Laughing Squid Web Hosting

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General Information

What kind of servers does Laughing Squid use? #

Our servers are running the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (either ES 4 & ES 5) distribution of the Linux operating system along with the Apache 2.0 webserver. With the exception of our control panel, all the software we run on our servers is open source.
What data center does Laughing Squid use? #

All of Laughing Squid’s servers are located at Rackspace’s world-class, Tier-1 data centers that have a zero-downtime network policy and rapid hardware replacement program. Here’s more detailed information on Rackspace’s network and data centers. Rackspace has been rated as one of the most reliable data centers by Netcraft, an organization that monitors of internet performance.
How are the servers backed up? #

Full server backups are run each week, with daily differential backups every night. Old backups are stored offsite and retained for four weeks. Our server backups are for restoring an entire server’s data in a situation where there is massive data loss, data corruption or a security compromise. We do not offer any kind of selective file backup and restore services, so it’s always a good idea for you to backup your website locally on your own system in case you accidently delete files from your website or experience other types of data loss. If you are trying to restore lost files that you do not have locally, try searching for your website with The Internet Archives Wayback Machine or Google’s cached version of your website.
How do you minimize downtime in the event of a hard drive failure? #

Our servers use RAID Level 10 hard drive mirroring. Using RAID Level 10, data is simultaneously written to the servers’ four hard drives, so in the event that one of the hard drives fails, the other three hard drives will take over and the server will remain online while the old, bad drive is hot swapped for a new drive. With a RAID hard drive array, overall server uptime is much better than a traditional single hard drive configuration, since failed hard drives are often the main cause of server downtime.
What is your privacy policy? #

You can find this on our Privacy Policy page.
What is your Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)? #

You can find this on our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) page.
What are your Terms of Service? #

You can find this on our Terms of Service page.
How long has Laughing Squid been in the hosting business? #

We started hosting our first websites in March, 1998. Prior to that we had been developing websites, primarily for San Francisco Bay artists, since late 1996.
Who are some of Laughing Squid’s customers? #

We host all types of websites used by artists, individuals, non-profits and small organizations. Check out our customer list and see what they have to say in order to get a better idea of who is using our service.
Can weblogs (ie. blogs) be installed on Laughing Squid’s servers? #

Yes, Laughing Squid supports many popular weblog scripts, including WordPress. WordPress is by far our customers’ favorite weblog script and is really easy to install and use. Check out the weblog section of our Web Design FAQ for more specific information.
Can a website be accessed both with and without the prefix “www”? #

Yes, the server will automatically append “www” to the domain name if it is not entered in the browser.
Does Laughing Squid provide internet connectivity like dial-up, Cable or DSL services? #

Laughing Squid does not provide any type of internet connectivity, but you will need to have internet access in order to access your web hosting account.
Can a website hosted with Laughing Squid be used for commercial purposes? #

Absolutely. It’s your website, you can do whatever you want with it as long as it’s within the guidelines outlined in our Terms of Service agreement.
Do you host adult (porn) websites? #

We don’t host adult/porn websites, but we do allow nude photography, erotic art/writing and other erotic material. You are responsible for making sure that you provide proper warnings and disclaimers concerning the contents of your website.

Our definition of a porn website is a website that sells memberships to access adult images and video or a website that is solely setup to distribute adult images and video. Most adult websites in general tend to have a heavy load on the server because they attempt to attract as much traffic as possible to the website and the visitors to these websites in turn download a high volume of images and video files. We avoid hosting any websites that may have an adverse affect on the performance of our servers.

If you’re still not sure whether your website meets our guidelines, then submit a support ticket through our Help Desk, referencing the url of your website, and we’ll let you know if it is the type of website we can host.
Do you support streaming media, podcasting or video blogs? #

Please see the streaming media section of our Website Setup FAQ for more info.
Do you offer hosting on Microsoft Windows servers? #

No, all of our servers are running Red Hat Linux.
Do you support Microsoft’s FrontPage Server Extensions? #

For security and performance reasons, we do not support FrontPage Server Extensions. However it is possible to still build your website using Front Page, assuming you have disabled the extensions feature. Check out our Microsoft FrontPage page for more info.
Do you offer shell access? #

For security reasons, we do not offer any type of shell access under any circumstances, including telnet, SSH, SFTP or SCP.
Do you offer anonymous FTP? #

For security reasons, we do not support anonymous FTP.
Do you offer any kind of custom web hosting, ie email hosting only, DNS hosting, CGI hosting, etc.? #

There are several hosting scenarios we DO NOT offer at Laughing Squid:
- DNS only — You just want us to host your DNS only and point to your remote server.
- External DNS — You maintain your DNS and use our server for content and email only.
- Mail only — Your website is hosted elsewhere and our servers handle your email only.
- CGI content only — You have a website hosted elsewhere and simply want your CGI (or other scripting/database) hosted with us.
Although these situations may be technically feasible, we provide a complete hosting environment and to arbitrarily accept or decline certain portions of the services we offer increases administration and costs. Please keep in mind that we are a small, independent hosting provider and consistency of services offered is one of the things helps us maintain our high level of performance, security and reliability.
Is it possible to install external software on the server? #

We do not allow outside software or programs to be installed on our servers. This is to preserve the security and integrity of our servers while maintaining optimal performance. Since many websites share one server, additional software for one website might adversely effect the performance other websites on the same server, as well as create additional security concerns. All the software we are currently running on our servers has first been thoroughly tested to make sure it does not present any performance or security issues.

The bottom line is that we do not offer any kind of custom hosting options.
Do you have a reseller program, offer co-location or dedicated servers? #

We do not, our focus is on hosting individual websites only.
Do you offer any ecommerce packages? #

We do not offer any pre-packaged, turnkey ecommerce services, but it is possible for you to build an online store for credit card purchases. You would need to setup a merchant account and gateway (if you want real-time processing), then install a shopping cart script. SSL is available for our web hosting accounts, but you would also need to purchase your own domain-specific SSL certificate as well as setting up a dedicated ip address with us. Check out our SSL FAQ for more info.

Another option would be to use an outside service to setup an online store and integrate it your website. Some options include Shopify, PayPal, Google Checkout and Yahoo! Store.
How do you go about submitting a website to the major search engines and improve search ranking? #

First of all, we do not recommend that you use any search engine submission services, since it is impossible for any company to guarantee your website’s rank in search results, regardless of how much they charge you. Instead what we recommend is that your read through Google’s Information for Webmasters and develop your website within these parameters. Once you have launched your website, Add your URL to Google. You should also read through the guidelines for the other major search engines (Yahoo, MSN, A9, etc.) and submit your website with them as well.

Joost de Valk has a great article on WordPress SEO.

Some good resources for search engine information and search engine optimization (SEO) are Search Engine Watch, Spider Food and Matt Cutts.
Do you offer Ruby on Rails? #

The true power of the rails framework can really only be harnessed with access to a shell to run the various commands to manipulate your application. Since we do not offer shell access and have no plans to in the future, supporting Ruby on Rails, would not be of much use to our customers. Granted, you could develop your application elsewhere and then FTP it here, but this defeats the purpose of many of the cool rails features such as rake. As such, we don’t have any plans to offer Ruby on Rails support in our web hosting plans. There is also the issue that the version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 4 and Plesk that we run currently does not support Ruby or Rails.
Are customers required to maintain any scripts or code uploaded to our server?#

Yes, any scripts or code that is uploaded to our servers must be maintained by keeping them updated to their current stable version. This is to prevent security and performance issues that can arise from out-dated code.