QUOTE(anwiii @ Aug 25 2008, 03:22 AM) now my advice is to apply for hosting right away! decide later if this site is right for you. although you have 100 credits, those are nothing compared to what you will need if you plan on hosting your site here for a few years so apply now, decide later so you don't have to waste anymore credits. also know something about your credits. it's easier to collect credits faster when you have fewer credits banked. the more credits you have es... read more.
I am nearly ready to apply for my new hosting account here on Trap17. Before I do though, I have a question. This relates to your 'Excessive Use' policy, and is something that I have been caught out with on a previous web host, so I really want to make sure that this is right this time before I apply.
QUOTE(OpaQue @ Jan 7 2005 @ 02:14 PM)
EXCESSIVE USE
Trap17.com accounts operate on shared resources. Excessive use or abuse of these shared resources by one customer may have a negative impact on all other customers. Misuse of resources in a manner which impairs network performance is prohibited by this policy and may result in termination of your account.
You are prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including CPU time, memory, disk space and session time. You may not use resource-intensive programs which may negatively impact other customers or the performance of Trap17.com systems or networks. Trap17.com reserves the right to terminate or limit such activities.
Accounts using up enough server resources, to slow or crash a server, will be shut down without notice.
My question is, how will I know whether what I am about to do is going to exceed the allowable CPU usage limits, and what are those limits? Your AUP states, as quoted above, that "excessive consumption of resources" is against the rules, and that there are "allowable CPU usage limits" which must be met or the account may be "shut down without notice". But it does not detail what the CPU usage limit is, nor how I am to avoid breaching such limits. The last time that I came across this situation, on another web host (not Trap17), I managed to fall foul of their Acceptable Use Policy, exceeding CPU usage limits, just by backing up my data using the cPanel inbuilt backup tool! I had no idea that this was going to put me over the CPU usage limit, and I had no way to gauge what the likely result on CPU performance would be of the action that I was intending to take.
So, before I apply for a web hosting account with Trap17, I guess I would like to know...
what exactly your "allowable CPU usage limit" is?
how am I expected to measure this?
is this "allowable CPU usage limit" measured at a peak point, or cumulatively over a period of time?
how am I supposed to preempt this limit, pre-calculating a particular action, before I exceed the limit?
I want to abide by your rules, but to do so, you need to tell me what your rules are, and not just some arbitrary and vague "allowable CPU usage limit". If I am putting my time and effort into building a website that is hosted on your services, I don't really want it to be "shut down without notice" for disobeying a rule that I cannot possibly meet, or that I could not possibly avoid breaking.
Can you specify what exactly your definition of a "resource-intensive program" is, and give examples, so that I can avoid them? Also, as I have posted elsewhere on your forums, I intend to make extensive use of the mySQL databases offered by Trap17 on my web hosting account, and I would like to know in advance if such intended use is going to violate your AUP.
Would one of your Admins be prepared to set up a test to see whether my intended use of your services is likely to violate the rules? Perhaps the results of such a test could be used to advise me on the best solution that I could implement, such as possibly limiting the number of Travian servers that I try to keep track of using the map.sql data.
I have a second, completely unrelated question, but which I would like to get answered before I apply for a hosting account please, so I thought I would just add it on here rather than opening a whole new thread. Below is a quote from somebody else's application for a web hosting account, but this looks like a standard reply...
QUOTE(BuffaloHELP @ Aug 21 2008 @ 08:47 PM)
Activating your hosting account will result in your hosting credits resetting to a default amount so stay active in the forum.
I have been conscientious with my forum posting, and my wife is posting as well, raising our Hosting Credits. We currently have over 100 Credits, and were expecting to keep the remainder of them after activating the web hosting account (assuming that my application is successful). But from the message quoted above it seems that activating a web hosting account on Trap17 may cost more than the advertised 30 Hosting Credits, and we may lose many more Credits down to a "default amount". Is this the Trap in the Trap17 web hosting account application process?
There is no set (i.e. numerical) limit that I am aware of. The odd spike from a backup is OK, but consistently using 10% of the CPU power obviously isn't.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 10:20 AM)
how am I expected to measure this?
You are expected to use discretion. Updating every row of a 1000 row SQL table at 5 minute intervals is likely to be unacceptable, and cause problems. However, updating them once every few hours would probably be OK. If this sort of thing is concerning you, run your scripts locally first. If they cause noticable detriment to your CPU performance, or use considerable amounts of RAM, then they are going to do the same to the Trap17 server. Local testing is the key.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 10:20 AM)
is this "allowable CPU usage limit" measured at a peak point, or cumulatively over a period of time?
