V11.02 February 2009
From DreamHost
0. Introduction. 1. Beta: Amazon CloudFront CDN on DreamHost! 2. Beta: Lighttpd on DreamHost PS! 3. Beta: An API for DreamHost PS! 4. VHS: Last chance for free hosting for life! 5. DHSOTM ######################################################################## 0. Introduction. Man, what an exciting, feature-filled, world-record-breaking DreamHost February 2009 newsletter do YOU have in store today! And I'm talking REAL world-record-breaking, not http://urdb.org/ style world-record- breaking either! One specific world-record broken with this newsletter is, I believe "Latest DreamHost Newsletter in the World"! Let's take a glimpse behind the scenes into all the weeks of training, hard work, and procrastination that went into finally having this World Record fall. It all started back in February, when the month was really short and the end of it really snuck up on me. In February I also wasted time going to an URDB event in San Francisco where I saw such other World Records get broken such as "Most knock-knock jokes told in one minute" (13) and "Most four-letter words spoken in one minute" (43?) and my favorite, "Most donuts re-united with their holes in fifteen seconds" (9). That one was my favorite because the world-record-breaker threw each donut into the audience after re-unification... but he didn't gently toss them, he was trying to break a world record! He hucked each donut with all his force, baseball-style, into the unsuspecting faces of people in the front row, a mere 4 feet away. One guy broke his glasses. ######################################################################## 1. Beta: Amazon CloudFront CDN on DreamHost! Another AMAZING World Record set this month by YT (Yours Truly) is "Only web hosting provider to offer an interface to Amazon's Content Delivery Network, CloudFront"! This one actually took considerably MORE hard work and even MORE procrastination than the first World Record broken this newsletter, and so I don't feel unjustified in explaining its significance in the slightest. http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/03/16/cgn-vs-cdn/ Content Delivery Networks, for those of you in the un-know, are systems of multiple (hopefully dozens) of data centers spread around geographically (hopefully around the globe), all of which have their own copy of your content. Then, on top of it all there's a "smart" DNS system that instead of just telling site visitors that your site is hosted at like "dreamhost.com", it first looks at where the visitor is (by their IP address) and then tells them the site is actually hosted at something like "la.dreamhost.com", or "ny.dreamhost.com", or "dc.dreamhost.com", or "tokyo.dreamhost.com", or "london.dreamhost.com", or "djibouti.dreamhost.com"! You see, even though the Internet does hold the World Record for getting from any place in the world to any other place in the world, it's still fastER to go from any place in the world to a datacenter in that same place. And although the difference might seem tiny (.03 vs .20 seconds), I guess if you've got a lot of files on one web page it can add up? Anyhoo... besides having the record for biggest river in the world, Amazon also has a bunch of data centers around it, and so they now offer a CDN for end users that bills only based on actual usage: http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/#pricing I've tried it, and it works! The problem is, it's only usable via an API, which is to say, it's only usable via programmers and robots from the future. Until now, when DreamHost, I am proud to say, SHATTERED THE WORLD RECORD! https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=goodies.cdn For unlimited use of Amazon's CloudFront through our panel, there's a fee of $3.95/month, plus whatever Amazon charges you for usage (sign up with them via the link above). CHEAP! ######################################################################## 3. Beta: An API for DreamHost PS! What's this? What's this you say?? *Another* World Record... BROKEN!? "Most API references in a row in a DreamHost Newsletter in the World"?! Why yes, I'd be honored to accept the prize money. I probably deserve it the most, since it was *I* who went to the trouble of switching the order of the sections to make it all possible. And what of this mystical "Application Programming Interface" to DreamHost PS? Why should Amazon have all the fun? We've got something that could loosely be considered a "cloud" service ourselves, if only because a lot of times clouds are associated with "dreams". And what good is a cloud service if naked robots from the future can't program them? So check it out, oh merciful terminating overlords, the new *and* improved (which just struck me as confusing.. how could something be improved if it's new? Doesn't improved mean it's not new?) DreamHost PS API documentation today, and be the first on your memory block to write a better way to manage, monitor, and deploy Private Servers: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/API ######################################################################## 2. Beta: Lighttpd on DreamHost PS! Has there ever been another instance in the history of the world where a web host has offered Lighttpd as an alternate web server to Apache on their Virtual Private Server offering? I'm not saying there has or there hasn't. I haven't checked. But if there hasn't, we may be going for a World Record FOUR World Records broken in ONE DreamHost newsletter. And this newsletter ain't even 80% done! https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=vserver.settings Why is Apache called "Apache"? Because it's "a patchy" web server, made up of a lot of patches. Why is Lighttpd called "Lighttpd"? Because it's a "light" http server, and when you're paying per MB of ram, maybe what you need is a little less patches and a little more not darkness! http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Lighttpd ######################################################################## 4. VHS: Last chance for free hosting for life! This feature isn't in Beta, this feature is as ready as it gets! http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/02/09/free-web-hosting-for-life/ Well, you missed it, but Thursday, March 12th from 6 - 8 pm was the final open house for my co-op in NYC (718 Broadway #6B)! Buy it, and you'll have a free month for every month for as LONG AS WE BOTH SHALL LIVE! A new world record. Oh, and to go with that one, let's see if we can also set a new world record for shilling on digg? EVERYBODY right now, drop what you're doing and go to: http://digg.com/tech_news/DreamHost_Integrates_Amazon_s_CloudFront_CDN_into_Hosting and click DIGG IT!! Isn't this why we HAVE digg?! ######################################################################## 5. DHSOTM Whoops, I forgot to mention that was a World Record for crassest shill in a DreamHost newsletter. Well, it was. I even had the Guinness guys out to verify. The beer was delicious http://www.swell3d.com/ Wins the World Record for Best DreamHost Site of the Month in February 2009! It's an honest-to-goodness THREE DIMENSIONAL site with lots of 3D content and links to other 3D content and even how to get 3D glasses for FREE! I can't wait until ALL sites are 3D and ALL movies are like Bolt 3D; FULLY AWESOME! https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.dhsotm Go there and submit your own site.. but keep in mind it's now going to need to be 4D or above to stand a chance at the prize. ######################################################################## World's greatest newsletter padder, Josh Jones! P.S. Want to set the World Record for fastest opt-out after receiving an email newsletter? https://panel.dreamhost.com/id/?tab=contact
