One of the unique benefits of being a Dreamhost customer is the power to suggest changes and improvements, then vote on proposed suggestions. Votes strongly influence what gets implemented by Dreamhost.

So, if you think Dreamhost should install new software, update policies, add a new feature, or make any other changes Dreamhost Suggestions give you the opportunity to throw your idea out and let the rest of DH customers vote on its merit.  Neat, eh?

In your Web Panel from the Home menu click on the Suggestions link. From there you will see an overview explaining how to make suggestions and voting procedures.

Voting is credit based. DH customers each get 40 total credits, plus 1 credit per month since they signed up.  You can use your credits to vote once per suggestion, either for or against it (against votes always only cost 1 credit). Much like DHSOTMs tit-for-tat policy, you will need to help screen 5 other user suggestions before submitting your own.

You can also view Suggestions that won enough votes and were implemented by Dreamhost.  A quick peek through these and I see that some valuable policies and changes have come through customer suggestions. For example: recently Dreamhost changed its policy so that current customers pay the same rate as new customers.

Have A Suggestion for Dreamhost?

Dreamhost offers the handy service called Dreamhost Donations - Allowing DH customers to take donations for the cost of running their site, like a tip jar.

Visitors to your website can click on a image link letting them make a donation via PayPal towards your bill with Dreamhost.

Remember that donations can not be cashed out.

You can create your own image and link (like the one below) by logging to your Dreamhost Web Panel, under the link “Donations (To You!)”.

Alternatively, if you are using Wordpress there are a couple of donation plugins including Owen Cutajar’s Sponsor Me or the Gaboinked! Chipin Sidebar Widget.

Also you could set-up donation links and buttons directly through PayPal.

Social media and news sites can direct a lot of traffic at a website over a short period of time. It’s not uncommon for servers to crash under the weight of these increases, especially on shared servers like Dreamhost.

Q. Can a website hosted by Dreamhost handle getting slashdotted, dugg, or handle large traffic spikes?

A. Maybe. A static website (no databases) should hold up against quite a bit of traffic, but a database driven site would have more problems. If you’re using WordPress, the Wp-Cache plugin is a must. DreamHost include with WordPress one click installs.

Q. What can I do if I get a huge traffic spike or am expecting one?

A. The best thing to do is send DreamHost support a ticket giving them a head’s up about the traffic increase, so support will be able to monitor your server.

It might also be a good time to consider upgrading to a DreamHost Private Server, where you can scale your RAM/CPU allowance on the fly.

You may also want to check out the advice here for optimizing your websites to improve performance and use less server resources.

From my own personal experience: a Wordpress blog of mine hosted by Dreamhost recieved had a traffic spike of 3000 visitors within just a few hours…and I didn’t notice a slowdown in my site. Friends of mine have recieved about 5000 visitors in a day without issues. I’ve yet to get a truely huge traffic spike with a site hosted at DreamHost, but will post results here when I do.

Further Reading:

Dreamhost Forum - Thread about Dreamhost and the Digg Effect

Dreamhost Wiki - DH’s Guide to Dealing with Increased Web Traffic

When you opened a hosting account with Dreamhost, you were entitled to a free domain registration. Like many people, you may not have taken the offer and registered a domain at that time.

Good news: If you didn’t take advantage of your free domain when you signed up, you can still redeem your free domain…and it’s easy.

Just log in to your Dreamhost Web Panel, then under the main heading of “Domains” choose “Registrations”. From here you can check the availability of a domain name and register it using your free domain credit.

A couple of notes:

Domains remain free for as long as you have your Dreamhost hosting account.  Just set the domain to “auto-renew”. For more info check out this thread on the DH forums.

Go get your free domain now!

Google just made some updates to Google Trends which allows you to research and compare search terms by popularity and geographical region. If you do keyword research, this can be a very handy tool.

After signing in to a Google Account, visitors to Trends can now view the “numbers” on the graphs as well as being able to download the data via .CSV format.

Here are a couple of graphs I made using Google Trends:

This first one compares Myspace vs Facebook.

What I found most interesting about this was how much more popular Facebook is in Canada while Myspace dominates in the United States.

I already noticed this as I live in Canada, and almost everyone I know locally uses Facebook, whereas all my high school buddies from Michigan, USA only seem to be on Myspace.

And here is a graph that gave me a bit of a chuckle:

Have a look at the terms “diet” and “exercise”.

You can see how those terms take a big dive between Thanksgiving through New Years, with a huge jump in January, and then teeters down again.

I title this graph: “Good Intentions”.

So go check out Google Trends.

Further Reading:

25 Things I Learned on Google Trends - By Steve Rubel

Info on How to Use Google Trends new Features - via the Official Google Blog

I have an interest in rhetoric, the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion.

No, really…this IS interesting, please read on:

My studies of rhetoric have made me fans of those who have mastered the art of persuasion, and one of my favorite examples is the official DreamHost blog. Which is massively entertaining and written by Josh Jones, one of the company’s founders. It was the winner of Blogger’s Choice Awards winner for “Best Corporate Blog - 2007″.

