Using your hosting company as a partner

I wanted to comment on my experience over the years with my hosting company, Superb.net. I've been with them since 1999. I started out on a shared server... my site was just one of 50 other sites fighting for resources on the server. Then a few years later I moved to my own "virtual instance" on a server. Still shared, but with less sites this time. Finally I made the jump to my own dedicated server... where I am still at today.

Over the years I've run into all kinds of problems from hackers in France trying to use my server as a MP3 haven, spammers trying to exploit my mail server and of course brute force remote access attacks. Every time I encountered a problem I needed help with, my hosting company would go to bat for me. Their tech support team is one of the best I've worked with over the years. They are responsive and incredibly knowledgeable. In many cases they'll fix my problem for free, or just show me how to do it so they don't have to charge me, and I can learn at the same time. When they do charge me it is just a few bucks here and there, but it is well worth it in the time it saves me from having to research and "try" to fix myself, or find someone else to help me.

My point to all this... try to build a good relationship with your hosting company. They often have extremely useful resources that you may not know about... and in most cases they may be more willing than you think to help you out of a mess...