Hosting Tender from BoonEx

BoonEx posted 26th of August 2008 in . 40 comments.

Call for Expression of Interest

To hosting companies, web masters, BoonEx community members, and all interested parties!
Dear friends,

In light of the latest support issues, which for the most part are caused by server non-compliance to the Technical Requirements provided for every product on the download page, Boonex is announcing the following Hosting Tender.

This briefing announcement invites you to express your interest in partnering with BoonEx and become an officially proven hosting provider. Below we are providing you with first-hand information about this project which we really believe in the long-run would benefit all of the parties involved: end-use customers, hosting service companies, BoonEx, affiliates, partners, etc.

General terms and conditions:

  1. Minimum Technical Requirements for BoonEx software

  2. Selection criteria:

    • Auto-installer included in the package
    • Small banner and text outlining why your company is good for BoonEx customers
  3. Specialized packages for BoonEx will be the crucial selection criteria. Other major criteria to be applied include:
  4. Applications of primary interest

    1. $100+ (ongoing commission interest also preferred) commission
    2. Commissions paid to PayPal
    3. Good affiliate tracking software

Selection Process:

  1. Call for Expression of Interest
  2. Interested parties to submit Expression of Interest to the email provided below
  3. Pre-screening process
  4. Publication of shortlisted companies
  5. Final selection process
  6. Final list of hosting companies to be announced

This Hosting Tender is directed primarily to hosting companies but also to any interested parties. Your expression of interest should contain relevant information on the available server resources as well as any additional important details for our consideration. The BoonEx community will be able to contribute to the final hosting selection process through online voting.

You may be interested in learning more. Please feel free to contact us at  marketing@boonex.com. We very much look forward to hearing from you soon.

 
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lrepton
Who verifies all of the checks the providers state they have in place?
DosDawg
from what i understand, they are writing an installer script. the installer script must be able to run on the server. there is more to come on this, those of us who are interested are just waiting.

later,
DosDawg
DosDawg
boonex has written a cpaddon, that must be installed on the server. if the server is able to run the auto installer, that is one area of qualification. The Terabyte Team is testing this now and reporting back to boonex what we find. this will be an inclusion in the cpanel under the software icon. so we are working with boonex to get this tested and figure out how its all going to come together.

keep the good words coming, and we will eventually prevail with a knowledgeable honest reliable hosting see more provider for the dolphin suite.
maker4121
Without question You have to go with Terabyte Hosting. John Miller (DosDawg) is the Best Engineer Ive ever worked with or ever seen for that matter, period. Terabyte-Hosting is light years past any other hosting platform in the Boone Ex network. There is only on place to host your community and that is Terabyte-Hosting.com His auto installer is absolutely phenomenal. Reducing install times from days and hours to minutes. His PHP programming skills are out of this world, and are absolutely crucial see more in order to handle the Dolphin/Ray/Orca bundle. You have to work with Terabyte if you don't you are a fool. I
maker4121
I go with Terabyte Only!!!
nuccca
Thats great to hear BoonEx.

I wonder who's company will prevail.
anthonyparsons
If global hosting is required... I could only recommend boonex contact Servint. I have no affiliation with them either... if you want the best, they are one off in the world.
DosDawg
well the problem here anthony, is that we are not looking for somebody who is not familiar with hosting the dolphin script and providing the best support to the dolphin script users. we need somebody who is familiar with dolphin, who uses dolphin, and knows what it takes to make dolphin run.

your input is appreciated, but read the post, boonex is asking that those who are interested submit a letter of interest, does not say that boonex is looking to contact anybody.

regards,
DosDawg
sammie
if you read it right, it is not limited to just one company or person. and is open to anyone that has a dedicated server or more. they are not limiting this to just one, but any that they feel can offer the services in a manor thats doing to benefit members in the long term.

this is an admission that HFW has failed members and this is a move in the right direction, and shows boonex does listen.

there are members in talks to see what can be done, as some of us have dedicated servers and pay see more top dollar for them so we are sure we can handle anything we want to do ourselves.

the forums here are for dolphin/boonex product user support, the problem is, 60% of the support requests are about hosting and installation issues that have nothing to do with dolphin. 30% are dolphin related howto's and where can i change xxx
10% are license and other boonex script questions like the RMS and other things.

i work with DosDawg as he is setting up Terabyte Hosting, and have committed to doing something with him about the hosting problems that members face, this includes having the best people that know Dolphin, giving the support that members need. we have been working and talking about this for over a month, and as people are taking up the hosting already, the difference in how many are asking for support is very evident, it is almost none. why? because the servers are setup for dolphin.

we install a fresh dolphin install for you if asked, or can import your dolphin site from an other host if you need it.
we are also developing auto installers for both dolphin and the RMS so your sites can also be fully installed and RMS access is made as soon as your account is setup.

