I'm in the market for a new web hosting provider.  Currently I am with Dotster.  Do not go with Dotster.

I need:
* phpBB/mySQL support, preferably one that either has the latest version(s) baked-in OR allows me the access needed to install it myself
* 1 GB or so of space (more = better, but I can comfortably handle a gig)
* Fast response -- my biggest complaint with Dotster isn't the throughput, it's the lag.  I and my users will be waiting upwards of 2-3 minutes for the server to finish processing a simple request and fetch back the page.  Tellingly, this happens most during high-traffic times.  They overload their servers and I'm getting sick of it.
* Direct FTP, not some craptastic web interface.
* Cheap.

I'm currently paying about $10/month.  I'd be willing to pay a little bit more if needed but frankly, looking at the market, I'm overpaying as-is for what I need.  I'm looking for recommendations, if anyone has any.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

Okay:  short version, work has been Hell for months, my entire life has piled up a huge backlog, I'm trembling on the edge of a stress-induced nervous breakdown, and I've just now FINALLY gotten the Project From Hell off my back.

So I went straight to Priceline and booked a week in Orlando.  And I'm *trying* to get some of the up-close tours at Kennedy Space Center, but the KSC website is screwing up royally...

So, anyway, I'll be in Orlando for a week, from July 18th through the 25th.  Kinda vaguely planning to hit Disney a bit, Universal, maybe a day at Sea World.  But I'm open to suggestions if anyone knows of anything cool going on there/then.

...slowing down, don't be.  My focus is just on getting chapter 1 ready to go out the door tomorrow night.  Most of my writing time has been going to tweaking (and in some cases radically re-writing) parts of the first chapter.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Angels - 05/Jul/2012
As usual, it started with delegation.  Arthur was at the end of the chain.  The brief: build three 'Angels'.  Like "Charlie's Angels".  The implied brief, they'd better beat anything Stellvia had.
Arthur had some history of success with handwavium and AI.  His clock-radio sang to him every morning, with the perfect tune to wake him up - all he had to do in return was compliment its singing.  He was a reasonable electronic engineer.  And, he knew a few people who knew a few people, if you know what I mean.  They were starting to get nasty about his gambling debts...
His first attempts, with store dummies, and photographs of the original three Charlie's Angels pasted onto their faces totally failed.  Not a twitch.  Though, he sometimes wondered if they moved when he wasn't looking.  Interestingly, they didn't come to pieces any more, and you could only pose them in realistic looking postures.  He'd sold them, on the quiet to a clothing store, who seemed to be doing pretty good, these days.
Trawling the Internet, he read everything on handwavium and AI.  Most AIs seemed to live in waved PCs, often as part of cars or vans.  Not much use to him.  But, didn't he have some old PC mother boards?  And, apparently you could influence their skills, by feeding the handwavium with books and other media.
Conscious of the pressure, and that he'd get no more advances for 'materials', Arthur combed the second-hand shops and markets of Dublin.  He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, so he went by instinct.  And price.  A few late night drinks with science fiction fans had helped.  Speculating on the practical problems of living in space.
With a bit of luck, a friend in a sex shop told him about a trick with handwavium and sex dolls.  He tracked that down, and burned his last favour with an ex-girlfriend into the occult.  Now he had the dolls, three wigs, three motherboards he'd last used in 2000, and six buckets of handwavium.  He'd even scavenged a trio of hard drives, from a skip at the side of a school.
Piles of videos had been dissolved in the handwavium.  At least two tapes from the original "Charlie's Angels" series in each of three buckets; he'd picked-up some nearly intact boxed sets.  A Bruce Lee "Enter The Dragon" tape in each for the martial arts.  James Bond for the spy action.
It occurred to him he should look up 'Stellvia'.  It seemed to be an obscure Jap cartoon, with lots of cute girls in short skirts doing things in space.  Strange hair colour, but that gave him the idea of a blonde, a brunette and a red-head wig.  No luck finding anything on that, second-hand.  Cheap enough, anyhow.  But, each girl was good at different things, though they were all pilots.  So, a pirated copy of "Microsoft Flight Simulator" in the handwavium for each of them.
