts.
wurm wrote:
And I generally shy away from hosts who offer "unlimited" anything. It's not realistic.
That is correct. You may remember the days of the GHz gap where Apple was having to defend itself over claims that their hardware was slow because their processor speeds weren't upwards of 1 GHz. At some point, Apple quit trying to explain the truth of the matter and instead met the expectation of the shopper. The same is true here. There are *always* limits and the advertisement of unlimited can be justified but there's always the fine print. The truth is that for 99.99% of our customers, bandwidth limits will never be an issue. The customers' usage will never impede on the server's internal limits or infringe on the speed of any other customers' site. If you are in that .01 percentile, hopefully it means that your site is popular enough to be able to cash in on that traffic so that you can afford dedicated bandwidth. If not, it may be time to take down the DVD quality movie you've uploaded to your hosting server.
This will be true with any hosting environment, shared or otherwise. clay wrote:
I'd personally recommend going with a bigger, more well-known host
I can't take anything away from Hostgator, nor would I want to. They do many things right.
That said, we regularly shop other hosts to see how we can improve our own services. Many of the biggest companies out there have very convoluted sign up processes that require you to decide whether or not you want to purchase ambiguous & misleading add-ons, sometimes at the expense of gathering crucial details regarding your hosting. One recent experience with a major player in the hosting industry took us all the way through the order and to receipt of payment 1. without asking what our domain name was, 2. without provisioning hosting (which was the service was ordered) and 3. without issuing a username and/or password (probably because they hadn't provisioned hosting.) A 20 minute phone call rectified these issues (hosting was provisioned within another 24 hours) and to this company's benefit, the representative was very courteous.
When you sign up with MacHighway, we will provision your hosting within 1 business day at the most. Most orders are activated within an hour. We do our best to make sure that we have the information needed to get your site up and running with ease.
We also offer a 30-day money back guarantee on our hosting services for new customers. If we're not meeting your needs as a web host, we will refund you in full for the hosting.
I hope this helps answer some of the questions and concerns posed in this thread. If I can be of any further help - I'm all ears (eyes).