The Geekly Guy

This blog contains information regarding all things Linux, although any computer technology subject matter fits within the realm of this blog.

Thursday, May 22, 2003

Well, Featureprice has folded. See the below (warning, long cut/pasted email):

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Subject: FeaturePrice Announces: We're Closing
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 07:47:12 GMT
From: FeaturePrice Announces: "We're Closing"
To: wigglit@wigglit.com

Quoted from the 'Web Host Industry Review' ( thewhir.com/marketwatch/sws012303.cfm )

"FeaturePrice Rejects Bids, Shuts Down

May 9, 2003 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- In a rare instance of what appears to be one man walking away from a million dollar payday, FeaturePrice appears to have disintegrated amidst strange behavior and customer outcry. Rumors of the Ft. Meyers, Fl.-based Web hosting firm being troubled have circulated for months, helped in part by Travis Johnson, co-founder of the firm, who reportedly shut down the site in April to post an open letter informing customers that the company had closed and that clients had two weeks to evacuate. Since then, the site has switched on and off almost daily...."

From FeaturePrice's website:

"All clients are recommended to move within the next 14days.

All sites and servers will be left online while we are closing down. All clients are requested to download all files and here is a list of Companies that have been to visit Featureprice and have not been able to reach any deal that would allow a smooth migration to their services."

The sites:

#1 http://GlobalHost.com : 7 months free and no sign-up fee for Featureprice customers (starting at $9.95 per month)

#2 http://Atlantic.net : 2 months free and $19.95 sign-up fee (starting at $13.95 per month)

#3 http://Ipowerweb : no sign-up fee, no free months
(starting at $7.95 per month)

#4 http://Server4you.com : Free sign-up and 3 months free for Featureprice customers, but you can't sign up yet (their site is collecting email addresses of people who want to sign up eventually) (no pricing information, this is a German company)

#5 http://Affinity.com : No clear offer. They seem to be a group of hosts, rather than a single web host.


Retrieved from FeaturePrice's support page, 4/22/03. Converted to HTML and given its own page 4/29/03. All errors left intact.

(((BEGINNING OF FEATUREPRICE PAGE CONTENT)))

Featureprice.com / Hosting-Network, Inc. Is Closing Business April 2003.

Featureprice's Closing is NOT BY ITS DECISION. It is due to Nova Information Systems (merchantconnect.com) "holding" the revenues from featureprice. Featureprice has not seen a penny since the "hold" and FP must shutdown since it has no money, no realized revenues. FP cannot pay employees or anything due to Nova's position.

FP tried to work with many companies, none of which where willing to "assume liabilities" and that placed all the deals in the trash can. FP tried to work with many creative ideas. So this is NOT FP's wishes to shutdown, the decision is not ours to make.

All clients are recommended to move within the next 14days.

All sites and servers will be left online while we are closing down. All clients are requested to download all files and here is a list of Companies that have been to visit Featureprice and have not been able to reach any deal that would allow a smooth migration to their services.

1. GlobalHost.com - Nice People, Great Support, Will Give Incentives For FP Clients to Join. Personalized Service and A former VP of Time Warner joined their company, these guys are going places. Understand They will be loaded when you go there, FP is very large, please work with them while this post will tap their resources.

2. Atlantic.Net - atlantic.net (800-521-5881) - Atlantic.Net is offering TWO months of free service for Feature Price clients. Founded in 1994, Atlantic.Net was honored as Host Indexs Top Web Host in 2002 and has been named by Inc magazine as one of the nation's fastest-growing private companies for the last three years. All services feature 24/7 phone and email support, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and redundant connections to the Internet backbone.

3. Ipowerweb - Value Hosting Provider. Don't Expect Personalized Service, Another Large Company.

4. Server4you.com - (BEST OFFER) Great Hosting Deals For Unbelievable Prices with the same great technology that Featureprice used. Just sign up for information on their page and they will contact you extremely soon. Best of that, all Featureprice customers wont have to pay for setup and get 3 months for free.

5. Affinity - Has Built A Large Business Based From Acquisition. Don't expect peronalized service!!. Another Large Company.

Ecommerce.com is under control by Fathi Said (stolen), SiteandSites and a host of other domain names are owned exclusively by Fathi Said. Stay away from any site or business that has Austrian Ownership or Fathi Said or any other affiliation with Fathi Said. The problem with this is that Fathi will setup anywhere at anytime, you may or may not know who is actually behind that company, Fathi will use other names, and etc to fool you, be warned and becareful. Fathi while in office ran several businesses "on the side" and sold services that looked like the respective names but were indeed FP services, no one at FP approved this but Fathi, Fathi also registered Dotregister domains for the clients and did not title them in the right names or addresses but with 100% owned by featureprice client, these domains were held hostage, with numerous other domains like Featureprice.com unless the officers of FP were to give him over a half million dollars, the officers called the FBI for Ext ortion. The officers of the company were faced with a decision to make, sign a release of ecommerce to fathi or face the domains of all our clients to be misdirected. Fathi got his release and then we got the passwords to the account, all of this was done with communications with the FBI and corporate counsel. Fathi also worked with many companies that we will not release the names of and received payments for the placement of their domains in the list of directories. More to come?

