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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
S2F to cease operations
Ian Donald, Photographer
 |
Antioch | CA | USA | Posted: 1:36 PM on 07.02.08 |
->> This is part of an e-mail I just received from Grover regarding S2F - the webhosting service which he and Jason run - and whose excellent service I have been happy to take for granted for years:
"...S2F Online, Inc., which has been in the web hosting business for over 12
years, will officially close its doors on Friday, August 21st.
What started as a fun little project for a few of our photo friends who
needed a website, turned into a really busy service that hundreds of
people relied on. Your trust in us has been an incredible honor.
This company of two people (Jason and myself), took pride in being able to
offer very personal service, and we felt we knew each and every client
personally.
Most customers have my personal cell phone number, with permission to call
it at any time should they need help (and many customers have taken me up
on that.)
But today, a few factors have combined that make running the company no
longer possible. The spread of super low-cost "discount" web hosting
services run by large corporations, and the current economic downturn, are
reasons enough. It has become impossible for us to remain competitive in
this environment.
In addition, as many of you know, Jason and I are also co-founders of
PhotoShelter, which has seen explosive growth in the past year. Our daily
duties of running that company has resulted in less time for S2F.
We will shut down our services seven weeks from now, at 11:59pm (US
Eastern time), Aug. 21, 2008. All clients must have all of their data off
of our servers by this time..."
I would like to thank Grover and Jason for the exemplary service they have extended to myself and countless other photographers over the years and wish them continued success with their involvement with Photoshelter.
We're gonna miss you guys!
All the best - and thanks!
Ian |
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Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
 |
Galveston / Houston | TX | US | Posted: 1:55 PM on 07.02.08 |
->> Well crud. Thanks for the post Ian, their notice email got flagged as spam so I might have missed it totally.
Add me as another satisfied S2F customer over the years. It was always reassuring knowing that my web hosts were also photographers and knew the needs of their clients.
I guess this is a good time to start another "who hosts your website" discussion. Anyone have recommendations for a basic web and email host (not a fancy service like LiveBooks, etc.)? |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
 |
Non Conforming | MA | United States | Posted: 2:01 PM on 07.02.08 |
->> I've been with GoDaddy for about a year now. No issues and their support staff have been very good.
Wow I wonder who will host SS after the 21st. |
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David G. McIntyre, Photographer
 |
Beijing | . | CHINA | Posted: 2:27 PM on 07.02.08 |
->> I use a company for years called http://www.webuilders.com
Get in touch with Greg at: gscott@webuilders.com
I have known him since 1992, and he has been awesome. He is based in Seattle, and can make it easy for you to also set up email on your account, and to have everything auto-billed to you credit card.
David |
|
Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
 |
San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 4:28 PM on 07.02.08 |
->> I've been using Superb for about seven years. On the few times I've needed them, their customer service has been incredibly responsive and effective.
http://www.superbhosting.net/
--Mark |
|
Diana Porter, Photographer
 |
Houston | TX | USA | Posted: 5:04 PM on 07.02.08 |
| ->> Yahoo has always been great for me! |
|
Yamil Sued, Photographer, Photo Editor
 |
Peoria | AZ | USA | Posted: 5:11 PM on 07.02.08 |
->> Like Eric, I use Godaddy.
No problems here!!
Y |
|
JC Ridley, Photographer
 |
Coral Springs | FL | US | Posted: 5:24 PM on 07.02.08 |
| ->> I use Netfirms.com. With 300GB storage I use FTP accounts to deliver photos to my college clients. |
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Mike Last, Student/Intern, Photographer
 |
London | Ontario | Canada | Posted: 5:55 PM on 07.02.08 |
->> DreamHost is always a good option. 500 Gigs of space and 5TB of transfer... all for $5.95 a month. Unlimited FTP and Email accounts as well. Plus they up your space and transfer every month you stay with them.
http://www.dreamhost.com |
|
Andrew Sullivan, Photo Editor, Photographer
 |
Kissimmee | FL | USA | Posted: 11:33 AM on 07.03.08 |
->> I must have missed the e-mail. Can this be confirmed? I know S2F hasn't been hosting new sites now for some time, but I always liked having my site hosted through them.