We do care about members and how they are treated, we have been trying to address some of the issues members have faced, what we can not do, is change things over night and make all the problems go away.

We have spent a lot of time talking about this, and we have come to some agreements on how we can best help address some of the issues. We are putting our own money and time into a venture that can help make things better all round. but we can not compete in price or resources that the big boys have.

We will not promise you the unlimited world for $1.99 a month. but we can promise you the best hosting and support for Dolphin, by people who know Dolphin, and know servers and what members need. Because we use Dolphin ourselves we know whats needed.

Thank you boonex for listening and taking action to try and address this.
clubbeyourself
Sammie

You have put it out there, exactly how it is.

Good on you..

and yes I am a huge supporter of DosDawg and Yourself and I can honestly say that had it not been for you two then I would have given up on Dolphin a long time ago, (not dolphins fault or boonex).

I used to be hosted by HFW and had nothing but problems, I moved with DosDawg's Terabyte Hosting and RMS and have not had any hosting issues at all since.

Also, any issues that I have had while developing my site DosDawg see more and yourself have jumped to my assistance as quick as the blink of an eye. Thankyou.

Anyway that's my rave over.. Long live the guys & gals that truly want this commnity to work to benefit all
Tallyplayer
Terra-Byte hosting and Dosdawg in particular saved my sites during the last hack outbreak. Dosdawg stayed with me overnight and we moved four hack infested sites over to his servers. Not only are they all running great but even before upgrading to 6.1.4 the hacking stopped. Did I mention this was all done before we even remotely discussed payment or me hosting with him? The customer service, and great experience inspired me to get out of the $4.95 a month arena and take my sites seriously. DosDawg see more has also built up a great Dolphin support staff dedicated to customer service. Sammie and a team of dolphin members are standing by to help and together we are truly making Dolphin a community! Thanks DosDawg.
scalpshifter
I can give my strongest and hyper enthusiastic recommendation of Sammie and DosDawg as the providers of this critical service. My spam-o-matic hacker nightmare is now over thanks to them. I seems to me that we really want people who understand the fine points of not only the software but the mechanics of hosting it. Sammie and DosDawg are those people.
DosDawg
thank you for your kind words. it is much appreciated in an environment where sometimes you get wrapped up in the moment, and forget what is actually going on around you.
jshowlay
LIQUID WEB (R)>>>>>Maxp Robert tom chris cufouco alex are all wak.............
gameutopia
One part I am wondering about:
2.Selection criteria:

*Auto-installer included in the package
* Small banner and text outlining why your company is good for BoonEx customers
Specialized packages for BoonEx will be the crucial selection criteria.


Auto-installer? The host should provide a means of a one or two click auto-install for dolphin from within there hosting account or am I mis-understanding this.

I have only seen 1 that ever had a dolphin auto-installer in the hosting see more account, and that was back in dolphin 5.6.

If so then auto-un-installer, auto-updater, auto-patcher too. Last time I checked hfw didn't even have a auto-installer. Maybe they do now, maybe they don't.

Anyway just curious.
There are a few ways of doing it:

1) a packaged addon for cpanel, plesk, etc that a user can self install and remove at a click of a button.

2) a custom script that runs with the skel. dir when an account is created and does a install based on pre-defined information.

3) custom page function that will do all install functions with form input.

The later is the method most have tried and ran into problems with scripts setting permissions, etc.

