Daily Archives: January 19, 2008

HostForWeb – best hosting company ever

Ok, I have to give a quick shout out to my hosting company, HostForWeb. I’ve had my web-sites and e-mail hosted by them for about…5 years now? I can’t remember when I started, but a while ago.

Today, I noticed that my e-mail was not going out through my domain via smtp. I quickly determined that the server was up (I could ssh in, and locally telnet to port 25), but I couldn’t reach it from my home. Laptop didn’t work either.

First, I called Comcast. They were less than helpful, claiming not to notice anything wrong with my account. I didn’t push the issue, because I figured I should check my hosting company as well. Also, we’re moving in two weeks and Comcast isn’t coming with us.

Well, I went to HostForWeb’s live chat support, and within 30 seconds Greg answered, and asked what I needed. I explained the situation, telling him I thought it possible that my IP was being blocked. He did some checking and tweaking and asked me to try again. Still didn’t work. I didn’t really think the problem was on their end, but I had to check anyway. In the end, he gave me a new port to access the smtp server, and I was on my way. In less than 5 minutes.

Comcast, try to beat that.

I should also mention, that I have had a few other occasions to contact HostForWeb tech support (I screwed up my DNS; my home IP really was banned at one point for something; etc.). Each time, even via e-mail, the problem was resolved incredibly quickly. I think the longest I ever waited was 30 minutes until resolution.

So if you’re in the market, these people are great. The support is phenomenal.

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