FDG Web | Web Design & Development | Everett & Seattle WA

Dedicated, VPS and Shared Hosting Speeds (Bandwidth, MBPS, etc)

We get this a lot when talking to customers, namely they bring up an example of a web hosting outfit who is offering a cheaper rate or more bandwidth for a lower price.

Example. We have a client who pushes about 620 gigs of data a month on one of our dedicated servers. They stream a large amount of videos (no, it is not what you think).

Now the way we work, being a specialty web host and all – is we do not employ limiting software for our clients as far as how much of the “pipe” they can use. So, that means their customers get to access that data up to 100 MBPS if they can download that fast. The bottom line is that if you suddenly get national attention and a rush of traffic because you were mentioned on Oprah – we want you to be able to withstand that and not have your website go down. We’d rather come back and talk if it continues rather than have some cost-saving software on our end cut you off at the knees.
It is all about the server’s connection to the Internet (the “pipe” if you will), so to put it into perspective – here’s what you get with different hosts.

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Typical Shared Hosting Account = as low as 256k/sec

Typical VPS / Virtual Private Server  = 1.5mps

Typical Basic Dedicated Server = 10mps

Typical High-end Dedicated Server (Like Us)  = 100mps

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That’s why the question “How much Bandwidth do I get?” is such a loaded one. It’s quality –vs- quantity.

Your shared web hosting account may offer “unlimited” data transfer a month – but to move that 620 gigs of data would take exactly:

264 Days 2 Hours 3 Minutes 33.76 Seconds on a share hosted –vs- 19 hours on our servers.

If you run a Point of Sale System ( POS ) & or Store on the same server, then performance is impacted by everything going on on that server.

Getting a USB Drive or Device to Boot or Autoplay

This month’s technical question seems to revolve around the following questions.

1) How do I get a jump drive to boot?

2) How do I make a bootable usb drive or device?

3) I JUST WANT MY %#$%ing THUMB DRIVE TO BOOT!!!!!

Yeah, we feel your pain, so brace yourself for the harsh reality. Whether you want to get a jump drive to autorun or autoplay – here’s the straight scoop.
Getting a jump drive, thumb drive or any nearly any other usb hard drive device to autorun is almost impossible to accomplish.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news – but with today’s security settings and restrictions – even if you do get it to work – it is only under the most controlled of circumstances.

Now, this does not stop customers and marketing firms from calling us every week asking for how to do an autorunning USB Jump Drive for some marketing project they have (and usually frantic because they have already promised someone they can) – so obviously there is great need for this.

That being said, we’ve been actively studying how this is accomplished and under what circumstances. Gleen what you want from this – as we are merely reporting what we’ve found along the way.

1) Pre-conception #1 – All I need is an autorun.ini right?

Wrong. That might work for your typical CD-ROM or DVD project, however a jump drive is not treated the same as a CD-ROM or DVD. It is a device, not media. Granted, on some older Win 98 machines – we actually got the following to work by including both an autorun.ini & a seperate autorun.inf (as if it was a CD-ROM ISO).

If your file was presentation.exe, then your files would look like:

[autorun]
open=presentation.exe

or

[autorun]
shellexecute=presentation.exe

To see a list of all the various autorun commands you can use, visit this link.
Another resource is: http://www.phdcc.com/shellrun/autorun.htm

If you want Windows-based resources for booting from a USB Drive – here is the official Microsoft spiel: Recommendations for Booting Windows from USB Storage Devices: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/usb-boot.mspx

To sum the above article up – if you find that type of reading boring – Windows can easily make a USB Drive boot – if

1) You’re the manufacturer of Jump Drives, and

2) You can change your USB Device’s hardware BIOS to allow for Boot instructions.

If you cannot do either – then you cannot make a USB Drive bootable and anyone who says they can is a big, fat liar.

If you want to see some very cool multimedia presentations we can build for you – then give us a call about that. THAT – we can get to autorun for you!

UPDATED – We found this great little post on Digg – Simon’s Blog – how to autorun a USB Device.

XML Flash Cards – Flashcard Template

Flash Timeline Template

Flash Map Template – XML

Our new XML Flash Map is an easy to use, easy to edit United States – based Flash Map. You can add this interactive map to your website or application – AND – add links to other websites! All you have to do is edit a single XML file to power the entire map. You do not even have to own FLASH! Add events, locations, tour dates, offices – and more! (Source File Included with this Version., Works with Flash MX – Flash 8, PC or Macintosh)