FAQ
As of June 2011 apc.au is will have shut down. Grant and Andrew are moving on to pursue other interests. If you’ve been hosting with us you’ll have heard from us by now and may have a few questions.
- Why are you closing apc.au?
- Why are you recommending we move to Dreamhost?
- How much will it cost to move to dedicated Dreamhost hosting?
- Why isn’t apc.au charging us to move to Dreamhost?
- If we choose to take my business else where, what’s involved?
- What additional features can I expect from Dreamhost?
- How long will the transfer take?
- How do we transfer to our own account on Dreamhost?
- Will there be any downtime?
- What will happen to our email?
- What do we tell our audience / clients / members / users?
- I have more questions…
Why are you closing apc.au?
We’ve done as much as we’ve wanted to do with apc.au, but our heart’s no longer in it. Besides, much of what we did with apc.au we did voluntarily. But it’s now costing us more than apc.au earns to keep it going. It certainly can’t support us. Time to move on.
Why are you recommending we move to Dreamhost?
Some years back we moved all our hosting to Dreamhost. We used to run a server out of an office in South Melbourne. It got too expensive to run it locally. We shopped around and found Dreamhost not only provided a solid service, they support open source software, they have a strong commitment to supporting community and non-profit initiatives and they have a carbon reduction plan in action.
In reality, we’re actually moving you from an apc.au Dreamhost hosting account to your own Dreamhost account. It’s the most elegant and sound solution. And you’ll pay less in the long run for it.
How much will it cost to move to dedicated Dreamhost hosting?
Minimum cost is AUD$10/month for a 1 year hosting plan (paid in advance). apc.au won’t be charging you for the transfer.
Why isn’t apc.au charging us to move to Dreamhost?
Our hosting charges included a set number of hours of support we would provide for specialised services. Many of our clients rely on customised websites that we helped to develop. We’re using these accumulated hours to cover these transfer costs.
In all honesty, these costs really won’t cover our time on this, but as we’ve grown to know you all so well, we’re wanting to help you continue your great work.
If we choose to take my business else where, what’s involved?
If you have a preferred hosting service you’ll need to move both your domain address and all your content to them. Depending on what you’ve got running on apc.au it could be real easy, or relatively complex.
If you’re not experienced in setting up and moving domain names and web content, we’d recommend hiring a web consultant or talking to us.
It’ll cost from $120/hr for us to assist you.
What additional features can I expect from Dreamhost?
Take a look at what’s under the hood of a Dreamhost account:
http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting.html
Ok, that’s a pretty techy kind of list, but if you’re interested in other specialised tools, such as WordPress blogs and wikis, here’s what else is on offer:
http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting-one-click-catalog.html
How long will the transfer take
Depending on the complexity of the site you have, it could take a total effort time of 1 to 3 hours spread over the better part of a day.
How do we transfer to our own account on Dreamhost?
The steps required to transfer if you’re staying with DreamHost are:
- Set up your DreamHost account. Do not use any promotion codes just create a plain account.
- Inform us of your account details.
- We (or you) take a backup of the site files and any databases, copying the backup onto a local laptop/workstation.
- Any mailing lists you might have will need the help of Dreamhost’s technical staff to copy to your new account. This will introduce a delay as the request will be queued and processed as their support staff have time. It is recommended that no other transfer work be done until the mailing lists have been moved.
- Once completed, we (or you/your technical group) log into your account and upload the backups of the site files, create any databases (if required) and load the data.
- If you’re not using Google to host your email, you must ensure that your mail program has picked up all your current emails.
- When we’re ready to go, your domain name will be transferred to your account.
- On completion of the above steps, the copy of your site is removed from our account.
Will there be any downtime?
If you are moving to a new hosting provide (other than DreamHost) then it will take up to 24 hours for the domain address to propagate across the internet once you have transferred it to your new hosting provider.
If you stay with Dreamhost, there should be almost no downtime as the changes are being made internally within Dreamhost’s systems.
What will happen to our email?
You will need to download your email one final time before your domain is transferred to the new account. Once that is completed, you may need to modify your mail server settings (incoming/outgoing mail servers, user name, password, etc) if changing to a new host other than DreamHost.
What do we tell our audience / clients / members / users?
It is recommended that you advise people your domain will be moving over the course of 2 to 3 days and that while all should work correctly, there may be some interruptions to the web site, emails, etc.
I have more questions
Ask us here, in the comments area below or call us during office hours.
