The Minimus - Hardly Small?
As I mentioned yesterday, we've just relaunched our website with a whole new set of hosting plans.
Over the coming weeks I'll be exploring some of the new options available to you and hopefully include a couple of screencasts as well (the stress is on "hopefully"!).
Our new entry level plan is called the "minimus", but there's nothing that small about it.
While it is "small" compared to our other hosting plans it comes with 20 times more space than its predecessor!
So what do you get?
To start with you get access to our new super-duper control panel. (You'll have to excuse all the superlatives - we're ever so slightly excited about this!)
The control panel is the "hub" for the entire system.
If you want to see what orders you have with us, be they domains, hosting accounts, vps or anything else, then you can login there and check their status.
To show you the kind of cool things you can do from within the control panel we asked our friends over in DemoDemo.com to put together some Flash tutorials for us.
If you have a look at some of the tutorials you'll probably get a "feel" for how things work.
What about other features?
The minimus, like all our hosting plans, allows you to host multiple websites on the one account.
You can now host up to 30 independent websites on a single hosting account.
If you want database support for a blog, forum, shop or anything else you will be blown away by the range of options available.
Not only are we offering you a choice of MySQL, PostGres and MS SQL 2005, we're also offering you the choice between MySQL 4 and MySQL 5, so if you need to move a site over from another provider you don't need to worry so much about database compatibility.
At the scripting level we're offering a choice of Php5 and Php4, though we would always recommend that you opt for php5.
If you want asp or asp.net there's no problem there, as we offer both Windows and Linux based web servers. You can simply choose which one you need during signup (we've got rid of the windows / linux plan pages since they just cause confusion).
What about pre-installed scripts?
We've a new application installer that offers a wide range of scripts and software for you to use with your site.
What about email?
We know how important email services are to our clients, so we've deployed a whole new range of email services and servers.
The "minimus" is not short on email features!
POP3 Mailboxes: Unlimited
Forwarders: Unlimited
Autoresponders: Unlimited
Mailing Lists: 5
IMAP
Email Filtering
Webmail: @Mail
If you want to access your email on the move then you'll love our new webmail service, which is powered by the very slick and powerful AtMail.
What about your site builder?
We've been offering clients a basic sitebuilder for quite some time and we were amazed at how popular it has proven.
We're now offering a much more powerful sitebuilder to our clients which comes with a nice range of templates to choose from.
What about ..... ?
There are a lot of new and cool features available for clients, so if you have any queries don't be shy! Let us know either by posting a comment here or simply emailing our sales team (sales@blacknight.com)
Comments
Some questions:
There is no mention of a spam filter .. is Email Filtering the same thing?
Is there any way to get the app installer to install into the root directory of a site ie / ?
Is there any way to get a dedicated ip and SSL set up via the web interface? If so is there a cost per IP address?
Posted by: Jason Roe | August 9, 2008 6:26 PM
Jason
Email filtering and spam filtering are the same thing.
You can turn it on / off via your control panel as well as deciding how you want to handle suspected spam emails.
We've talking to our partners in Parallels about the app vault and its default install locations, but it isn't available at the moment.
We'll have the options for SSL certs enabled etc., early next week and one of us will post a comment here with details once it's fully in place
thanks for your comment
Michele
Posted by: Michele Neylon
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August 9, 2008 6:29 PM
Michele, I am seriously impressed with the new hosting plans. I am tempted to move my reseller package. First I have a few questions: 1. do the plans operate as reseller plans with private nameservers and seperate logins for each website?
2. Are the websites setup as seperate domains on your servers and not what some websites call addon domains (effectively a domain name pointing to a subdomain)?
Posted by: Sean Deasy | August 9, 2008 6:47 PM
Really compeditive offers, looks like blacknight is the place to be.
Best of luck again with the new packages.
Tom
Posted by: Tom | August 10, 2008 6:03 AM
Sean
The hosting plans do not operate as reseller plans. If you are interested in reseller hosting I'd recommend you look at our VPS hosting with Plesk.
Regards
Michele
Posted by: Michele Neylon
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August 10, 2008 2:17 PM
curious about the database limitations with minimus? before the basic package was limited to two databases...
now, are you moving to a data-limit model (as in: you can make as many databases as you like just up to your limit of space)... i like that option myself.
but i saw no mention of this precisely.
great looking site!
Posted by: heather | August 11, 2008 11:38 AM
ah! i see:
http://www.blacknight.com/compare.html
database limit for minimus is 30! thanks :)
um... can i switch my basic account over?
Posted by: heather | August 11, 2008 11:40 AM
OK, so what's the best way of moving from an old plan to the new plan? You mention updated the DNS, but please elaborate
Posted by: Colm Garvey | August 11, 2008 11:54 AM
Heather, actually that's a bit missleading actually. We've allowed 30 of each type of Database. So you can have Mysql4, Mysql5, MsSQL, Postgresql databases. But we've limited the number of DB users to 30.
Posted by: Paul Kelly | August 11, 2008 11:59 AM
Is the cheapest package gone now? I believe it was 2.95 a month. It was the reason I chose Blacknight as I've no interest in more than 500mb of space and do not want to pay extra for services I will not be using. I believe a lot of companies are using hosting packages beyond what they actually use and it was wonderful to have a bare minimum package that had a price to reflect it.
Posted by: Conor | August 11, 2008 12:03 PM
ah cool! thanks. well, looks like a good deal.
like colm, i'd like to move my account over. more info on that appreciated...
i can see that my old plan was cheaper, so i'll have a balance to pay, in addition to updating my DNS.
Posted by: heather | August 11, 2008 12:06 PM
@Conor, it still exists for migration purposes. But it isn't available to purchase via the store.
@Colm well we've been trying to figure out the best way to handle this. We've thought of a few ways. Customer signs up for the new package, we then apply the "pro-rated refund" from the old account to your new account as a credit note which you can use against renewals or new domains/services. How's that sound?
P.s. nothing set in stone re: migrations or refunds etc :)
Posted by: Paul Kelly | August 11, 2008 12:22 PM
When is Ireland going to allow Citizens who have moved abroad to host their websites in Ireland?
Posted by: Gary M. Wine | August 11, 2008 4:52 PM
@Gary I don't understand your comment. Could you please explain?
Michele
Posted by: Michele Neylon
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August 11, 2008 5:01 PM
This looks like the end of my bandwidth problems. Even the basic package seems to have a lot more capacity than the old one.
Posted by: Bock the Robber | August 12, 2008 12:35 AM
Michele,
Like Colm, I'd like to migrate to the new hosting package fairly quickly. How long do you think it'll take you to work out some options?
Posted by: Vincent | August 15, 2008 7:45 AM
Vincent
We've been working on the best way to handle migrations and have prepared this document:
http://www.blacknight.com/client-migration.html
You'd need to liase with our support team obviously, but we've already moved several clients across without any major issues
Michele
Posted by: Michele Neylon
|
August 15, 2008 10:07 AM