News about A Small Orange Software http://forums.asmallorange.com Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:52:44 +0000 15 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/17544-php-54-now-available-on-all-shared-servers/

In our continuing effort to provide our customers with the most up to date software platforms, A Small Orange would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 5.4 on all shared servers.

Keep in mind that the use of PHP 5.4 is alongside that of the default PHP 5.3 stack, and no customers will be forced to use 5.4 unless they explicitly enable it themselves, or request it from Technical Support.

We provide you the control and option of enabling PHP 5.4 on your entire account or on a per-directory basis through a simple .htaccess modification. This modification can be placed in an accounts public_html/.htaccess file to enable PHP 5.4 for an entire account or in the .htaccess file of a specific directory to enable PHP 5.4 under that directory tree only.
To enable PHP 5.4, you must add the following htaccess option:

AddType application/x-httpd-php54 .php

The binary path to the PHP 5.4 installation, should you require it for executable php scripts or cronjobs, is located at:

/usr/local/php54/bin/php

As with the existing PHP 5.3 setup that defaults on our servers, when you enable PHP 5.4, it will respect any custom php.ini settings you may have under your account. In addition, all standard PHP modules and extensions from the existing PHP 5.3 setup are default enabled in the PHP 5.4 setup to ensure the best compatibility possible.

Please note that Zend encoded files are not supported on PHP 5.4, as Zend has yet to distribute a compatible decoder extension for PHP 5.4. However, we do include support for IonCube encoded files in PHP 5.4.

The PHP 5.4 installation will be maintained alongside our default PHP 5.3 installation on all servers going forward, to ensure that it receives version updates, bug fixes and security patches in a timely fashion.]]> Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:52:44 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/17544-php-54-now-available-on-all-shared-servers/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16952-aso-orange-jubilee/
Throughout September, we’ll be providing discounts, contests, and giveaways.



Here's a few ways to take advantage:



a) Enter the ASO Road Trip Contest!
If you give us a good reason why we should visit your town/city(within the Continental US), you could win the following:

1. Up to $100 in free hosting per month for 6 months.
2. A Yeti Roadie Cooler stocked with goodies
3. All of the above delivered to you by an ASO employee, along with a casual meetup in your town, compliments of ASO.

Click here to enter today!

b) SWAG.

• Mention us on Twitter/Facebook/G+. Let us know at jim [at] asmallorange[dot][com] and we’ll send you an ASO bumper sticker.
  
• Take a picture of that bumper sticker. Let us know (@ the same address), and we’ll send you an ASO t-shirt!
  
• Take a picture of yourself in the ASO t-shirt. Let us know (@ yes, the same address), and we’ll send you an ASO Moleskine!

Have you mentioned us? Click here to give us your mailing address.

c) DISCOUNTED HOSTING!

• You can get 22% off your first month when you enter coupon code SPOTLIGHT during checkout.*
  
• Free Domains on Select Shared Hosting Accounts**

*Discount price is for new hosting packages only- cannot be applied as account credit or toward renewals. Shared hosting plans are not eligible for the discount coupon.
**Free one year domain registrations or transfers on all new shared plan levels, except the Tiny level.
***While supplies last, limit of one sticker, one T-shirt, and one Moleskine per household.]]> Fri, 07 Sep 2012 18:53:59 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16952-aso-orange-jubilee/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16780-mysql-upgrade-being-fastracked-asap/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16756-php-and-mysql-being-upgraded-june-18th/page__pid__93052#entry93052), a new vulnerability has been found in the MySQl version we currently use on some systems (see http://blog.sucuri.net/2012/06/security-vulnerability-in-mysql.html for more information). This necessitates speeding up the date of the upgrades to right about... now!

Currently, our platform is not directly affected but with the information out in the wild, we feel it is likely just a matter of time before an attack is forked into a variant that could affect our platform. It is for that reason that we have decided not to wait until the 18th.

There should be no major issues with the upgrade for most folks - the exception will be that folks running extremely old databases on old software may have a problem with the upgrade and it may cause their database to stop serving. Hopefully, very few folks will have this issue (as running very old software is generally a pretty bad idea on the best of days), but if you do find yourself facing this issue, simply exporting the database with a mysqldump and re-importing it should solve the issue. If you're unsure of how to do this, we'll be happy to do it for you.

