I thought I’d show off some appreciation to my hosting provider today.

This year started a little slow for me, both in health and in economy. You know, Christmas shopping taking its toll on the credit cards. This also meant that the annual charge for my blog’s hosting didn’t go through. Usually, they give me 10 days to sort things out before they shut down my virtual server, but after a quick question to their support, I was able to extend that for a few more days (my payday is the 15th every month, and since January 15 was on the weekend, the payday is that Friday leading up to the weekend). Needless to say, 5 days ago, I paid off my annual hosting bill (for that virtual server), and shoulders went back into relax mode. It also gained a mountain of trust and friendliness towards my hosting provider.

Who is my hosting provider, you ask? Linode.com, of course. About a year ago, I set up my third virtual server with them at their newly-created datacenter in London, providing a perfect location for my blog to be hosted. It’s mid-way between my own location (Norway) and the US.

So what does Linode.com provide? They provide me with a virtual Linux server, which is almost as customizable as dedicated server, and I can set up all the software I want on it, as long as it’s legal to use. And since I have more than 1 virtual server with them, the bandwidth allowance is pooled together to combine one huge traffic allowance (800 GB total per month – and I’m nowhere near reaching that total yet).

If you know a little bit about Linux administration, I would certainly recommend getting a Linode.com server. They’re very flexible.

I’ve also used ProHosting in the past, and I still use them for my basic e-mail and some leftover sites to host.

Note: All my Linode.com links use my referral code, which gives me a small account credit ($20) per new customer that sticks around for more than 90 days. Then again, if you like fiddling around with Linux, you’ll probably be with them for a much longer time. And not to worry, if you don’t, you’ll be refunded for the time you don’t use (ie. if you paid for a month and decided to leave after only a week, you’ll be refunded for the remaining 23-24 days).

You can either use my referral code or not, I recommend them either way.