information for current hostees

Please read if you are unfamiliar with how web site hosting works:

If you want your own hosting account that you control all the nitty gritty of, please get an account at Dreamhost, they're great! You get hosting, domains, everything you need right through them and can keep it as long as you keep paying the bill.

If you share my hosting with me, then it'll be like paying rent for a room in a house I own (in a community Dreamhost owns, to extend the metaphor). So, you'll be helping me pay a share of my hosting bill, making it cheaper for all of us, and I, as the house-owner, take care of set-up and maintenance and tech support for you (software installation, email, domain registration, trouble-shooting, coding help, etc.). So, all you have to do is enjoy your site; which, if you don't know much about web sites and just want to get your site up somewhere and are okay with "renting a room," so to speak, this could be very good for you. But if you want total control of your living space, it's good to buy your own house. :)

How this works

Really simple. I take care of setting up your domain or subdomain, email, hosting, WordPress installation, tech support, etc. and you build your site and be awesome. When my hosting bill comes, you'll just pitch in a small portion. It won't be simply hosting-bill divided by number-of-hostees, since it does take some effort to maintain all this stuff, but it will be fair and reasonable. :)

Payment

Payment is made in hindsight—so, at the end of each year (around August), you'll owe me a bit of money for the previous year. At that time, I'll email you an invoice with a link to a Google Checkout page where you can make the payment, and go on with your day. You are entirely responsible for paying for your own domain registrations and the like; I'll be happy to set it up for you and take care of it as I would take care of your hosting, but the payment for those is all on you. On-time payments are always very appreciated.

Subdomain owners

Don't freak out, the payment info above applies to domain-owners who joined up with the Natalie-house 2008 and on. :) If you own one of the older akirichan.net or natalie-star.net subdomains, you are welcome to hang around as long as you want at no charge, but be aware that I might decide to take those domains down soon (since my main web site is sklobovskaya.com).

akirichan.net, as most of you know, will be shut down later this year, so please email me if we haven't gotten in touch about this yet. (natalie-star.net will be up for at least another few years, I expect.)

Disclaimer

On that note, please realize that sharing my hosting with me makes your web site entirely dependent on mine. I reserve the right to decide I no longer want to have a web site of my own, much less host any, in which case you will need to find somewhere else to host your sites. I don't expect that this will happen any time soon, since I very much love both making web sites and helping others make them too, but just be aware that I guarantee nothing.

Cancellation

If you ever decide you don't want to bunk with me anymore, godspeed! ...But you'll still owe me a portion of your pay for that year, which you'll owe at the time of your leaving.

Contact

If you have questions, IM or email away!