Hey Guys, It’s been awhile since I have updated this blog, mainly because I have been so busy with getting new client’s setup on their hosting accounts. Things have really started to take off here at Hostwinds. We are shipping out 3 new server’s this week. We are adding a brand new Shared Server this week (this comes just 1-2 weeks after launching our new VPS nodes) This new shared server will take the load off of our current shared server, and allow for faster page load speeds for all.

Cpanel Partnership

We are almost at the point where we can become official Cpanel partners, I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing seeing as it means we are spending in excess of $300 a month of Cpanel Licenses. I guess I can see it as a good thing since it means we are going to be getting discounts on all our Licenses from now on! We are planning on custom coding a new area of the client area for our VPS client’s to be able to better manage their Cpanel licenses. We have recently upgraded our Client area to include the ability for our VPS client’s to fully manage their VPS right from their client area without ever having to login to their VPS Control Panel.

Windows Virtual Private Servers!

We have recently been exploring the option of offering Windows VPS services due to the high number of requests we have received lately for Windows VPS options. We are hoping to be able to offer this service within the next 1-2 months, we will keep all of you updated and informed with the latest information.

Client Area Changes

We have some pretty big changes coming to the Hostwinds client area in the coming weeks, and we wanted to update all of you with our “master plan”. We will be redoing the entire client area look and feel to make it feel much more like Hostwinds, and much less like every other web hosting company out there running our billing system. These changes are not going to happen overnight, however, we hope to have all of them implemented within the next month. We will also be unveiling our new monthly newsletter to keep all of your informed about the latest and greatest things we have planned to make your hosting better. We are not just redoing our client area either, we are also going to be revamping all of our default sign-up/setup emails to make them have a much more personal (Hostwinds) look and feel. This should help our new client’s navigate to the things they need most much easier.

Brand New Shared Server

We have been steadily growing, and we have finally outgrow our Shared1 shared server, we are rolling out a brand new shared server, and will be moving some account’s around in order to make everyone’s web hosting experience the fastest possible. This new shared server is an absolute monster, weighing in with Dual Quad Core Xeon Processors, 16 GB of Ram and 2x 1TB Hard Drives. It should be able to handle anything Hostwinds client’s decide to throw at it.

New Service Offerings

I have had a lot of requests for various products and services that are out there that hostwinds doesn’t currently offer, well we are wanting to change this. Over the next month Hostwinds plans to unveil several new types of SSL certificates, Over 10 new domain Extensions, More software licenses for VPS’s and Dedicated Servers, Server Management Services, Cpanel Licenses, Web Design Services, SEO Services, and a monthly website maintenance offering. As with all Hostwinds services you can expect these services to be top notch and come with the amazing support your have come to expect from your web hosting.

• Brand New Client Area
• Added Alert Pay as a payment Option
• Ruby on Rails Integration with cPanel
• Separate Server for Business Accounts
• 25+ Servers have been added since the last post
• 2 New Full Time Technicians Hired
• Anti-DDOS Soltuion Created
• Custom Private Load Balanced Cloud Solution Created
• New Live Support Software
• Advanced Server Security System Implemented
• Cloudflare Added to ALL Shared Servers

That is just a handful of the hundreds of changes that have been going on here at Hostwinds, we also have quite a few changes on the horizon, that we feel we should let everyone know about. These changes that will be happening in the next 60 days include:

As you can see we have a LOT on the horizon and we are excited to bring all of these new things to all of our Hostwinds client’s. We work every day to bring new things to our hosting that makes the hosting you receive the best available anywhere! I will be updating this blog more frequently as we want to do a better job of keeping our client’s informed as to what’s going on behind the scenes. We couldn’t do any of this without your loyal support, and so continue to recommend us to your friends. That is the biggest way anyway can say thanks to us is by referring their friend’s, or writing a review about your personal experiences about the company.

-Peter

I wanted to take the time, to wish each of you the best during the Holiday season. I know that many of you do not celebrate Christmas, but to us Christmas is a time for family, and we consider each and everyone of our client’s members of the Hostwinds family. It has been a great year for Hostwinds, growing from one server in January, to where we are now, pushing three fully loaded cabinets. We would not be where we are today without you guys. I know that you can get hosting from anywhere, so we I truly appreciate you chosing Hostwinds.

I had a vision when I first started this company, I wanted to create something different than everything else that was out there. I wanted to start a hosting company that was about true customer service and support, where our client’s feel not only heavily supported from a hosting perspective, but also feel they could count on their hosting company to help them with other problems that may arise with their websites, even the issues that are not related to their hosting. I want for our client’s to truly feel as though they are members of our community. We don’t just see our client’s as numbers and domains in the system, we try to get to know each and every one of you individually.

I hope that all of you feel as though you are apart of something special. We will continue to have the same core values no matter how large we grow as a company. We know that at the end of the day, it’s all about you, our client. I hope that all of you have a very happy holiday and we look forward to working with you all into the new year.

Sincerely,

Peter Holden
Hostwinds.com

Unlimited Web Hosting Company Hostwinds Gets 4 NEW SERVERS

I am sitting here at 1:00 AM on a Thursday morning getting the final software configuration done on these servers before I will be sending them out to the Data Center. In total I will be deploying 4 total servers. These servers will ease the load on our servers so as to allow for everyone’s websites to load faster! We take speed very seriously here at Hostwinds. Our unlimited web hosting client’s all know how fast their websites already load. This is just the beginning though, we are planning to have a total of 10 servers in deployment by the next of next month (We currently have 6 in Deployment). We are going to have dedicated Nameserver servers. This will add an extra layer of redundancy to you websites.  It should also increase load times having the DNS functions being routed over two servers.