According to DreamHost: “This is our official company blog! We use it to post funnyish, behind-the-scenes goings on at DreamHost! … Think of it as the lighter-side of DreamHost!”

Topics range from gadgets, business, tech news, to DreamHost news and announcements. But some of the best posts fall under the category of “foobars” where DH is fabulously indiscreet when things go wrong.

A foobar post is not what you might expect from a corporate blog when they make a mistake; a large company would do it’s best to apologize and minimize the bad publicity. Whereas DreamHost tackles their own mistakes by taking responsibility for them, apologizing, and then explain why they think a foobar happened, what they did/are doing to fix it, and how they will avoid the problem in the future. And they manage to do all of this in an entertaining way. Actually, let’s take a life lesson from the DreamHost blog. If you make a mistake just follow these steps:

1. Admit the mistake, and take responsibility for it.
2. Apologize.
3. Figure out WHY the mistake happened.
4. Figure out HOW to fix the problem.
5. Plan ahead on how to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

(Remember to smile and work some pop-culture references into your pitch.)

A lot of companies could learn a thing or two about corporate blogging and communication from the DreamHost blog.

I’m sure you’ll dig the DreamHost Blog even if you have no interest in corporate communication, ethos, pathos or logos — so check it out.

Suggested Reading:

Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

The DreamHost Site of the Month (DHSOTM) contest started in 1998 to honor the best sites among the ones they host.

Each month, one DreamHost customer gets their site anointed the Site of the Month; the winner being the site with the highest average vote with at least 10 votes when the newsletter is written. The winner gets mentioned in the newsletter, has their DHSOTM listing in bold, and can display this icon on their site for bragging rights:

Submitting your site in the contest is easy. First log into the DH web panel, and then under the “Home” menu click on DHSOTM. You will see a list of sites currently entered into the contest. To submit your own site, first vote & comment on at least 10 other entries, then click on “Enter Your Site/Check Your Votes” button. Just fill out a short form describing your site and you are done.

2008 DHSOTM Winners:

• May Inkblot Creative Graphic services & design boutique
• April Daniel Ptiner Flash-enabled personal portfolio site
• March CSS Mania The biggest CSS Showcase all over the globe since 2003.
• February Scarlett Vision Media Marketing / Interactive Media Firm
• January Free Minders 200 & More Free Wordpress Themes Gallery

Full list of past winners from 1998 - 2008 are available here.

Even if you don’t win, this is a great way to get feedback about your website and a little exposure. If you do win, it could give you an excellent traffic boost with the mention in the DreamHost newsletter.

Good luck!

If you haven’t already, you may want to check out and bookmark the official Dreamhost Discussion Forums. Although you’ll find some drivel and whining, there are generally a few good conversations taking place around the forums.

If you are a potential customer of Dreamhost, you may want to check out the Curious About Dreamhost? forum to ask current customers about their opinions with DH hosting.

The General Troubleshooting forum is great to get feedback and help from other Dreamhost customers when you run into a problem. Remember that the forum does not replace the support wiki or support form if you need help from a Dreamhost representative.

You’ll also find sections to discuss programming, design, ecommerce and more.

So, have a peak at the Dreamhost Forums

or grab the feeds: RSS feed of all posts | RSS feed of all threads

All DreamHost hosting packages include access to a free flash-based media player as well as an image rotator. This means you can easily (and awesomely) embed audio, video or picture slideshows into your website.

The Flash Media Player can only play videos in “FLV” format… but DreamHost allows you to convert your .avi, .mov, or .mpg into a .FLV via the web panel’s Goodies > Flash Media area.

These tools make it extremely easy to add rich media content to spruce up your site or blog, so give it a try.

More info:

Flash Tools overview with examples

Flash Media Player Usage info - on the Dreamhost wiki.

Flash Image Rotator Usage info - also on the Dreamhost wiki.

DreamHost offers one click installs for a stack of open source software. Which makes it incredibly simple to get a fully functional database driven site up In 5 mins — without much hosting or programming knowledge.

Sweet, eh?

Dreamhost even has an “Easy Mode” for installing WordPress, Zenphoto, phpBB, and Drupal. In easy mode, Dreamhost handles all the software management/upgrades (installation, upgrades, and maintenance is 100% handled for you!), and no files are installed to your account. However, in easy mode you cannot install your own plugins or themes (though there are a number included).

To have full customization, choose the advanced mode instead.

In “advanced mode” (which is still incredibly simple) there are even more 1-click-install web software available: WordPress, Zenphoto, phpBB, Gallery, ZenCart, Pligg, Joomla and others. Remember by using advanced mode you are responsible for upgrading your old installations. Luckily, you can even upgrade your software when needed via the same control panel.

I find this an excellent way to set-up friend’s who don’t know the first thing about HTML, FTP, or hosting, with their own blog or online store.

Check out the support wiki for more information about 1-click installs available through Dreamhost, as well as overviews of the software offered through this service.