He'd labelled three buckets 'blonde, 'brown' and 'red'.  Red got "Wild Wild West" and a home video full of science stuff from "Discovery Channel".  Brown got a load of accountancy, admin and business legal training videos he'd been lucky enough to find in another skip.  Blonde, he'd thought a lot about, and reluctantly rejected the 'adult' idea, so she got "Legally Blonde" and "Terminator 2", because he'd really liked Sarah Conner in that.
The other three buckets were all the same.  He'd dissolved tatty "Legion of Superheroes" comic books in them, for the invisible spacesuits and the flight rings.  Also, old Golden Age science fiction, with women in transparent space suits on the covers.  Well.  Black-and-white printouts of them, from the Internet.
Arthur had a good feeling about this, so he went the whole hog, and rented a (cheap) hotel room.  He laid a salvaged plastic sheet on the queen-sized bed, put on his spray mask, and did all the work there.  An hour later he'd finished, and was sitting in the cramped en suit bathroom, in the dark, with his suitcase and six empty buckets.  Physically and mentally crossing his fingers.
"What happened?" came a woman's voice, from out in the room.  "Something died in my mouth", replied another voice.  "Urrg.  Why are we lying on a plastic sheet?" said a third.  'Opps' thought Arthur.
"Pay attention", he said, in his best 'Charlie' voice - he'd practised for hours.  "You're going undercover, deep undercover.  All three of you.  No contact with anyone you've previously known.  And, this time you're going out into space."
He took a breath, "You'll be working for the boss of the O'Neill space station.  You need to appear totally loyal to him.  It could be a long time, but I'll contact you with further instructions.  All your papers and tickets you already have."
"Is that clear?  Now, get going!"
"Yes, Charlie!"
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Okay everyone, I have a wiki, and it's going to be awesome!  But it's not quite ready for public consumption yet.
What's the Plan
Get a new wiki up, independently hosted, so we don't have to deal with advertising.  Keep the wiki code as close to possible to the original site's syntax, while adding features like a GUI editor.  Import most of TV Tropes' content into the new format.
Why we're doing this
TV Tropes used to be a site where discussion of all types of media was welcomed, but in the past few months, they have instituted a censorship regime with little-to-no community input.  Since we believe that wikis are a digital commons, we would like to develop a trope and media wiki where the community that uses it determines its content -- not owners and advertising companies.
Who the Developers are
 * I'm Brent "Vorticity" Laabs, a meteorologist and Perl hacker from Southern California.  Available at brent@allthetropes.org
 * Evan "JabberWokky" Edwards, a wiki software developer living in Nashville.  His email is jw@timewarp.org
We're both avid tabletop gamers, and both have experience in managing non-profit wiki projects.
What has been done
We considered several different wiki software packages before deciding, including MediaWiki, Foswiki, and PmWiki.  We chose Click Wiki as our wiki software of choice for a few reasons:
 * Because it's a half-wiki, half-CMS software, it can handle our data as x-wiki/pmwiki rather than just using its own internal data types.  This means that the page syntax will remain similar (but see changes below).
 * The ability to switch between a GUI and wikicode representations, with no direct editing of HTML.
 * The fact that we're choosing a modern wiki system rather than an older one means we won't get left behind technologically.
 * It's Evan's baby, and he uses it for his job, so we can expect regular software updates.
We've registered four different domain names: allthetropes.org, storywiki.org, tropeswiki.org, and tropewiki.org.  We still need to decide the title.
Decided as allthetropes.org by vote here -- looks like I got outvoted.  A good start for a community, I should think.
Evan has written the Pmwiki composer and decomposer, and has been implementing some of the features like folders.  We're still in alpha testing, and I do mean alpha, but things are starting to shape up well.
I have been handling the data import, which has to do with converting to a slightly different syntax, and reorganizing the page content automatically.
