Q. How do I pay for your services?

A. We accept major credit cards and PayPal for all plans regardless of the period (monthly or annual). We also accept check payments for all accounts on annual billing, with a minimum of $50 for check payments. We often accept partial payment through barter or work-trade agreements, and we offer extremely friendly payment terms, so let us know if you are doing good work for the world, but need special financial arrangements to make it work.

 

Q. How does billing work at Sustainable Hosting?

A. We offer both monthly and annual billing on all plans except Press ON! The only difference is that yearly customers pay 10x the monthly fee, essentially getting two months free. However you can always sign up monthly and switch your plan to yearly at any time via the support and billing panel, and the software will make all pro-rated billing adjustments after verifying the changes with you. If we cannot debit whatever payment method you have chosen (or we have not received a check from you) by the due date, don't panic; in the spirit of mutual respect, we normally allow for a couple of weeks leeway for us to get in touch with each other.

 

Q. Do you provide a non-profit discount?

A. Yes we do! Please contact sa***@su****************.com for details if you need hosting for a non-profit organization.

 

Q. Are you interested in resellers, referral programs, or partnerships?

A. We are always interested in potential partnerships and are pleased to design each one to best fit the situation. Contact us at sa***@su****************.com or through the contact form on this website to open the dialogue!

 

Domains, packages, and sign-up

 

Q. What can I do with the Press ON! package?

A. You can run one domain with any of the software and features available. Depending on the size of your data or catalog, they might be usable for Joomla/Drupal sites or even small stores. 

 

Q. Can I sign-up with one plan, and then change plans later on?

A. Absolutely. This functionality is built into your billing & support panel, and you can change between plans and yearly/monthly at any time with a few mouse-clicks.

 

Q. What's the difference between domain registration and hosting?

A. Domain registration is the establishment of your identity on the internet. Much as you may register your business name and trademark with the state or local business authorities, you can register a domain name on the internet, such as liveearth.org or sustainablehosting.com. These tasks are separate from finding a place to do business: for a physical business, a storefront or other office space, or on the internet, a web hosting account that holds your data and allows web visitors to see your site. This is primarily what we offer. Registered domain names simply point to the server where the site is actually hosted via our nameservers. You will need both of these services to operate a website.

 

Q. For a new site, do you provide registration of new domains as well as hosting?

A. Yes, for the most common TLD's (domain name extensions) such as .com, .org, .info, and some others. The list is always growing. If you begin to sign-up (choosing ‘register new domain') and notice that we do not have the TLD you want, contact us to see if we have it available yet, or you may always use another service to register your domain name after you arrange for hosting with us; simply choose “host existing site” on the domain screen, and enter the name that you will register elsewhere. The cost to register most domains with us is about $15/year.

 

Q. For an existing site, can we transfer our domain registration to be handled by you?

A. Yes, there is an opportunity to do this during the signup process. PLEASE NOTE that if you would like to transfer, you will need to have unlocked your domain at your current registrar, and get an EPP transfer key, which you will be prompted to enter dring the signup process (please do not leave this blank if you are transferring).

 

Q. Is there anything you will not host?

A. Absolutely: no porn sites, no hate speech, no distribution of controlled software (without distribution rights), no fraudulent or phishing sites, no hackers (against sites or servers not legally controlled by the client), no virus-related activity, and no SPAMmers. Those are the main categories of unacceptable sites but do read the agreement when you sign up if you have any doubts about whether your activities will be allowed on our servers. If we learn of any of these activities coming from your accounts, you can expect your account to be closed immediately and without refund. To be sure, you can always contact the sales department.

Q. How secure are your servers from hackers? Hardware failure?

A. Extremely safe. Our servers are updated with a blanket software-update and security-patching roll-out every two weeks. In the unusual event of hardware failure, the brief replacement process begins immediately, and should not lead to any data loss due to each server's RAID array and daily backups.

 

Q. Do you offer any back-up services?

A. While we can design specific back-up strategies, all client data is backed up daily. We generally keep snapshots of the previous few days. Lite customers may be backed up less often. However, we do not guarantee our backups: all clients are, in the end, responsible for their own data, and strongly encouraged to backup their own sites.

 

Q. How much email storage do you offer?

A. You can store email up to the limit of your package's storage space or 2047mb, whichever is smaller. New email addresses get a 200mb quota by default. The mailbox quota is alterable from the web control panel, under email management.

 

Q. Do you have a SPAM filter?

A. Yes, we have SpamAssassin. While no spam filter is perfect, our servers are updated daily with the latest anti-spam rules and lists of SPAM senders to help you keep unwanted emails out of your inbox. Additionally, you can train SpamAssassin to your preferences, and maintain black- and white-lists of email addresses. We also have email virus scanning.

 

Q. What are the versions of software that you run?

A. Upgrades happen often, but at the time of this writing (4/20/2009) we are running MySQL series 5, PHP series 5, Apache 1.3 (Apache 2 is expected to roll out this summer), and Postgres v7.4.19+. All our servers run the CentOS Linux distribution, though we have other options for dedicated servers including Debian, and Red Hat Enterprise (no Windows). Our web based account management and control panel system is H-Sphere version 3.2.

 

Q. Can I upload my own files via FTP?

A. Yes, we provide both FTP for uploading files, as well as a web file manager available through the control panel.

 

Q. Do you offer SSH?

A. We do offer SSH access to Professional, Developer, and Dedicated Server account holders under certain conditions. For more information, contact sales (before you sign-up) or support (after you've signed up).

 

Q. Can I access my control panel, edit or view my site from anywhere?

A. Yes, you can do all of these things from anywhere on the globe that there's an internet connection.

 

Q. Do you offer any templates or applications that we can use in our site?

A. Yes, we have an extensive set of applications that will auto-install with no more trouble than a few clicks of your mouse and a short web form. There are several open-source applications of many kinds: content management systems, helpdesk programs, groupware applications, shopping carts, photo galleries, blog software, etc. We do not list the programs and version numbers here as, while they might not be the newest versions available, they are updated quiet often and the list is always growing. If you want to know what applications are currently available, please contact  sa***@su****************.com . You can of course install web applications not included in our auto-installer utility.

 

Q. Do you have shopping cart software available?

A. Yes, we have Zencart and osCommerce, among others. Miva merchant can also be made available.

 

Q. Do you support Joomla? are your server settings acceptable for Joomla (i.e., safe mode OFF, register globals OFF, PHP support for zlib, MYSQL, and XML, etc)?

A. We are absolutely committed to fierce support of Joomla, and indeed have tweaked such things for optimal security and performance. About half of our biggest customers are running Joomla sites. Our application vault will auto-install Joomla 1.5.x for you in moments.

 

Q. What about Drupal?

A. Absolutely. Although it doesn't auto-install from the application vault at the time of this writing, Drupal runs beautifully on our servers and we have many high-level clients using it as well.

 

Q. Do you provide design services?

A. Not specifically. Under some circumstances, our Tech Services Department will accept a small job doing the most basic content editing or form email setup – simple jobs that are projected to take two hours or less to complete – but for general design, we have some design partners that we can refer you to. For very large sites or projects we will be pleased to introduce you to our sister company, Earthsite.

Q. My site is already hosted and has traffic. How do we handle moving the site?

A. We can handle a seamless migration for you with under 30 minutes of downtime. We typically perform such migrations in the wee hours on a Saturday night. For detailed information, please contact our sales department.

 

Q. We have some email accounts with many emails still in them at the host we wish to move away from. Is there a way to move these emails?

A. Yes, usually that's not a problem if we can connect to the email accounts at current server using IMAP; please contact your current host to make sure they support IMAP for mail retreival.