As far as I am aware, it is over a period of time. I have taken many backups and run slightly intensive tasks with no problems. The line is drawn on whether you start affecting other people. If you are causing problems for other people, and ruining their hosting service, then whatever process you're running will be stopped.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 10:20 AM)
how am I supposed to preempt this limit, pre-calculating a particular action, before I exceed the limit?
Local testing is the key. There are tutorials on setting up Apache, PHP and MySQL locally on the forums, check the Tutorials section. Test your site locally, while monitoring the CPU and RAM usage. If your script causes a large spike then you'll need to fix it so that it is not so intensive.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 10:20 AM)
Can you specify what exactly your definition of a "resource-intensive program" is, and give examples, so that I can avoid them?
Cron jobs running every few minutes (probably anything more often than once per hour). Sending many hundreds or thousands of emails at once, rather than spacing them out over time. Large SQL commands on poorly designed databases.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 10:20 AM)
Also, as I have posted elsewhere on your forums, I intend to make extensive use of the mySQL databases offered by Trap17 on my web hosting account, and I would like to know in advance if such intended use is going to violate your AUP.
Downloading, renaming and organising the SQL files would not be a problem. However, 6MB of SQL commands could take a large amount of processor time, especially if they are running as separate INSERT commands, as you seem to suggest. Running lots of these SQL files (for the multiple servers) would escalate the problem. I suggest trying your scripts locally and seeing what happens. Your hosting account shouldn't really be used as a test bed for something like this.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 10:20 AM)
Would one of your Admins be prepared to set up a test to see whether my intended use of your services is likely to violate the rules? Perhaps the results of such a test could be used to advise me on the best solution that I could implement, such as possibly limiting the number of Travian servers that I try to keep track of using the map.sql data.
As I've suggested, test using a local running process of Apache, MySQL and PHP. There are tutorials here on the Trap17 forums detailing how to do this. If you're using Linux you just need to open your package manager and download the Apache2, MySQL5 and PHP5 packages, and they will be set up and configured for you.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 11:16 AM)
I have a second, completely unrelated question, but which I would like to get answered before I apply for a hosting account please, so I thought I would just add it on here rather than opening a whole new thread. Below is a quote from somebody else's application for a web hosting account, but this looks like a standard reply... I have been conscientious with my forum posting, and my wife is posting as well, raising our Hosting Credits. We currently have over 100 Credits, and were expecting to keep the remainder of them after activating the web hosting account (assuming that my application is successful). But from the message quoted above it seems that activating a web hosting account on Trap17 may cost more than the advertised 30 Hosting Credits, and we may lose many more Credits down to a "default amount". Is this the Trap in the Trap17 web hosting account application process?
This is pointed out in numerous places (for example, here, linked from the Readme page), very clearly, that you should apply as soon as you have the 10/30 credits for the package you want, and that after you activate your account, you drop down to around 2 to 4 credits.
Although rval answered I like to add a little input if I may.
Allowable CPU usage limit is kind of tricky because of the fact that 20% or more will temporary shut your site down, but in order to do that your website and databases need to be loaded and I mean we are taking gigs of data. however, since your using free hosting your never going to break that since your hosting space is tied in with your MySQL space as well and so you could break your hosting account in half as to where the most space would go. Although, once your site gets bigger and bigger MySQL will be taking more as each table starts saving data. So I don't think you will have to worry about that as much as making sure your not running cron jobs ever 2 seconds for all that data because then your bogging down the servers and that will affect everyone.
QUOTE
how am I expected to measure this?
As rval mention use discretion, but I would say when you see CPU usage exceeded, you know you did something wrong. Of course the best thing to do for your website is use what you really need and not what everyone else has. Make sure your code in y our files are optimize, also make sure your MySQL tables are optimize, using resources like image hosting and file hosting to help lighten the load on your account. With those tips to help it will be unlikely you be breaking that cpu limit.
I am with rval on how its measure, however, I do think there is a peak for cpu usage as well, because I know this one website that always spiked when I was going through their forums. Although, when I see OpaQue I have to ask him about the CPU usage because to be quite honest your the first member to really bring this question up .
QUOTE
how am I supposed to preempt this limit, pre-calculating a particular action, before I exceed the limit?
Make sure your code and tables are optimize, meaning you have no spaces where none is needed, making sure your loops are closed properly, limit your cron jobs i.e. every 4 hours or maybe once a day.
QUOTE
Can you specify what exactly your definition of a "resource-intensive program" is, and give examples, so that I can avoid them?
To be quite honest besides the cron jobs but almost every software that you can install such as forums and blogs can be resource-intensive program once you have a lot of content, like a few million posts in a forum, thousands of blog entries, and thousands of large images in a gallery. If you had a combination like that expect to breaking that cpu usage limit. So you can't avoid them persay, but that is the the wonders of staff to keep the spam down, turning your big images into smaller ones to reduce file size but keeping the quality and archiving old blog entries.
QUOTE
Also, as I have posted elsewhere on your forums, I intend to make extensive use of the mySQL databases offered by Trap17 on my web hosting account, and I would like to know in advance if such intended use is going to violate your AUP.
Like rval mention you would need to cause serious downtime for you to start violating the AUP when it comes to MySQL databases, but like rval said if you set up something like XAMPP and test your stuff on that before testing a hosting account you will have an idea what to expect. However, expect those results to nearly double or triple as your visitor increase and what not.
QUOTE
Would one of your Admins be prepared to set up a test to see whether my intended use of your services is likely to violate the rules? Perhaps the results of such a test could be used to advise me on the best solution that I could implement, such as possibly limiting the number of Travian servers that I try to keep track of using the map.sql data.
I find it unlikely that will happen because of how volunteer the staff is and the work load of OpaQue so you would be really on your own on that one. However, my recommendation and I am being quite honest, what I recommend since it seems your using your account for a gaming server of some sorts, is go to paid hosting and get a VPS account at computinghost.com (paid hosting company that runs trap17), expensive but you get a lot more support and a lot more room to play with. Also you will be able to talk to the support directly (when they are online) and let you know what kind of damage your doing .
I saw your topic and it said that you had over 100 credits, I was like wow because that is quick to get that many credits, most likely because of the dynamic dualness of the account. However I recommend that you save up 280 credits and I tell you why. You will be able to get a free domain for 250 credits and for the other 30 credits your get your hosting account. Like rval mention you will lose all over them except for 2 or 4, that is how the system works.
So I would recommend that you save up to 280 and you will be better off that way, and also you need to make sure to have at least 250 by the end of the year of that domain's yearly cycle to renew it. ie if you got it today then you would need 250 credit in 2009 on the same date to renew it.
Thank you for your reply, rvalkass. I will look into setting up an Apache server, PHP, and mySQL server on my local machine. Thanks for the advice.
As for the reply regarding the impending loss of my Credits, I still have not found on the Readme the link that you mentioned, and had you not posted that link above to the Flash tutorial I would probably still be looking for it now. The documentation on Trap17 seems to be very disorganized, including links to posts on the forums which seem to form a part of the rules. After reading through the documentation that jlhaslip linked me to in reply to my very first post on the Trap17 forums, I was still completely unaware of this caveat about the disappearing Credits. This type of information needs to be more prominently displayed on your site, rather than being hidden in some fine print in some hopelessly complex Readme file. When people such as myself choose to accept in good faith your offer of free web hosting in exchange for our participation in your forums, and then to post intelligent, relevant, and spam-free posts on your forum, upholding our end of the agreement, you should also uphold your end and act in good faith also. Hiding important information like the fact that opening a web hosting account will cost us ALL of our Credits, and not just the advertised 10 Credits (Package 1), or 30 Credits (Package 2) is not acting in good faith.
For instance, in the information linked by jlhaslip, under the subtitle of Trap17 Hosting FAQ, there is a link to The Bottom Line, which goes to a post on the forums, under Have your say > Support and Feedback > Questions & Queries. The Bottom Line" is that...
QUOTE(Dooga @ May 2 2005 @ 08:12 AM)
*You have to have POSITIVE credits to stay active *You lose one credit per day *You get one credit for 300 characters in your post (100 posts with 1 letter each will not even get you one credit) *You don't lose credits before you get hosted. After you get hosted, you lose 1 credit per day
That's all the basics.
There is nothing in "The Bottom Line" about losing ALL Credits when activating a hosting account. And yes, I see the disclaimer in Dooga's signature that says "Please note: This post and all the other posts I make do not represent the overall opinion of Trap17, nor does it represent an accurate reference." For this reason alone I would again question the validity of Trap17's documentation, and this irrational use of links to forum posts to make up the content of your rules and regulations.
I am quite perturbed about this, and will be considering my choice of web host carefully in light of this new information.
Thanks also, Saint_Michael, for elaborating. Sorry, I was writing a reply to rvalkass when your post came in. You also have made some very useful suggestions that I will try to implement to help me stay within this mythical "allowable CPU usage limit". Optimizing my code may be difficult though, as I am not a coding guru and it will be difficult enough for me to get my scripts to work, let alone getting them to work in an efficient manner. The idea of saving up the 280 Credits and starting like that is very intriguing also, thanks for that. As for my CRON jobs, they will only be running once per day to collect the map.sql files from each server that my members are active on, so hopefully this should not impinge on my CPU usage.