What's Changing (technical)
Note that this is not an exhaustive list:
 * Page organization.  Since the new software supports proper hierarchical namespaces, I've reorganized the content go from Characters/WorkName to "Work Type/Work Name/Characters".  There's a lot of magic going into finding the right work namespace, but at the very least links will update even if it get moved into the wrong namespace.
 * Link syntax.  Okay, I want to say that I like CamelCase.  It's fun to make WikiWords all over the place.  But it has problems, such as the inability to have unicode in page titles or properly space things without dirty hacks.  Add to this that TV Tropes uses four different linking syntaxes (CamelCase, [[SquareBrackets], {{curly brackets}}, and [[SquaresWith/{{Curlies}}]) -- and that macros like [[folder] also use the same syntax -- and you realize that it's kind of a nightmare of brackets.  So everything will be replaced with a unified link syntax.
 * Spoiler coding.  Spoilers are so common that they should probably be Huffman coded down.
 * Table syntax.  Current tables will break.  Exactly 153 pages out of the 180,000 some trope pages use tables, so it's really not worth changing.
 * Inline notes are collapsed into a single syntax, [[note: label] text [[/note].  Again, having three different syntaxes was just confusing.
What's not changing
 * Formatting like bullet points, macros like [[AC:], headers, etc. will all stay the same.
 * Indexing, bullets, folders, etc. should all work more or less as you remember them.
New features
 * Full page histories (but not from the old site, sorry!)
 * GUI editor+wikicode editor
 * Page tagging
 * User-level javascript (which Evan still needs to fully explain to me)
 * A complete lack of advertising (more of a bugfix than a feature, really)
 * More as I think of them...
What can you do to help
Right now, the biggest thing we need is alpha testers.  That is, people who know what development software looks and acts like, and aren't put off by the unpredictable results.  People who can write bug reports.  If you want to do that, please drop me an email.
The community side has been more or less ignored by us up until this post, as we ironed out technical issues, but we have a long way to go.  Good ideas on the wiki policies are a must, and anyone willing to take a stab a writing them would be greatly appreciated.  We have a temporary development wiki for policies, so anyone wanting to be in on that can drop me an email or a forum message.
Roadmap
Once we get to a beta test stage, more or less anyone who asks to be a part of the community will be invited to edit.  It should happen within a couple of weeks.
We'll start out with a closed-beta test.  Once we get enough users that it looks like we'll be able to resist vandalism, we'll transition to an open beta.  How long we'll be beta -- well, Google Mail proved you can do it for years on end.  But we'll probably settle for a criterion like "bug reports down to less than one per week."
Content will also need to be changed to reflect the community's new identity and values.  Values like openness, tolerance, and a sense of humor should be encouraged, and we hope to attract anyone willing to build insightful content about media and popular culture.  The site will also need to be cleaned of most references calling it TV Tropes, as we don't want to infringe trademark.
If things are successful enough, we'll probably start soliciting donations, but we have enough cash and bandwidth to run things for now.
If things are super-successful, I could do another 501(c)3 incorporation (a non-profit in the United States), to handle all of the donation revenue and stuff.  I think that we'd have a legitimate shot as a educational organization that provides literary criticism.  But that's way, way down the road.
-- ∇×V

Tehoptimum Supplies - 03/Jul/2012
This was established by Dave and Maureen Carter, UK Fen, when they married and moved into Fenspace, Spring 2008 (they don't talk about why).  They'd both previously worked for a small conventional biomedical research company, in the UK.  There, Dave had waved up a wide range of medical instruments and testing tools, typically starting from hard tech ones.  Unfortunately, his employers while impressed by his enterprise couldn't see a market for stuff with quirks.
Dave is a meticulous biomedical engineer, using biolab-quality containment facilities to control the waving process.  Maybe it's this, or some talent, either his or Maureen's, but he can wave medical equipment with consistent quirks, and which does not risk contaminating patients with handwavium.  Conventionally-trained doctors like his equipment, as it is typically based on hard tech they're trained and familiar with, and they can usually live with the quirks.  He will also do custom orders.
