V5.09 September 2003

0.  Introduction.
1.  New SPAM policy!
2.  MySQL 4
3.  PHP 4
4.  DHSOTM.

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0.  Introduction.

Hey! It's the September 2003 DreamHost newsletter, and it's still 
October 1st in Hawaii, so that's not too bad. And that's not as weak an 
excuse as it usually is, since I'm actually IN Hawaii RIGHT NOW, writing 
this newsletter with virtually no contact with the home office for the 
last two weeks!

For the savvy reader, three questions immediately spring to mind. One, 
Josh, wasn't your excuse for LAST month's newsletter that everybody was 
on vacation? Two, what kind of an operation IS DreamHost where the 
monthly newsletter can be written from a beach house on Kauai, without
any contact with the home office? And three, Hawaii has Internet now?

I will attempt to answer all three of these questions in due time. And
cosmically, what else do we really have but time?  Especially at a beach
house on Kauai with no Internet.


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1.  New SPAM policy!

Well, before I left for Hawaii two weeks ago, Jeff absolutely promised
he'd make an announcement before the end of the month about our newly
revised SPAM policy that he was going to put up at:

      http://www.dreamhost.com/spam_new.html

I'm sure he's already announced to everybody about this new policy and 
how it's going to take effect November 1st, 2003, so this is completely 
redundant and I should just go back to practicing my local pick up lines 
("eh, you wan oof?", "okole hungry?", etc..), but hey, it's hard enough 
packing this newsletter with fluff even when I haven't been off sunning 
my buns for a fortnight.

Anyway, the main difference as far as I know is that starting in 
November, ALL new subscriptions (including bulk adds from our web panel)
to ALL annoucnement lists hosted by us must be confirmed. I guess just
read that URL above for more! And if you want to figure out what's 
changed, I guess just diff it with our current SPAM policy still up at:

      http://www.dreamhost.com/spam.html

And if you don't know how to diff, maybe you should consider moving to
some remote island in the south pacific yet to get Internet; where 
supreme diff-ability is still not 100% pre-requisite towards leading a 
rewarding life.


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2.  MySQL 4

Well, as far as I know, all our customer database servers have been 
upgraded now to version 4.something+! At least, that was the plan before
I left to "the island that Al Gore forgot". Again, I have complete faith 
that Jason has successfully completed the whole upgrade prior to my 
sending of this newsletter. I know these guys would never fail to get
things done, even with me 3 time zones and 3,000 miles away.

If by some chance MySQL _hasn't_ been upgraded yet, my apologies, and I
look forward to reporting this again in a future newsletter.


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3.  PHP 4

Well, as far as I know, all our customer web servers have been upgraded
now to version 4.something+! At least, that was the plan before I left 
to "the island that Al Gore forgot". Again, I have complete faith that 
Nate has successfully completed the whole upgrade prior to my sending 
of this newsletter. I know these guys would never fail to get things 
done, even with me 3 time zones and 3,000 miles away.

If by some chance PHP _hasn't_ been upgraded yet, my apologies, and I
look forward to reporting this again in a future newsletter.


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4.  DHSOTM 

Despite not having any access to the Internet, I was somehow able to 
select this month's DreamHost Site of the Month winner! And here it is:

       http://signsoflife.goose24.org/

It's a nice little site with a bunch (er, 13 it looks like) of photos of
street signs. Remember street signs? They were everywhere before the 
Internet rendered them obsolete. Now they're only on Kauai. In fact, 
today I saw a funny one which might have made a nice addition to the 
site. It was just pointing out a handicap ramp at a restaurant and it 
just had that typical wheelchair logo. But to show it was for a ramp 
they had it at a steep angle up with a line underneath it (the ramp). I 
know what they were saying, but to me it looked a little bit too much 
like a rail gun for geriatrics to be taken seriously. Anyway.

Remember, DHSOTM winners are picked by other DreamHost customers.. the 
site with the highest average vote (and a minimum of 10 votes) when I
get around to writing the newsletter wins!

Get a chance to have your site featured in next month's newsletter, 
assuming there's still an Internet, by submitting it today:

       https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.dhsotm


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I just had a 3-year-old on the beach say to me "you a beeg fakkah",
Josh!