EDIT: I see that you have suggested the idea about the loss of Credits in the Suggestions For Version 3 Of The Credit System. Thank you. I think that the system you have proposed in that thread is a much fairer system.
QUOTE(Saint_Michael @ Aug 24 2008, 01:38 AM)
Another Idea that has come to mind is fixing the loss of credits when a person gets accepted for a free hosting account. that has always plagued trap17 because everyone was caught off guard when they lost a whole bunch of credits and so what I recommend is that instead of just losing all the credits they lost the exact amount of credit i.e. if they had 50 credits and get a 30 credit hosting package that person will have exactly 20 credits left.
In regards to the credit system i think you would be able to transfer 70 or so credits to a trusted member of the forums (id be willing to act as a bank and you could easily ask a mod who you know you can trust), then spend your 30 or so credits to get the hosting and have that member transfer back your 70 credits.
I think that should work, ive been off for a while but as far as i know we are still able to transfer credits between members (although it may require that both members are hosted, in which case this wont work) and back again.
Ill wait for a mod to confirm that but it should be possible and not against the TOC as you seem to be a valuable poster and a good member of the forums unlike some who just post trash to keep credits.
And in regards to the documentation i think its fairly simple, its shown, i think, when registering and the link is prominent just above the shoutbox, which is an area where members regularly look to see if anything interesting is happening.
As far as i know the credit warning is also shown. I do agree its a pain that you loose all credits, i had around 60 i think and of course lost them all, which was annoying but it needs to be this way to keep the forums active, and of course forum activity is what pays for the free hosting, so if everyone just build up 300 credits in a month and then left the forums for a year it wouldnt really work out.
shadowx, what you have proposed sounds like a good idea to me, and I will also be keen to see what a Moderator replies to your post. Your suggestion would not work for everybody though, as I'm sure there will be many other new members signing up who haven't had the good fortune that I have in meeting some of the best people of Trap17 as quickly as I have, and they will therefore not have developed such friendships already, such that they would be willing to trust someone with their hard-earned Credits.
Aye, we will wait to see what a mod says but in theory its possible, i just dont know if we are able to transfer credits between a hosted (me/mod) and a non hosted(you) account.
Transfer of Credits can only be arranged between Hosted members, otherwise situations would develop which would not be conducive to good Forum citizenship.
In the long run, I would suggest that you "bite the bullet" and apply for your Hosted Status ASAP, taking the hit for the credits now, before they get larger in number.
Thank you for your reply, rvalkass. I will look into setting up an Apache server, PHP, and mySQL server on my local machine. Thanks for the advice.
Feel free to PM/email me for help, or post on the forums - many members have detailed knowledge of setting up and configuring Apache, PHP and MySQL.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 01:56 PM)
As for the reply regarding the impending loss of my Credits, I still have not found on the Readme the link that you mentioned, and had you not posted that link above to the Flash tutorial I would probably still be looking for it now. The documentation on Trap17 seems to be very disorganized, including links to posts on the forums which seem to form a part of the rules. After reading through the documentation that jlhaslip linked me to in reply to my very first post on the Trap17 forums, I was still completely unaware of this caveat about the disappearing Credits. This type of information needs to be more prominently displayed on your site, rather than being hidden in some fine print in some hopelessly complex Readme file. When people such as myself choose to accept in good faith your offer of free web hosting in exchange for our participation in your forums, and then to post intelligent, relevant, and spam-free posts on your forum, upholding our end of the agreement, you should also uphold your end and act in good faith also. Hiding important information like the fact that opening a web hosting account will cost us ALL of our Credits, and not just the advertised 10 Credits (Package 1), or 30 Credits (Package 2) is not acting in good faith.
I agree the documentation is somewhat disorganised, and some form of central organised documentation is desperately required. However, as we are all volunteers, we do not necessarily have the time we can dedicate to such a massive task. This has resulted in successive edits and updates causing the somewhat disjointed documenation we have today. The Flash tutorials were my attempt to create some simple, organised documentation, but after I switched to Linux I lost the ability to create Flash files.
If you had applied when you had 30 credits, you would have lost only 30 credits, so I cannot see how Trap17 is not acting in good faith.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 01:56 PM)
And yes, I see the disclaimer in Dooga's signature that says "Please note: This post and all the other posts I make do not represent the overall opinion of Trap17, nor does it represent an accurate reference." For this reason alone I would again question the validity of Trap17's documentation, and this irrational use of links to forum posts to make up the content of your rules and regulations.