ASO's techs will be standing by to help anyone with any issues they may face, but we don't anticipate any major or widespread problems.]]> Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:55:40 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16780-mysql-upgrade-being-fastracked-asap/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16756-php-and-mysql-being-upgraded-june-18th/
These versions come up with a number of performance enhancements and new features for developers. You can read about them on the following sites:

MySQL 5.1 - http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/
PHP 5.3X - http://php.net/releases/5_3_0.php
PHP 5.3.13 - http://www.php.net/archive/2012.php#id2012-05-08-1

We do not anticipate any significant issues with regard to the MySQL upgrade, and for most installations, we do not anticipate any issues with the PHP5.3.13 upgrade. For some customers running old versions of software that have not been upgraded, custom software that was written around a 5.2 architecture and not upgraded to be compatible to 5.3, or customers running current software with older plugins, this PHP upgrade could have a detrimental affect on your site's functionality if you have not ensured your site is compatible with PHP 5.3.

Because of the potential for a minority of infrequently updated or outdated sites to have some problems with the upgrade, we will be updating our server fleet in waves, or clusters, so that only a small number of customers are affected at any one given time. We are upgrading in this manner to ensure that we can give any customer that has issues stemming from the upgrade the help they need to understand what the issue is with their software/its incompatibility, as well as guidance on what needs to be accomplished in order to bring it into compliance or if that is not possible what their options are.

These upgrades will begin June 18th, and will continue Monday through Friday of that week and Monday through Friday of the next week, ending on 25th of June. If there are very few issues with the upgrades, we will do updates more frequently and may shorten the amount of time allotted.

Once servers or server groups are updated, we will post a message here as to which servers are complete.

Please let us know if you have any questions.]]> Tue, 05 Jun 2012 21:35:19 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16756-php-and-mysql-being-upgraded-june-18th/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16746-aso-naming-contest-winners-announced/
The finalists, who will receive an ASO pocket Moleskine:

Ron Bird
Pete Ingersoll
Erin Moore
Randy Pollack

The winning name was Clementine, chosen by:

Justine Moore
Derek Ohanaisan

Congrats, winners! You’ll get an ASO Moleskine and an ASO t-shirt.]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 19:14:41 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16746-aso-naming-contest-winners-announced/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16688-important-helpdesk-maintenance-notice-for-542012-at-10pm-eastern/
You will be able to send an email to emergency@asmallorange.com if there is an issue taking place that you need immediate attention for that cannot wait until after this maintenance period. We do ask that you hold any non-emergency issues that can be held until after the helpdesk is upgraded, and live chat will be available during this time.

If you have any questions about this helpdesk unavailability, please let us know, and thanks for your patience!]]> Fri, 04 May 2012 22:11:20 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16688-important-helpdesk-maintenance-notice-for-542012-at-10pm-eastern/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16679-important-helpdesk-maintenance-notice-for-4292012-at-midnight-eastern/
During the upgrade while the helpdesk system is offline we will have extra technicians available on the live chat system to help you out with any high priority issues that you may run into that need a more immediate answer or solution to ensure that you are not inconvenienced too much during the time that the helpdesk will be unavailable.

If you have any questions about this helpdesk unavailability, please let us know, and thanks for your patience!]]> Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:45:52 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16679-important-helpdesk-maintenance-notice-for-4292012-at-midnight-eastern/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16625-important-customer-portal-maintenance-on-april-1920th-2012/
Please read this important systems maintenance announcement.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The ASO Team

- Our billing system and customer portal will be down (in maintenance mode) between 9pm PDT and 11pm PDT April 19th (12 midnight Eastern time until 2am Eastern time April 20th).

- Customers will not be able to make payments during this time.

- New or existing customers will not be able to place new orders during this time.

- Customers will not be able to login to the client area or do anything they would do from within the customer portal (edit domain settings, update     contact info, change cPanel password, open support tickets, etc.).

- Customers won’t be able to open a ticket via the client area. For support, you should email help@asmallorange.com or billing@asmallorange.com and that will create a ticket on our helpdesk.

- The following day, records of payments and automatic payments made may lag a bit. Management will follow up that morning and any automatic payments that were not attempted that night will be attempted that morning (those who would get these automatic payments done would not be in danger of suspension for 9 more days, so the lag should not hurt them).

- If a customer has a due bill, they may want to login and make sure it’s paid by the 18th.  If a customer gets suspended before this maintenance time, they won’t be able to pay and get reinstated right away during the maintenance time.

- Anyone that has an invoice generating around this maintenance window should be fine. (Everyone has a grace period of several days.)

