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A Little Note on LowEndBox Domain (and Chance to Win 4VPS.com!)

Yesterday Chris sent me an email trying to sell me both “lowendbox(dot)net” and “lowendbox(dot)org” domains for $100. See his domain sales thread on WHT. Well I did not really say that this site is taking too much of time, although it is true. Going through a job transition at the moment and it’s mega busy down here. Instead I emailed back my displeasure of people squatting on domains for the reason of reselling it at much higher price later. Although as Chris emailed back that it’s just business after all, but no, I don’t think I want to pay for squatted domains.

So I won’t stop some of you going ahead acquiring those domains (& set up content farm with ads to catch overflowed traffic when people googled “lowendbox”). But whatever those domains ended up used for, I AM NOT affiliated with them.

And instead of buying domains from domain squatter, I have a domain to GIVE AWAY! Here it is:

4VPS.com

UPDATE 26 Feb 2011: I have picked the winner — Hughesey! A lot of interesting ideas there, and he has linked his name to his ViewDNS.info project demonstrating that he is able to make something useful.

Yes it is a 4-character dot COM! Yes it has “VPS” in there. Sorry it has number “4” prefixing “VPS”. Originally I got this one hoping to do something like “looking.4vps.com”, i.e. 4 sounds like “for” in English. However I have never managed to find time to start such site due to busyness. Unfortunately “4” also sounds like “dead” in Mandarin-Chinese and I don’t think a dead VPS is a good thing :) This domain has been registered since 2007 but has only been collecting dust so it would be good if someone takes over it and puts it into good use. Create a useful website, or sell VPS services/products — whatever.

But whom should I give this domain to? Let’s run a competition :)

  • Comment here why you should win this domain name.
  • I will pick a winner in the next 48 hours, criteria being that I know the domain will be in good hands (rather than someone who just want to resell the domain itself later for a higher price).
  • The winner will have to pay the transfer fee, which is usually 1 year of registration from the registrar of your choice. I will provide the EPP + approving the transfer.

Well. Let the competition start!

LEA
Latest posts by LEA (see all)

134 Comments

  1. every nice of u to give the domain for free :)
    its a good 4 letter domain….

    February 24, 2011 @ 9:15 am | Reply
  2. Donald:

    Why:

    * First post! (?)
    * I’ve got 4 VPSes! So 4VPS.com would be ideal.
    * When I finish building my somewhat rickety CDN (ok, more like an if) a short domain name would make my HTTP headers smaller.

    February 24, 2011 @ 9:16 am | Reply
  3. David T.:

    I hate domain squatters too. Dear lowendbox fans: Don’t buy the domains from him, even if you just want to redirect it to lowendbox.com. You will only finance his shady business model.

    February 24, 2011 @ 9:29 am | Reply
    • No I am not buying the domain just base on the principle.

      I am fine other people buying them and put them into good use. HOWEVER I just want to make the disclaimer that I am in no way affiliated with whatever service that sprung out from those domains. Don’t want to be seen that I am “endorsing” sites there, even when we share very similar domain names.

      February 24, 2011 @ 9:42 am | Reply
      • My 1st thought was to pool a few of us together, buy the domains and give them to you.

        February 24, 2011 @ 10:33 pm | Reply
      • We may be able to request to place your IP behind Softlayer’s Cisco Guard if you wish, it may help a bit if the attack is on going!

        Joe

        February 24, 2011 @ 10:41 pm | Reply
    • Everyone at some point has a view on shady business models! Some of us pay the price, others do not. While i dislike domain squatters, there have been thousands of them since the internet started and was a very marketable business for them. Was it smart on their part? Yes it was. Was it wrong on what they did, possibly, it entirely depends on everyones thoughts.

      You really have to think about both sides of the equation. We all run businesses and all of us look to make money. Some of us sell VPS’s, some of us sell cPanel Hosting, some even Dedicated servers, but people domain squatting are just another business looking to make money.

      Just my 2 cents!

      Thanks,

      Jeremiah

      February 25, 2011 @ 9:26 am | Reply
      • No offense but by your logic, your friendly neighborhood drug pusher is legit as well.

        I’ve bought domains for people before but I’ve always provided them at cost if I did take any money. I’m in webhosting. Does that mean I should have charged someone 20 times cost for it like this person is doing?

        February 27, 2011 @ 8:36 pm | Reply
    • For the moment he can’t even sell the domains…they are registered less then 60 days ago….

      February 27, 2011 @ 6:01 pm | Reply
  4. I’ve always been running my own servers from home and long been looking for a cheap VPS with the requirements I need (haven’t found one in the price-range that’s fair to what I’ll be using it for). Since I haven’t found one I was actually about to create some easy index-page where users (easy integration against facebook/twitter) can share their findings and reviews of these VPS-services. This never happened but given the right, easy to remember, domain (was as well thinking of a suitable subdomain playing on the 4 as the word “for”) this would be a think worth working on once again.

    The main reason for why the site never happened was mainly because I found this site but for now I still haven’t found a suitable VPS (and don’t really need it since I don’t have one of those heavily visited sites that needs stable uptime, I can live with 1-2h downtime / 6 months for my own sites).

    February 24, 2011 @ 9:35 am | Reply
  5. Chris:

    Why should I win this domain?

    I shouldn’t. The chances at the moment are like 1/5 (if you count the other posters who are not begging).

