1. New... 50GB Free Personal Backups!

I've noticed my newsletters seem to have less and less themes recently.

Well, except for last month, I guess that had the Olympic theme. I guess
by recently, I mean really recently; like really, REALLY recently. Like,
just this newsletter.

In keeping with my no-theme theme, uh oh, I think I just made a destroy-
the-universe-LHC-style self-contradiction, here's a new feature that
pretty much has nothing to do with anything I said in the introduction!

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=users.backup

Now, you know how we give out a LOT of disk space with our hosting? Well
technically that space is only supposed to be used for your _actual_ web
site (and email / database stuff) .. not as an online backup for your
music, pictures, videos, other servers, etc!

Well, just like every other web host does, we've been sort of cracking
down on that some lately, and it seems to catch some people by surprise!
Nobody likes being surprised, especially in the shower, which is where
we typically brought it up, and so now we offer a solution:

You CAN use 50GB of your disk space for backups now! The only caveat is,
it's a separate ftp (or sftp) user on a separate server and it can't
serve any web pages. There are also NO BACKUPS kept of THESE backups
(they should already BE your backups, not your only copy), and if you go
over 50GB, extra space is only 10 cents a GB a month (a.k.a. cheap)!

That's not a bad compromise, really. Still, even if this policy had come around when I was a Dreamhost customer, it wouldn't have been enough to keep me. Their other issues (overselling of the web servers themselves, infamously horrible support, and repeated billing SNAFUs) make them worth the $9/yr introductory price, but not nearly worth the $10/month it goes up to after the first year.

That said, their control panel was decent, and they were never hesitant to add things like ssh, subversion, video streaming, and AFP that other discount hosts weren't offering. So, for anyone just getting in the game, it's really not a bad place to start.