(almost)Ex Vox seeks sane retreat

[larryt]

I was with Voxtreme from 2002 and let the web hosting & building side of my business die a death. Recently it has had a slightly, but not unhappily forced, resurgence. WebHostingBuzz appears to be much more the environment I'd prefer having had some disappointing support experiences.
The crux is I'd like to move to WHB sometime in the next few months or sooner and would like to know if the level of support is comparable to when Matt was at the helm, and the community was uncensored, at Vox circa 2002.

Also need to know if PHP, MySQL and PHPList (& DNS of course) will transfer without too much downtime.

[Alan B]

I was a Voxtreme for serveral years. It's much better here than at Voxtreme. I left soon after Vox's last ownership change, when service and attitude deteriorated so much. I can't say that WHB is at the support level that Vox was back in the old days with Matt, Hendrik, etc., but it's pretty good. At least the staff here try to do the right thing.

[larryt]

Alan
Good to see your delicate fonts again
You serviced my DNS for a bit. I had a very strong feeling that you'd be the first to answer. When are you coming to Warwick for that beer?

Attitude is important to me too. I stayed where I was because I was not doing very much in the way of IT as a whole. As soon as I neeeded some PHP pointers or answers about what was happening server wide the whole atmosphere became plain.. The old Vox, now IDA, forums are pretty much dead - I'd guess no more than 12 posts in the whole of the last 12 months -dang!

I pretty much decided that I'd move to WHB if I revived interest in former web work.
If you're still here and Matt is still here too then thats the decider
Just need to rationalize the shift.

[Alan B]

Good to hear from you, Larry. It's been several years since I've been to Warwick. I would like to visit again. The offer of a beer makes it even more appealing, especially if it's at one of the historic pubs near the castle.

The forums here are not at the level that the Vox forums were in their best days. Perhaps it may improve over time, but they're somewhat hampered by WHB's early focus on lowest price plans. Matt and Saf are gradually trying to upgrade the service and I hope that will attract more "quality" clients, and lose many of the price-focused problem clients.

[larryt]

Choose your place, pace and poison Alan

OK with me if the forums are not the vibrant domiciles of old, I never did too much chattering anyway. Don't have any problem with pricing drives and practices if those in charge are cusomer oriented. I just need to have a support staff that can answer an urgent support ticket quickly and without condescension (no speel chucker?!).

I'm considering VPS this time too but don't know how much difference this will be in terms of the limited shared reseller hosting I've been almost used to for the last few years.

[Alan B]

VPS gives you more control. Essentially you get access to another layer of configuration and control. With shared hosting, you get cPanel and, as you know, Reseller plan then also gives you WHM over top of the cPanel accounts. VPS gives you a higher level of WHB above the reseller account(s).

VPS is also supposed to isolate your accounts more from the rest of the server, but I've been surprised how often an abusive account elsewhere on the VPS server has affected my accounts.

Support tickets, even urgent ones, are unfortunately not always answered quickly. That's an area I'd like to see improve. Fortunately the support staff are pretty good once they do work on the tickets.

[larryt]

If I were to start, softly softly, with a standard reseller account would it be possible to upgrade that at a later date to VPS without DNS and database name/PHP code changes? Lock stock and barrel is the idea really, minumun < no downtime. The plan is to see how things that are working well ATM grow with time and attention.

If support for urgent tickets in terms of hours and the quality of response is good then I won't have a client revolt - sometimes they don't have time to wait and some have departed pretty quickly no I mean
Some have been difficult and they are probably I'm better off if you see what I mean

[Maxim M.]

The latest policy we have for technical issues:

Technical ticket response time must be below 60 minutes for initial
reply and below 120 minutes between eventual updates.

Of course, there may be cases requiring additional time to be properly advised.
Though 9.5 times of 10 we manage in this period

just wondering, what's the top beer brand at your place?

[larryt]

Ok, support sounds a little faster than I've putting up with.

just wondering, what's the top beer brand at your place?

Now *that* is a good question, and one I might have to spend some time researching. I generally just go for Guinness or point to a pump that has eye catching colours. I'll probably take more notice now I've been asked

[Alan B]

Sadly, in recent years Britain has been overtaken by many cheap brands. The kids, who buy most of the alcohol, like cheap nasty cider (as opposed to good stuff like Strongbow), alcopops and cheap beer. There's some of that trend here, but nothing like it is in Britain. Also, we don't have the huge problems of public drunkeness that Britain sees.

However, I'm sure Larry and I will be drinking only quality beverages.

[larryt]

Yes, cheap beer and chips, a British sneer at health and happiness. Alcopops and happy hour, bah!. There has been some recent legislation to try and curb alcoholism among the young. They could quite easily have made it easier for young people to have cheaper quality beers rather than the sugary rubbish made available.

I have a liking for Theakstons Old Peculiar, a beer best from the barrel but still palatable from a bottle. Just finsihing one now and maybe just starting one now

[Alan B]

That's a good one indeed. I'm partial to Sam Smith's Museum Ale on tap, or various real ales from cask. I quite like Fuller's London Pride as a session beer. Then again, Caffrey's or Smithwick's or Boddingtons.

[Matt R.]

Larry, good to see you here. WHB is bigger than Vox but also better in many ways. Max already mentioned the outside stipulation for helpdesk support requests and we're mostly much faster but you will get the occasional issue that takes a little longer. If it does, and you need help quickly then we have live support 24x7 and also phone support now 24x7 so you can quickly get in touch. We're also have Skype support in some limited testing.

The team I have here working at WHB is the best I could imagine. Excellent senior, middle and junior management and a highly motivated team who love what they do as much as me. I am proud to be part of this team.

Let me know if you have any questions. And in this part of the UK, thankfully we aren't completely drowned in a pool of Fosters

[Maxim M.]

WebHostingBuzz is truly a great place to work at. Thanks Matt

Ukrainian "1st private brewery" beer is what everyone should taste.
Welcome and forget about visas