    But LowEndAdmin, if you want to give it to me, you will. I would use it for an in depth tutorial site 4vps’s (Excuse the pun) basically with a Linux terminal tutorial and optimization techniques for VPS’s and low cpu/ram environments, sort of like what you have already on this site, but more in depth.

    If you want to give it to me to fund this tutorial type site and help the community, go ahead.

    exit

    February 24, 2011 @ 9:59 am | Reply
    • Chris:

      Just going to confirm: I’m not the Chris in the post :-)

      February 24, 2011 @ 1:42 pm | Reply
  6. – Came in 3rd place for “budget provider of 2010”
    – Try to pull my weight within the LET forums without (too much) self promo
    – It’d look fantastic next to http://doesbuyvmhavestock.com :D

    I’d likely use it for a white label on some of our services.

    Francisco

    February 24, 2011 @ 10:33 am | Reply
    • To grow on the ‘hate for squatters’, we had the same thing happen with BuyVM. A user bought the .com of our .net when we were in the middle of launching and used it to phish affiliate cash from unaware customers. They didn’t link all of our pages either so it gave the impression that we were half assed.

      In the end we terminated the client since he himself was signing up under other names to boost his own affiliate credits. When billing caught this a world of hurt came down on him.

      He tried to sell the domain on the principle of “You can make so much off the affiliate page with BuyVM!”. As of right now he uses it as an affiliate page for a sub par “datacenter” in Portland.

      Francisco

      February 24, 2011 @ 10:38 am | Reply
      • Spirit:

        Isn’t this datacenter from your good ole friend Edward? :)

        February 24, 2011 @ 1:20 pm | Reply
      • I second giving it to Francisco and BuyVM, and letting him have a competition among his slaves to do something constructive with it.

        February 24, 2011 @ 10:37 pm | Reply
    • Francisco:

      BuyVM deserves the 4VPS — in the mandarim sense.

      February 24, 2011 @ 3:35 pm | Reply
  7. If I had that domain, I’d create a service to offer subdomains for users VPS’.
    Most of the time the host will only give you an IP address, not a subdomain, with this kind of service, you’ll have an easy to remember subdomain to use with your VPS!

    February 24, 2011 @ 10:36 am | Reply
  8. id:

    use it for vanity domain of the vps we have. something like .4vps.com.

    PS. I do not join the competition to win this domain. you guys go ahead :)

    February 24, 2011 @ 10:52 am | Reply
    • id:

      err.. shoud be something like <hostname>.4vps.com

      February 24, 2011 @ 10:54 am | Reply
  9. I would be very happy to receive that domain :-)
    I would put a DNS service on it ‘dns.4vps.com’, so that all those VPS prociders can finaly have more then 1 real system for their VPS :-)

    February 24, 2011 @ 11:39 am | Reply
  10. I have been thinking of a similar thing to dirk for a while now. The one main issue with VPS is that we all want to use them, but side services such as DNS, EMAIL, etc can be time consuming and difficult for novice VPS admins to manage.

    Hence ‘4vps.com’. The idea behind it is to offer such services for free to VPS owners so that they can get away from the perils of shared hosing and onto their own VPS, but without the fear or issues that come with this such as DNS, EMAIL, etc.

    The site would offer the following services:
    – Free DNS hosting (on a farm of VPS’s of course! – perhaps 4, one US, one UK, one DE, one Asia)
    – Free email forwarding – if people want free email hosting they go for Google Apps, but for those that want just forwarding, this is offered free and allows them to use thier current ISP email to receive emails for their domain
    – Free IPv6 Tunnels – This would require a VPS that is dual stack and a provider that can allocate plenty of IPv6 space (easy!) – yes I know that HE do this already, but I’m a big promoter of IPv6 so anything I can do to help push it I will!
    – A free lightweight CDN is another thing I’ve been considering – All it needs is a few VPS around the globe – and coupled with the free DNS service wouldn’t be all that difficult to implement. This will save VPS users precious cpu cycles and bandwidth on static content hosting.

    I have other ideas for services too, but they need fleshing out a bit more. The above I’ve already got a vision/plan for technically!

    I’d also include a guides section (guides.4vps.com) which would cover setting up all the above services of course, but also other things, e.g. common services like lighttpd/nginx/apache, bind, mysql, php-cgi as well as memory optimisation guides.

    Finally, I’d like to include a reviews section of the site ‘reviews.4vps.com’ which would review providers and provide a real way for people to see if a provider is decent or not. This would be partly editorial and partly user / community driven (think tripadvisor).

    I’ve had this thought for a long time, and will probably go about it regardless, but the domain just seems perfect for the task :).

    Thanks LEA for offering the domain to your readers! :)

    Hughesey

    February 24, 2011 @ 12:04 pm | Reply
    • Already have 4 DNS servers, all on Lowend VPSes, 2 in the US and 2 in Europe. All 4 are ipv4 and ipv6 enabled. If all goes well a 5th DNS server will be added around Australia (also with ipv6)

      February 24, 2011 @ 12:34 pm | Reply
    • Steve:

      Lots of great ideas. Congratulations on your win. :)

      February 26, 2011 @ 6:42 pm | Reply
    • armyf9:

      Congrats, looking forward to seeing this in action :)

      February 27, 2011 @ 1:56 am | Reply
    • Antony:

      viewdns.info is a good service. I hope the same for 4vps.com. Thanks to LowEndAdmin for the opportunity!

      March 1, 2011 @ 4:22 pm | Reply
  11. Dino Suarez:

    Consider just pointing it to http://freedns.afraid.org ‘s nameservers and adding it to their domain registry.

