forums are dead this weekend

[Patrick]

I find everyone is more chatty when they should be working lol, am i the only one that works 365/24/7 ? lol.  I do like the suggestion Bradley had to branch the forum out a little bit.  Keep most of it hostbill but create other areas of discussion.  Incredibly good bunch of people here.  A lot of useful help, information and wisdom could be shared.

[jeffrey404]

I agree. Expanding to other topics would be good.

[thetrusteeco]

+1 on related talk.  Interested in Interworx, and other related stuff, but don't really want to read people's favorite muffin recipies.

[Patrick]

+1 on related talk.  Interested in Interworx, and other related stuff, but don't really want to read people's favorite muffin recipies.

You mean to tell me you have no interest in my peanut coconut banana muffin pie?   Jk, completely agree but definitely like an area for other topics other then off topic.  I'd start a forum but i don't really care to login to yet another even though i'd so much rather vbulletin over SMF

[thetrusteeco]

Personally, if we go this route, I'd like to see some software/hardware orientated topics.  For example:

Web-hosting panels: Where we could discuss and debate various panels without the WHT-Spam.  I'd like to see some open discussions about both paid panels (cPanel, Interworx, DirectAdmin, Plesk, ISPmanager, etc.) and free Panels (i-MSCP, ISPconfig, zPanel, Website Panel, etc.).  We have a varied group of providers here, and it is generally difficult to find open debates that don't get derailed with SPAM or unilaterally shutdown by a moderator, because "this was debated 7 years ago; search for it" (as if that could be useful info 7 years later).

Dido for the following:
Virtualization/Cloud Software, Datacenters, DNS Software/Providers, Domain Registrars, etc.

[Patrick]

Earned yourself a like for that last one.  Absolutely agree.  I like WHT, dont' get me wrong but there is just something about WHT i don't like.  Too many opinions and hot heads.

[cloudhopping]

WHT does have a bunch of hot heads  - I have been one of those on occasion ...

I would love to see a few setup for control panels and the like - would be very handy.
on the other hand - if this is just for hostbill than I wonder if it makes sense to do so -

Perhaps having different control panels and software that integrates with Hostbill would be good -
but past that not so sure we would need anything else - since the forums are technically "hostbill alternative"

?

[thetrusteeco]

Yeah, I like/hate WHT, can you tell?  Googling anything seems to land me on a page where someone asked exactly what I'm looking for an answer to... and then 300 people offered him cPanel Hosting.  (Not knocking cPanel BTW, just the resellers that think they'll make money SPAMing in WHT.)

I tried to keep my list to stuff that integrates with HostBill, but honestly I'd like to see a category for Billing systems too.  I'd like to see an open conversation about the pros and cons of the other system.  It might not belong on HBF, but I don't know where it does belong. 

Obviously we're all HB owners, but I'm sure we've (for the most-part) used other software.  KBKP might be run very poorly, but HostBill is actually quite good at a lot of things.  Which is why we (my company) is still using is, and reinvesting in it (development time, not money to KBKP).  While there are a lot of things that make me mad (frequently) about KBKP, I do like HostBill.  But, we've been looking at the alternatives, and I suspect most members of this forum have been.

There has been a lot of talk/hype about Blesta lately, but that system is too immature for many to consider right now, maybe in a few months/years.  WHMCS has been a mess since they decided to conspire with cPanel, although they still have some of the old modding community on-board.  The fact is, an open conversation about billing systems doesn't need to be all about "how to escape KBKP".  The grass isn't always greener.

Additionally although it doesn't directly tie into HostBill, I'd like to add:
Operating Systems (CentOS, Ubuntu, Windows, Debian, CloudLinux, FreeBSD, etc.), Webserver Software (Apache, LiteSpeed, NginX, etc.), and DataBases (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, MongoDB, etc.).

My personal interest in these topics would be as it impacts Shared Hosting environments, as obviously a dedicated environment would determined by the code it would be running and the admin's preference.  Obviously cPanel is (CentOS/CloudLinux + Apache/LiteSpeed + MySQL/MariaDB), but other Panels can support many other software configurations.

[Patrick]

KBKP might be run very poorly, but HostBill is actually quite good at a lot of things. 

Unfortunately a car may be sexy as hell but if parts are impossible to get or a mechanic who even knows how to work on it (KBKP since it's encoded in this example) then the car is pointless unless you just want to look at it in the garage and admire the eye candy.  Unfortunately, not only is KBKP run poorly.  Paid support *Premium* support is useless.  Even at near $100 a pop.  I'm now waiting 57 or so hours for a response to an 18 hour guaranteed support ticket.  Without support (even the paid kind) the software is DITW. (Dead in the water)

We can't really operate our businesses off a software encoded with zero support even if we pay them. 

That said is why i'm for an alternative category.  Just because it's called Hostbillforums, doesn't mean it can't be related to billing software.  We all need to discuss alternatives as much as we hate it.  I too have been following Blesta quite a bit and agree that it's just not where we need it yet. 

So i think at this point it all depends how much we want to gamble with our businesses to be honest.

[thetrusteeco]

Yeah, I saw your 57 hour thread when it was at 27...  But in KBKP's defense, it's the weekend, and also it might be raining or something... JK (Sorry dude, it must be driving you crazy.)

HostBill might be EOL, but I hope it isn't.  I suspect that this Domain-Sync SNAFU has been reported by a lot of customers and will be fixed in the next update.  So, that means either KBKP just figured out that could make nickel by planting a breakage in the software, or they already knew that, so we can expect more in the future.

I'd like to see the HDCP thread lead to some useful extensions that could be ported to Blesta or whatever later on.

[tallship]

... am i the only one that works 365/24/7 ? lol.

You can do that?

Try as I might, I don't usually get past about 22hrs before I do a couch dive for a few zzzz's

I have a non-hostbill topic I'm going to post in a minute too.

[Patrick]

You can do that?

Try as I might, I don't usually get past about 22hrs before I do a couch dive for a few zzzz's

I have a non-hostbill topic I'm going to post in a minute too.

Absolutely.  I run an uptime like my servers.  Going 130 days without sleep! lol.  i'd say 22 hours would be my max unless i was doing something physically active.  if i stay up that long, i'm toast and sleep schedule is out the window. 

[UCG_Keith]

You mean to tell me you have no interest in my peanut coconut banana muffin pie?

Sounds delicious Patrick, watching for the post - LOL!

I like the idea of other forums.  I would like to suggest Cloud Platforms (e.g. VMware, onAPP, etc.).