Andrew Sullivan
http://www.picandrew.com |
|
Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
 |
Washington | DC | US | Posted: 11:41 AM on 07.03.08 |
->> S2F Online, Inc., which has been in the web hosting business for over 12
years, will officially close its doors on Friday, August 21st.
What started as a fun little project for a few of our photo friends who
needed a website, turned into a really busy service that hundreds of
people relied on. Your trust in us has been an incredible honor.
This company of two people (Jason and myself), took pride in being able to
offer very personal service, and we felt we knew each and every client
personally.
Most customers have my personal cell phone number, with permission to call
it at any time should they need help (and many customers have taken me up
on that.)
But today, a few factors have combined that make running the company no
longer possible. The spread of super low-cost "discount" web hosting
services run by large corporations, and the current economic downturn, are
reasons enough. It has become impossible for us to remain competitive in
this environment.
In addition, as many of you know, Jason and I are also co-founders of
PhotoShelter, which has seen explosive growth in the past year. Our daily
duties of running that company has resulted in less time for S2F.
We will shut down our services seven weeks from now, at 11:59pm (US
Eastern time), Aug. 21, 2008. All clients must have all of their data off
of our servers by this time.
For those customers paying via credit card, your last payment will be for
the month of July, 2008. There will be no charge for August, 2008.
For those customers paying via PayPal, your subscriptions will terminate
in July.
Customers who paid for a year in advance will receive a refund for any
unused time.
Should you remove your site within the month of July, we will be unable to
refund any money for any unused portion of that month.
Unfortunately, we are unable to assist anyone in their process of
migrating services to a new host. Moving to a new host will require that
you download the entire contents of your account to your local computer
via FTP, and then re-upload it to a new host.
If you have a database running, you will need to extract the database via
phpMyAdmin in the format that the new host can read and import. There are
a variety of formats supported by phpMyAdmin, so this should not be a
problem.
We are also unable to port email to a new host. Any email sitting on our
mail server must be downloaded to your local computer before we close
shop, or else it will be lost. (This mostly affects people who use the
Webmail tool as their sole mail platform.)
If you do not download your data before August 21, 2008, we will be unable
to help you retrieve your files, since all of the servers will be wiped
clean, powered down, and removed from the network. We will not have access
to any data after this date.
We understand that this is an unexpected pain in the ass for everyone, so
we've given as much advance notice as possible. We realize that it will
take some time to find a new host and re-establish yourself within a new
environment, which is why we're giving everyone 7 weeks to get it done.
We are also unable to provide suggestions for a replacement web host. In
the past 12 years we never had a need to search further than our own back
yard, so we are ill-equipped to provide recommendations.
I did Google search for "web host ratings" and the first thing that comes
up is:
http://webhostinggeeks.com
Perhaps that will be helpful?
This is sad news for me to bring you, but it is unavoidable, and I wish
everyone success in the future.
It has been an honor to serve you, and your files, for all these years.
-- Grover |
|
Thomas E. Witte, Photographer, Photo Editor
 |
Cincinnati | OH | USA | Posted: 11:43 AM on 07.03.08 |
->> Unless it was an oft uncelebrated July Fools joke, it's true.
Burf, you realize I'm still going to bug you for tech support. |
|
Baron Sekiya, Photographer
 |
Kailua-Kona | HI | USA | Posted: 2:10 PM on 07.03.08 |
->> If anyone uses IMAP email and wants to migrate to a Gmail (they can even host your email on your domain via Google Apps), they have a tutorial that walks you through so Gmail will pull all of your IMAP email to their server.
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=61369&topic=14870
But if you've got a lot of email it may take some time so don't wait till the last minute. |
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Steven E. Frischling, Photographer
 |
Live HVN : Work SFO-NYC | | | Posted: 6:42 PM on 07.03.08 |
->> Damn!