    Then everyone could use the domain for free and you would still own it.

    February 24, 2011 @ 12:15 pm | Reply
    • id:

      yeah. that way everyone can use it. including spammers. but if the domain is set to private at freedns.afraid.org, the domain owner still be able to revoke subdomain set by other users.

      February 24, 2011 @ 12:23 pm | Reply
  12. Would love to setup a monitoring service for people with lowendboxes, this domain sounds perfect for that :-)

    February 24, 2011 @ 12:28 pm | Reply
    • Raj:

      That sounds like the perfect use for this domain. Something like uptimemonitor.4vps.com. Good idea.

      February 24, 2011 @ 1:29 pm | Reply
  13. Sonic:

    I will run VPS tutorials site if i win this domain :)

    February 24, 2011 @ 12:30 pm | Reply
  14. I like to have a sub domain as 1dollar.4vps.com (means 1 dollar could buy 4 VPS). That’s a very lowend price. :)

    February 24, 2011 @ 12:48 pm | Reply
  15. Spirit:

    Little side note. This domain squatter which offered you .net an .org version of your domain for ONLY 100$ actually isn’t that greedy. And yes it’s just a business oportunity, nothing else. People in hosting industry try all possible to earn some money and this Chris (not that I care for him.. but still) isn’t exception. But as long he don’t harm people as example some unresponsible failhosts do… why should we blame him?
    Matter of principle? It’s not like he would require unreasonable 500$ or more as some require (and making me laugh) for .org versions of my most dumbest and unproductive domains…

    I am pretty sure that there around are people which would pay more than 100$ for .net version of your domain and they will.

    February 24, 2011 @ 1:17 pm | Reply
    • @Spirit — yes so from my original post, I stated that I understand that it’s what people do when they are in the business. Likewise people buy properties/real estate and resell them later at higher price for capital gain. Others might hate it (for jacking up property price), but kudos to them for making themselves millionaires along the process.

      Anyway. I am just stating out my principle that I don’t buy domains with different extensions from squatters. The whole domain thing is flawed anyway, and is getting even worse when ICANN is trying to come up more TLDs.

      February 24, 2011 @ 11:26 pm | Reply
  16. We could use this domain to sell a super cheap $4 VPS package :)

    February 24, 2011 @ 1:25 pm | Reply
  17. I am moving to North Carolina this weekend where I will be unemployed, I would love to start my own VPS provider business and I believe this domain would be very beneficial for me. Thank you for reading my post.

    February 24, 2011 @ 1:49 pm | Reply
  18. Been looking for a name where we can launch our new VPS products. Does your give away also includes http://twitter.com/4vps ;)

    February 24, 2011 @ 1:52 pm | Reply
  19. Num~
    Now making, a trad service site[vchance.com] ,base in China. -_-~
    I think if I got this domain,will use it for main site domain .
    4-My most customers from 4country CN US JP KR.
    V-Our companty vchance
    P-Professional
    S-Service
    HeHe~

    February 24, 2011 @ 1:56 pm | Reply
  20. I wish to use the domain for runnig a cheap VPS business.

    February 24, 2011 @ 2:15 pm | Reply
  21. Hi,
    It’s Julie from NQhost. Firstly we started our company with the dedicated server and VPS hosting offers. But after some time we decided to focus to VPS services based on Xen technology only.
    So my first thought was “Wow, it’s a good name for the re-branding we may have”. But after some time, we discussed this internally and decided don’t ask for this domain. We love our NQ brand with the snail :)

    February 24, 2011 @ 3:22 pm | Reply
    • Spirit:

      Yeah NQ is recognizable and long term most likely better than just another limitating “vps-something” name.

      February 24, 2011 @ 3:38 pm | Reply
  22. Paul:

    I should win it because then I can put a blog on it. :p
    Mostly technical stuff, hacking, radio kinda stuff – currently looking into OpenBTS and OsmocomBB kinda stuff.
    Been meaning to set up a blog for a while, this would be the push I need to actually do it :)
    Probably not the best reason here, but it would be hosted on a VPS at least.
    Worth trying :)

    February 24, 2011 @ 3:26 pm | Reply
  23. Francisco:

    Unfortunately 4 is not understood as “dead” everywhere. 4VPS would be great to name a site of “dead pool” VPS providers.

    This week SCAN-HOST.COM went out of business without any notice leaving customer’s VPS down but taking the pre-paid-15-days-in-advance renewal fees.

    February 24, 2011 @ 3:48 pm | Reply
    • Both “4” and “10” sounds like “dead” in Mandarin language. Asian people are superstitious when comes to things like this… given what I read so far that people wants to use this to sell/resell VPSs. You will probably not get a lot of business from Asia continents. :)

      February 24, 2011 @ 5:20 pm | Reply
  24. Why I should win this domain:

    I gave this some thought before I posted, and decided the best use ( in my eyes ) for the domain would to set it up as a site that actually sells VPS’s. I would like to create a site that sells only $4 VPS servers (hence the 4 in the name). I think this would be great for all lowendbox readers as it truly is a lowend price.

    It could also server as a site to help people set up their VPS. Like Lea said 4 is similar to “for” in english, it could be a place of troubleshooting. Constant blogs and set by step instructions.

    So if I win one of these 2 ideas would be implemented. Either way I think it would be great for the LEB community.

    Thanks again Lea for the opprotunity for someone to get this great domain!

