Some of the cool features that IntenseDebate brings includes:

• Comment Threading – this allows you to add a comment to the general discussion, or just reply to one comment that needs a reply.
• Reply by E-mail – the reply by e-mail feature makes it super-easy to stay in the conversation.  You can respond to and moderate your comments with the ease of just replying to an e-mail.
• Importing and Exporting – the best feature of all, the import and export feature is nice.  It gives you a “way out” just in case IntenseDebate doesn’t tickle your fancy.

You can read about the other features, such as reputation points and commenter profiles here.   There is also a ‘bit of a social network thrown into the mix too – which is a nice touch.  You get your own profile page, where people can find where you have commented and who you are following. Here is my profile as an example:  http://www.intensedebate.com/people/cheasym

Sign up is easy (especially if you have an Open ID) and they walk you through the steps of adding it you your blogging engine of choice.

Looks like the DreamHost people fell asleep yet again at the wheel. What they describe as a “teensy eensy weensy little billing error” turned out to be $400 to $9,000 in overcharging their customers. Feedback is coming in quickly with the story being posted all over the ‘net.

Usually finding themselves being bullied by DreamHost themselves, Lunarpages has rolled out a great deal for any DreamHost people wanting to switch.

Use code DHRefugees to receive $40 off hosting with Lunarpages and we will also buy out the remainder of your contract with DreamHost! (Up to 9 months!)

Here is more about the fiasco from the Web:

• Robbing Your Customers?
• Dreamhost billing issues
• Dreamhost mistakenly bills customers for multiple years
• Digg Article on the DreamHost Mess
• Dreamhost Billing Issues!
• Um, Whoops.

Not a good time to be a customer of DreamHost, that is for sure. Also as a point worth mentioning for all fairness, I am a contracted worker for LP… but anybody who has seen my publicly viewable resume and mention of if here time and time again can see that.

Update: Looks like by watching the DreamHost blog they have posted a few more posts after the one that was heard around he Web. Seems like they are doing a better job the second time around discussing this issue than the first. I’ll give them two thumbs up for that.

Update #2: No, I was not bullied by anybody to update this post (removing some of the negativity) – I took in feedback, and adjusted my thoughts, it happens. As for those who want to try to drag me into a public fight over one of my employers – no thanks, got more important things to worry about than people trying to make a name out of themselves by trying to shoot me down.  Thanks for reading!

Alex (from Sliqua Enterprise Hosting) had held the fire to his feet though without going over the line. Here are just a few examples of the discussion that has been had.

Daniel (from fxts.net)

Actually, fxts.net is not a fraud. We had contracted with JaguarPC to offer our service, which was a big mistake. JaguarPC was not a good partner with which to try to do something like this.

Today, we just relaunched our $1 hosting service, with much smaller specs. We plan to increase the specs back to 10 Terabytes each of bandwidth and disk space once we finish building our server cluster. We have moved to HostGator, having already purchased one server with them.

What started on a reseller account at JaguarPC grew too fast for JaguarPC to want to handle (we tried numerous times to upgrade to a clustered server solution at JaguarPC, and they basically told us to go screw ourselves as they were too lazy to help us upgrade). This, combined with a major DDoS attack, forced our service down for about five days. We spent this time moving to our new server at HostGator and reconfiguring the service. We have already begun to transfer old user accounts, and have already refunded most of the users who had accounts on the old server.

Again, after our cluster is fully up and running, the 10 Terabyte plan will be back.

Alex (from Sliqua Enterprise Hosting)

That’s pretty amusing to say the least… Per the comment from Daniel, somehow HostGator is going to allow you to offer such a plan under a reseller account? I’m not trying to be rude, but I don’t know any hosting company that is going to allow you to host 10TB worth of anything for $1. The cheapest I’ve seen a provider go on even 1TB is around $150/mo and that was because they are actually setup in a cluster for Backup space with approx. 200TB.

However, I’m really glad someone is going out there and trying to take full advantage of the “promised” resources provided under their oversold hosting accounts. Maybe this will inspire the majority of hosting companies out there *NOT* to oversell, or at least make it impossible to do what fxts.net is doing with their reseller plans. While I feel bad for JaguarPC and HostGator having to deal with your “requirements”, I don’t believe in overselling hosting and wish them the best of luck dealing with you as a customer.

Check out the entire conversation here.

• Google PageRank Updates and Debate
• Discrimination Against Southerners in Hosting
• How to Backup Using cPanel
• Best of the Forum Scripts
• ICANN Investigates Insider Domain Registrations

Should be a podcast everybody can get something out of. If not, you can have your money back! Jokes on you though, you can listen for free.

+ Listen to Episode 129 of the Web Hosting Show!

I covered this topic (as it relates to web hosting) and a few others this week on the podcast.

For most people, green hosting is that kind that has been sitting in the back of the refrigerator a little too long. Pretty soon though I have a feeling that either by hook or crook we will all be impacted by in in one way or another in the future. I’ll talk about it, tell you what it is and let you know what you can do to help.

+ Download the MP3 of this Podcast!

It seems like if you have enough money you can buy yourself out of your problem and then you don’t actually have to worry about changing your day to day business or day to day life. As I talked about on this week’s edition of the Web Hosting Show – I think there’s something that smells funny about the whole green web hosting deal.

Please keep in mind that the price you quoted is for the whole program on CD, which is 32 CDs. We do make individual tracks available for a lower price as well as each individual session available. For those that just want to pick up the audio for a couple sessions they missed it’s pretty reasonable at $15 per session.

Now I like George. As I have said before, he is one of the brilliant minds of the Web hosting industry. I just think he is overlooking a few things.

Ok, I do realize that it is a big load of CDs you would be getting. If the price can’t be lowered though, how about giving us a few “Hostingcon bundles” to check out? Give me three or four CDs grouped together, and set the price under $100.

I want to look out for the Web host out there that couldn’t afford to go to Hostingcon – but still wants to learn something from the experience. I realize that profits have to be made, but cutting a few people a little slack should not hurt the bottom dollar.