Dooga's disclaimer, as far as I know, is simply emphasising the fact we are volunteers, not employees of Xisto or Trap17.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 03:01 PM)
[...]to help me stay within this mythical "allowable CPU usage limit".
"Mythical" is not the right word. I have never had a problem with the limit, and I have been here a while and run a wide variety of complex and intensive scripts. Proper testing should keep you OK. Most of the people causing massive CPU and RAM usage are either spammers, or do it entirely by accident with a bug or something in their script.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 23 2008, 03:01 PM)
Optimizing my code may be difficult though, as I am not a coding guru and it will be difficult enough for me to get my scripts to work, let alone getting them to work in an efficient manner. The idea of saving up the 280 Credits and starting like that is very intriguing also, thanks for that. As for my CRON jobs, they will only be running once per day to collect the map.sql files from each server that my members are active on, so hopefully this should not impinge on my CPU usage.
Feel free to ask for help optimising your scripts. The collective mind power of Trap17 should make them fairly well optimised. Trap17's servers also run optimisation software to help keep scripts as lean as possible. As I previously mentioned, downloading and organising the map.sql files will not take much RAM or CPU at all. What may take time is running them against your database. Try it once on your local machine and see what happens.
QUOTE(shadowx @ Aug 23 2008, 03:10 PM)
As far as i know the credit warning is also shown. I do agree its a pain that you loose all credits, i had around 60 i think and of course lost them all, which was annoying but it needs to be this way to keep the forums active, and of course forum activity is what pays for the free hosting, so if everyone just build up 300 credits in a month and then left the forums for a year it wouldnt really work out.
I also believe credits are easier to earn before you are hosted, so it would be slightly unfair to let people earn many thousands of credits, get hosted, and disappear for years.
QUOTE(shadowx @ Aug 23 2008, 03:36 PM)
Aye, we will wait to see what a mod says but in theory its possible, i just dont know if we are able to transfer credits between a hosted (me/mod) and a non hosted(you) account.
mods? Any clarification?
You cannot transfer credits between hosted and non-hosted members, mainly due to credits being easier to earn for non-hosted members, but also to avoid duplicate accounts etc.
now my advice is to apply for hosting right away! decide later if this site is right for you. although you have 100 credits, those are nothing compared to what you will need if you plan on hosting your site here for a few years so apply now, decide later so you don't have to waste anymore credits.
also know something about your credits. it's easier to collect credits faster when you have fewer credits banked. the more credits you have especially over 100+, i've noticed it's harder to collect the same amount of credit compared to if you had only 10 credits banked(a very few amount). what this means is you have 100 credits now. it will take you longer to get to the 200 mark compared to when you get hosted and getting back to your 100 mark. trust me. you can get to 100 in a day. it's not that hard especially if your wife is connected to your account. now this really isn't very well known but i thought i needed to tell you that since you want to be up front on everything so you don't waste your time.
i wouldn't wait for 280 credits for your domain name and spend the rest towards hosting. i believe the rules state you have to be hosted FIRST before you can apply for a free domain with credits. everything really is in the readme's and i don't think anything is in fine print as you tried to point out. they just need to be read and understood but not a lot of people want to take the time to read the readme's. also, transfering 70+ credits wont do you any good since you also have to be hosted FIRST before being allowed to transfer credits.
I have to completely disagree with you anwii since I I know this system pretty well, and I selected a few points in your post as to why I disagree. The first point I disagree with is the fact to get an account right away especially with so many credits and leads to my second point. Banking your credits will not reduce the amount of credits you get in posting but the amount of posts a person has. It is obvious these two can make a lot of credits within 5 posts so it should be a real problem for them, I will say that the amount of credits will be reduce but by a very small amount. I will agree though that if they have a second computer they can log into the account on two different system and go post crazy made.
Now as for the 280 plan you want to get your domain first and then send in the application and then apply for hosting that is how that works, but not to many people have done it that way nor have many requested a free domain either. Although that is a lot of credits lost, these two will make them up quickly.
QUOTE
Thanks for all the help and advice everybody, I have downloaded XAMPP now, and will start playing with it soon (probably not before next weekend now, as I'm back at work). I have one further question about this though. Remember, I raised the issue about the "allowable CPU usage limit" in response to the fact that my previous web host suspended my account for breaking their Excessive Use policy, by just backing up my home directory and the mySQL databases connected with my account, using the built-in backup routine in cPanel. It was actually using cPanel that I got myself into trouble there.