Dave claims that "Tehoptimum Supplies" is just a side-line, as his main job is farming, where they live, on Ceres.  But, if you look at the books, you can tell which pays for the other.  Maureen runs the admin and finance side of the business, while continuing with some research.  They both sell direct and through a number of wholesalers and suppliers.
Dave and Maureen first appeared in "Dr Scure Stories - Chapter 3 (Bi-location)".
Open Source: You can use this company, and its products, in your stories.  Please don't hurt Dave and Maureen; you don't want Maureen angry with you.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Farewell to Mayberry's Sherrif
It's kinda apt that he should die just before the 4th of July, since he kinda was a symbol of the America of yore.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

Rockabye Venus - 02/Jul/2012
Early Summer, 2008, Luna.
She lay sleeping.  On the bed cover.  In her bedroom.  Face relaxed.  Breathing quietly.  At peace.
They looked on, waiting.  The sleeping woman, fully dressed.  Her blonde hair neat around her pillowed face.
'It's a bit of a bugger', thought Brains.  By him hovered both Uran, in mid-air, one at each side.  You'd have thought, by now, he'd know what he was doing.  But no, it was always different.
"Every incept is different", he said, out-loud, in a low voice, to Uran.  "The first was Emily, of course, and I don't know what happened, because I was unconscious.  Reasonable, I guess, because of the lightning strike.  Amazing I wasn't deafened.  But, I worked out later I was out for maybe half-an-hour."
They looked at Doctor Venus, in her XL5 uniform, covered by doctor's coat, fully dressed bar boots standing beside her bed.  Brains hoped she'd be happy with her room, they'd tried to part-furnish it, to let her choose the rest.  Could you say someone was sleeping when they'd never been awake in their lives?
"Brainless was next.  I finished him.  Moved back, and he opened his eyes.  The first thing he did was complain.  And he hasn't stopped, since."  Uran frowned at Brain, from both sides, and Uran on his left commented, "I know he's difficult, but he does his best."  "His best to be a pain in the neck", commented Uran on his right.  They nodded in synchronisation.
"You were next.  You just opened your eyes, and looked around, silently."  "I was amazed at how new everything looked", said Uran on his right.  "Yes, like all the colours were freshly painted", came from his left.  "Then we talked.  And I read to you from that book, 'The Little Prince', about a boy who lives on his own asteroid."  "Yes, then you persuaded me to take out half my brain!  And, put it in that mind recorder!"  "I was afraid of loosing you!"  "I still think that's icky", both Uran solemnly nodded.
Brains looked at Doctor Venus; yes, he was using her title in his mind, they must keep a professional distance.  He knew the exact colour of her eyes, having carefully crafted them.  Every wrinkle, every fold, of her skin. 'Am I going to have to kiss her to wake her?', he thought.  Frantically, mentally, he paged through every step of the ritual, the logic of her creation.  Then sighed.  'Not bloody likely!'
"Wait a minute!", said Uran, "I've got an idea!"  And one of her zipped away. The remaining two watched, and made the occasional comment.  At one point Uran flew off and quickly returned with Brains shaving mirror from the bathroom. After about five minutes the other Uran returned, with a laden tray - coffee pot, warm croissants, and other ingredients of a breakfast.
She put the tray down by the bed, on a small cupboard.  Then, wafted the coffee aroma towards the doctor.  For a moment there was no response, then her nose twitched, and she licked her lips.  Light-brown eyes opening came next.  "Milk? Sugar?", Uran asked.  "Nice to have someone else make the coffee", came the French-accented reply.
Rapidly but elegantly Doctor Venus disposed of breakfast.  When she paused to pour a third cup of coffee, she looked around, a little puzzled.  "I'm afraid I don't know your sort of alien", she said to Uran.  "But thank you for the breakfast.  For some reason I'm very hungry."  She turned to Brains, "Are you in command here?".
