Reading this month’s DreamHost newsletter I came across a neat little feature that DreamHost now offers on the DH wiki. The wiki now supports embedded video, which means that the DreamNut video tutorials can now be directly displayed into the wiki without me linking back to my blog posts. The example video that DreamHost used to show off this new ability was a DreamNut tutorial video, so thanks DH for choosing us!

Dreamhost now supports an easy maintenance cron job panel. You no longer have to SSH into your account to setup cronjobs! This feature has been something I have been wanting for a long time since Cpanel has a similar feature. Now you can setup and manage cron jobs all from your web panel, which should be really useful for Pligg users who use the RSS Import feature.

Shealee wrote:

What is the account file in FileZilla’s site manager? What do I need to do there?

Well Shealee, the Logontype for Account is a mystery to me. Even after a few minutes of Googling and asking some of my friends I wasn’t able to find an answer for you. This feature wasn’t even included in FileZilla over a year ago, so I can only assume that it’s not a common featured used by more than a handful of people. I looked into FileZilla’s help documents from the latest version and it left out any information about the Account mode. Below is what Filezilla did have concerning the other two modes anonymous and normal.

If you select anonymous, you can't enter a username and password. In this case the username always is anonymous. When you select Normal, you have to enter a username and if required, a password.
It’s a very basic explanation of the modes, so please let me go on to further explain these two modes. Anonymous is for FTP servers that allow anonymous logging in to FTP. This feature lets anyone who has the FTP address to log in and view the files on the server and sometimes even lets the anonymous user upload files, depending on the server settings. This usually isn’t allowed for most shared-hosting accounts, but sometimes it can be purchased as an additional service for a small price. The normal mode lets you login using a username and usually in combination with a password. This makes the FTP user identify themselves and helps protect the server from unauthorized access. If you are trying to access a shared hosting account via FTP you will probably need to use this method to log in and enter the details provided to you by your host. If you use Dreamhost you can visit this page to see your FTP users and what host they are on. The host (FTP address) is determined by the machine name listed. Simply use the machine name followed by “.dreamhost.com“.

If anyone reading this post has some information regarding the Account Logontype please post a comment or contact me using the Request page.

In case you haven’t noticed yet Dreamhost has changed their web panel template to a much brighter, web 2.0 friendly style. The design makes use of some simple Ajax, which I’m starting to get sick of because I already see it a lot in other web work that I do, and they also threw in a tag cloud to boot. Some of the stats such as the referral page are now a little more difficult to read and seem unfinished. I’m not sure if I’m just exploring areas that I’ve never tested out before or if Dreamhost added a few new items to the web panel, but for the most part I’m pleased.

Today I received in the mail my very first Dreamhost Rewards check. I have been saving up my payments over the past four months and the result was a really large sum of money. It was such a large sum that it qualifies as the largest check I’ve ever received. Amazing how much revenue you can pull in from a single banner. This is a great time for me to point out that Dreamhost has a spectacular rewards program that is really easy to use. They have recently updated some of their linking attributes so now you can form more advanced urls that automatically fill the promo code area with any of your created codes when users click on one of your links. An example of this would look something like: http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?84605/signup|MAXSAVINGS.

And I know most of you are saying this to yourselves now: “what’s up with the pizza logo”? I don’t know, but I’m curious to find out.

This tutorial shows you how to download, edit, FTP upload and install the phpBB2 module for Pligg. This tutorial does not however instruct you how to install phpbb, that tutorial will come at a later date. This tutorial is for those of you who already have phpbb installed and wish to integrate your users with a Pligg installation.

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Download High-Resolution Version: Rapidshare or DreamNut (10.9 MB)
Runtime: 3 minutes exactly
Difficulty: Easy (if you have phpbb and Pligg already installed)

I’m not sure if my web panel has just experienced a bit of a glitch or if Dreamhost has made a major change to their rewards program, but as of tonight I am able to cash out Rewards from referrals made as early as today. The previous method required that each referral account must be enrolled with Dreamhost for 97 days before you get full credit for the referral and are able to cash out. I’ve attached an image to demonstrate what’s happened, this is also one of the few chances you’ll get to see how many referrals I get and how profitable Dreamhost referrals can be (currently totaling $1,990).

UPDATE:
I just received an email from Dreamhost support regarding this and as it turns out it’s not a glitch. Here’s a copy of the message they sent me:

Actually, once you’ve gotten enough rewards we start paying them out
without the 97 day pending period. Any rewards that lost (due to the
referral closing their account) are counted against future rewards.

So I guess I’ve learned something new about Dreamhost today. The 97 day pending period no longer applies after a certain amount of payouts they no longer require a 97 day waiting period and you are able to cash out at any time. This is great news for people that like money and don’t like waiting. Yet another reason why I love being a DH customer.

This video tutorial teaches you how to install Zen Cart in under 10 minutes. Zen Cart is a commerce package that lets you sell items on your site with minimal hassle. I haven’t had much experience with it in the past, but from the short amount of time that I’ve spent playing around with it I have become fond of it. Read this page for a list of features, and see this DreamNut Zen Cart example page to see a demo. If you are interested in other commerce software check out OSCommerce.

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Download the High Quality Video (32 MB)
Length: 8 minutes and 12 seconds

Did you know that you can submit suggestions to DreamHost? Not only can you submit your own suggestions, but you can vote for or against other people suggestions using the Dreamhost web panel’s Suggestions area. This area is probably one of the most overlooked parts of the web panel, but it is a great way to participate in changing what you don’t like about Dreamhost. You can suggest features such as a new Content Management System One-Click install, new default software installation, advanced statistics for parts of the user panel and other various improvements and ideas. The great thing about the panel is that you are limited to your choices through a credit system. Each user gets just 40 credits to vote for items, and items can range from 1 to 5 credits per vote. Not only can you vote for having something, but you can vote against something that you don’t like. Don’t worry about wasting votes because you can always remove your old votes and use them on something else. Check out the video below for a brief introduction to Dreamhost’s Suggestions Panel.

Download the video here (14 MB)

Take a moment and help support my project Pligg by voting for it to be added to the One-Click Install section.

You can now download a flash (swf) movie tutorial teaching you how to use the RSS Importer that comes with Pligg Beta 9. The RSS Importer is a great way to build up some stories in your site’s database to fill in some empty space early on. Let me know if you find any major errors in the movie that I need to fix.

Download it Here