Linux Dojo

Recently, The Dojo resurrected itself and relocated to free servers at x10 Hosting.

So far, Sensei is impressed.

The capabilities of the free service are outstanding, and there's no metering on bandwidth.  x10 advertises no file storage metering for their free service, but let's put an asterisk there (more on that later).  Here are some of the highlights of x10's free service offering:

• 1 primary three-word domain name under one of x10's domain's.  For example, "dojo.x10.mx".
• 2 subdomains.  For example, "linux.dojo.x10.mx" and "bsd.dojo.x10.mx".
• 1 domain forwarding/parking.  This allows you to auto-forward tracffic for "www.mydomain.com" to "dojo.x10.mx", for example.
• 2 "addon" domains.  An addon domain allows hosting of a vanity domain that you bring with you, like "mydomain.com", on your free hosting account, separate from your primary domain.
• 2 MySQL or PostgreSQL databases.
• Dozens of one-click installable webapps, such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, Coppermine, and MediaWiki.
• ftp access.
• Email service and addresses, including smtp and webmail.
• DNS controls.
• Commercial / Money-making sites allowed - you may host google and amazon ads, sell software or other products, etc..
• Technical support.  Yes, technical support for free hosting.  This is important.  Try getting real technical support from Google Sites or Yahoo!.

There are, of course, some limitations.  Let's take a look.

• 1 free hosting account per person.  That's the biggie.
• No file hosting.  You may not use for file backups or serving file downloads.  Files on your web space must be related to your sites.  (There's that asterisk I mentioned.)
  
• Image galleries limited to 1gb of storage.  (That asterisk again.)
• This one is important: you must visit the support forums at least once per month (posting is not required).  x10 requires this as a way to monitor for abandoned accounts that are just taking up space.
  
• The obvious stuff: no warez, no cracking services or howtos, no pirating, no hosting adult content, etc..

Everything x10 has promised from its free hosting has been delivered, and with some fancy jutsu tricks (standbye for more on that later) can be made to deliver even more (for example free gmail, google talk, calendars, etc., at your own domain for up to 50 users!).  Sensei's websites have been served up quickly and reliably to boot.

x10 delivers more than Sensei ever dreamt of from free web hosting.... Well, okay, let's say almost all that Sensei ever dreamt of; Sensei has pretty wild dreams.  It hasn't been without hiccups - for example a couple days ago, there was a network glitch at x10's noc that took the free hosting servers offline.  However, x10 immediately acknowledged the problem, was up front with users about what was going on, was swift in its attention, and excellent in communicating as the troubleshooting progressed.  The servers were back online before the end of the day with no data loss.

All-in-all x10 is the right place for thrifty ninjas and for Linux Dojo.  Of course if you ever do have a few extra pennies to spend on hosting, x10 has payed hosting services with upgraded features ready for you.

Click here to check 'em out: http://www.x10hosting.com/

-Sensei