NOT HOT! Just FYI: Cyberwings - Received an email from DomainsPricedRight.com

[MontyBurns]

Slycat: You'll have to read back a few posts to get the full story. They have to use IPX because of the SoundBlaster cards. Why they didn't just upgrade the firmware, I'll never know. But anyway, this is where we are, and it's pretty much unavoidable as you can see.

 

[Wolfgang]

MontyBurns,

By "unavoidable" I mean "can't be avoided"--it's going to take some time to move things, given that cost is an object. (And there may be more to it than that, of course, if the post about LS being POed at CW AND denying physical access to the current data center until CW meets LS's demands is true--but we've no way to know at this point. It almost kinda seems like it, though, doesn't it? E.g., Shawn says now the Virginia DC is 100% set to go--but the move hasn't started yet. As always, only time will tell.)

BTW, your "Thank you for being you. Keep reaching for the stars!"--classic. Kwad's done the best job here overall, but that pair of sentences may be the best point source so far.

Wolfgang


Enc. From the Cyberwings Status Page this afternoon:

Shawn came into chat room approximately 2:45pm EDT with the following announcement:

New DC in Virginia is complete. Lines will be activated today, I've already had my hand-scanned for access to the building (BioMetrix Security System). Servers will be heading in shortly. No ETA when the actual "move" will happen, but it will. 4 New Class C's are being assigned today, will post a list of OLD IP's and NEW IP's on cwstatus.com within 24 hours.

Dual T3's from AT&T & Sprint are in activation on a usage basis only as secondary providers. 100MBit Line from Cogent is activate and lit as of right now.

EVERYONE will get new IP's. ANYONE that has a 216.204.XXX.XXX IP will get new IP's from us.

If you are using ns1-ns25.groupns.com we will take care of those DNS changes automatically.

Q. If everything is ready to go in Virginia, when are the actual Maine servers moving?

A. <CEO-Shawn> not sure as of yet.

 

[mrtorrent]

Brilliant, Kwad, had me in stitches. Here's some more material for you:

After announcing approximately two days ago his decision and determination to build a new, better datacenter in Virginia that will become his "flagship" data center, Shawn has announced today that it is complete and he is moving all the servers there! I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Shawn on the first successful application of time-warping technology.

 

[Go Terps]

on a more serious note... where is everyone moving their site hosting to???
I have a site that I need to get hosted ASAP

 

[FastEddieG]

GoTerps:

I am in the same boat... I'm requesting refunds tonight.. Shawn said he will setup a person to do only refunds inthe irc chat.. "CW-Refunds"...

I believe Rossman suggested www.DixieSys.com ..

Please post more if you find them!

-Eddie

 

[stingygrrl]

I want a refund too but have to go to the airport to pick some one up (1 hr drive each way). Can someone let me know the scoop on getting a refund? Should I dispute with it American Express (I didn't trust them enough to give them more than a 1 time use number). I'm in the hole for 4 accounts, and a total of $10-12.

Thanks
and thanks kwad et al for the humor!! ..been lurking in this thread...

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: FastEddieG
GoTerps:

I am in the same boat... I'm requesting refunds tonight.. Shawn said he will setup a person to do only refunds inthe irc chat.. "CW-Refunds"...

I believe Rossman suggested www.DixieSys.com ..

Please post more if you find them!

-Eddie

Yep Dixiesys.com/3-95.com (they're the same) rocks, read this and this thread and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Wolfgang]

MrTorrent,

Think of it as setting up a new office suite, not building a new building. And he's been talking about it for a month or two at least. (It's near where he lives.)

Still, only time will tell.

And if you don't have time, dixiesys.com seems a highly regarded choice! Not as breathtaking a deal--but it works well, and works now.

 

[MontyBurns]

Wolfgang: I really do wonder where your optimism toward cyberwings comes from. You think they have some sort of revolutionary, exciting business model. What exactly do you find so amazing about them? Aside from the price -- which I don't dispute is the cheapest I have ever seen, and perhaps there's a reason for that -- I can't see any positives with them. Poorly designed Web site, young company without an established track record, few if any positive experiences reported, major problems with uptime and reliability, lots of complaints about a lack of response to support issues, and just a total lack of professionalism.

Why do you think these guys are somehow poised to become this amazing company?

"If Cyberwings overcomes, it will be a real asset to the Web."

How, exactly?

 

[Aceman]

Why do you think these guys are somehow poised to become this amazing company?

I think this is where all the dot.bomb washouts went to work. C'mon, their business models worked...........................























For about 6 months to a year and then all the free money stopped flowing.



Shoot, I should edit this. I'll be classified as a naysayer and not be allowed to be a customer of his webhosting bisiness. Then, I won't be able to don my purple robe and Nike tennis shoes to board the spaceship to Utopia.

 

[taoofbean]

I did it, I got my refund and I have moved on. After days of Shawn stalling, today he sent me my refund through 2checkout.com in 5 minutes. It was such an about face and a smooth transaction that I am still reeling. I have already sent my papers into the new host and am waiting my new site at a slightly larger rate for slightly less BW but withuot the soap operas and the lame excuses.

Before I left the chat for the last time, I cringed to my toes to see some people still falling over themselves asking Shawn for a job. It was like people on the Titanic as it was just tottering on the brink fighting with eachother for tickets the next go round. It is like applying for an accounting job at Arthur Anderson or wanting to work for Worldcom, cripes.

Good luck all who are still embroiled in his rigamaroll.

Ishmael

 

[slycat]

Originally posted by: MontyBurns
Slycat: You'll have to read back a few posts to get the full story. They have to use IPX because of the SoundBlaster cards. Why they didn't just upgrade the firmware, I'll never know. But anyway, this is where we are, and it's pretty much unavoidable as you can see.

wtf does soundblaster have to do with ipx?...i'm a sys enginner and i have no idea what this means so maybe u can enlighten me.
i didn't know sound cards had something to do with protocol binding. if they're using novell to run these servers..wow..i'm impressed..
still wtf does that have to do with a sound card?

oh jeez..unless u all fewls are joking...friggin every post in here tries to be a joker huh?

 

[mrtorrent]

Lol @ Slycat.

@Wolfgang: You must spend more time prowling the chat room and forums than I (I haven't wasted too much time on it at all, actually), because I certainly haven't seen a word of it until the other day when he announced it.

Regardless, the past couple days he's been saying that he's "going to build"/"will be building" the data center in Virginia, and now it's magically built? Right.

The most realistic statement I've found says "I am, at this point, getting ready to sign the contracts on a new data center in Virginia that will be our new expansion point in the future." So, what exactly does this mean? Someone had a datacenter lying around to give away, and was just waiting for Shawn's signature? The future is now? Shawn's just trying to fake everyone all out and is really running the hosting from his iMac over a DSL line? Mm..

"My attention will not focus on the NEW DC until the issues with the Maine DC are resolved." Bit of a turn around on this?

 

[MontyBurns]

We joke because we love.

 

[schuang74]

Regardless of how much we each paid individually for the web hosting, fraud is fraud. Now hold on before you flame, I'm not saying that Cyberwings is committing fraud. However they have been on a binge as of late trying to sign on as many people as they can to generate more $$ for them. Granted a few bucks per hosting account may not be much, but times that by the number of individuals who did the old "what the heck it's only $4.00...." and they can end up with quite a bit of money.

Now after collecting all that cash from the general public, lets say they decide to "move" and then to "experience problems" follwed by a "where did they go?"..... hmm I smell a law suit comming.... or maybe a future 20/20 Special Consumer Report.

Anyhow I am as hopfull as anyone that they come back and everything is business as usual. However I wouldn't be suprised if all of our "only $4.00" managed to be a sweet retirement for good old Shawn.

Either way, Shawn needs to know that it's OK to have more then just Kwad Guy for a friend............ BTW of these generic letters that went out to everyone... was I the only one not inclueded on the "everyone" list?

 

[RSG2]

This just gets funnier all the time - I want to send more money in to pay for the entertainment that I've gotten out of this whole scenario.

Now just for the sheer sake of argument (isn't that what every CW thread has been about anyway?), Mr. White has been talking about this other datacenter for awhile. So it is theoretically possible that he could have had things in some satate of near readiness (maybe he knew something was coming to a head)? But this is just a formulation of a theory - I'm not even saying that I think it's true.

And IPX bound the the soundcards? That's a brilliant idea - I would have sworn they were using Citrix XP to run the servers. It is the hottest thing going...I'm looking to get certified in it myself.

 

[Aceman]

Gawd, this is a frikken riot! Now in their chatroom they're talking about hand scanners! Who The F cares about hand scanners?????? Typical geek......wave a shiny new trinket in front of them and they get easily diverted from the real issues at hand.

 

[stingygrrl]

american express is so COOL!

I called them up and they have an agreement with the vendor to do an immediate chargeback and they instantly credited my Blue account for the $11.10 I paid to CW for 4 accounts. Thanks guys! I'm done with these fools and will soon be with dixiesys! (or better yet can anyone explain www.zoneedit.com to me- it's a free redirect thing I could setup with my ISP's space)

PS-- I was so embarrarassed when she said "you paid $2 for a year of webhosting???" Like duh, did you EXPECT it was for real???

Oh well, hope others get out as easy. Also the only way AMEX will do a fraud investigation is if they get a lot of complaints, so those of you who paid that way.. let them know!!

 

[mrtorrent]

Originally posted by: schuang74
BTW of these generic letters that went out to everyone... was I the only one not inclueded on the "everyone" list?

Nope, I didn't get any of them either, and last week I even made a point of making sure that I was subscribed to the update list.


I sent an e-mail to Lightship today and, for what it's worth, here's their reply. Apparently Shawn is out one ISP in Maine, and it's very obvious that he doesn't have any of the backup lines that he's been lying through his teeth about..

Thank you for your written correspondence regarding Cyberwing
Communications, your internet service provider.

We would request that you contact them directly in the future regarding
service, support and business related issues.

Lightship acknowledges your issues and we regret to inform you that we have
terminated our service and relationship with Cyberwing Communications.

Lightship Telecom continues to be confident in its own ability to provide
high quality and reliable internet access, web-hosting and co-location
services to business customers throughout New England. We have many
satisfied customers to whom we provide services on a direct and wholesale
basis.

Additionally, we believe that we have worked in good faith, as with all of
our customers, to assist Cyberwing in resolving technical issues.

We sincerely regret any inconvenience this has caused you or your business.

Please contact Lightship Telecom should you require further assistance.

Sincerely,

Lightship Telecom
877-548-7447
www.lightship.net

 

[SaigonK]

I work right down the road from his data center....maybe i should stop by.....

 

[aiko]

Definitely !! Check it out by all means....

 

[Wolfgang]

MrTorrent,

I think the issue with the backup lines is this: they depended on a friendly relationship with LightShip, LS turning them on as needed when there were tech problems at LS.

But since LS was saying the problems were on Cyberwings' end, which CW's tech's didn't find plausible at all (tried everything they could think of within reasons to fix it on their own end), the backups never kicked in.

And now, apparently, the whole service has been suspended, so backups aren't available--period.

In a nutshell: they were backups to deal with a self-evident LS technical failure--any other kind of failure, and they were useless.


Hence, the move. (Though another note in this thread suggested LS won't let that happen until CW pays a bunch of money, perhaps for unused months of service or.... Speculation upon speculation, unfortunately--nuff said.)

Live and learn. One of the mistakes Shawn will not be repeating.

 

[AirMail1]

As for setting up a datacenter......he probably means rack space in someone elses datacenter/colocation site. Takes 2 days tops and if you have a pressing concern they can have you running in 12hrs. All it takes is some cash. Hmmm. I should clarify that I think Shawn is trying [successfully up until the last 24hrs I might ad] to give the professional allusion of a datacenter.....which would cost an ENORMOUS amount of money. Albeit a colocation or rackspace in a datacenter would be excellent.

The most realistic statement I've found says "I am, at this point, getting ready to sign the contracts on a new data center in Virginia that will be our new expansion point in the future." So, what exactly does this mean? Someone had a datacenter lying around to give away, and was just waiting for Shawn's signature? The future is now? Shawn's just trying to fake everyone all out and is really running the hosting from his iMac over a DSL line? Mm..

"My attention will not focus on the NEW DC until the issues with the Maine DC are resolved." Bit of a turn around on this?[/quote] That probably means that lightwave or whoever his carrier was, is 'holding' his server [wasnt it a 486 cpu server lol) hostage. Hell they dont even use them as doorstops do they?

This has been one of the most entertaining threads I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Personally I dont think Shawn was a genuine thief with the initial intent to steal people's money. I figure this moron read a blurb on how to run a hosting company and thought he could somehow do it for a couple dollars with some spare equipment. Forgot about bandwidht costs. Hell if I calculated it right based on the fee's collected, he received ~16k. That will pay for a couple months of usage which has probably already been eaten up by past expenses.

Man I would love to read about the people who want to work for him.

 

[Kwad Guy]

Well CEO hasn't given up yet. But apparently he is getting frustrated. The latest
missive from CEO to me, for your perusal:

Kwad:

Well, yes, as you say, it is not looking good from the outside. It is not looking so
good from the inside, either. LightShip, or should I say LightSh*t, has been giving
me major hassles. Apparently they no longer consider a 486 based computer "worthy"
of their facilities. They also had some issues with the USB ethernet. Since when is it ANY
of their business how I run my servers? Now, they said they'd overlook these infractions
if I paid them off to the tune of thousands of dollars. I told them no way. That money is
for only two things, both vital to our business model: Either to fund the purchase of our
new 300,000 square foot state of the art hosting center in Baton Rouge, LA, or else
for new (top secret, I can't disclose details as I am under non-disclosure right now) state
of the art video cards that will allow us to simultaneously run our servers and offer the
world's fastest Quake frame rates to our local cafe users (I believe I am just about to sign
on the dotted line to purchase the space that will house the world's first cyber-cafe +
web hosting location in the world...Local gaming will subsidize hosting costs on the
servers and by my calculations won't impinge at all on the hosting quality). Note that I haven't
even mentioned this last exclusive on my chat boards yet. So please, people, keep it under
your hats for now. If it gets out, I think my access to these next generation video cards
will dry up.

In either case, as you can see, LightShip is just trying to milk us at a time when least
wish to afford it. One more thing: IBM has in the past few days approached us with a unique
hosting app that is based on OS/2. Apparently few people are running this, and so they
are willing to work with us and offer us a basically unheard of deal on it. We are considering
switching over, especially since IBM is willing to throw in 200 hours of consulting gratis.
The only problem is that their hosting app doesn't support some of the esoteric apps such
as SQL or certain types of ftp, but we are trying to work out replacement apps that we
think will be more stable and more suitable for the purposes of most people who host on
our servers.

I will keep you posted, but expect GREAT SURPRISES in the next few days.

CEO

 

[gfgray]

Maybe you should xxxx out the part about the video cards Kwad. Sounds interesting though.