    Regards,

    Chris

    February 24, 2011 @ 4:02 pm | Reply
    • Good idea IMHO :D

      February 24, 2011 @ 4:45 pm | Reply
    • Vote for him if he makes us wait for Xen package of 4: 400MB Dedicated RAM, 1.4 MHz CPU, 14 GB Disk, 400GB (or 4TB) bandwith, for $4/mo. Is it possible?

      February 25, 2011 @ 12:11 am | Reply
  25. Wish I had more free time from college to do something cool with that domain!

    February 24, 2011 @ 4:07 pm | Reply
  26. Mike:

    It will be the best choice you ever made to transfer the domain to me.

    Why ?

    Because I know how to build traffic to websites. Lots of it.

    I’d turn 4VPS into a VPS community with 50.000+ visitors/day within 2 months.

    Lowendbox get’s the top spots in the budget categories.

    Even if someone paid you like $500 for this domain rigtht now, you wouldn’t be able to buy a lot of traffic for that money.

    Think about it… Doing Web since 1995.

    ;)
    Mark

    February 24, 2011 @ 4:34 pm | Reply
  27. Olaf:

    Well … so many vps providers have a problem: 2ndary DNS diversity.
    I think I’ll use this for that and provide free secondary DNS free of charge ;).

    February 24, 2011 @ 4:48 pm | Reply
  28. Hey, maybe I should start a company selling 4 volt power supplies!

    February 24, 2011 @ 4:56 pm | Reply
    • LOOOOOOOOOOOOL that is good tooo xDDDD

      February 24, 2011 @ 5:22 pm | Reply
    • ted:

      I’d buy that. I don’t need all 12V anyways.

      February 24, 2011 @ 10:25 pm | Reply
  29. id:

    another idea: redirect 4vps.com to lowendbox.com :)

    February 24, 2011 @ 5:24 pm | Reply
  30. innya:

    Ok, 4 is a simillar meaning to the dead in Chinese. 4vps.com is good for english wording “FOR VPS (dot) com”.
    If it is free, of course anyone wants it including me I guess.
    What I will do with it?
    I would do whatever I want to do with it if it becomes mine.
    I am not going to resell it for sure.

    February 24, 2011 @ 5:24 pm | Reply
  31. Calle:

    DUDE! (LEA) Your doing it wrong!
    uptime.4vps.com/status.4vps.com! or something like that.
    Use a nagios build script to allow your readers to get an email when there vps is down. by default let them test ping/ssh/http/ftp you name it.
    And use all of the data that gathers to generate graphs of the uptime and speed of diffrent hosts.
    Im sure some people would offer some development time to do this.

    February 24, 2011 @ 6:51 pm | Reply
  32. Steve:

    I’d use it to give back to the LEB community. Free DNS hosting? Free backup web space? Give away free virtual servers I’m not using? Not exactly sure at the moment, but it’ll not go to waste. :)

    February 24, 2011 @ 8:00 pm | Reply
  33. Just got DDoS’ed over the last 3 hours — low grade one at around 25 requests/sec that killed PHP FastCGI on this low end box :) It is still on-going although I am trying to block it.

    Not sure whether it is related to this blog post. Someone is not happy.

    Update: Sorry it’s more like in the realm of 50 requests/sec now and is still going.

    February 24, 2011 @ 8:48 pm | Reply
    • LEA,

      I’ve sent you some pointers on filtering SYN floods with some tcpdump magic.

      Hope it helps.

      Francisco

      February 24, 2011 @ 8:59 pm | Reply
      • Hey Francisco, is possible to share some tutorial/advices about that for all us lowendboxers?

        February 24, 2011 @ 9:01 pm | Reply
        • Some day i’ll make some LET threads about our magical ponies, maybe even this weekend ;)

          For now my intentions are to help LEA/LEB to the best of my abilities.

          Francisco

          February 24, 2011 @ 9:02 pm | Reply
        • I’m telling you… there is a LOT of knowledge in the LEB community. We need to start A) filling up that wiki and B) getting some guest writers.

          More posts for LEB, maybe it will give LEA a little break too.

          February 25, 2011 @ 1:33 am | Reply
      • I don’t think it is syn flooding — more like application level DDoS. Not a lot of incoming traffic (only 500kbps at peak) but enough requests to cripple WordPress :P

        But then it’s easier to block on the webserver side.

        February 24, 2011 @ 9:21 pm | Reply
        • ted:

          Sounds like a Slow Loris.

          February 24, 2011 @ 10:14 pm | Reply
        • Slowloris only works against Apache and usually only originated from one single IP…

          February 24, 2011 @ 10:34 pm | Reply
        • ted:

          Heh, I never bothered to do a GET to see what you’re running. My apologies :)

          February 24, 2011 @ 10:49 pm | Reply
        • No worries. It’s doing 50 requests/sec from around 150 IPs at the moment.

          February 24, 2011 @ 10:52 pm | Reply
        • This is a clear evidence of the lowendbox vps power :P

          February 25, 2011 @ 12:35 am | Reply
    • DDoS seems to be calming down now. Only 2 IPs doing 3-4 req/sec now which can be easily blocked.

      Doing iptables blocking on this low end box is a bit useless. Added 50 rules into iptables and won’t let me anymore :(

      February 25, 2011 @ 1:33 am | Reply
      • If you’re doing simple DROP records do *not* use iptables as it’s very very slow, use nullroutes.

        ip route add blackhole $bastard_attacker_here

        Francisco

        February 25, 2011 @ 1:35 am | Reply
      • We placed your IP behind ciscoguard!