NEVER TRUST DIRECTORIES, NEVER TRUST FORUMS These directories are paid for and profit by the amount of sales that the links generate and the reviews that are made within those directories are paid and forums that people like to post their hate and problems are fueled by someone whom is hosting that site or etc. Reviews and Directories / Bulletin Boards Forums are not reliable or trust worthy sources. They in some way and some form are getting paid to talk trash on one provider and then promote another, they ALL are getting paid, they say they are not, but somehow and someway they are getting paid by someone, you may not see it upfront and may not see it at all, but take it from one of the Largest and experienced companies that worked this business for years that they get paid somehow. NOTHING IS FREE and EVERYTHING COSTS including the site, bandwidth, time and upkeep of these sites.

TRUST WORD OF MOUTH!! TRUST YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND NEVER TRUST FORUMS AND DIRECTORIES / REVIEWS

Perfect Example of MISUSE of information is bulletin boards that release information that is private and confidential, family, children, mothers and fathers and innocent contract employees have been hurt by a lot of clients and former employees (any employee dismissed from FP was for cause, drugs,
etc.) that misuse their sources of information, they signed agreements with Equifax and Online Record Searches to not MISUSE this information, they have violated the agreements and have resulted in hurt and anguish for these people. Bulletin Boards, Hate Sites, Etc. have been formed and state very wrong things and distort the truth of FP and don't state that Officers and Supervisors and Staff worked 12-16hrs a day 7 days a week to keep services stable as much as humanly possible and as much as can be done with shared hosting servers and those whom abuse them, spam from them.

This site will be updated ongoing and will tell the story of FP and all that has led to this, you will know about everything, you will know even to the potential deals that did not work with companies and why FP was not purchased (and NO! it is not because of anything bad) but the dealings in corporate business. And finally but not least, FP was never about just money, FP was about the dream and goals of a few people that made it happen and gave their all, not of the false and untrue statements of upset people. We will write parts and publish in parts, visit back often and don't miss a line.

Thank you for those clients that have called FP home for years and thank you to all those whom have supported FP since they came to know the truth and spirit of the company.

(((END OF FEATUREPRICE PAGE CONTENT)))

The page above : www.feature-price.info/closing.html
Another Featureprice posting : http://www.feature-price.info/store.html
Another Featureprice posting : http://www.feature-price.info/support4.28.html

Other sites about Featureprice's recent developments :

yourhostsucks.com
featureprice-sucks.com
featurepricesucks.org
addlepated.net/archives/001451.html
voiceone.com/html/featureprice.htm

Again, the current offerings of the hosts mentioned are summarized below :

#1 http://GlobalHost.com : 7 months free and no sign-up fee for Featureprice customers (starting at $9.95 per month)

#2 http://Atlantic.net : 2 months free and $19.95 sign-up fee (starting at $13.95 per month)

#3 http://iPowerweb : no sign-up fee
(starting at $7.95 per month)

#4 http://Server4you.com : Free sign-up and 3 months free for Featureprice customers, but you can't sign up yet (their site is collecting email addresses of people who want to sign up eventually) (no pricing information, this is a German company)

#5 http://Affinity.com : No clear offer. They seem to be a group of hosts, rather than a single web host.
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I don't really know what to say. I don't know if I believe all that was said above, as I've been dealing with these issues for months and not everything they mention jives. They should have warned their customers when things started going bad at the beginning of the year. The last few months, after years of seeing how internet companies die, I KNEW they were headed toward that dot.com in the sky. All the signs were there. I'd thought they got bought out and I was wrong. They are just plain dying. The situation explained above is sad (although seeming a bit exaggerated) but I've already moved on. Actually, I've no real sympathy for them, not after all the emails an attempts to contact their support. Not after all the times my website was unaccessible and not after their boxes were exploited. Not after having to go through their ticketing system just to tell them that I can't receive mails...and not after receiving replies back from them stating, "Your web page is fine" or "We're able to access your mail. Maybe your end of things is what's broken." In fact, the other night, I just got access to emails that were in their queue for almost 3 weeks. I'm still in the process of signing off of mailing lists and reapplying for readership with new emails. Once that's done, all I have to do is make sure this blog site gets moved to my Unixfool webspace.

The hardest part will be changing the site's inner links...going from www.unixfool.com/page3 to www.unixfool.com/page4. The way I made the links when I first established www.wigglit.com is not how I should have established the link structure. Oh well, its a learning experience nonetheless. :o)

Well, I've work to do, as usual. Tata.

Monday, May 19, 2003

Take a look at this link and be amazed as I was (and as I STILL am!):
http://www.littlepc.com

Pretty cool, huh? The price may be a bit high but one could consider that the small sizes come at a price...a price many will be willing to pay (and yet it's still cheaper than most laptops -- sans display).

Input, anyone?