S2F has been by far the easiest company to work with when dealing with anything pertaining to online work!
Who the hell else has such easy IM tech Support? |
|
Melissa Wade, Photographer
 |
New York | NY | USA | Posted: 4:16 PM on 07.04.08 |
->> How are people saving their emails? I may cross my fingers on the inbox since the majority would be in my Outlook on my desktop, but not the Sent mail. Is there an easier way than forwarding it one at a time and screwing up the date sort?
Not sure what IMAP email is that is referenced above, but I do NOT want to use gmail. Have to use it with one group to look "official" with their domain and I absolutely hate it even disregarding the privacy concerns that made me avoid it originally.
I think it is hilarious that the email from S2F was blocked somehow from my webmail even though most spam mail gets through. I hope they don't have any users that only use webmail and missed this thread.
Thanks. |
|
Greg Ferguson, Photographer
|
Scottsdale | Az | USA | Posted: 7:16 PM on 07.04.08 |
->> Regarding Godaddy's hosting...
If you use virtual hosting (many users sharing a single system) you'll find they have removed some modules from both PHP and Perl that are very useful for site management. Things like file compression and tarring of directories are not available. They didn't disclose this when I signed on with them but it was a very annoying thing to find out when I needed that functionality.
Also, they do not provide the server logs for your account. It's an add-on, that costs you about an extra $5.00/month. Those logs might seem useless until you have problems and need to diagnose what's happening, or you have someone stealing images or hot-linking to sections of your site. Then they're worth money, especially if you have to go to court.
You can work around some of the hassles, but you shouldn't have to, and it would have been nice if they were upfront about what was missing. |
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Kyle Coburn, Photographer, Assistant
 |
Dallas | TX | USA | Posted: 3:00 AM on 07.05.08 |
->> http://www.dathorn.com has served me for 5 years with a total of around 3 hours downtime.
They are far from a cheap host that offers 500gb of space, but they allow you to host unlimited domains/account under one account and they keep their servers loads low.
I would stay away from godaddy, they pack the users on those servers. If a host seems to good to be true, or they use the word "unlimited" allot, stay away! Hosts that offer 500gb of disk and 5tb transfer for less than $6 a month are doing whats called overselling. Its a good idea to steer clear of those. |
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Melissa Wade, Photographer
|
New York | NY | USA | Posted: 2:19 PM on 07.07.08 |
->> Sorry about the repeated question, but still haven't found an answer - if using Squirrel Mail to read/send from S2F account, how do you download your mail? I found this - http://www.inf.aber.ac.uk/ns3/systems/accounts/?showpage=exportmail - but the item it lists under Options, does not appear under Options for me and must be specific to that University.
Help! |
|
Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
|
Galveston / Houston | TX | US | Posted: 10:08 PM on 07.07.08 |
| ->> Melissa, since you mention that you have Outlook on your desktop, simply use the new account wizard to create an IMAP account for your S2F email. Once connected you'll be able to see all your mail as you do in SquirrelMail. You'll then need to drag-and-drop it into a "local" Outlook folder to save a copy. I personally don't use Outlook but this *should* work just fine. |
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Melissa Wade, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 10:39 PM on 07.07.08 |
->> Thanks. That worked. I had set up Outlook - S2F as Pop mail before. Once I find a new home - is there any benefit to using Pop vs. IMAP? I used it before as it was all I knew. Thanks.
(Posting here rather than direct email in case there is anyone else clueless like me having to deal with this right now.) |
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John Stubler, Photographer
 |
San Jose | Ca | USA | Posted: 12:38 AM on 07.08.08 |
| ->> Does anyone know how to do this if they don't have Outlook? Any freeware or online tutorials? |
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Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
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Galveston / Houston | TX | US | Posted: 5:54 PM on 07.08.08 |
| ->> If you run Windows the free and included Outlook Express will work just as well. If you are on a Mac look to the free and included Mail. |
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