In preparation for the site relaunch, I recently setup a hosting account with ASPnix. As a result I now have hosting contracts with 4 companies. (I use Midphase for all PHP hosting needs, Webhost4life, ServerIntellect and ASPnix for ASP.NET hosting). Ideally after the launch I will probably terminate my contract(s) with Webhost4life.

So far ASPnix has been a decent host aside for two issues:

1) No Phone Support

Not having phone support is a big negative for me since I normally like to try and get things resolved over one phone call instead of typing out an e-mail and waiting for a response and then possibly having to go back and forth over e-mail just to get a simple problem resolved. ASPnix makes up for this by providing stellar e-mail support.

2) No Custom Errors

Unless you have a VPS account, ASPnix shared server sites are setup at the machine.config level to not display the error messages. So if you plan on using their server as a development server plan on implementing a way to capture or display these error messages. (I’ve been trying to get ELMAH to work since I didn’t have much luck with the application blocks from Microsoft.)

For the past six years I’ve registered a large number of domains through Joker.com. I once made the unfortunate mistake of registering domains through Network Solutions, and if I remember correctly, ended up paying over $30 for each of the domain names. Imagine my joy when domain prices were suddenly falling below $10. Crazy! Now, with registrar’s like GoDaddy offering private domain registrations I’ve decided that I should slowly start transferring some of my domains to another registrar. I guess I chose the wrong day to start the process as Joker.com is experiencing a massive distributed denial of service attack.

According to Netcraft, “Domain registrar Joker.com says its nameservers are under attack, causing outages for customers. More than 550,000 domains are registered with Joker, which is based in Germany. Any of those domains that use Joker’s DNS servers are likely to be affected.”

Related Links:

Domain Registrar Joker Hit by DDoS

If you’re looking for an ASP.NET web host I strongly recommend ServerIntellect.

Some of their features include:

– Best in class customer service
I’ve called them and emailed them and always received a response in less than 24 hours.

– Support of enterprise .NET solutions
Community Server, FogBugz, IronPoint – you name it or request it and they probably will.

– Other standard features
.NET Framework 1.1
.NET Framework 2.0
Web Based Control Panel
ASP.NET XML Web Services
Unlimited .NET .dlls
Virtual Directory Creation
Unlimited Access Databases
Enterprise Traffic Statistics
Shared Secure 128 Bit SSL
IMAP Email Support
Enterprise Data Backup
POP3 Auto Responders
POP3 Catch-All E-Mail
Advanced Webmail System
Web Based File Manager
Custom Error Pages
Domain Aliases/Pointers
Sub Domains
SPAM Filtering

Furthermore, after two years of hosting with ServerIntellect I can definitely vouch for them as a good ASP.NET Hosting Provider