"Not really", said Brains, scratching his cheek.  "This is actually a family home."  He turned and looked at the other Uran.  "Maybe you should show the good Doctor the mirror?"
Doctor Venus took the mirror, with a puzzled expression, then looked at herself. "What's happened to me?  I look different!  But, I can't explain quite how.  My hair, my eyes, they're the same colour."  She touched her face, looked at her hand, "I feel more... me.  More alive.  How could that be?"
"Well", said Brains, "You could argue you're not in your original body.  Or make metaphysical claims about 'transfictionality'.  Maybe you're...".  He stopped, going white.  "I'm afraid I'm not feeling very well, maybe we could discuss..."  And he slumped in his wheelchair.
Doctor Venus sprang into action.  "Have you got any medical supplies?" she demanded of Uran.  "There's a First Aid kit in the cupboard, and an old doctors bag", Uran indicated the cupboard beside her bed.  "This stuffs archaic!" commented the doctor, stuffing her feet into her boots.  "Is this man on any medication?"  "He's got it in his bedroom", returned Uran.
Uran picked up Brains, wheelchair and all.  'Maybe he's going to be all right' she thought.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

The Storyman (2006), written by Chris de Burgh.
Lyrics:
I lived my life in the words of a Storyman,
Watched my dreams from the years gone by.
Heard my voice in the songs of a Storyman,
Always by my side, always by my side . . .
I saw him first in a castle by candlelight,
Turning round with a golden key.
I heard a train far away . . . and a whistle blew
Like a baby's cry.  'Twas like a baby's cry.
Ravens stood on the walls of Jerusalem.
Sailors danced at the Borderline.
Light a fire on the road to the Ferryman.
Emotions running high . . . in the summertime.
Take me back to the places I've never been!
Take me back to another time . . .!
Take me back to a world I have never seen
Only in my mind!  Only in my mind!
Late last night I met up with a lady-love,
Dressed in red; didn't say goodbye!
Carry me to the last time I showed her what
Tender hands can do . . . and I'll be missing you!
Take me back to the places I've never been!
Take me back to another time . . .!
Take me back to a world I have never seen
Only in my mind!  Only in my mind . . .!
Follow the light that's shining on to where we will be going!
Up to Heaven, Paradise, or to the Heart Divine!
It’s in the echoes of a child, waiting for the journey,
The spirit of one world!
Oh, take me back to the places I've never been!
Take me back to another time . . .!
Take me back to a world I have never seen
Only in my mind!  Only in my mind . . .!
I lived my life in the words of a Storyman . . .
Power and effects: Has the ability to allow Doug to link into someone's mind so he can view recent history (as witness what he was able to see thru Inada Mizuho's eyes when she drew him into her dimension to save him from some Big, Ugly Critters who wished to kill him).

Healthy Brains - 04/Jul/2012
Early Summer, 2008, Luna.
Brains woke.  In his own room.  Funny.  He didn't remember going to bed.
The curtains were drawn, but he could see 'daylight' through them, from the central courtyard of the house.  He didn't go to sleep during the day.  Even now he lived on the Moon.
Turning on his bedside light, he saw there was a large machine, next to it, where his alarm clock usually went.  Was this an Uran prank?  Then he recognised it, 'The Machine That Goes Ping', a "Tehoptimum Supplies" product.  One of his friend Dave's waved medical instruments, you could set up to do almost anything medical, as long as it got to go 'Ping!' every so often.  Good idea commissioning one off him.
So, maybe he was unwell.  The last thing he remembered was working on Doctor Venus.  He'd finished, they'd wheeled her into her bedroom for incept, then when she didn't wake...  It all went blank.  What happened next?  He didn't feel pain, anywhere.  That was hopefully a good sign.
A knock on his door.  Uran's "May we come in?" was also a good sign.  Really sick people didn't get to choose if they had visitors.  "Yes."
He was a little bemused by the crowd.  Uran, of course.  He quickly recognised Doctor Venus.  Who was the red-headed woman?  She looked strangely familiar.
