I hope that this note finds you are all well and prospering in business as well as health.  I want to share  some good news today.  This good news for us is in reality attributable to each and every client we serve.  For that we are very thankful and we want to extend our deepest appreciation to all.

There is a well known quote that goes, “today is the tomorrow, you worried about yesterday.”  I often think of that as I prepare to face each day knowing that so many are dependent upon us to provide a critical service.  We work hard to anticipate new developments, recognize challenges that are on the horizon and make sure our equipment and staff knows what needs to be accomplished each day.  Also,  a part of what we do each day is to prepare for tomorrow, next week, next month and next year.  We do that so we can look forward to each day prepared for any eventuality, but free of any worry that we are not prepared.

We recently established a new milestone for sales in a single day.  We could not have done it without you!  We are delighted that so many have have placed their confidence in us.  That makes us feel good and we are redoubling our efforts to responsively and responsibly serve you.  We think it is also a testament to your good judgment.  You selected us to serve you and we are proud to have responded.

Thank you for enabling us to achieve this milestone and please know that we are appreciative and are constantly in search of new ways to serve.  The expansion of our VPS services to Washington DC will be followed by other initiatives in our current service areas to insure our efforts are targeted to satisfy  your needs.

So, thank you once again and please have a slice of our virtual cake in celebration.

I’m always thinking about how things can be accomplished more efficiently, faster or with a higher degree of reliability.  A recent episode at home provided the inspiration for this entry.

I was watching my daughter prepare a cake the other day.  She mixed all the necessary  ingredients in a bowl and then was preparing to pour the mix into a pan for baking.  She had several choices for pan size and selected one that was too small for the ingredients.  Unfortunately, she filled the pan and then poured some of the cake mix on the counter.  It was a bit of a mess, but was quickly cleaned up.  She had learned a lesson about measurement and I had a bit of an epiphany about bandwidth.
In the hosting industry “bandwidth” is always touted as the “gold standard.”  In other words, one can often see an advertisement that attests to the fact that a hosting service’s large bandwidth insures a faster transfer rate and lower latency connections.  The fact is that there is more to the equation than just the size of bandwidth.  My daughter was baking a large cake and erred when she selected the pan size for baking.  The capacity of the baking pan was exceeded by the mix.

Now imagine, for example a hosting service that advertises 40 gigs of bandwidth, but has 41 gigs being poured into it.  There’s a problem!  You see, it’s not about how large the bandwidth is as about it is about how much is being used.  Even if only 99% of capacity is being used, there may not be sufficient room in my “pan” example for efficient data transfer.

The point of this writing is to point out that just because large bandwidth is being advertised, it may not always be the most efficient.  One has to ascertain how much capacity is being used and how much remains.  You can rest assured that Future Hosting is well aware of what the needs are for optimum transfer rates and wants your “cake” to be baked to perfection.

If you read my previous entry about our new VPS services centered in London to serve the European community, you would have noted that Queen Elizabeth herself welcomed us – sort of.

Well, the reality is that we have not heard much from the Queen, but our clients have been very complimentary about the speed and reliability of this new addition to our hosting network. In fact the utilization of this service has exceeded our expectations.  We thank our users and want to insure them that their satisfaction is our number one priority.

We’re proud of the fact that we are a global service that is reaching out to all to insure the very best in service is provided.  Even as others are camping out in a single location, we are actively locating ourselves in areas that will best serve needs.

Our efforts and your responses have been so fantastic that we are currently exploring options for the east coast of the United States, perhaps Washington, D.C. and also a location in New Zealand to serve our friends in the southern hemisphere.

Let us know if you have a need – we’d love to respond.

I hate to just blurt out a new announcement. I like to open packages slowly and let the anticipation build for just a few moments before revealing something new, so bear with me for a moment.

Imagine a stage with the curtain drawn and the audience eagerly awaiting the results of a contest. Musicians are playing anticipatory melodic sounds. Can you hear a drum roll? The curtain is opened and sitting on the stage is Queen Elizabeth. Slowly, she unrolls a scroll and announces that she is pleased to welcome Future Hosting to the United Kingdom.

Ok, I know I overdid it a bit, but we’re delighted to announce that we’re expanding our VPS services to London, England. Future Hosting has attracted a large number of clients who have placed their trust in us and we in turn want to insure that their trust is well placed. Our expansion will enable clients in European markets to experience the benefits of lower latency server connections – without any tech talk and in a few words that means faster data transfers to customer inquiries.

In the Internet world “distance matters” for high speed responses to customer requests for data and we’re proud to take this step to insure that we can deliver the goods to you quickly, efficiently and without delay with satisfaction guaranteed.

Our current server locations in Chicago, Dallas and Seattle will now be complimented by services in London and you can be assured that we are not stopping there.

Our clients asked for this service and we’re proud to deliver. If you are client – thank-you for trusting us – if you are contemplating letting us serve you – know that we are ready, willing, capable and possess the technical expertise to make your needs our priority.

By default, Future Hosting provisions new VPSs with a security setup which includes APF (Advanced Policy Firewall) and BFD (Brute Force Detection).

This combination works well and can provide great security for your VPS.

However it lacks a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for the average user.

ConfigServer Firewall (CSF) and Login Failure Daemon (LFD) is another good firewall combination that works equally great (some say even better!) and comes with a GUI for WHM as well. It is easy to install CSF+LFD in your VPS with a few commands in SSH. The important point to note when installing

CSF+LFD in your VPS is that you need to enable “MONOLITHIC_KERNEL” in

CSF+CSF

configuration file. This is because a VPS does not have Loadable Kernel Modules (LKMs) and hence it is considered as a MONOLITHIC kernel. To enable MONOLITHIC_KERNEL, change the value to “1″ in the configuration page when configuring CSF (after installing) for the first time through WHM. Then restart CSF+LFD and your new firewall combination will be ready to protect your VPS!