Boonex has a cpanel add on , although it see more doesnt work very well (we are modifing one of our own to solve some issues) .
DosDawg
boonex has provided us with an auto-installer to test. we are still reporting to boonex the issues we find, and they are diligently working on the auto-installer.

cyberxing is also working on an auto installer, and at some point there will be one released that will work. the larger problem as mentioned by cyberxing is that some server configurations are not setup to run dolphin, and you get into a load of issues with permssions and file setttings. this is one of the reasons boonex is running see more the hosting tender advert, to establish who has optimized their machines to run dolphin.

i must say, i am quite amazed at the amount of work it takes to get a machine configured for a dolphin install. all modules required for dolphin are not run-of-the-mill modules, and the majority of hosting providers just dont go through the trouble of going the extra step to do the installations. then even after you have purchased a vps or dedicated machine, you send a support ticket, and BAM, you get a response that there is a $50.00 charge for that installation. TYPICAL of HFW, those of you hosted there know exactly what i am talking about.

the servers we provide as dedicated and the shared dolphin hosting are configured to run dolphin optimally, and there are no hidden charges for installations of modules or RMS. this is all standard with our packages, and those who have hosted with us, or even those who have signed on for RMS have been very happy with not only the service, but the amazing support that is provided afterwards.

The Terabyte Hosting Solutions Team, does periodic follow ups to ensure that each and every site we have hosted, installed or modified, is still up and running as expected.

I must say, Terabyte Hosting Solutions goes the extra step to bring unity to the Dolphin Hosting environment.

Regards to All,
DosDawg
Terabyte Hosting Solutions
We have completed the auto installer, and will be completing a update/upgrade module for users to update and backup/restore on the fly from the control panel at will.

Sammie and Dawg are both GREAT people as well.

Cant go wrong with any of it.

CyberXing
praveenkv1988
We have automatic dolphin installer associated with our member control panel.
i3ill
If you want great hosting you must be with Terabyte Hosting.com,the team that runs are awsome! Never worry again with dos dawg and the Terabyte Hosting team,if you get your hosting for boonex somewhere else you just dont know what your missing
buckmcgoo
Every single person on here is hawking their own hosting now.. it has become rediculous. You would have to be stupid to host your site with some fly by night person who is renting a dedicated server and could shut it down tomorrow if he gets tired of Dolphin.
DosDawg
buckmcgoo,
just to touch on your post here. you are correct, about hosting with a "fly by night", you could certainly end up in trouble. if you choose a hosting provider who is offering $1.99 hosting accounts, or who is offering you "UNLIMITED Bandwidth" or "UNLIMITED Space", then you should consider this persons background. there are multiple ways of doing that on the vast internet, I personally check a lot of domains for age, this tells me a ton about the domain environment, see more not necessarily about the person, but the domain environment. Secondly in regards to looking at the age of the domain, i look at the expiration date of the domain. Typically if you purchase a domain name for 1 year, (minimum set by ICANN), then you are not serious about your web presence.

Just these few steps can show you some good information regarding a persons existence on the internet.

Renting a dedicated server, well that could be something that is true in your previous history, but personally i have been leasing servers since 2000, i choose to lease rather than purchase, since technology changes daily, and its more cost effective for smaller companies to lease equipment, than it is to colo equipment. I suppose you have never tried to dump 20 2 year old server(s), time consuming in itself, plus you certainly dont benefit from the headache. So renting as you say, is termed leasing.

I find your post appalling in its presentation, as if you read the post from boonex you would understand why there are those of us who are serious and then there are those of us who just wish to post a link to their services that they provide:

To hosting companies, web masters, BoonEx community members, and all interested parties!

now this does not say to all who own a data center, or all who own hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, last two words say "interested parties", now why would you be on the defensive about what is going on on this post, if this is a directive from boonex. you will notice that those of us who are actually involved in the hosting, where we may have posted a thank you, or posted something related to hosting, we have not posted our url on here as part of the post to the blog. those of us who are serious about this have followed through with what boonex requires, affiliate program, testing their auto-installer, among other tasks require from boonex. so you are wrong in your thought here, and maybe you can reread what boonex is asking for. if you choose not to use any of the hosts that are listed on the hosting page, that is, by all means, your perogative. but to come in here and post what is solely your opinion regarding something you know nothing at all about, and clearly havent taken the time to read what the blog was created for, you are wrong.

however, where all input is more than welcome, we do appreciate your post just the same as those that are positive.

look forward to the day that you are knocking out the door of our servers asking to come in.