"So Doctor.  Will I live?"  Strangely the red-headed woman passed something to Uran, who grinned.  "Say it!", exclaimed Uran.  "Are you sure?", returned Doctor Venus.
The doctor turned to Brains.  "Tests show you've got a week to live."  She paused.  Brains mentally gulped.  "But, the test results came back six days late."  Brains relaxed, having recognised the joke.  "And you wont be able to play the piano, either!" inserted Uran.  The red-haired woman stuck her tongue out at her.
Doctor Venus wasn't obviously fazed by this byplay, and reached across to check Brains pulse.  The machine went 'Ping!', in a slightly indignant way, and she glanced at its screen, then nodded.  "You've been over-doing it, and not watching your blood-sugar level.  Also, you've not been properly following your agreed exercise programme."  "I told her", said Uran, "You've been getting Brainless to do the exercise runs for you.  He may like them, but he doesn't need them!"
Doctor Venus nodded, "I know I'm not your appointed doctor, but it was obviously a medical emergency.  Fortunately", and for some reason she glanced at the red-haired woman, "your sister as a family member agreed to me treating you".  Brains boggled a bit.  "I was quite amazed when she left, and came back looking like this", ended the doctor.
'But the only sister I've got is Uran', thought Brains, 'Who...'  Then it dawned on him.  Was there any point trying to hide things from Uran?  She was wearing the customised 'squish-bot', as she'd christened them, that supposedly looked like his niece from New Zealand.  And, it was to be a surprise.
"Tell me, are you a shape-changing alien to?  All medical indications are that you're human, and Uran was kind enough to show me your medical records.  Though, your computing equipment does seem to work in strange ways[1].  Soft screens..."  Doctor Venus shook her head.
"That's private information, Uran!"  Brains blustered.  "And, it was passworded and encrypted too!"  The hovering Uran inspected her finger nails.  "You should use some better passwords.  And that encryption is pretty pathetic, too.  Anyhow, it was an emergency, and something in there might have let Doctor Venus save your life!"
Brains gave up on an obviously lost cause.  But, somehow, he'd get his revenge.  Or, at least get in a lesson or two on the importance of privacy.  "No, doctor.  This is the only shape I have.  And thanks to you its not a bad one, at the moment.  Uran is... unique."  He sighed.  "So, what life-style changes have I got to look forward to?"
"I want you to start a regular exercise programme.  As a wheelchair user I'm surprised you aren't more careful."  Brains winced.  "Your diet seems reasonable, if a bit lacking in fresh fruit and vegetables.  You don't seem to have food pills here, for optimum nutrition.  So, unless I synthesise some, we'll need to make do with a traditional diet."  Brains realised, to his horror, he'd overlooked that part of the "Fireball XL5" setting.  This could be bad, very bad.
"Uran tells me you have plenty of room here, and good manufacturing facilities. That it wouldn't be difficult for you to quickly assemble exercise machines." "Yes...", Brains said, reluctantly.  "A wonderful opportunity to built some which exactly match your health needs.  You're paralysed, but your muscles need more lower-body exercise."
"Now.  My personal situation."
"I'm told you built me, this body for me, because you needed a doctor.  Uran tells me there's nothing that requires me to stay here.  But that I'm welcome as an indefinite guest.  She also tells me that you're prepared to pay me, for your care.  Is that correct?"
Brain wilted.
Uran'd been thinking things through, far more carefully than him.  'Need doctor, build doctor.'  That'd been far too simplistic a plan.  But, something like an Emergency Medical Hologram smelled far too much like slavery, to him.  No wonder he'd had so much trouble getting Doctor Venus right.
"Yes", said Brains, after a longer pause than he was happy with.  "I realise that the ethics of it are... strange.  But, you can argue that none of us choose how we arrive in the world.  What's important is what we do once we get here."
"So, yes.  Please consider yourself a guest here.  As long as you like."
"Ping!"
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind