We live in an amazing country. Regardless of your political persuasions its not hard to recognize that the freedoms, choice, and opportunities that everyone in this country enjoys are possible because of  the work and sacrifice of the armed forces, and government servants who support them.

Memorial day, even though its a holiday for most people, ought to remind us of the women and men that have worked both in the armed forces and government to build a better and more perfect union. So while our $50.00 off any one server offer is certainly exercising our right and freedom to do business in any way we can- it should most certainly remind you that your ability to buy from this company is in no small part due to the great country, government, and armed forces that have established and kept this country together.

As a side-note, our sales department will be closed on Sunday and Monday, however, as you well know Technical Support is available 24/7/365 and always ready to help you.

Offer details- $50.00 off any server for the first month. 1 server limit per customer. Available for new and existing customers. Offer expires Tuesday June 2nd at 10PM.

DEAR GOD:  Why???  Why was the show LOST ever created?

I have been asking myself this question from the moment the two and half hour series finally ended this past Sunday night.  Six years, six long and frustrating years I watched the ABC series LOST wondering what in the world was going on. Yet now that it ended I am sadly disappointed with a conclusion that has remnants of complete nonsense, and proves that is was all a total and epic fail.  Congrats producers and creators of Lost, you just completed a series that was a twisted collaboration of Gilligans Island, Quantem LEAP, and The Others.  WOW.

Now as popular as the show is I could not help but think that the painful process of watching Lost week after week, reminded me terribly of performing a Tape backup restoration.  Both of which take forever to carry out and have a time line system that resembles something of Dr. Sam Beckett trying to make the final LEAP “HOME” (home being the end goal of course).  Whatever the case I know now that I can totally live without LOST and Tape Backups and hope you can as well.  Luckily I have a solution to all of this madness, a philosophy if you will, that is known as R1Soft.

Yes I know you are probably puzzled as how I can equate the amazing backups feature R1 Soft as an answer to the LOST dilemma at hand (I waited six years to figure out what was going on in the show, so just give me two more paragraphs to finish).

R1 Soft is an amazing backup feature that unlike the show LOST and Tape backups, you don’t have to randomly jump through random increments of information (data) to get to a specific endpoint.  As I mentioned before Tape backups often times are messy in performing data restoration as they take forever and may have numerous failures while performing, kind of how people were randomly dyeing on the show only to come back in the story line later in the season.  The best you can do in a Tape backup restoration, as I did with the TV show Lost, is let it run as it plays out its course and pray to God that it will make logical sense in the end.

R1 Soft though has the fantastic feature and benefit of restoring your data completely by one click of a button.  This type of data delivery is based on the fact that R1Soft images your hard drive completely based on the partition scheme and backs it up with all of your data’s unique configurations.  R1 Soft delivers a clean and concise time line of data/information to you.  Now what was so hard about LOST doing this for me and tv viewers world over?  V has done it!!!  We kind of know why the aliens are here.  So my suggestions to all disappointed LOST viewers and Tape backup users, don’t let epic FAIL happen to you.  Get with the times and the R1 Soft methodology, because without it you will be ultimately LOST.

Is the dedicated server market in a price war?  The market has been rife with low, low offers on cheap dedicated servers, including some as low as $30/month.  But the revolutionary pricing raises more than a few questions:  are the offers legitimate?  Is the savings worth it in the long run?

Choosing your dedicated server provider should be a more thorough and holistic process, based on price as well as other important elements that will direct your relationships with your webhost.  To help in that process, consider these other important factors before you risk your website, cluster hosting solution, and/or your company on one of these cheap dedicated servers.

I.  Service

II. Longevity

III.  Hardware

IV.  Extra Features

V.  Data Center

I.  Service A webhost forced to offer their servers for rock-bottom prices is hoping that their low prices will drive demand – a lot of demand.  They’re clearly interested in moving a lot of server space quickly, and when that happens, their service can suffer as they are constantly turning around contracts, performing new setups and transfers, and troubleshooting basic errors.  Know your “must haves” in terms of service responsiveness from both the sales and the technical departments, and before you sign up for a cheap dedicated server, ask about their average ticket response times, extra and hidden service charges, hardware failure warranties, and critical issue monitoring to ensure that you know exactly what they will and won’t be responsible for.

II.  Longevity In the long run, selling servers way below cost isn’t a sustainable business model—and without adding any other value to their service to you besides lower-than-cost pricing, these rock-bottom web hosts won’t be able to sustain business.  Before you buy a cheap dedicated server, make sure that you are satisfied about the financial and operational longevity of your host.  Buying a cheap server for 12 months from someone who will be out of business in 3 months isn’t a good deal at all.

III.  Hardware Sure, technology gets old and thus cheap pretty quick these days.  But it’s worth asking questions to find out if the cheap dedicated servers you are considering purchasing are rife with old and unreliable hardware.  Be sure to ask how physically old your server is and specify what kinds of hardware it comes with and what the host’s policy is on hardware malfunctions.

IV. Extra features Is the provider offering a server for dirt-cheap prices but marking up services that may come standard or free at other providers?  Don’t fall for this trick!  Know exactly what “extra” server features you’ll need in terms of management, monitoring, backups, OS, database hosting hardware, kernel updates, etc. and figure all of those into the overall cost of the server.

V.  Data Center If a host is offering cheap servers in a mad dash for quick income from a sudden spike in demand, there business priorities and ethics could be wildly askew.  It’s worth taking time to inquire about the data center where your server is housed, and even visiting the center if possible or feasible.  A reliable data center should feature redundant power supply lines, a cooling and temperature monitoring system purpose-built for a server room, early-warning fire and smoke detection, and excellent physical security.

Before you sign on to a suspiciously “great deal” on a dedicated server, do your homework.  Only by knowing exactly what you need in a web host and server, and what your provider is offering, can you enjoy a positive and value-driving relationship together.

Lately I have been asked several times by clients who are not very tech savvy what are Kernel & OS security updates, and what are Event notifications. Ultimately, they wanted to understand how these would help them as a client.

So what are Kernel & OS security updates? They are simply that, security updates that you receive for your operating system and Kernel. Furthermore they are automated so you don’t have to worry about doing it yourself or worry about missing the latest critical security or performance patch. And, if your server happens to be running Linux, these updates can even be applied even without a reboot! This is thanks to SingleHop’s exclusive agreement with Ksplice Uptrack, the only software in the industry that has this kind of power. Rebootless updates protect your servers from security threats without any sacrifice to the uptime of your dedicated server, which is extremely important both us and our clients.

Kernel & OS updates and Event notifications is a great tool for those clients with semi-management or no management at all. It is a helpful addition to your server as it provides you with peace of mind and more time to focus on running your business.

While you are receiving security updates for your Kernel and operating system, you can also enjoy the benefits of event notifications. It is a highly advanced system that continually monitors your server from inside and outside our datacenter. This is a service that notifies our clients in the even the server goes down, so that our clients can fix the problems quickly. Just another tool to ensure the highest performance of your server solution even if you do not have any management solution covering it.

If you want to add either Kernel & OS security updates or Event notifications or both, please contact your Account Executive or Account manager for pricing. We have excellent deals going on all the time and will gladly work with you to get one or both of these services working on your behalf as soon as possible.

Hello everyone! I am the newest member of the SingleHop team (I started early April 2010) and I am so thrilled to be here! I graduated from Northern Illinois University where I earned a degree in Organizational/Corporate Communication. Before settling down at SingleHop I worked in marketing for an ecommerce website, as their Charity Coordinator.  My job included auctioning off unique items and experiences, such as a chance to play tennis against Martina Navratilova or a ticket to attend an Elton John party, as well as coordinating company sponsored fundraiser events. While that was both fun and exciting, I really appreciate the laid-back environment that working at SingleHop has to offer.

Because of my website background, and years of working in the restaurant business, SingleHop’s account manager position seemed like the perfect fit for me!   As the daughter of restaurant owners, I learned at an early age how to deal with any type of customer  and  I enjoy turning an angry one into a happy camper!   I look forward to working with SingleHop’s clients and I’m excited to get to know them on a somewhat personal level, as well as help them with any billing or SPAM issues. Add me (@SingleHopEleni) on your IM, twitter and LinkedIn!!

I enjoy traveling to places I can get a great tan, such as Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Greece.  I collects scarves from my various trips all over the world and wear one almost every day. I have moderate shopping and chapstick addictions.  I like to  watch Dexter and Say Yes to the Dress. My other hobbies include reading, drinking red wine with my mom on the deck and attending Cubs games. I also loves cats!

This is our final

If you have any experience with hosting MySQL systems you have probably come across the following error. Here are some tips on how to fix it.

Error 28 is a common error message from your MySQL storage engine.  This message indicates that the drive is full – meaning that one or more of the partitions on your server is out of space, and MySQL cannot write to the disk.  You need to clear disk space for MySQL to operate.  Note that, if you have a dedicated server, you may receive this error even if your control panel still shows free space.  (For example, cPanel does not include the database disk space used—it just calculates the disk space of /home/cPanel_username (root directory) for the account.)

Often, the problem can be solved by cleaning up your /tmp directory, which can be overfilled with unnecessary files, like older backups from a scheduled backup script.

First, stop MySQL immediately.

On cpanel the /tmp directory is an image created on the / drive so removing files from it won’t help…
Some places worth checking on cpanel is the domlogs if they do not need stats or /home/cpbackuptmp as it is a temporary directory for backups so long as backups are not currently running. Also to check their actual backups and if they are on the same drive that they aren’t keeping too much retention vs available size on their drive… I.e if they have a 250gb drive and /home & /var/lib/mysql are 80gb keeping a daily & weekly will fill up the drive every time backups run.

Restart MySQL.

# /etc/init.d/mysql start

If your /tmp directory is not causing the error, you may also need to look into your /var/log  directory and remove or compress the logs.

Additionally, periodically optimizing your tables in MySQLcheck improves database performance.  Optimizing is a similar process to defragmentation.

mysqlcheck –all-databases –analyze –optimize -u root -p

You can also repair all tables in your database.

            mysqlcheck --all-databases --auto-repair -u root -p

Analyzing, optimizing, and repairing tables can also easily be scheduled as a cron job.

In PHPMyAdmin, table optimization is done by cleaning up table “overhead.”  Overhead is similar to hard drive defragmentation—database tables that are frequently accessed or updated store extra file size, called “Overhead,” that can take up a lot of space over time and requires maintenance.  To clear this space, login to PHPMyAdmin, select the applicable database, and you should see a list of all the tables in the database.  In the far right column, note the heading “Overhead.”  Check all the tables that have an “Overhead” value listed.  At the bottom of the window, you’ll find a drop-down menu.  Choose “Optimize Table” from the menu.  Overhead will be cleared, and if you click on the database name again, you’ll see all “Overhead” values should be cleared.

Hope this helps anyone out there looking to solve issues with their hosted Mysql setup.

SingleHop and SiteLock are partnering!

Today we announced the addition of SiteLock to our Tandem offering, which is available to you and your clients, for a free three month trial! SiteLock is a trusted name in web security and can help you and your clients in the online world with a verified degree of security and safety attached to your web site(s).

If you or your clients are concerned about safety and potential security issues, here are a few things SiteLock can help prevent:

• Hackers seeing your customer data
• Blocked emails
• Malware on your site
• Credibility issues with your clients
• Low conversion rates

This is how SiteLock works:

This is a great offering, and an opportunity to lend some credibility to your site, and also gives ourTandem Resellers another item to offer their client base. To read our press release checkout: http://bit.ly/9ZilE6

If you want to try out SiteLock go to: SiteLock.SingleHop.com

If you want to learn more about the Tandem Server Reseller program go to Http://Tandem.SingleHop.com

As SingleHop continues to grow so does the number of new employees hired. Rest assured that every new employee is put through a thorough training process, where they are taught the ways to become an official SingleHopper.

I can personally attest that the training process in the Sales department is pretty rigorous. Any new employee of this fine department begins by shadowing and learning under each one of the account executives and managers. Everyone does things just a little bit different, and everyone has a unique ability over different parts of the sales and customer service process. Variety is good, and in this case its a bit overwhelming as employees must strive to keep up with everything that goes on.  Ultimately, this “village teaching process” ensures that no point is missed and that the new employee has a full understanding of how important our clients are and how we make an effort to create a close working relationship with them. Just this year, the sales department has added 4 new employees in 4 different positions: Jim Tremmel – Sales Director, Mike Crosse – Channel Program Manager, Kyle Kinder – Sales Executive and Eleni Tsapralis – Sales Manager.

Our technical support and data center technicians also have been hiring new employees. Their training process is similar to the sales, however, they are teamed up with an experienced technician while they learn the ropes. Once they are fully trained on all aspects of our dedicated servers, we then let them start handling tickets on their own. Just in the last several months we have added more than 6 new technicians to the team as SingleHop continues to grow. As the year progresses, I’m sure that the number of employees will keep growing as SingleHop acquires more business and continues to expand.

Each new SingleHopper is very carefully chosen to ensure that they can keep up with a company that is growing at such a fast pace and yet continues to improves its technologies, customers service, and offerings. Once a SingleHopper, always a SingleHopper.

Thanks for reading!

Last night my son who just turned 5 asked me “Dad, what do you do at your job every day?”.  After a brief pause I stated that I help people with their Internet problems.  In today’s world Morgan knows exactly what the internet is- its what he uses to get to the PBS kids site during his allotted computer time.  Morgan then said, “so you are kind of a doctor for people who are on the internet, right?”. I chuckled. Even though we are not saving peoples lives here in the sales department, in many ways, he was right on the spot of what we do. After all, I like to remind the entire department that in order to be successful we must accurately diagnose and offer solutions for clients “pain points”.

So how does this helping process look like? First we begin by asking key questions that allow us to understand what core concerns a current or prospective client may be have. Someone might be looking for a lot of bandwidth, but their real priority is data security and thus we offer them our world class R1soft backup solution. For those who do not have their own IT staff or who need that “extra help”, we offer our managed services. And for someone who needs a lot of servers to run a few heavy-duty applications, we offer our cluster and complex hosting engineering and deployment services.

You see we look at each client independently so we can craft a unique solution that is solely focused on easing his or her hosting “pain points”.  Our experienced account executives focus on the growing needs of a client and ensure that all the hardware will work for their application. Then we have account managers who are wholly focused on solving billing and customer service concerns and work hand in hand with the account executives to ensure the success of the clients hosting solution.

I truly enjoy working alongside all of SingleHop’s professionals. I see how our support department will go the extra mile to explain how our R1 backup is working or how to properly set up exchange on our servers. I am first-hand witness of our expert touch on those complex hosting and clusters that many companies don’t want to bother with.  I know if I explained all of this to Morgan he would not get it, but he did have a great big smile when I reiterated that my job is to help people.

At SingleHop, our slogan of doing IT differently is just not something we say, it is something we do every day.

Sometimes the most amazing things are easy to miss because we fail to recognize how unique and beneficial they are. SingleHop’s offer of 10TB of outbound bandwidth for free is one of the those things.

If you need a dedicated server, and you need a lot of bandwidth, how does getting 10TB of outbound bandwidth sound?

If you need a dedicated server, and you are not sure if you need alot of bandwidth, how does getting 10TB of outbound bandwidth sound?

If you need a dedicated server, and you probably don’t need 10TB of Bandwidth, how does getting it for free sound?

So you see, sometimes it’s easy to forget how unique and valuable something is until you look at the very same situation from a variety of angles.

Just think about it… then act on it.