        February 25, 2011 @ 1:44 am | Reply
        • Cisco Guard doesn’t help with application layer floods, simply obvious UDP floods and some SYN floods.

          Francisco

          February 25, 2011 @ 1:48 am | Reply
        • Well at least LEA can only worry about those kind of attacks! Attackers can always change tactics.

          February 25, 2011 @ 2:01 am | Reply
      • @Francisco — thanks! Learnt not ONE but TWO new things today.

        @Roel — thanks! Didn’t know that this blog is potentially attracting attacks :P But yes it’s on the application level. Bots doing HTTP requests on heavy WordPress URLs (like searching).

        February 25, 2011 @ 2:00 am | Reply
        • I have girl scout sites that get DDoS’ed. It’s really sad if you think about it.

          February 25, 2011 @ 12:12 pm | Reply
    • We had the same crap happen to us tonight. Someone managed to push a 1.1gbps DDOS attack to my.clubuptime.com to try and break into MySQL. Four hours later and we’re down from about 2500 requests per second to about 70-80.

      I hate people sometimes. Cisco Guard really helped :)

      February 25, 2011 @ 5:49 am | Reply
  34. Travis:

    I would like to make a good vps company that people can get cheap vps’s on, that would be so cheap that no one would need to use shared hosting anymore.

    February 24, 2011 @ 11:42 pm | Reply
    • Travis:

      I was thinking about doing cheap 256MB xen’s on here, for around $7 with instant setup.
      I think this would be good?

      February 26, 2011 @ 3:53 am | Reply
  35. Give it to us and well do buy 1 get 4 offfer :)

    February 25, 2011 @ 12:22 am | Reply
  36. I’m good enough,
    I’m smart enough,
    and dog-gone it,
    people like me.

    February 25, 2011 @ 1:19 am | Reply
  37. bob:

    Everyone’s going crazy here because they know the domain is worth at least $1000. :P

    February 25, 2011 @ 1:59 am | Reply
    • For speculators — maybe. For me it’s almost worthless since it has been sitting there collecting dust, and “domaining” is just not my thing.

      February 25, 2011 @ 2:06 am | Reply
      • bob:

        Even if you don’t sell it you could probably setup a half-assed website and rake in the advertisement money.

        Any one of these providers would probably see a significant number of sign-ups from the domain.

        February 25, 2011 @ 2:10 am | Reply
  38. Linda:

    I will use it for the people in Egypt, Libya, tunisia and Saudi.
    Since these people don’t have money, I will give them a small vps for free
    under one condition that they are not going to use it for commercial purpose.

    February 25, 2011 @ 2:11 am | Reply
    • He might as well put up names on a wall and throw a dart.

      While I think it’s nice you’d use the domain to in somewhat of a non-profit manner,
      If he wanted to do something socially redeeming with the domain, he might as well just sell/auction it and donate the proceeds to his favorite charity.

      (But, If he does the dart thing, he should feel free to write my name real big)

      February 25, 2011 @ 5:42 am | Reply
  39. Interesting that chicagovps.net is betting on the domain it looks like.

    Francisco

    February 25, 2011 @ 7:31 am | Reply
  40. Francisco,

    We were looking at getting the domains, but he raised the price and after myself and Chris talking about it, we decided against it. We may pick them up if they get cheaper, but at this time, i do not believe we are getting them. The seller has been in contact with us, and while selling the domain keeps trying to push his own services on us, even though we have our own services we could host on :P

    Thanks,

    Jeremiah

    February 25, 2011 @ 8:35 am | Reply
    • I think you’re missing the point/issue with it all. If your only issue with the whole buying the domain(s) is the rising costs the selling is imposing then you & Chris shouldn’t even be getting listed on this very site. At this point anyone that uses LEB .net/.org is doing it simply to benefit off LEA’s years of work.

      LEA does every business that posts on here a favor by listing them on here to, hopefully, help them grow. While he collects some advertisement revenue the companies with those ads are making way more sales than the pitiful $40/m that LEA is charging. Anyone that isn’t is doing it wrong.

      As a company you should really have more respect for LEA and his communities. Given that you’ve been listed on here quite a few times now, if you were to buy those domains, you’d be near literally biting the hand that has been feeding you.

      At the very least you guys are wearing a black eye for this

      Francisco

      February 25, 2011 @ 9:02 am | Reply
  41. Francisco,

    I have no intention of putting content or ads on the domains. I simply was going to get them, put them on my godaddy account, and pick up the tab and forward them to LEB at no charge. I am not in it for the money or the advertisement (on the domains). And for the fact, we gladly pay for our ad to be posted on LEA’s site! We do our contribution to advertise as well as help him pay for his expenditures in the proper way. I almost feel offended with that comment. We would gladly pay a higher cost if it came to it to help LEA with his expenditures and costs associated with running the site.

    We respect LEA because without him, we would pretty much still be no where than a few dedicated servers and 20-30 clients. We have a bolstering ~400 clients total amongst all of our nodes. LEA has driven roughly 60% of all total traffic to our site with advertisements and his posts for us!

    So while your post was to bash myself and Chris and our reputable company has failed, because we are one of the few people that are not in it for the big money amount that *could* come with it. Shady business practices and tactics are 1000% percent not our intentions.