- If anyone is suspended for billing reasons and find they cannot pay, they should email billing@asmallorange.com. Please note that billing is only open during normal business hours. Or if someone paid but they are not yet reinstated, they should email billing@asmallorange.com.]]> Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:34:43 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16625-important-customer-portal-maintenance-on-april-1920th-2012/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16352-growing-web-hosting-company-hiring-tech-support-ninjas-remotefull-time/ Who we are:
A Small Orange is a high-end shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated web hosting company based in Durham, NC that prides itself on providing extraordinary customer service and support to its growing customer base. We're profitable and growing and we're looking for enthusiastic, friendly, and knowledgeable employees to join our growing team that is already over 25 people strong. We understand and recognize that, along with our customers, the people on our team are our most valuable asset.

A bit about our technical environment: We have Linux servers running CentOS and use cPanel/WHM as our control panel. We have a mix of shared, reseller, dedicated, and VPS customers ranging in technical ability from complete novice to tech expert.

Who we’re looking for:
At the most basic level, we’re looking for a level 1 or 2 (but we're open to level 3) technical support representative (we call them Technical Support Ninjas) to provide support over email and live chat to our customers. The ideal candidate has superior technical skills, as well as top-notch customer service skills. We’re looking for people people who also happen to know about the technology our customers use.

We have 3 standard shifts and what shift we are interviewing for will depend on our current staffing needs. Days off and weekends required may vary.:

• Evening (5pm-1:30am)
  
• Evening (5pm-1:30am)
  
• Graveyard (1:00am-9:30am)

All times listed are Eastern Time.

For a more complete job description, including a detailed description of the skill set we’re seeking, check out the website linked to in the “How to apply” section below.

What the job is like:
Working at A Small Orange is both fun and engaging. We try to make our company an enjoyable place to work and our working environment reflects that desire. All employees can either work from home or our Atlanta-area office (their choice). We don’t really care where you live, as long as you can work reliably and do a good job.

In addition to the opportunity to work for a successful and growing company, as well as the opportunity to work with smart people and have an interesting job, we offer the things you’d expect from a good job including competitive pay, an extremely comprehensive benefits package, paid time off, a 401k, and more.

You can see a more complete description of what it’s like to work at A Small Orange, and a more detailed listing of our benefits at the website linked to below (starting to see a pattern?).

How to apply:
For more information on what it’s like to work at A Small Orange, a complete job description, and application instructions, please visit: http://jobs.asmallorange.com/.

Note: Please be sure to read the application instructions carefully before applying! Candidates who fail to follow the job application process will not be considered.]]> Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:16:42 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16352-growing-web-hosting-company-hiring-tech-support-ninjas-remotefull-time/ http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16310-growing-web-hosting-company-hiring-tech-support-ninjas-remotefull-time/ Who we are:
A Small Orange is a high-end shared, reseller, VPS, and dedicated web hosting company based in Atlanta, GA that prides itself on providing extraordinary customer service and support to its growing customer base. We're profitable and growing and we're looking for enthusiastic, friendly, and knowledgeable employees to join our growing team that is already over 25 people strong. We understand and recognize that, along with our customers, the people on our team are our most valuable asset.

A bit about our technical environment: We have Linux servers running CentOS and use cPanel/WHM as our control panel. We have a mix of shared, reseller, dedicated, and VPS customers ranging in technical ability from complete novice to tech expert.

Who we’re looking for:
At the most basic level, we’re looking for a level 1 or 2 (but we're open to level 3) technical support representative (we call them Technical Support Ninjas) to provide support over email and live chat to our customers. The ideal candidate has superior technical skills, as well as top-notch customer service skills. We’re looking for people people who also happen to know about the technology our customers use.

For a more complete job description, including a detailed description of the skill set we’re seeking, check out the website linked to in the “How to apply” section below.

What the job is like:
Working at A Small Orange is both fun and engaging. We try to make our company an enjoyable place to work and our working environment reflects that desire. All employees can either work from home or our Atlanta-area office (their choice). We don’t really care where you live, as long as you can work reliably and do a good job.

In addition to the opportunity to work for a successful and growing company, as well as the opportunity to work with smart people and have an interesting job, we offer the things you’d expect from a good job including competitive pay, an extremely comprehensive benefits package, paid time off, a 401k, and more.

You can see a more complete description of what it’s like to work at A Small Orange, and a more detailed listing of our benefits at the website linked to below (starting to see a pattern?).

How to apply:
For more information on what it’s like to work at A Small Orange, a complete job description, and application instructions, please visit: http://jobs.asmallorange.com/.

Note: Please be sure to read the application instructions carefully before applying! Candidates who fail to follow the job application process will not be considered.]]> Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:51:47 +0000 http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/16310-growing-web-hosting-company-hiring-tech-support-ninjas-remotefull-time/