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Domain: alabanza.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to alabanza.com.
Comments · 6
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Build your own Perpetual Calendar
I'd just as soon try to memorize the Charge of the Light Brigade as that bizarre poem. It ain't exactly "Thirty days hath September."
But I think I could manage to make four paper strips and fold them around a pencil, or build this cardboard contraption, or even try tattooing this stuff on various body parts like the guy in Memento.
I might try this interactive calendar to find the Doomsday to start the algorithm process, but then I wouldn't need to remember the algorithm, would I? I would be most likely to consult my desk copy of Farmer's Almanac, then the only thing I would have to remember is where I put it.
Resisting the urge to shout "How are you, gentlemen?" every time I pass the "gentlemen's room" at work. -
Alabanza.com control panel
Alabanza.com and their spin-off YourWebHost.com both show their excellent control panel, developed by Alabanza.com, with US and Chinese programmers. Alabanza now wholesales hosting (with control panel) to a bunch of resellers, who market and bill for Alabanza.
I was told by Alabanza's techsupport two years ago that the control panel was started from Webmin, and quickly branched. I think Alabanza called it Webmiester for a while. Like Webmin, the Alabanza Control Panel is framework supporting extension modules all written in perl/cgi.
-Nathaniel -
Alabanza.com control panel
Alabanza.com and their spin-off YourWebHost.com both show their excellent control panel, developed by Alabanza.com, with US and Chinese programmers. Alabanza now wholesales hosting (with control panel) to a bunch of resellers, who market and bill for Alabanza.
I was told by Alabanza's techsupport two years ago that the control panel was started from Webmin, and quickly branched. I think Alabanza called it Webmiester for a while. Like Webmin, the Alabanza Control Panel is framework supporting extension modules all written in perl/cgi.
-Nathaniel -
Vservers.com good, Alabanza bad..While not in the "cheapie" range, Vservers and Alabanza are more for the 'power' user, and charge anywhere from 20$ - 60$ depending on whether or not you need things like multiple domains, lots of space, etc.
I started off with Alabanza for a year or two. Absolutely horrible tech support:E-mail 1: "Do you guys support mod_perl under Apache?"
I probably had cause to contact them for about 5 separate incidents in the year and a half I was with them, and I *consistently* had conversations like this. Connectivity problems were *quite* frequent, and all I could get out of them was a promise that their T3 through another provider was going to be installed Any Day Now for like 6 months, which I never stuck around to see. Their techs couldn't seem to read a traceroute, and kept insisting that it was general "Internet" problems, since everything was fine and dandy at the present time. The last straw was when I attempted to have them add a delegated subdomain pointing to a name server managed by me. Despite an e-mail 6 months previous and another 3 months previous where I explained what I wanted in exhaustive detail and got an "OK" on both occasions (they had a minor history of saying "yes" in one e-mail and then saying "hell no" when I tried to actually do it, so I tried to be very explicit and ask more than one person), they said, "Uhh, no, we don't do this," after I bought the hardware and finally got everything set up. They made a half-hearted apology, but made NO efforts to even compromise (which I would have been happy to do), much less try to keep my business (60-100$/month, I don't remember). When I asked them if I could quote their support e-mails on a web page where I could show the world exactly what their crack team of technical support specialists was capable of, they basically told me that they'd take legal action against any libelous material. Not a pleasant experience all-around.
Response 1: "yes"
E-mail 2: "Could you give me a little more information?"
Response 2: "Pearl [sic] is installed under
...
Response 6 (not joking): "No, we don't support mod_perl."
So now I'm with Vservers, and was immediately *very* impressed with their setup. You get your own "virtual" filesystem, with whatever software you want to have installed, control of sendmail configuration, Apache server configuration, etc. You have almost as much control over all of these things as you'd have with your own dedicated piece of hardware. Very slick. And if you go with a free DNS service, there's zero additional cost to add new domains (since you get full access to Apache and sendmail's configuration), assuming you don't need any additional HD space (100MB I think is what they give you with my 'Lite' account).
My only complaint to date has been rather frequent MySQL lock-ups and connection failures in the past month and a half, which (apparently) they knew/know nothing about, which tells me their automated systems monitoring is missing or inadequate. Still waiting for that to be resolved, though their tech support is quite responsive, despite the fact that they seem to abhor tech support e-mails, instead infinitely preferring some web form where I have to fill out a bunch of (sometimes unnecessary) form fields. They even go out of their way to say e-mails get their absolute lowest priority. They don't have an 800 tech support number either, though to be honest, I haven't needed it very much. when I do have to call, I never have to wait on hold (average Alabanza hold time = 15 minutes). -
sigh
How much of the purchase price of a new CD do you think the artist gets? And how much goes to the record company and the various middle-men?
Not nearly enough. Something like 40-50 cents... I am acutely aware of this because nearly all of my favorite bands have been royally screwed by their record companies in the past few years. If you get bored, look up what EMI records did to Marillion just in time for their 1997 US tour...
But realize I am not defending the middlemen. I am defending my ability to have the kind of music I like, made and produced by the few people who can do it. I have demanding musical tastes; perhaps a hundred virtuoso musicians in the entire world meet my rigorous standards. But since I take music so seriously, since my musical collection makes such a significant contribution to my happiness, a lot would be missing from my life if John Petrucci had not bothered to learn to play the guitar. Even if he had, I would never have heard him if 'Pull Me Under' wasn't played on KSHE-95; and I am sure that KSHE would not have played them if they hadn't recieved a free cd from the record company.
Still, I realize that the RIAA is an evil organization. My fiance' was a radio DJ for (several) Colorado rock stations, and tells stories about being forced to play only songs on the official playlists; simply an example of the RIAA misusing its powers to crush non-member recording groups by not allowing them airtime. I remember one particular instance she was literally forced to recite a list of good things about the new Green Day single, even though she hated it, so that it would sell well. If she didn't, the record company would have refused to pay "maintenance fees" to the station, and she would have lost her job. Any organization that would cause Green Day and the Spice Girls to become cultural icons obviously has serious issues.
Because I enjoy music that is not exactly popular in this country, I usually have to order CD's directly from bands I find in obscure clubs by word of mouth. If I get really lucky, CDNOW will help me. I hate this! I hate walking down the aisles at Best Buy and finding nothing of enough merit to pay for. But killing copyright laws won't solve that; instead of being filled with crap, the shelves would become empty. Or, more likely, RIAA would find starving musicians of mediocre talent and use their music anyway, thereby achieving the same dominance as today except royalty-free.
In a perfect world, every penny I spend to get my latest fix would go straight to the musicians. People who made good music would be rich then whether they sold 50,000 copies or 6 million copies... but the solution articulated in the article is comparable to industrial murder, regardless of what 'philosophical' viewpoint you take. You have to be very naive to believe that people who are forced to work day jobs because they give away their music, will make the same quality music as people who are allowed to concentrate on their art by copyrighting it, selling it and becoming as wealthy as possible.
Scudder
PS. good web page Greg- you might want to check out The Gathering, a Dutch prog metal band. Their female lead vocalist is tremendous, with strong, ethereal vocals, and the band itself is reminiscent of Rush/Yes... very powerful and deft guitar work. Start with Nighttime Birds or Mandylion.
And to the fifty people who replied to tell me that eternal copyright laws were bad: notice I never said that. My post was simply directed at the particular section of the article that discussed "giving back to society". Directed at what looked to me like a blatant appeal to get something for nothing...
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Home town company
There is a company around here called Alabanza. My friend works there, and he assures me that everyone knows what they're doing, and that nobody there is a moron. Try here.
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"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