    If you have further comments, please feel free to email myself at jshinkle[at]chicagovps.net and Chris at chris[at]chicagovps.net

    Thanks,

    Jeremiah

    February 25, 2011 @ 9:16 am | Reply
    • Nice to hear that. Wish you a more greater success.

      February 25, 2011 @ 12:21 pm | Reply
    • Someone:

      Wow, he works for you? I might be wrong but I doubt you were thinking of just forwarding it to here for free. Anyways, I hope no one buys it and teaches that person a lesson.

      February 25, 2011 @ 2:22 pm | Reply
    • No problem with that and glad that LowEndBox works for you. As I have stated many times before — this blog was started initially to serve my own needs and happy that it’s beneficial for many others — both users and providers.

      February 26, 2011 @ 12:44 pm | Reply
  42. Wow, would that fit right into my new “give back to the community” plan….

    I’m developing (for about 6 mo now) a new hosting technology information site, which will be a huge, ever-growing, FREE hosting “how to”, “best practices”, and a place for folks to exchange ideas and the like. Think wiki-meets-forum-meets-WHT-meets-Examiner. With 15 years of network / systems admining on the front lines, I’ve actually started the long-planned massive knowledge dump that any other legitimate admin can contribute to, also. (There are planned criteria “expert” contributors must meet)
    No, I’m not a kiddie with a pipe-dream, I’m in my 40’s and have hosted well over 20K sites in my career…I’ve made my $$ from it. Different avenues now… :)

    PM/Email me and I can send you the base domain (LEB Admin only…gotta go with some secrecy until launch).

    Why would it be so cool? A lot of my expertise is in HA hosting via VPSs, along with backup, so I’m thinking along the lines of “backup.4vps.com” “ha.4vps.com”, “vpn.4vps.com”, etc. for major categories, and that would also help place the articles with good SEO.

    Wow. That would be killer. Tell you what, if I “win”, I’ll pledge to:

    A. NOT sell it for a profit, ever (and may squatters die a slow horrible death, preferably something involving batteries, fish hooks, and rock salt…)
    B. Keep everything under it FREE, GLP, whatever the content and involvement may be, and the main “charter” will be to give back to the open-source and low-end community. Advertising would be about the limit of any positive $ flow.

    Plus, it’s because of LEB I have been able to roll out HA geographical web services, giving customers their own dedicated “army” of failover boxes, all for really, really cheap. So, I would be honored to return the favor. And I would keep that pledge, scouts honor. :)
    No money making, no business venture. Just plain ol’ “give something back”. And to know it came from LEB would just make it all the more astute. I’d also be honored to mention or link back here…let’s face it, LEB would have “honorary” status on the site, at the very least.

    Wow, I may not be able to sleep now. And it’s my wife’s B-day….she passed away from brain cancer just over a year ago, so, I’m very heavy into supporting cancer research and studies, especially with children.
    She had a site we were planning on doing this with (http://www.songsmilecancer.org)
    The secondary cause for any of the free sites I do is raising money for cancer research, primarily Glioblastoma Multiforme. Bad, bad stuff (and what my wife passed of…) but ultimately may be one of the cancers they can actually cure within the next decade. They are making very promising advances.

    So, you get the jist of what I want to do with it. Is it meant to be? Guess we’ll see!

    Respectfully,
    Kent

    February 25, 2011 @ 9:34 am | Reply
  43. Igor:

    Why I should win this domain.

    I am a professional web developer, I create websites that help my clients with their business needs, help them make more money. But I feel that I can do something better not because of money. I want to create something useful, something that users will appreciate.

    I have recently watched the “The Social Network” movie. The idea that an ordinary guy can create something THAT successful and without money big businesses have seems so fascinating to me! Of course, I am not dreaming about creating a second Facebook. I simply want to create a website that helps people of my profession – web developers, web masters, web designers – with their professional needs.

    Currently I work from home and I have time to take this new project. I do not want this nice 4-letter domain to become yet another website filled with advertisements, I want to make something useful.

    February 25, 2011 @ 9:38 am | Reply
    • Social network base on “VPS”? Hmm I can see the predominant demographics of people who join that network. Would be similar to 95% young-to-mid-aged male network that LowEndBox has on Facebook :)

      February 26, 2011 @ 12:48 pm | Reply
  44. I am looking into expanding my private dedicated / managed dedicated server hosting into the VPS realm and this domain would be very nice for that. I would commit to post specials here every month.

    Robert

    February 25, 2011 @ 10:00 am | Reply
  45. What’s sad about this is that these domains just got registered a couple of months ago. If I had known that they were available, I would have just used the domain registration account, picked them up and forwarded them myself. While I could come up with the $150 for them from the account, it makes me feel dirty doing so.

    Could always follow a squatting complaint with ICANN. Since they contacted you directly, you would have a case. You already have the first 2 points. The third is gray though although you can argue that they contacted you.

    If you don;t want to go through ICANN, and I’ve got to admit that I think poorly of the complaint process, you could contact Dynadot directly as they have their own in house process:

    http://www.dynadot.com/copyright_policy.html

    February 25, 2011 @ 12:22 pm | Reply
    • Oh, forgot to throw my hat into the ring for the domain. If I got it, I would use it and the others that I have in my bid to take overt the internet and rename it algorenet. I don’t think he get enough credit for all that he’s done for the common person online.

      I’m joking of course.