I notice that XAMPP, nor any of the other suggested localhost packages, include cPanel. So, I guess, no matter how much I try, I am still not going to be able to adequately abide by Trap17's Excessive Use policy any more than I could for my last web host. It seems to me that the cards are stacked against us, and we just have to hope that whatever we are doing won't max out the processor, huh?
I will do what I can, as a good community member, to try to avoid causing problems with my scripts, but if Trap17 and other web hosts provide tools (such as cPanel) for us to use, then it is quite unfair for them to punish us for making use of those tools. No doubt Fantastico will also provide such potential to max-out the processor. I haven't even started playing with that yet.
As for any other concerns travstatesmen, I am sure velma and OpaQue will calm your fears about trap17 hosting true me all these responses are from people who have been here the longest, we wouldn't be giving you BS answers just to mess with you. Like rvalkass mention XAMPP is open source software so it is free and what not. Also I wouldn't be relying on fantastico software because of the fact most of it is out of date and so your better off downloading them from other websites.
Trust me the only thing stacked against you would um nothing, this host is very reliable and like other host we do have problems, but that is why a members make sure to contact the right people make the right posts and give the support needed to help everyone that needs it.
I have one further question about this though. Remember, I raised the issue about the "allowable CPU usage limit" in response to the fact that my previous web host suspended my account for breaking their Excessive Use policy, by just backing up my home directory and the mySQL databases connected with my account, using the built-in backup routine in cPanel. It was actually using cPanel that I got myself into trouble there.
Your previous web host obviously had serious issues with their hardware then. They shouldn't have offered cPanel if they couldn't actually support it.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 25 2008, 08:30 AM)
I notice that XAMPP, nor any of the other suggested localhost packages, include cPanel.
cPanel is proprietary software which requires a licence to use. Therefore, free (gratis) software like XAMPP can't include it.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 25 2008, 08:30 AM)
So, I guess, no matter how much I try, I am still not going to be able to adequately abide by Trap17's Excessive Use policy any more than I could for my last web host.
I have been using my hosting for ages, and I make regular use of all of cPanel's features. I have never had a problem with exceeding CPU or RAM usage limits, even when running fairly intensive tasks, such as taking full backups of my files, databases, emails, etc. I think I once exceeded my space allowance, but that was my fault for keeping too many backups on my hosting space I was downloading them too, so there was no need to keep a copy of every backup on my hosting account anyway.
QUOTE(travstatesmen @ Aug 25 2008, 08:30 AM)
It seems to me that the cards are stacked against us, and we just have to hope that whatever we are doing won't max out the processor, huh? I will do what I can, as a good community member, to try to avoid causing problems with my scripts, but if Trap17 and other web hosts provide tools (such as cPanel) for us to use, then it is quite unfair for them to punish us for making use of those tools. No doubt Fantastico will also provide such potential to max-out the processor. I haven't even started playing with that yet.
As far as I am aware, no-one has ever faced issues with cPanel or Fantastico in the way you describe, and no-one has had their account removed for exceeding CPU/RAM limits with them.
Thanks for all the help and advice everybody, I have downloaded XAMPP now, and will start playing with it soon (probably not before next weekend now, as I'm back at work). I have one further question about this though. Remember, I raised the issue about the "allowable CPU usage limit" in response to the fact that my previous web host suspended my account for breaking their Excessive Use policy, by just backing up my home directory and the mySQL databases connected with my account, using the built-in backup routine in cPanel. It was actually using cPanel that I got myself into trouble there. I notice that XAMPP, nor any of the other suggested localhost packages, include cPanel. So, I guess, no matter how much I try, I am still not going to be able to adequately abide by Trap17's Excessive Use policy any more than I could for my last web host. It seems to me that the cards are stacked against us, and we just have to hope that whatever we are doing won't max out the processor, huh? I will do what I can, as a good community member, to try to avoid causing problems with my scripts, but if Trap17 and other web hosts provide tools (such as cPanel) for us to use, then it is quite unfair for them to punish us for making use of those tools. No doubt Fantastico will also provide such potential to max-out the processor. I haven't even started playing with that yet.
you get what you pay for. although this site isn't free since we have to post for credits, it's free in the sense that no money is being exchanged. now i have personally searched for free hosting before and decided on trap because of the services and resources offered that most free hosting accounts don't offer. again, you get what you pay for though.
now my advice is to apply for hosting right away! decide later if this site is right for you. although you have 100 credits, those are nothing compared to what you will need if you plan on hosting your site here for a few years so apply now, decide later so you don't have to waste anymore credits.