If you need any help in installing or configuring CSF+LFD in your VPS, just submit a ticket in our Help Desk!

Nothing can make a management team or individual break out in a cold sweat faster than talk of data loss. Time moves quickly in our global economy and in a few short hours immense and/or critical data can be generated. The loss of a single day’s data could bring disaster upon an operation dependent on the Internet. Whether it be a large global business or a small operation, we all have to contend with the possibility of this potential tragedy.

We’re constantly thinking about this possible eventuality and the prospect of this sort of pain being experienced by our clients is not bearable, so we are now running backups every 6 hours for every client VPS account. We want you to know, “we’ve got your back” - backup that is. We can’t provide protection in every instance, but we can assure that you can sleep easier when the dreaded words “data loss” are uttered. We all have a responsibility to do our part and we want you to know we are doing ours.

Six months ago all backups were running on a weekly basis. Three months ago all backups were running on a daily basis. Now we’re at 6 hour intervals and you read it right – it applies to every VPS account.

You can rest easier now knowing that you are free to conduct your business with one less worry to contend with.

Have you ever slowed down a bit to notice how fast things are moving?  Systems and processes become obsolete so fast, that sometimes they never become fully implemented.

Operating VPS hosts from a single location is already “old school” and many hosts have still not recognized the need.  Globalization demands speed, reliability and responsiveness.  That’s why we just recently opened our new data center in Seattle.  Plans are already underway to move to a European location to compliment our current centers in Dallas, Chicago and Seattle.  We believe multiple server locations offers a system that will be responsive to global demands.

We want to insure we’re quick, nimble and flexible to beat back the “fire breathing dragon” of obsolescence that often causes services to lag behind what is needed by customers.

We wish you the best in your battle with the “dragon” and remind you that we’re here to team-up with you in the quest.  Our success is dependent upon your success.  Together we can see the “dragon” approaching before we all get burned.

There are many companies that offer hosting services. It would be less than honest to say that some of them are not good because they are. Unfortunately, too many companies cannot effectively manage all the elements that are necessary to provide the technical expertise, responsive service and reliable support that is necessary in a 24/7/365 world. Companies are often good today and not-so-good tomorrow. We strive to maintain consistency and have been doing so for over 6 years now.

Some companies have hardware or software limitations, are often tempted to oversell their services and subsequently cannot meet the service expectations of their clients. We monitor what we do in house as well as what folks are saying about us. We recognize the Internet as a powerful tool of spreading the word and we want to make sure the word about us is good.

The old adage “you get what you pay for” holds true in the hosting business as well as all others. We work hard and smart at maintaining cost effective controls and pass the savings on to our clients. Location, location, location are the top three words used to describe value in real estate and service, service, service are equally applicable in the hosting world.

We feel that we have successfully carved out a niche for our company and our clients that has proven reliable and beneficial. So the short answer to the question of how we remain competitive is to deliver the service to our clients that is demanded and expected. We will continue to meet that challenge.

I am Vik. I am the CEO, the coach, the janitor, the top guy and the bottom guy all rolled into one. Perhaps I can best be described as the head that controls a company with many arms, hands and other heads all devoted to insuring that 24/7/365 days a year into perpetuity that Future Hosting services and servers are spinning and whirring (figuratively speaking) to insure that your network is available at all times.

I get involved in all the aspects of operating Future Hosting. I authorize the purchase of new hardware, oversee contracts, supervise employees, read about and investigate the reliability of software, seek suggestions from the staff, answer questions, monitor accounting and business practices and often talk to customers about their individual needs. I am a hands-on CEO that wants to make sure that we’re doing what we’re supposed to do every hour of every day. Frankly, I’m obsessed with a vision to make Future Hosting the very best there is.

Future Hosting is a part of my bloodstream. I love this stuff! Ever since leaving the University of Michigan I have been involved with technology. I started at the bottom and have had the opportunity to participate in and view technological changes over the last 20 years from the bottom to the top and from side to side. Change happens almost daily! Each challenge provides an opportunity and each opportunity provides me with the incentive and motivation to prevail. Like the fighter that raises his arms in victory at the end of a tough bout, I have been known to give high-fives to those around when we have tackled and conquered a difficult problem. Perhaps that is what attracted me to this business.

There is a high-level of difficulty and an equally high-level of gratification in providing a service that is so important to so many.

So there you have it – that is a little about me. ttyl

Like everyone else, we like a “pat on the back” every once in a while and frankly we don’t like complaints. We have a system of responding via e-mail or through a ticket process to address issues that arise from time to time. We feel it is critical to meet the expectations of each client and will work tirelessly to satisfy everyone.

We know that criticism often travels faster than success so we want to insure there is no criticism. Recently on a public forum a client criticized us and we worked diligently to alleviate the problem. The end result was that we were delighted to openly solve the issue although we would have done the same things in private. However, the public exchange elicited this response from a member of the forum - I had some problems with my server in the past 72 hours. The server was restarting continuously. I contacted the future hosting and they responded {to} me so quickly in to the issue. Also they fixed it within no time. I’ m so satisfied with their support and keep going future host.

That was our “pat on the back” and we want every client to feel that satisfied. So thank you for using our services and if you are considering us, we would appreciate the opportunity to serve you.