Regards
DosDawg
joombyte
We have completed installing Dolphin Automatic Installer as specified by Boonex.
sammie
did you fully test it? i bet not.
its broken and shouldn't be used until its fixed. but like the other big hosts, that offer it untested unproven, you have made an error in judgment, by giving something thats not working right, and that will only lead to your customers complaining and if they use it to update their sites, look out, you are going to have a lot of pissed off people blaming you for the lost of their sites.

see poor hosts that offer their customers something untested is a sign of see more a host that doesnt care about his/her customers
sammie
buckmcgoo lol "You would have to be stupid to host your site with some fly by night person"
well just for your information, DosDawg and I have more than one dedicated server, we have a few online and 6 on order
2 RMS servers, 1 Backup server, 3 hosting servers, and 6 on order, i dont think that sounds like a fly by night person, do you?

We know dolphin, we also know servers. and we also thought about what people want so we are going to offer a shared server service. this is limited see more to 5 accounts per server and you get experience the full back end of what servers have to offer.

We believe in this way, with all the video tutorials enabled in cpanel and on WHM with SSH access enabled if requested, then you have the tools to educate yourself towards you own dedicated server in the future, at a fraction of the cost.

We believe that hosting is more than just cramming 1500 accounts on a server, and we have set ourselves a limit of 100 per server, unlike other shared hosts.

Our hosting is not a pay and forget the client, we want to help them up the ladder from our shared hosting on our shared hosting server, to our dedicated co-operative servers, where they share a box between 5 people, we manage the server, they manage their own accounts and setup their own hosting accounts as needed, we give their account nameservers so each is unique and we will help and guide them through the learning process.

later they can take a dedicated server from us, or move on to some other company.

At the end of the day, this is about getting your dolphin sites hosted on servers built for it, and learning about being a webmaster and server side administration that most people have never seen before.

Unlike the fly by night boys like hostforweb who take your money and delete your accounts when their insecure servers are hacked and your site was the target. we offer secure hosting on servers that have more security options in place because we dont host for the masses.
joombyte
Hello all,

I just want to throw out this question to all you guys and hopefully get a few responses from Sammie, CyberXing, and Dawg. This applies to other individuals as well who runs dedicated servesr that caters to Dolphin clients.

Like some of you, we are a small but aggressive growing hosting business with multiple servers and techs working for us 24/7. Given the competitiveness of the hosting business, paying $100.00 per referral and on-going commissions to Boonex seems unviable.

When see more it's all said and done, where is the profit? Given the high cost dedicated server and tech support staffs, I think this hosting tender is a little out of reach for small growing hosting outfit.

Unless you charge 19.95 per month (prepaid annually), then you will be able to afford to pay Boonex the $100 commission and still make a decent profit.

If you want to stay competitive, $7.95 per month seems to be the average price most hosting companies charge. If you do that, you will be giving Boonex all your profit upfront (95.40! actually now, you are 5 bucks in the hole)

When the next year rolls around, you will be forking out more money to Boonex for on-going commissions to them. Although, "on-going" commission is still not defined on this hosting tender.

Your thoughts?
DosDawg
joombyte,
just want to touch on one thing here, regardless of what boonex is asking as a referral fee, and a continual % commission, there is something i think you are mistaken about. there are absolutely no dolphin hosting packages being offered for $7.95, yes there is some advertisement that would lead you to believe they are offering hosting for $7.95, but if you dig into that, which i have and have transcripts from both of those hosting providers flying their banners with a price advert on it, see more you will find, that you are required to purchase a dedicated server minimum $139.00. do some research bud, and get back to me. if you find one person who is hosting dolphin for $7.95 they are an idiot, and have no clue what they are doing. the other thing you need to consider, there are those on here who purchased this script for $998.00, do you really think they want $7.95 hosting for that script. very doubtful. i have found even the ones who are running the paid license, the one year adfree, they are not looking for $7.95 hosting.so please do your homework, not just about hosting dolphin, but hosting in general, think about what you are offering, and dont offer stupid packages like unlimited everything, be anybody who is smart enough to spend $998.00 on a script, is smart enough to understand there is a limit to everything.

so not trying to tell you how to run your business, just giving you some information from lessons learned, as i have been doing this since 2001, and nothing has changed, if anything its gotten nastier with everybody and his dog trying to host websites, and be so called "webmasters". just look around at what reality is bud.