your complaints are valid and i say that because i know you are not the first person to complain about the credit system and some of the vagueness in the readme's. but again....you get what you pay for i say suck it up and learn how it works as you go along.
i know you are looking for a reliable host. i was anal my own self when searching for a good host and aside from the very few complaints trap has, it is a great host. many advantages that you wouldn't normally get with any other host.
now i know the credit system is connected to the hosting but try to seperate it. post because you like to post not because you need hosting. if can't seperate it, posting will become a chore and hosting wont be fun for you anymore here.
also know something about your credits. it's easier to collect credits faster when you have fewer credits banked. the more credits you have especially over 100+, i've noticed it's harder to collect the same amount of credit compared to if you had only 10 credits banked(a very few amount). what this means is you have 100 credits now. it will take you longer to get to the 200 mark compared to when you get hosted and getting back to your 100 mark. trust me. you can get to 100 in a day. it's not that hard especially if your wife is connected to your account. now this really isn't very well known but i thought i needed to tell you that since you want to be up front on everything so you don't waste your time.
i wouldn't wait for 280 credits for your domain name and spend the rest towards hosting. i believe the rules state you have to be hosted FIRST before you can apply for a free domain with credits. everything really is in the readme's and i don't think anything is in fine print as you tried to point out. they just need to be read and understood but not a lot of people want to take the time to read the readme's. also, transfering 70+ credits wont do you any good since you also have to be hosted FIRST before being allowed to transfer credits.
with someone so concerned about losing his site, i'm surprised your not going to paid hosting. i'll tell ya this though. if you lose your site here, you will lose it anywhere. i'm pretty shocked you already lost your hosting just by trying to complete a backup. if you were more specific to what you need to do and what your site is being used for, we could probably be more able to help you determine if the free host route is your best option. otherwise, you are limited to your own good judgement in what you think is acceptable when your site will be one of 100's in sharing the same resources
with that said, hope ya find a home here. it's a pretty good place overall and posting has never been a chore. a great opportunity to get hosted and belong to a community of some really cool people who will always be open to talk to ya and help ya with any problems you have.
I think i may have started an xampp topic as it goes! But yeh for local testing certainly go for Xampp, as jlhaslip said its a one click installer for windows and as soon as it is installed you switch it on with the control panel and you're going, its so reliable, light and simple its silly!
If you need any help with that PM me or one of the guys above and im sure we can help
I recently filled out the form to request a free hosting account, its been about a week and I notice
that every one else's above and below mine has been reviewed, but mine hasen't been
thouched.... It also says that I have no hosting credits on the form, but the box on the forums page
says that i've got 35.55 credits! Im really anxious to get a website up and running! just
hoping some one can help me!....
My request for host account has been approved. In it I asked for a sub-domain. I have not yet
created my hosting account. Now I have bought a top level domain. Can I use that Domain Name
instead of the sub-domain I requested in my account creation process? Or do I have to first use
the sub-domain and then use the 'domain changing process' to change it to my new domain? ....
I would be very grateful if someone could tell me why I bought 6 months worth of hosting credits
through this site through paypal and they never showed up. Right now I have a suspended page and
negative credits even though I paid for them. Thank-you kraizii88z kraizii88z@yahoo.com
loverenee.trap17.com....
Could an admin please termaniate my hosting account and move me back in to the members group. i used
the script to termaniate my account 3 days ago, and i'm still in the hosted group, and i would
like to start getting credits again so i can get a new hosting account with a different subdomain....
Hello, I didnt know where to post. So pardon me, if this section is not right place. Anyway, it
says I have " HOSTING CREDITS : 13371.03 " Hey, I know I started some good topics that kept
receiving hits but do I really get this much credits? By the way, Im thinking of requesting hosting
service.....
Dear sir..Thanks for the free service you are providing. Actually I registered for free web hosting
here and my site is created but I have some Jsp pages in my site so I hope you enable my site for
Jsp...I am ready to give as many posts as needed in the forums for that because hosting Jsp is
necessary in my case. I also do not mind at all putting any number of Ads on my site...Thanks in
advace.....
My account wouldn't let me upload anything, so I submitted a support request to Xisto, and
it's already been 10 days, and they haven't said anything yet. I set it to urgent, so I
figured I would have something by now. /huh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":huh:"
border="0" alt="huh.gif" /> I figure that it's best to just reset my account. I was able to
get everything off of it, so that won't really be a problem. I was just wondering, if I delete
my hosting account, will I still be able to get the same domain name(hippi.trap17.com)? Or ....
