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 domains and counting... |
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| Hosting with a piece of my mind | ||
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Network Information Data facility All of our servers are packed into a state-of-the-art cupboard inside a shared council flat in Hull, England. The flat, which is part of a 1960s tower block, has excellent security: access can only be granted through a system of stairwells, corridors and locked doors, all of which are monitored by the police on an occasional basis for drug dealing and prostitution. Since going into operation, the Orchard Park data facility has had few significant problems and any rumours about it being one of the most deprived, crime-ridden estates in the country are completely false. Connectivity Our servers are connected through 33.6k external modems (via a disused phone box) to the local telephone network, supplied by Kingston Communications. In addition to this, each of our staff has fast wireless internet access, a top-of-the-range mobile phone and access to a private games network, but if you think you're getting your hands on any of that you're mistaken. Servers We operate our own custom-built, custom-bodged servers based around the requirements for Windows 3.1. Following the finders/keepers principal, these servers are fully owned by DeadHOST since we found them in the skip down the road. All run a, quite frankly, unreliable web server we cobbled together in QBASIC and the unique PlywoodPANEL control panel system for administering your account (it doesn't actually do much, but it looks quite nice). To cut costs, we set up our servers ourselves, with the help of children from the local primary school whose skip we stole them from (DeadHOST very much believes in following the advice of our users in improving our services). The children are available 24-hours a day (except at night when they're in bed and during the day when they're at school) in case anything goes wrong, which it frequently does. To keep our costs low we don't keep any spare parts on-hand, but there is a car-boot sale down the road every fortnight so we can probably pick some up there if we need to. The average hardware specification for our servers is unknown because nobody's ever bothered to find out, but they're running Windows 3.1 and they seem pretty slow so they can't be that good. |
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| ©2002-2008 DeadBrain. All rights reserved. |
