[kwlug-disc] Any experience with cloudatcost.com VPS?

Charles M chaslinux at gmail.com
Fri Jun 27 10:03:58 EDT 2014


Reviving an old thread I thought I'd throw my $0.02 about the current
impression of Cloudatcost.

I went for one of their Developer 2 packages. When I clicked on the package
a chatbot popped up with something to the effect "Today only use the code
******** for 50% off." (checking today it's still up). The code didn't work
so I clicked through to the payment screen hoping I would find another
place the code might apply. Normally most vendors I've dealt with have a
couple of screens before final payment, cloudatcost doesn't, so be careful
before placing an order.

After clicking through I got an email "bill" for the order. I logged in to
the cloudatcost site and found the only payment option is through paypal.
I'm not a fan of paypal/ebay so I sent them a ticket about other payment
methods. I let the ticket sit overnight with no response. The next day I
saw that cloudatcost has a Twitter account so I sent them a DM about the
ticket/payment. No response a day later. It's now been a couple of days
with no reply either method.

Now I know it's apples and oranges, but when I compare Teksavvy's response
to issues I've had there is a huge difference. First, I have numbers to
call. Second, usually I get a response on my billing within half and hour.
When I've used Twitter to contact Teksavvy I've received almost instant
response (even as late as 8:30pm). I once asked on Twitter if people were
having issues with Teksavvy DSL (not DM or quoting them) and got a response
from a CSR about 30 seconds later. (Turned out Bell was fiddling outside
our building). Even Godaddy, who I'm moving away from, tends to respond
within 1 day (and they tend to do better when it comes to billing).

At this point it looks like I might have to suck it up and create a paypal
account (I don't really want to) to pay the bill. There is an
info at cloudatcost.com I haven't tried yet, but no other contact info.




On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 4:10 PM, Chamunks Arkturus <chamunks at gmail.com>
wrote:

> It appears as though things have stabilized a fair bit since my last email
> so maybe its all just simply growing pains but it was a bit of a rough
> start which kind of stinks.
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Andrew Sullivan Cant <
> acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
>> Where did you hear about the VMWare infrastructure?
>> I know that VMWare itself it built on RedHat, but if cloudatcost is not
>> actually doing much work with FLOSS directly then maybe there is less
>> presentation possibility.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>> On 16/12/13 15:56, Chamunks Arkturus wrote:
>> > I've a few services with cloud at cost and as long as you don't mind
>> > that you're probably not going to reach anything near 100% network
>> > uptime or hardware availability these are great.  They tend to ship some
>> > flaky ubuntu server images that require IO timeout tweaks taht help
>> > avoiding kernel panics etc.  I'm optimistic that these issues may end up
>> > leveling out but its definitely a rocky shore right now.
>> >
>> > I tried installing a ZNC instance on a 35$ one and its definitely flaked
>> > out at least once each week for the last couple of months.  They're
>> > apparently backed by vmware infrastructure in some way or another.
>> > Their support doesn't respond much at all either so as long as you don't
>> > mind basically having to re-image the server to solve problems thats
>> > also a small hitch.  Granted I'm not an elite sysadmin but I'm doing
>> > what I can to learn and these VPS's are great for the learning curve and
>> > if you want to have a few little services that arent going to need 100%
>> > uptime but would be nice to have when it feels like the weather's warm
>> > enough to be online then they're great!
>> >
>> > Either way because they're technically not a bad idea just like running
>> > a server on your home internet connection is also technically not a bad
>> > idea I will likely keep checking out a few of them for some services I
>> > would use them for but yeah thats my experience this far.  Its really a
>> > disheartening start but they seem to be working through it all.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 4:56 PM, Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com
>> > <mailto:bjonkman at sobac.com>> wrote:
>> >
>> >     I was at a seminar recently where the invited speaker was a vendor.
>> The
>> >     presentation was at a suitably technical level. The problem was not
>> >     *enough* self-promotion by the vendor: After a good explanation of
>> >     problems and solutions we had to ask "But what products and
>> services is
>> >     your company offering to combat these problems, and at what prices?"
>> >
>> >     No point in having a vendor come in if they're not vending. But I
>> agree
>> >     that product shilling shouldn't overwhelm the presentation.
>> >
>> >     --Bob.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >     On 13-12-15 10:42 AM, unsolicited wrote:
>> >     > Ach. I dunno, there's been some decent ones too. At wwitpro too.
>> >     e.g. An
>> >     > MS Sharepoint presentation there worked out quite well - they
>> rose to
>> >     > the level of the audience. Rose above newbieness to 'what is this
>> >     > beastie' and not much more, because the audience at the time
>> wasn't
>> >     > ready for much more.
>> >     >
>> >     > VMware at kwlug was almost as good. Started out VERY sales pitchy
>> >     but by
>> >     > the end, given the nature of the audience, were getting right
>> into the
>> >     > technical stuff for us. Also an, in the end, good experience. To
>> me,
>> >     > anyways. But it sure didn't start out well.
>> >     >
>> >     > Perhaps it depends upon what department they come from, and
>> whether or
>> >     > not it's a pre-packaged sales pitch presentation, vs something
>> >     from the
>> >     > tech. department?
>> >     >
>> >     > Part of the problem with both groups is finding the right balance
>> >     > between professional development looking to leverage work
>> >     environments,
>> >     > and non-professional home users looking to expand their knowledge.
>> >     > Particularly that those in the profession live the ecosystem for
>> many
>> >     > hours each day and so bring a lot of background knowledge and
>> >     comfort to
>> >     > any seminar. While the home user often struggles to comprehend the
>> >     > nature of the rather big ecosystem out there. Easy example is
>> >     SANS, and
>> >     > fibre, let alone non-default file systems, which the home user
>> >     wouldn't
>> >     > normally experience. To know it's even out there, let alone its
>> nature
>> >     > or ramifications.
>> >     >
>> >     > Cloud is an easy example where the latter probably applies for the
>> >     vast
>> >     > majority - few in either camp will be directly involved in cloud
>> >     > configuration, and I doubt the majority of home users have played
>> with
>> >     > vm's - it taking a certain amount of horsepower to do so, if they
>> even
>> >     > see the point for them in their home environment.
>> >     >
>> >     > A less than deeply technical, these are the finer points of
>> apache ini
>> >     > cache configurations in your multi-homed active swap
>> configuration, vs
>> >     > 'what is this beastie' and 'what buying criteria points should I
>> care
>> >     > about and how do I implement them' will likely suit the majority.
>> >     >
>> >     > It probably depends upon which department the presenter comes
>> from?
>> >     >
>> >     >
>> >     > On 13-12-15 06:40 AM, Richard Weait wrote:
>> >     >> On Dec 15, 2013 1:04 AM, Andrew Sullivan Cant
>> >     >> <acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca <mailto:acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca>>
>> wrote:
>> >     >>>
>> >     >>> Me too....I'll try to connect with someone at Fibernetics and
>> see
>> >     >>> where things go.
>> >     >>>
>> >     >>> My original thought was an engineering focused presentation, if
>> >     >>> that was possible, and not just a sales focused one. It would
>> seem
>> >     >>> more appropriate given the audience.
>> >     >>
>> >     >> I remember organizing a commercial presentation for kwlug a few
>> years
>> >     >> back. I won't name names because I found the experience wholly
>> >     >> unsatisfactory. The company agreed to put on a technical
>> >     >> presentation, not a sales pitch. They agreed to take specific
>> >     >> technical  questions. What they delivered was merely a mind
>> numbing
>> >     >> tech-free sales pitch. and so I do not trust that company at all
>> for
>> >     >> anything.  And I do not look forward to having any other company
>> >     >> desecrate a kwlug meeting. The experience was horrible last time.
>> >     >
>> >     >
>> >     > _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> >
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>> >
>> >
>> >
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-- 
Charles McColm, Author: Instant XBMC,
Columnist: Full Circle Magazine,
Project Manager: The Working Centre Computer Recycling Project
Web: http://www.theworkingcentre.org/cr/
Blog: http://www.charlesmccolm.com/
Twitter/Identica/Google+: @chaslinux
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