With these big new deployments, comes big ambitious plans for Hostwinds and the future. The first major thing that I want to bring to Hostwinds is a redesigned billing/client area. I feel like the current area is hard to navigate and clumsy looking. I was your feedback on what you would like to see chagned in the new Client area/User Control Panel. If you e-mail peter(at)hostwinds.com. With your suggestions I will take them into account when doing the redesign.

Community Forums

I want to add forums for all of our members to talk on, and ask each other for help.  I really want to start forming the Hostwinds community, I talk to great people every day and I know that there are a lot of client’s who could help other client’s out. Remember people always work better in teams! I really want the theme of our community to be be Unlimited Web Hosting.

Hostwindians, as I am beginning to call the clients of Hostwinds.com who are getting the best unlimited web hosting on the internet. I have ANOTHER SURPRISE for you guys. We are launching more SERVERS!!! We are rolling out 2 more servers in the next 2 weeks to add to our already impressive LineUp! We will have a grand total of 8 Servers in Deployment after this latest launch. I have updated our Hostwinds Server Status Page to include all of the Servers we currently have in deployment. This next wave of servers is aimed toward our Virtual Private Server Hosting as well as our Unlimited hosting clients. This means that everyone is going to see some MAJOR speed increases on their websites. I have noticed that our Main Shared Server as well as our Main VPS server have been acting sluggish recently. This is probably due to the huge number of new orders we have seen. We are launching these other 2 new servers to take the load off of our Main VPS node as well as our Shared Server. These new servers make our old servers look like antiques! The new VPS Main Node Server has 4 cores, 16GB of RAM!!! (Talk about POWER!!!) The new Main Hostwinds Shared server has 8 Total Cores and 8 GB of RAM!!

Check out This picture!

Pretty soon we want to be filling up data centers like the one seen above.

This is a public service announcement for all clients hosting WordPress websites. If you use the plugin “TimThumb” which is used in many popular themese, you need to be aware that is has been fund to be  a very vulnerable exploit that will allow hackers to gain control of your WordPress installation.  If you are using the plugin TimThumb.php (or Thumb.php, as I am told it is also called) then you need to replace that file on your blog with the latest version of TimThumb located here (http://timthumb.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/timthumb.php). We have sent an email out to all shared hosting clients, in hopes that our clients catch this bug in time to help prevent any damage to their blogs.

Hey everyone just wanted to post a blog update letting you guys know about our new servers! We are actually launching 2 ultra powerful server’s today that will be the new homes for Hostwinds Shared Customer’s as well as our VPS Customer’s, there will be absolutely now downtime for you guys. Your websites will just start loading even faster than before! We take speed very seriously here at hostwinds, and we can’t wait for everyone to experience the new fast speeds these servers are going to bring to the business!

I see people talking about “word press web hosting”, so I figured I would make a post about it, and clear up a few questions and concern’s about it. The first thing I would like to say is Hostwinds 100% supports WordPress, and we even offer an automatic wordpress installer script. WordPress is one of the most popular blogging engines in the world. It has really gained a lot of ground in the past few years not only as being the basis for great blogs, but also serving as the framework for thousands of business websites around the world.

The thing many people do not understand about WordPress web hosting is that, well any hosting can be wordpress web hosting. It does not require anything out of the ordinary and 99% of shared web hosting providers support it. It has become such a staple product lately that web hosts that do not support would have to turn away the majority of their client’s if they chose not to. If you are looking for a good wordpress host, then there are a few things you should look for. The first being PHP support, wordpress runs on PHP so if the web host you are looking at does not support PHP, you should start looking elsewhere. The second thing you want to look for is a guaranteed uptime and reliability by the web host. I don’t know of anyone who wants to spend hours working on a blog, only to have it be available half the time. It is a good idea to make sure your web hosting provider has a good contact number so you can call in case of emergencies, most reputable web hosts out there have phone numbers you can call 24/7 if a problem occurs, if they don’t have a phone number…..run.

The above items should get you started in your search for a great wordpress web host, however if you found this blog….your search should already be over.

This is a big week for Hostwinds, launching our 9th server, we are working very hard to bring you the best possible hosting experience possible. This is why we are constantly expanding so that our servers never feel crowded. If you can tell there are other people on your server, then you need to find a new web host. This mission critical launch will be taking place over several days, to allow for extra time to ensure 0 downtime or data loss occurs for any of our customers. This newest server launch will complete our name server setup we have been moving towards for awhile. This will give us two full redundant name servers on separate physical servers.  This does mean for a lot of work over the next week, owever We firmly believe that our client’s are worth it, they deserve nothing but the best!

Well it seems like just last month I was finally starting Hostwinds V2′s initial server launch. Well actually it was about half a month ago. Hostwinds has done nothing but grow since that time. Our new much more powerful servers have given us the leg up over other web hosting providers. Our customer service is better, our servers are faster, and we are better than the rest. We have big dreams and goals for the company and we are glad you have chosen us as the host you want to grow with. We hope to one day be filling up server racks with speedy Hostwinds websites.

Maybe the above picture is a little much to hope for…..this year at least. We are on the right track though, we plan to have 2 more servers deployed in our Data center by the end of this month. This will bring our grand total number of servers to 4! We are growing very quickly and we are probably expanding faster than most hosts because we want our client’s websites to always be the fasters. Hostwinds does not tolerate slow page load speeds and neither should you! If you email support@hostwinds.com or open a ticket letting us know that you think your website is loading slow we will not only investigate the issue on our side, we will investigate your individual website for free and offer some pointers to speed it up.