      February 25, 2011 @ 12:25 pm | Reply
    • innya:

      I think, drmike is right. LEA should complain and get the intellectual property rights on those LEB domains.
      (LEA)You work hard for it(that’s why LEB is top on google search engine list) and we will pitched in to help out those people making advantage out off others people work.

      LEB site help me or a lot of people (hosters and users alike) to get good things happen.
      You should claim back for them. I will pay for those domain fees and we can decide what to do with them as a community when we get them.

      February 25, 2011 @ 4:31 pm | Reply
      • Wouldn’t hurt to drop Dynadot an email. I think most of us here would submit supporting documentation on the topic if asked.

        I think, drmike is right.

        Now if I could have only gotten my ex fiancee and her mother to say those words….

        February 25, 2011 @ 5:04 pm | Reply
  46. good domain

    February 25, 2011 @ 1:26 pm | Reply
  47. Well I’m hosting a blog LowEndBox China.
    http://www.lebcn.com/42.html look at this
    I may use the domain to create a website “looking for CHEAP vps”,with DC/HD/price…
    The shortcoming is,OH MY POOR ENGLISH!

    February 25, 2011 @ 3:12 pm | Reply
  48. I don’t want to run another VPS service – there are plenty of much more capable people here. ;)

    However, being the avid programmer/performance guy I am, I wouldn’t mind using it to track performance across different VPS. I don’t think It would be that hard to setup a public API with a simple PHP script that users could use to submit benchmark tests into the database. Then I would just need to build a front end to calculate the results.

    This might be a good chance for me to setup a public CouchDB install which people could clone and submit too.

    I’m thinking of http://www.cpubenchmark.net for L(N/A)MP servers. Also, I don’t use ads on any of my sites – though if the traffic ever got too heavy I might add something *light* to help with that.

    I think a public service could be really helpful when searching for a new company. It would also give us an idea (based on the number of submissions) which hosts have enough clients to be considered “more-trustworthy”.

    We could do something neat with this.

    February 25, 2011 @ 5:10 pm | Reply
  49. I also got an email advertising Lowendbox.net from chris.

    http://cl.ly/1c192S0a0Q0K1t3C2W0k

    So what would I do with the domain.

    Well with 4VPS.com I would use it as a tutorial website with Tutorials for VPS users on how to do things such as install a VPN or install VNC servers. How to keep there server upto date. List control panels for there VPS’s such a cPanel another use for the domain would also be to show users tips on how to manage there VPS provide video tutorials aswel as link backs to LowEndBox and the LowEndBox feed added into the site to inform our readers on the best low end VPS deals out there at the moment.

    I am a website designer meaning I can provide the site with a stunning look. Good luck to everyone else.

    Thanks

    Matthew

    February 25, 2011 @ 7:03 pm | Reply
  50. Ben:

    I think it would be nice if the domain was used to provide the LEB community with subdomains for them to be able to use with their LEBs.

    There are many reasons why LEB’ers don’t always run domains against their boxes, and so it would be nice to have your reverse DNS set to .4vps.com rather than 111-222-111-222.box4.ewr3.somehost.com.

    I know you can do that with the Affraid.org listed above, but a) it does attract spammers and b) they have some funny setup with DNS requests from Google being nullrouted.

    This would also allow you to run some advertising for LEB and LET (and paid advertising) on the 4vps.com homepage.

    February 25, 2011 @ 7:51 pm | Reply
    • One thing I hate about running on someone else’s sub-domain or Affraid.org is — the domain is still someone else’s. They can pull the plug any time or even rewrite your records to do man-in-the-middle attacks.

      Yes we can find a reputable person doing this sub-domain thing, but I would still prefer everyone to just get their own domains.

      February 26, 2011 @ 12:54 pm | Reply
  51. Daniel @ LowEndTalk:

    I would use it to put my installer scripts on :)

    February 25, 2011 @ 8:51 pm | Reply
  52. killdashnine:

    Gimmie this domain or I will send you a dinosaur by post. It’s going to eat all of your VPS and after It’s going to destroy the world !!!! Your going to have blood in your hands !

    Mouhahaha ! I’m the master of the world!!!!!!

    (No really, if your choosing me, offer this domain to someone else with a good idea ;) )

    February 25, 2011 @ 9:44 pm | Reply
  53. Osman:

    Hello;
    I’m going to build a website about managing vps’s. I would start from the virtualization technologies and explain all the knowledge about virtualization.
    Thanks for your offer.

    February 25, 2011 @ 10:25 pm | Reply
  54. Oscar Pan:

    There are many reasons why I should win the domain.

    I would like to setup a forum similar to WebHostingTalk but more oriented towards Virtual Private Servers and Dedicated Servers. I will have separate sub-forums for different price ranges of providers that way users can easily search for the perfect VPS for them. Users will also be able to rate providers and send in

    I would also have a blog section of the site to be for tutorials or information about managing a Linux server. It would include user-generated tutorials as well as some tutorials that I have made. Information about Virtualization Technologies, Operating Systems, etc. would also be included.

    The sub-domain me.4vps.com would be used for a redirecting or link shortening service which will be provided for free. Users can be assigned sub-domains with their IP’s as A records or it can be a link shortening service with their choice of either a sub-domain or just a regular link (me.4vps.com/123).

    Also, since I’m very interested in being a VPS provider, I may have a “host.4vps.com” sub-domain reserved for me to sell $4 low-end VPS servers on Xen.

    Thanks for reading!