later,
DosDawg
joombyte
I am referring in line to this - http://www.boonex.com/hosting/

Given the fact that Boonex are referring people to these hosting outfit, my question is how are smaller hosting business able to compete.
DosDawg
and i am telling you that i investigated all of those, and there is no hosting for $7.95, those are lead in adverts, have nothing to do with dolphin hosting. i suggest you propose your affiliates package to boonex, as i am sure they will understand we are the smaller guys, and where these three to five hosts can make the $100.00 initial payment, its unlikely they will be around for long. lyubov assures me that when the community votes, only one preferred hosting provider will remain on that page. see more now i am not stepping on ya toes or anything here joombyte, but its my intention on being the one left on that page. :D

regards,
DosDawg
infrenion
$100 per referral sounds too high :(
We looked over several dozen hosts and did a LOT of research before deciding upon ServerBeach. We looked at RackSpace, and other top names, and decided that based upon what ServerBeach was offering currently, PLUS the option of Caching servers worldwide for future expansion, we just couldn't beat it. The servers set up in a basic config support Dolphin with no problems, as should most hosting companies. Now, where we really felt the difference with ServerBeach is was in the bandwidth and pipes, see more basically because all rack systems are built with a limited number of components and designs from which to choose (We build em all day long, so we know the hardware side of things) the hardware was of much less concern than HOW our members connected to the servers. We wanted some serious bandwidth, ultra-fast pipes and the ability to cluster. ServerBeach offered the biggest bang for the buck there, with 2000GB transfers over dual 100/1000MB pipes. They are on 3 major backbones with centers throughout the US. Now, we ARE different from the vast majority of Dolphin users who choose a free product hoping to have something up and running in a few minutes without putting any effort into learning it or maintaining it. We've been using Dolphin for a while now and have spent a LOT of time learning everything we can about it. We know MySQL, PHP, and the *nix and Apache stuff. That's what it takes to run a web site, and unfortunately, 99% of the folks putting up sites today have NO idea what they are doing or getting in to, and rely upon their hosting companies to provide them with their support. It just aint gonna get it done. I'm not recommending ServerBeach, just telling you what we found after settling on them. They SEEM to be a good company, simply because all we did was order the server config we wanted, and we handle everything from that point without having to use their tech support services. They may suck at support, but we wouldn't klnow since we do all our own work. But their speeds are excellent, and these days, that seems to be what really matters in a multimedia world.
DosDawg
nice post. you hit the nail on the head, and not just with users of any script, but with those who get on a resellar account, and think they are hosting providers. i have studied linux and hosting environments for the past 8 years, analyzing demographics and trends of web hosting. i know there were quite a few who made a good fortune on ebay selling ready made sites. WHY? because generally the person who would purchase such a site, lacks knowledge on how to put a site together,but even after the see more site is up and running, they dont know how to market the site, nor do they know how to maintain the site. i knew one fella specifically who couldnt clone the sites quick enough, and was selling them for $45.00 each, and selling thousands a day. this was back in 2001 or so. not only was he selling the ready made sites, mostly ecommerce type sites, but he was double dipping, as the sites are proprietary to his server, so you were stuck there paying his hosting fee, as well as paying for the domain that he registered and kept, because he registered, it was according to ICANN the rightful owner. i dont even know why i am rambling here. i do see that the number of posts has slacked off, and there appears to be nobody else interested in making application with boonex for the hostin tender.

regards,
DosDawg
Beanu
Hi,
I am running 2 dolphin sites on HostMDS.
They don't have an auto-install yet, but I'm sure you could talk them into that in return for a bit of traffic.
Otherwise, they seem to be very compatible.
Their main advantage is that they don't put limits on anything (except perhaps processing power - you have to pay for more grunt)

They are just changing name from vistapages,
so please forgive any confusion
http://www.vistapages.com/cgi-bin/aff/clickthru.cgi?id=donkeyhoty
EagleII
You can check our credentials. We were on the web before Al Gore invented (but like idiots didn't domain until 1996 ( soft-vision.com ) ) building mail tossers in C the C++ when Borland introed their OOP compiler in the 80's -- between FIDONet, RBBSNet GTPowreNet and the message based web. We have seen them come and go ( providers and wannabe webmasters) and before we host with any one check with dev types we know from all over.

