| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| JohnB |
"Green" Web HostingI need to get some new web hosting organised urgently. Ideally it should be with a green/ethical host.I need the following facilities: - PHP - MySQL - SSL - preferably using a URL like https://www.mydomain.org.uk without paying for my own certificate for now. The ones I've seen so far have URLs like https://www.secureserver.co.uk/mydomain.org.uk that I would rather avoid. - POP3/SMTP mail - A mailing list facility I've no idea about bandwidth at this stage. If I need a lot it will be a sign of success and I'd be happy to upgrade. I found this one that looks quite good, but doesn't answer the SSL URL issue, but I have no idea if they are any good. I really need to get this up and running in the next couple of days as it's an important part of a big project. Any suggestions? |
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| Green Rosie |
No idea if this answers all your needs but if you visit our webside - www.eco-gites.eu there's a link on the left hand side to the company we use. | ||||
| jema |
I have a feeliong you are asking for the impossible.
SSL certificates are linked to a fixed domain name and need a unique IP. The certificate costs the provider as an upfront cost. It is unlikely they will want to pay that for you. |
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| JB |
Re: "Green" Web Hosting
There is no such thing. Computers consume energy. Regardless of who you use that energy will still be consumed, picking a company because they promise to carbon offset or some other nonsense is just to ignore the fact that the damage has already been done. Pick a host based on their service, if you want it be ethical you can make a donation to a green charity. |
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| jema |
I tend to agree, from my point of view hosting is vital.
If it could be in some way "eco" I'd take that as a bonus, but having a good network, good service and a sensible price come first. And as JB says, just what does it mean anyway, they are not powering the servers with a windmill! So pretty much all they can be doing is paying their electric on a "green" tariff. You will be doing more good switching your household electric to such a tariff. Your hosting on a server is going to be consuming only a few watts at most. Even an entire server may be only 400w on average. |
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| JohnB |
I put Green in inverted commas in the title because I'm dubious about such things. Some hosts are solar powered but seem to be in the US. The ethical bit is probably clearer, as that would exclude hosts owned by companies involved in the arms trade, GMOs etc.
I'm expanding my low bandwidth, fast loading, static paged site to a dynamic database driven one that will use more resources, but for a good reason, so need to do something to compensate! |
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| Aeolienne |
What about Greennet? | ||||
| JohnB |
I discovered that I can set up domain aliases on my existing web space. It must be a new feature, as I hadn't noticed it before. So the need for new hosting has gone away for now. If you go to http://www.eco-hamlets.org.uk (blatant plug  ) it actually goes to the same place as my other sites. If you go to one of my other domains, the same page gets loaded, but it redirects you to a different page.
I'm using Namesco at the moment, and their domain names are expensive, so at some point I'll move the lot elsewhere, but now isn't the right time. |
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| vegplot |
Presumably your site goes down with the sun. |
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| JohnB |
I assume they'd have batteries! As someone who has trouble getting to bed before 2am, using a computer in the dark is quite important. Maybe solar powered with no batteries might be good for me 
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| vegplot |
and diesel generators |
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| Treacodactyl |
I heard somewhere the other day that Iceland is going to host a large number of commercial servers as the power can be obtained from geo-thermal sources and the cold outside is ideal to help with cooling. |