    Best regards,
    Oscar Pan

    February 26, 2011 @ 12:09 am | Reply
  55. Steven Ross:

    Hey,

    If I were lucky enough to be given this domain I would implement a website that offers tools and services that supplement their VPS. For example:

    Monitoring
    Global Anycast DNS
    Global (including Asia) CDN
    Cloud Storage

    More importantly though, I would implement a cross platform application written in C# using the Mono framework. This would provide the facility to automatically upload data to the CDN and cloud storage from designated folders on the VPS. No more complicated API’s!

    From a branding point of view, it’s simple! dns.4vps.com, cdn.4vps.com, cloud.4vps.net
    The website will be clean and simple.

    Great thing is that I already have negotiated reduced rates from DNSMadeEasy and EdgeCast for a similar project.

    Overall, I would want to research what people wanted from a service that provides extra tools for VPS users first before diving in.

    Hope to hear from you soon,
    Steven Ross

    February 26, 2011 @ 12:50 am | Reply
  56. Hey LEA,
    Much like a few other people here, I was contemplating an idea of using it for vps tutorials. I’m coming from little background in installing and managing vpses, but after reading this 50% off handy dandy Linux phrasebook I feel like I’m a bit more ready to take it on.
    Right now I’ve got hair to lose, time and hopefully the willpower to do this. I’d like to post tutorials on the management of web servers, and the preparation for production. I won’t say I’ve got huge plans, but basic tutorials to get people moving. The site would definitely lean towards *nix based OSes and the security features necessary for such an undertaking. Without a doubt, it would be based on alot of trial and error on my part.
    I’ve always felt like information like this should be free, and it seems more and more sites are turning into subscription services for information. Information on open source software of all things!
    So in short, with some motivation I’d like to make a vps tutorial site, starting from just a general knowledge of linux and the other operating systems. With all that said, if I do win the site, I promise not to undercut you and start posting all those 25-cent/month OpenVZ offers =)

    February 26, 2011 @ 4:28 am | Reply
  57. I would base the site around various ways to combine the power of four VPS containers. Potential articles would include how to build a geographically redundant DNS, failover hosting, and maybe even a mini CDN of sorts.

    February 26, 2011 @ 5:42 am | Reply
  58. Graham:

    I will be extremely excited to take on this domain. We’re busy changing our business model, into more corporate and professional assistance and account reps, etc – this will be a lovely addition to the plans we have and of course a great marketing tool!

    Crossing fingers I win this one!

    February 26, 2011 @ 6:50 am | Reply
  59. Harbinger:

    Give it those who love LEB, http://www.LEBlover.com/ :)

    Can this end soon as the comments are getting in the way of who’s good and bad in the VPS world. haha

    February 26, 2011 @ 11:03 am | Reply
  60. Hi everyone! I have picked the winner — Hughesey!

    I appreciated that there are many suggestions. I didn’t expect that there would be that many response and it did make it a hard choice :) I picked Hughesey because

    • Many interesting ideas from his comment
    • Regular commenter on LowEndBox so someone I am more familiar with
    • Linked to his ViewDNS.info project demonstrating what he is able to do

    Anyway. Thanks to all who participated!

    February 26, 2011 @ 1:09 pm | Reply
    • Awesome, looking forward to see that project come to fruition. Could really be a big help to a lot of people.

      February 26, 2011 @ 5:47 pm | Reply
    • Wait to browse 4vps.com in the near future, then. Hope that what to have been said come true.

      February 26, 2011 @ 6:04 pm | Reply
    • Wow thanks LEA! I built ViewDNS.info because I was sick of all the good DNS tool sites going to paid solutions so I wanted to offer the same tools but free for everyone to use! Will have to get started on 4VPS.com ASAP! Thanks again!

      -Hughesey

      February 27, 2011 @ 2:33 am | Reply
  61. Pretty good your site :D

    To the bookmarks !

    February 27, 2011 @ 6:59 am | Reply
  62. Grats to Hughesey on winning the domain!

    Speaking of domains, I contacted Chris who had the lowendbox.net and lowendbox.org domains for sale. I explained to him that I did not have any economic interest in the domains. I showed him where I host lowendtalk.com and I wanted the domains to give to LEA .. just because.

    We talked some more and he transferred the .com over for a reduced price. I don’t think Chris is shady or trying to do anything shady. He seems like a stand up person and actually made for a good conversation.

    I think he is just a person who has a domain business and once he was able to see that minus a few exceptions (which ought to be ashamed XD) some of people wanting them were not about trying to make some money but were wanting to get them back to you he understood.

    So LEA… it’s setting on my name-servers. I set a PTR for www and . to the IP of lowendbox.com …

    Whenever you want them they are yours. Or they can sit on our name-servers as long as you want them there free of charge either way I do not care. I understand there is a time limit for transfers but you can create a free account on the registrar and take ownership. We are working on getting the .org settled away as well.

    I think I speak for all of us in saying thank you for all that you do.

    Brandon Crawford – eNetSouth

    February 28, 2011 @ 3:53 am | Reply
  63. Tor Exit Node Operator:

    Sounds like he caught you slipping when you should have used one of the domains the guy registered rather than branching off with “lowendtalk”

    February 28, 2011 @ 6:27 pm | Reply
  64. it’s good for 4VPS.com to have G! domain ads

    March 4, 2011 @ 3:03 pm | Reply
  65. Tom:

    LEA, you should remove this post as this is free advertising for the scammer with google adsense for domains.

    August 29, 2011 @ 12:33 pm | Reply

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