What hosting to choose?

[inve.tment]

Somebody have own site? What hosting do you use? I need good hosting company for my online investment blog
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online investment (http://www.my-investment-online.blogspot.com/) - online investment blog

[fos]

I have been with www.hostgator.com for several years. Their prices are reasonable and the service reliable. YMMV

fos....

[danieldk]

I am with DreamHost now:

http://www.dreamhost.com/

So far, they have been good. There are a couple of coupon codes on the net that can get you more than 90 dollars of for the first year. I paid twenty-something for the first year. Googling "dreamhost coupon" did it for me ;).

[danieldk]

BTW. my previous hoster was ipower.com, their plans are very good. But it is very difficult to deal with their sales departement if you are outside the US (e.g. they don't just accept European credit cards without faxing a copy of your credit card + ID).

[mdevour]

Googling the following phrase:

"Somebody have own site? What hosting do you use?"

,,, yields several, quite diverse forums where this exact message has been cross-posted. Presumably it's another spammer, Jeff, though there's probably no reason to delete the thread, given the useful replies it has received! :)

Be well,

Mike D.

[AndreL]

Isn't there specific headers or something in those spam messages that one could use to filter them out?

[fos]

All of the new members are being moderated. I look at the post and the information the new member provides. 99% of them are deleted and the spammers are blocked along with their email address. This one didn't look too bad. It was suspicious, but the profile page almost looked legit. The poor spelling was a consideration. I let it go just in case it might be from someone actually looking for information.

I let it go even though a programmer/analyst should know a little more about servers.

fos....

[AndreL]

Was just trying to save you some work... :smiley2:
Would making the "location" obligatory help (if it can be done)?
I notice that none of the spams have that.
But some legit members do not also...

[mdevour]

Are these being auto-subscribed or is there a human being typing stuff into the fields of the subscription request page?

If it's automated, there's a vBulletin plug-in that presents one of a bunch of admin created random questions which they have to answer correctly. This will add a little randomness the 'bots won't be able to handle.

It looks like you're doing a great job, Jeff, if this is all that's getting through.

Be well,

Mike D.

[fos]

Thanks for the NoSpam tip, Mike. It is now installed and in operation.

fos....

[mdevour]

Woot! That's great, Jeff! I'll be watching to see what kind of experience you have with it. It may be one of the first I install on my community when it's ready.

Be well,

Mike D.

[fos]

It seems to be blocking all of the spambots. I did a test membership (Jack) to test the system. It is the last one that has gotten through.

I'll keep you posted.

fos....

[fos]

Hi Mike,

The NoSpam mod has been installed for two days. It has a perfect record so far. I set up a very simple question that anyone can answer but is impossible for a bot.

A great system and easy to install.

fos....

[Harold]

And the question is...?

[fos]

It is simple: What is the astronomical body that was recently demoted to a dwarf planet?

It really doesn't matter what the question and answer is. A bot would never be able to answer the question. If bots somehow figure out that question and answer pair, it is easy to make another or even use more than one question.

fos....

[mdevour]

Wonderful, Jeff. That's great to hear! I'm glad the workload for you is lightened at least by that much.

Mike D.