Darice de Cuba

For some time already I wanted my own dedicated server, but it would be just a waist of money to get one for this weblog. Also in most cases of working on websites for clients I have to mail their hosting support to fix several things. Did you know that what used to be TextDrive hosting, now Joyent and soon some other company, still has the same unusable admin panel to handle email creation, database, etc. For more then four years already.

Support is something difficult to guarantee, it depends who handles your support more then what the company promises. When I send in a support ticket I always make sure to specify the problem, what I already tried to do to fix it, etc. So it’s obvious that I know my stuff. Yet a lot of time I get replies assuming I’m a noob.

In any case I just wanted full control and want to provide the same for others. So together with someone else we got a dv server(rage) from Media Temple. Yesterday it went online so this week when my new website design is done I’ll be moving this weblog to its new home.

The price range for the packages is based on the market on Aruba and the Netherlands. Also it’s not the intention to stuff the server full with websites risking it to random sites slowing it down or affecting it in any other way. I’ll be doing the support myself together with my server partner. Also I’ll be focusing on clients with no tech knowledge so I’m the one who will be doing the basic things like creating databases, emails, etc.

So in account of all the above I came with Storage Nine. I think of it of web hosting services with a personal touch. In any case it will be for website clients I already have, and small to middle business who need website or/and an email server.

And as an extra because Google tells me a lot of people look for it: a specific package to host your Feed a Fever app. I run my own Fever install on the server and it runs well, it passed the compatibility test without problems. I’ll be doing a write up shortly about how I moved my installation from one host to the other.

So to sum it up I’ll continue my freelance services and now web hosting under Storage Nine.

I said I would wait a week after purchasing Fever to write a review but I use it regularly everyday so I already have some data. When Fever came out the main complain by the crowd was that it is self hosted. I have no idea but I’m guessing Shaun Inman’s target group are the more tech savy people who probably already have a host and website but on the other hand the install is so simple that anyone can do it. It even auto updates when there is a new release!

Before purchasing I was wondering if I would just put it on this domain, but I only have 400mb space of which 350 is already in use. Considering Fever is new there is no feedback on how much space it will take and how much data traffic. To be safe I put it on another host and domain where I don’t have anything much. Since June 19 I have Fever running, today is the 24th, so 5 days of running Fever without cron, but keeping it connected with the server through Fluid.

On June 18 I cleared the data on the host and on June 19 I installed Fever so the data shown here is all Fever usage. I started with 43 feeds I now have 54 feeds.

This can be way wrong mode. Correct me in the comments if so, I’m no math person Lets do some math, nothing precisely but an average: 1MB – 1024KB, From June 19 till June 23 Fever used an average of 33MB. In those 5 days I went from 43 feeds to 54 feeds so we will use an average of 50 feeds.

The math: 33MB divided by 50 feeds is 675.84KB per feed in 5 days. Also most of these 50 feeds did not update in these days so no data came in.

So if you have like 200 feeds, that would be like 132MB for 200 feeds over 5 days, but obviously this only ads if the feed is updated. End this can be wrong mode

Assuming this math is correct Fever can be a real data traffic consumer if you have more then 100 feeds which most of them being active, thus updating weekly. I’m curious about others their stats for Fever to compare.

I just had the cron set a moment ago but before cron using the iPhone version is a bit useless as it isn’t possible to refresh from the iPhone.

Refreshing feeds requires maintaining a connection to your server. This persistent connection would be a significant drain on your device’s battery.

What I currently do is in the morning when I turn on the computer I open Fever just to let it update before leaving for work and before leaving work I open Fever in the browser to let it refresh. So this way I can read the new feeds on my iPhone when on the go. So for iPhone using a cron job is a must.

The Mobile version supposedly also works on the Pre and Android browsers per update 1.01 so I’m guessing it works on the Blackberry too.

If you like me like using something usable and beautiful then Fever is the way to go for a feed reader. Shaun Inman works full time on it so features are added without long waits, bugs gets fixed on timely basis. For example the bookmarklet; “Feedlet” to add the feed of the website you are currently viewing, had the option set to add the feed to the “Sparks” group. With the recent update 1.02 this is changed, so if you just subscribe the feed will go in Kindling with all other feeds unless you specify a group, then it will also be added to that group.

But the best of all, the main feature is the Hot factor of recent entries. If you have a lot a feeds you can filter out what is being talked about the most and by which blogs. Now with Fever I subscribe faster to feeds where before I was really picky because I don’t like scanning through hundreds of feeds to see what’s being talked about.

Finally did I mention the auto update?! It’s pretty awesome, I hope the next point zero release of Mint will have this feature too. With WordPress now also sporting an “Automatically update” button, apps that require you to unzip, read instruction and upload by FTP are now so old fashioned in comparison. I should start polishing my PHP skills and learn how to code these functionality.

Is Fever worth 30 dollars? Yes. You get a high end interface, smooth AJAX functionality, you don’t have to worry about running updates and a developer who dedicates a lot of time to improving the application.

Related: Storage Nine web hosting.