May 2016 has been an eventful month for Greenhouse Servers. Our executive staff has been scrambling to make things happen and we’re getting there, albeit more slowly than we’d like. That’s okay. I’d rather take a little extra time up front to get it right, vs. rushing through and spending weeks or months to fix what we bypassed earlier.

I’m a big fan of contractor and HGTV star Mike Holmes, whose mantra is, “Do it right the first time.” I agree 100%!

We’ve tentatively settled on our default server control panel. It’s one called ISPConfig. It’s clean, it works, it’s low on the bug index (i.e., very few problems!) and it’s got several available add-ons we think will be valuable to our customer base. For example, we’ll add the capability of monitoring your websites with an app you install on your phone. Cool, huh?

As we build, we’re constructing a database of help information, as well. These are your FTP settings with two popular FTP utilities. Here’s how you setup login credentials. Here’s where you’ll create email accounts. Here’s where… well, you get the idea.

Part of being an excellent hosting service is being able to clearly communicate details to your customers. For a lot of hosting services, you need help articles to understand the help articles! Our intent is to show clearly, “Click this box; use this name; use this setting.” We’ll include pictures of our control panel, for example, and show you directly in a Next Step > Next Step > Next Step formula.

Of course, our focus will be on what’s offered by Greenhouse Servers. We’re not responsible for other people’s software, like Filezilla. So while we’ll offer some details on those programs and how to use them to connect, we might not be constantly on top of their updates. And we can’t provide details for every single FTP utility across the planet. That’s not what we do, after all.

We’re also going to focus on current technology. You can’t use FrontPage with Greenhouse Servers, because FrontPage hasn’t been updated since 2004. Anything that out of date is simply not compatible with current servers. Likewise, part of our Terms of Service will state that you absolutely MUST keep your websites current. If you’re using a PHP based program like WordPress or Joomla and you don’t update, you’re potentially putting our other client sites at risk. Over the years I’ve seen sites so compromised that there was no possible way to fix them except to rebuild them from scratch.

When your site crashes due to malware, it’s the web equivalent of a massive heart attack, only contagious. Your visitors may end up with their computers infected. It can potentially get you sued, if it compromises their identity and/or bank account. Many businesses never get past the crash. Is it worth it to put yourself out of business, when all it takes is a quick regular maintenance of your site?

We’ll be doing what we can to help keep your hosting account clean, too. Stay tuned for more details.