...and no, this isn't an OTcalc poll in disguise.

I found this awesome VPS plan (Economy, here: http://www.hostfolks.com/hosting/vps/), and I'm in a need of a domain/subdomain to go with it.

There are 2 I've registered:
alberthrocks.us.to (my username)
withg.us.to (with vigorous and enthusiastic enjoyment = with gusto)

If you are suggesting another domain, it has to be from freedns.afraid.org, preferably ending with .us.to.

I need a consensus by Sept. 14, 12 PM EST/EDT!

Darn those gotta be the cheapest VPS plans I've seen so far. I wonder if that company is reliable and well known? I hope they aren't another Jatol

In the future I may be forced to switch to a VPS for Omni due to the traffic, but then this means I would be forced to ditch TIMGUL (I would most likely keep it on my old 1and1 account, where I have mtvmg domain name for free), because TIMGUL is MASSIVE. Omni takes about 3 GB of diskspace I think and both sites uses about 90 GB of bandwidth per month. I'll probably ask various people if they know a bit about that host, before taking any risk. Surpasshosting and most other shared hosting appears to have PHP safe mode or no cURL and the like, so that pretty much ruined my plans for hosting move there. Should Omnimaga activity increases more, a VPS looks like it is what we may be forced to use.

ANYWAY back on topic: I would go with alberthrocks.us.to.

Hehe, I did some more research. As it turns out, they've been here for quite a while:
http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/hostfolks-5-95-512mb-openvz-vps-in-multiple-locations/#comments

And to back that up, ANOTHER post!
http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/hostfolks-5-95-openvz-vps-with-512mb/

Comments suggest that it's a BurstNet reseller. BurstNet is here:
http://www.burst.net/linvps.shtml

Looks like HostFolks is offering more than them (in terms of specs, not IPs)!

Also, I verified their longeivity - they've definitely been here for *quite* a while!
http://web.archive.org/web/*sa_/http://hostfolks.com
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/hostfolks.com
(from WHOIS: Created on: 05-Mar-01, Expires on: 05-Mar-17, Last Updated on: 03-Mar-09)

They're started their VPS service in 2008:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080108113517/http://www.hostfolks.com/
(Compare that to late 2007: http://web.archive.org/web/20071108233230/http://www.hostfolks.com/ - interesting, eh?)

I'm also eyeing this website:
http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/buildyourvps-openvz-vps-from-2/

It's seems shady at best though, and there's barely any mention of specs.

Do ask before you take. I'm ready to take it anyway, since I hate my old host.

If you haven't noticed, http://www.lowendbox.com/ is the website I use to find interesting deals like this.
They also give you a "safe" rating at the end of each post.

Do note that VPS != hosting, but VPS > hosting. By default, there is *no* control panel installed.
In fact, it's radically different from web hosting. VPS is a server - basically, you get full access to a
virtual computer! Is it like shared hosting? A little - you can't go and gobble up the CPU for hours and such.
(You can take CPU time, but don't abuse it - for instance, treating the server as a renderfarm and doing hours of
movie/image making on it )
However, RAM and others are limited by default (from the plan), so you're in a little box anyway, and they won't care too much.
(Basically, you can kind of overrun every resource, since it's your "box" - it's contained.)
The real server has multiple VPSes on it, so you're "sharing" it so to speak. But in the end, VPS > web hosting any day (IMO)!

cPanel is a great control panel to replace 1and1's control panel, but it's pretty expensive ($13/month on the VPS hosting website). Webmin (User and pass is demo, see demo: http://webmin-demo.virtualmin.com/), and Kloxo (http://demo.kloxo.com:7778/login/) are free control panels offered. And of course, HyperVM is provided to control your own VPS.

In conclusion...
 - I'll be buying my first VPS today! (At 12 PM EST/EDT today) (On topic, apparently!)
 - VPS != hosting, but VPS > hosting
 - VPSes will take a while to set up and use, but they're worth your time, plus you get FULL control over everything, including PHP config (yup, php.ini!), MySQL, type of server (Apache, lighttpd, etc.) - they give you a Linux virtual server connected to the internet, so you can do anything you want with it! (Well, almost everything)

On topic though, thanks for the opinion, DJ! If you need any help in the future should you decide to buy a VPS, feel free to contact me! If I'm available (hopefully I am), I'll be happy to help you set it up! Also, if you'd like to play around with the VPS when I get it, feel free to PM me! (Everyone can play with it as long as you don't sudo rm -rf / it )

Yeah that would be the only issue with me: having to install everything I need to run my site. Another issue is that I would also need to find a way to have web stats too, like I have on 1and1 (visitors/page views) and a few other stuff, so I would need some people help for sure. But yeah, I like the fact it's pretty much like a computer and you are the only one using that space. On shared hosting, if a porn site is hosted on the same server/db server as Omnimaga and gets 30 million hits a day, this causes all other websites including Omni to run extremly slow or go down often on that server.

Yeah. The board software only does forum views, though, not total domain name views. I was also worried that most stats softwares out there are paid or something. I would most likely need someone to code something

On-topic, that poll seems pretty tied

@juju, DJ: AWStats is a very popular FOSS stats tracker. I recall that it's installed on both of the control panels, in which you can configure it to track directories, etc.

@juju: Yes, I know. But there's an "initial" domain to start from. And, IRC bots, some render stuff, plus portions of websites will be on my VPS.

Depends if they let you mess with the DNS or change the nameservers.

@DJ, Juju: Nope, you have to provide your own. And I think you would point the domain to a fixed IP, since they give you one for free. (Web hosting though offers a free domain with a higher plan. I'm assuming that they assume that if you wanted a VPS, you'd know that you needed a domain/subdomain in the first place. )

Well, that's it folks!
From Cemetech and this site, alberthrocks.us.to got 5+0=5 votes, and withg.us.to got 4+2=6 (first num is Omni, 2nd is Ceme). And of course, Netham45's lovely "Other" selection is nullified, due to no name specified.

Needless to say, withg.us.to is the domain name! No worries though - alberthrocks.us.to will still point to the server, but the VPS settings will say withg.us.to.

Thanks for voting! I'll keep ya updated, and when ready, might let some peeps onto my VPS!

Aaah cool!
It would be nice to host some bots or something there such as SpyBot45

It's definitely possible, since my bot is Python, and I wrote it on Linux.
Depending on circumstances, I might need donations to pay the monthly bill.
(For me, $6/month is a big sucker out of my money, and I will likely run out very soon)

===============================================
I've ordered the VPS!

Here's the info below: (I've removed any personal info)

Dear Albert *** (N/A),

This is a payment receipt for Invoice **** sent on 09/14/2010

VPS Package #1 - withg.us.to (09/14/2010 - 10/13/2010)
VPS Location: Scranton, PA - USA
Operating System: Debian 5 32 Bit
Additional CPU Cores: None
Additional RAM: None
Additional Disk Space: None
Additonal IP Addresses: None
Bandwidth Upgrades: None
Remote Backup: Monthly Backup $5.95 USD
------------------------------------------------------
Sub Total: $5.95 USD
Credit: $0.00 USD
Total: $5.95 USD

Amount: $5.95 USD
Transaction #: ********
Total Paid: $5.95 USD
Remaining Balance: $0.00 USD
Status: Paid

You may review your invoice history at any time by logging in to your client area.

Note: This email will serve as an official receipt for this payment.

Regards,
Hostfolks Internet / Serverfolks
www.hostfolks.com
www.serverfolks.com
domains.hostfolks.com

Now for the magical setup email...