Forum OpenACS Q&A: Acorn Hosting is shutting down

Posted by Cathy Sarisky on 10/04/05 03:28 AM

All,

It's been a great couple of years, but I'm ready to move on from running Acorn Hosting. Getting up at 3am to deal with server issues has gotten old, and I'm ready to focus on other parts of my life. At this point, it isn't fun, it's only borderline profitable (in part because I hate accounting), and I'm not doing as good of a job as I'd like.

I'm going to shut down operations on 12/31/05, but I'll still be around OpenACS.org (heck, I might even have time to do some coding). I'm transitioning away from hosting, but not away from OpenACS.

(To my customers: more details are available in the Service Notices area of http://acornhosting.net.)

--Cathy

2: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Jun Yamog on 10/04/05 08:52 AM

Hi Cathy,

I had use Acorn Hosting for a short period of time, its been a good experience for me. I hope you get some of your time back, good luck.

Jun

3: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Simon at TCB on 10/04/05 11:29 AM

I remember when you started up. Sorry to hear it didn't work out. I guess when it stops being fun thats the time to call it a day...

.... and start up the next one :)

Good luck with whatever you do next.

4: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Tracy Adams on 10/04/05 12:00 PM

Cathy,

Say it isn't so! You do a great job.

Tracy

5: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by mark dalrymple on 10/04/05 02:56 PM

What's most unfortunate is that you have set a very high bar for value and service. I'm sure I'll be thinking wistfully of my Acorn days in a couple of years.

6: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Vinod Kurup on 10/04/05 03:17 PM

I'm really sorry to hear about this. Cathy, you've done a great job. Since being with Acorn, web hosting has been one of those things that I just didn't worry about.

Thanks again.

7: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Alex Kroman on 10/04/05 05:08 PM

Cathy,

Good luck on your next venture! Everyone at IBR says Acorn is the best webhosting service they have ever dealt with. I'm sure it will be a long adjustment for us to get used to what other companies consider 'customer service'.

Alex

8: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Eric Wolfram on 10/04/05 05:33 PM

I have two small clients who have acornhosting vserver accounts and I'm looking for someone to host them. From my POV this kind of sucks because I advised my clients to go with acorn and I only just set them up this year. Now they already have to pay to move elsewhere. Any suggestions?

9: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by mark dalrymple on 10/04/05 07:07 PM

Three months isn't bad notice. Sure beat my original co-lo place going away by having their connectivity unplugged, and then the staff disappeared for awhile holding my machine hostage... Luckily Cathy bailed me out of that one.

10: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Claudio Pasolini on 10/04/05 10:42 PM

Sorry to hear this: we (Vestasoft and Adhoc Sistemi) were very comfortable with you and we wish you good luck in your future activity.

11: Re: Res: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by vivian Aguilar on 10/05/05 07:45 PM

Hello Cathy, We as viaro are really sorry about this, you bring an excellent service to us so far. =,(

12: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Malte Sussdorff on 10/05/05 08:19 PM

Though I left Acorn some time ago for different reasons, I was always happy with you, so thanks a lot for providing this service to the community and looking forward to see you again here soon.

13: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Ben Koot on 10/05/05 09:50 PM

Realy sorry to see a great service go.

Thanks for all the hard work

cheers
Ben

14: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Alfred Essa on 10/06/05 03:44 AM

Cathy,

Sorry to see you go. Best wishes with your next venture.

--Al

15: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Carl Robert Blesius on 10/07/05 01:14 AM

I agree with everyone else here Cathy... you have done a supurb job (I have been amazed by the level of service). Sorry to see you exit, but it is good news that you will still be around openacs.org.

Carl

P.S. Looking for good alternatives. Anyone interested in explore using Linode? http://www.linode.com/products/controlpanel.cfm
The ability to "share virtual disk images across configuration profiles" sounds interesting (e.g. we create a sharable debian based standard openACS config with all additional software). Not comparable to Cathy's personal touch, but it does sound good. Other suggestions? I have a couple of sites that I run for friends and family I need to move somewhere.

16: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Vinod Kurup on 10/07/05 02:23 AM

I've started to look around and I'm jotting my notes here:

http://wiki.kurup.org/wiki/show/FindNewWebHost

A few people have made offers at Cathy's site, too:

http://acornhosting.net/clients/notices/

I'd definitely like to hear from anyone who has positive or negative experiences with their web host

17: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Patrick Giagnocavo on 10/07/05 02:55 AM

Just a note to add to the $45/month Zill.Net listing ... you will receive full credit for your payments to Cathy, with us.

So, if you paid Cathy through to December 31st, 2005, you can get full credit from Zill.net through to December 31st, 2005 and not pay again until January.

If you want to check out sites we host, have a look at http://www.dotfolio.org as an example.

18: Re: Acorn Hosting is shutting down (response to 1)

Posted by Dave Bauer on 10/07/05 05:20 PM

I use Zill.net for my web site as well. I am very happy with the shared server. It uses Solaris Zones, and works very well. I don't notice much difference from a Linux shared server.