I know that normaly you don't give the access to SSL but i think i have a good reason for it,
phpMyAdmin timeout my connection when i'm uploading the backuped data to it: "phpMyAdmin is
timing out when you try to repair the database. To properly repair it, we need to be able to go in
via SSL, restart MySQL (to close the open connections on it) and then run the repair from the
command line." See here please: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&...TnTHklwYXEfAtlA or just
restart mySql and execute the restore commands for me. Thank you in advance, Merry X-Mas ....
i want my hosting to be cancelled please as i have not used it even one day and if possible cna i
get my points back as i would require them for getting a domain name....
Ok I applied for free hosting a few days ago and got approved and all that, and I had backups of my
files from my previous host, and I uploaded them via FTP, but instead of uploading just public_html,
I accidentally put up the whole lot and it stuffed up the cpanel and everything, so I deleted my
account and I have 30 credits this time to reapply, as this time I will make sure I upload the right
stuff to the right place, but when I go to the free hosting request form it says I can't request
as ive already requested and should wait to be accepted or denied even though....
I know this sounds strange, but can you please reset my hosting? This is the first time I have used
cPanel and I seem to have messed it up regarding Fantastico and deleting files etc... /blush.gif"
style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blush:" border="0" alt="blush.gif" /> Anyway, can you please
tell me if you can do this?....
Guys, can you please suspend my hosting plan for a month or so as due to a few renovations, my
internet connection had to be cut and so I cant maintain it for upto a month............. I am
right now typing at a friends house.... Can you please freeze my request till next month when
renovations are done and my Net is back on? Why do we need to waste bandwidth and space on me when
I cant use it for a month and can be used by someone else? I hope you guys understand and thanks
again for accepting my request for hosting.... /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" e....
i am re applying for my hosting but of different domain deejames.trap17.com preferably... im being
inactive almost 4 years now.. coz i went to davao city to find a job... and it really hard to start
without any relatives... without friends... and mostly no money... it is really hard!.. huhuhuhu
but luckily and with the grace of our lord jesus i have found a breakthrough of my career... I am
now a layout artist and earning good... and then I am getting online now because of searching for
ideas and techniques to maximize my ability on photoshop and artistic side.... hihi....
Well, I had hosting a while back but terminated it because I wasn't using my website, but now I
decided to have another website hosted from trap17, but the only problem is that trap17 thinks
because it found an old hosting request application, that I'm trying to reapply. The exact
error message is: QUOTE Our records indicate that you have already submitted an application.
Please wait until that application is approved or denied before submitting another one. The only
hosting request application I have is the ancient one from my last hosting request and n....
I want my account to be reset. I mean, the username and the password will still be the same, but it
will be as good as a brand new account. I messed up something in there and I wanna restart afresh.
Thanks.....
Hi, I was wondering if i could cancel my hosting account, as i haven got any reply from the support
division for my fantastico problem, and am no longer using it, my hosting account, but i would still
like to be a part of this great forum, nice people, yea, at least respond to this please. Thank You....
I applied for free web hosting some 2 weeks back but it was rejected because I had received a
warning on the very first day of joining. I figured I'd reapply sometime later when my credits
would have increased and the warning would have disappeared. However the warning level is still at
10% after more than two weeks (now I'm thinking I should have made a new account as I got the
warning on the very first day when I hadn't even read the rules). What I want to ask is : Can I
reapply with this warning level or if there is something I can do (like a tutorial or ....
Hello I really need free hosting right now because members on my forum have been waiting a while and
I need to set it up. I would continue to post on your forum but I really need the package. Please
take this into consideration. I have a forum of about 50+ active members....
similar situation to another topic here my hosting was suspended due to lack of credits and i really
don't need hosting atm so i used the termination script to get rid of my hosting. as far as i
know it worked. i did this 2 days ago and i'm still and my credits are going deeper into
negatives. ....
Aparently an stupid delets the files including the server main folder, the one call www so i need
you allow me to re allow me to made anothe hosting because i termnate the before one, i
terminate it following a post here So i wish you can help me.....
I had over 25 credits when my account was suspended. I used the suport ticket thing and they said
that my account was suspended for resource usage and spam. I barely used over 500mb a month, and i
never spammed with my account beside for the fact that my forum is unactive and might result in
spamming through time. I tried to replied asking for more detail about resource usage and spamming,
it has been 5 days and i still didnt' get a response. i have read the other topics and seem
like two person got supended for no reason... i wonder if it's the same for my case....
.
especially if your wife is connected to your account. now this really isn't very well known but i thought i needed to tell you that since you want to be up front on everything so you don't waste your time.
I was downloading them too, so there was no need to keep a copy of every backup on my hosting account anyway.