If it's not too late I would recommend hostmonster.com a US based see more provider.

Totally compat with your products ( self installed as I have not asked them to add it to cpanel ) and we have a test site ( test becuase we just learned of dolphin) up here: http://patriot-blogs.com

all aspects of the site work well.. if any thing would cause a problem, it would be the surfers connection speed when he hit a half gig video we have running..as Ray doesnot seem to stream large flv files well.. but normal size appear to zoom.

I might also ad, and i make no money from hostmonster of this place.. if you open an account using this link you can apply for and get an 84.00 discount. http://www.rebateheaven.com/hostmonster.html

We have 4 domains running off the same account ( no extra charge ) and a high traffic site at: http://www.patriotsrevolt.com ( almost 1.5mil page views since Jul..) and none have suffered loss of quality.

Therefore, I suggest you choose, at your own risk any suggested site, but if your frugal and enjoy trouble free service and friendly techies you can clown around with ( some times embarrass) check 'em out.

Good Luck

Eagle II sends.
EagleII
oh well after 60 you get a bit loopy... I thought you were looking to change your hosting provider BoonEx. lol.. I better start drinking again, maybe it will help me read straight..

no matter, thanks for the great product.. we have been disecting dolphin and recoded parts over the past week or so since we heard of then installed.

Enjoy a movie on me.. the narrator and many of the people who are former PoW's I know or are friends with.. Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal
http://patriot-blogs.com/viewVideo.php?fileID=2

Best see more to all.. were down, blushing and gone...
Csar
HOSTGATOR.COM Dont support ffmpeg for share plans.. They misslead you by stating they fully support dolphin ..
scalpshifter
This is an extraordinarily belated post - but I wanted to simply say that dosdawg and sammie were extremely helpful a year ago when I was struggling with some software and server issues - if you need pro assistance -I recommend them.
Scooterguy
In Oct 2008 I hired John MIller of Terabyte Hosting and Dosdawg to build a website called Scootermates.com for me with Boonex software. This website was to be a FOR PROFIT website with banner advertising and Adword type advertising down the sides of the pages in the website. The website also was supposed to include a listing directory with links from motor scooter clubs from around the world. I also paid him $699.00 in advance to host this website for a year and I paid him for software that covered see more other required functions. John Miller told me that he could put this website together in 3-4 weeks. After waiting aprox 6 months I was very upset and I posted in the forums about how John Miller took my hard earned money and never completed my website as promised.
John then wrote me an E-mail admitting that he treated me badly (I Have It Available To Post) and he told me that if I retracted my truth exposing forum post about him he would quickly finish building my website once and for all! I took John Miller for his word again (BIG MISTAKE) and I asked Andrew and Victor to pull the post exposing John Millers dishonest and bad business practice's he did to me. Well folks it's been another 6 months and John Miller again broke his word to me by still not finishing my website! ALSO he charged me this time over $700.00 for another years worth of hosting for a website that he never completed! He also lost a flash header with images that he himself had installed on my website. This header cost me all together around $500.00. How could my flash header be lost if he was backing up my website on his Terabyte Hosting server as promised in my hosting agreement with him. That is unless he never backed up his server!
When I demanded that he refund the over $700.00 I also demanded to be refunded all of the money I had already paid to him for the still not completed website after over a year of waiting. John Miller first refused to refund the latest amount of over $700.00. He also pulled my still unfinished website totally off of his server and off of the internet. After I threatened legal action, today he refunded the latest charged amount of money for hosting a website that no longer exists. However he still refuses to refund me for the last years hosting for the website he never finished and for the software I paid for that has also gone to waste since he pulled my website off of his server and the internet.
I am not finished with John Miller and since he still has well over a $1000.00 of my money that he refuses to refund to me I will do what ever it takes to get my hard earned money! If you are now doing business with John I hope that he treats you better then he has treated me. However I would beware before paying him any money for building a Boonex Website and pay attention to make sure that backs up your Boonex site on his server!
Barry Cohen
 
 
Below is the legacy version of the Boonex site, maintained for Dolphin.Pro 7.x support.
The new Dolphin solution is powered by UNA Community Management System.
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