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mjau-mjau
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Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

30 Nov 2014, 03:59

---
Edit March 29

This service has now been launched, and you can find more information in this topic, and on the website:
https://flamepix.com/
---

Are you ...
- Tired of having to make updates by FTP?
- Confused by phrases like "safe mode", "open_basedir", "GD Extension", "mod rewrite"?
- Bored of having to set permissions on files and folders?
- Do you want to entirely avoid having to deal with server- and hosting?
- Do you want X3 to just WORK immediately, and work FAST?

... so do we!
Truth be told, one of the main challenges with X3 is to get everything working nicely on all kinds of servers, and also have to guide each user through varying, potentially hazardous procedures just to get standard stuff working. Many hosts are under-powered, misconfigured and didn't update modules for years ... Even for those of you who are on modern well-configured hosts, you may still need to deal with tiresome updating, permissions and slowness.

Dedicated X3 Application Hosting
One bright idea later, and we have decided to launch dedicated- and managed X3 hosting. The hosting environment will be managed by ourselves (seal of quality ;)) on a dedicated virtual server environment, fully optimized to run X3 as smooth and swift as possible. We will be setting up our services at Digital Ocean, who provide modern, blazing-fast servers with SSD disk storage across multiple data-centers.

Advantages
- X3 will come pre-installed, no need for any installation or setup.
- No need to deal with server issues, permissions or FTP at all.
- Just manage your X3 from the panel, and that's it.
- Hassle-free automatic X3 updates as new versions are released.
- No limitations on upload_amount, upload_filesize, resizing images or insufficient memory.
- Mail, mod_rewrite, EXIF/IPTC data and everything else server-related just "works".
- Fast, modern and secure.
- Optional CDN (content delivery network) service addon for hyper speeds.

Recommended for who?
Not for everyone, but for those who just want to skip the technical hosting-related stuff and jump straight into Imagevue X3.

Location
You will get a default URL/location from us, but you can also point your domain- or even request a new domain like any other website.

Pricing
There will obviously need to be a pricing structure for this as it includes hosting, but for now there is no charge ... I will need to announce this later after we have done some testing.

Yes please!
If anyone is interested in this, please comment or send me a private message or email. Since X3 is still early beta, I don't expect a rush, but we may still need to limit the amount of participants if we happen to get more than a handful of requests.
 
localhost
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Joined: 20 Sep 2011, 07:09

Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

30 Nov 2014, 04:22

That's a great news Karl...

I just renewed my account with my hosting company. I will keep this option for next year especially if the pricing fits my budget. Surely another way to support Imagevue.
 
ardeas
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

30 Nov 2014, 17:27

I am very interested in the condition , however , that it is functional before April . Karl thank you ;)
 
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andreamarucci
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

04 Dec 2014, 06:07

Let's talk about it. Could be an interesting opportunity...
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

04 Dec 2014, 10:30

Will be setting up our first site shortly, and will report back here once things are in order.
 
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GGANG
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

05 Dec 2014, 16:18

That's great !
I am very interested.
Please let me know. :D
 
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

06 Dec 2014, 22:31

Karl,
Why do you always add a hyphen before an "and" or "or"? :P
All through the documentation and webpages of ImageVue x3, I see: "blah blah blah Apple- and Orange Juice". "Blah blah blah blah Pear- and Peach Cider"....
FYI: No need for the hyphen mate! :D
mjau-mjau wrote:...we have decided to launch dedicated- and managed X3 hosting...
...but you can also point your domain- or even request a new domain...
Managed Hosting of ImageVueX3 sounds like a great idea. There are a number of benefits I see straight away, plus others that aren't as obvious. Please contact me by private message or email regarding pricing, included support, and additional support plans and services.
Thank you. :)

Well done! Where do I pay? $$

p.s. When ever you write "can" look at it and see if you should swap it with "may" (or even rewrite the start of the sentence). It is more formal and better English. :)

p.p.s. You will need to make it quite clear to people that "the multimedia files uploaded (Photos, Video, Audio) to the server will remain the property of the original owner and that no transfer of ownership takes place (or explicit permission granted for ImageVue to use these files)"..... Sites like Facebook and many others gain permission via T's & C's to use the files you upload in any way they see fit. e.g. newsletter emails, marketing, home page and example content, or even give to their partners.
I think that is one of the top ten features of ImageVue - you retain the right over the intellectual property as it is stored on your server. If you offer something like this with your hosted service, then I know a dozen clients / colleagues / friends who would utilise the hosted service. :D
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

07 Dec 2014, 02:51

We will be setting up this server the next couple of days ... Although you can use your own domain, we will set up a base domain so that users will get an assigned URL username.flamesnap.com. I am not 100% sure what domain to use yet, either flamefolio.com, flamesnap.com or flamepix.com ... Opinions accepted.
 
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

07 Dec 2014, 07:34

You don't have to just offer 1, why not offer 3?
People can choose from the available options in the list and then enter their sub-domain.

Brain Storming Suggestions:
1) Gallery
Media
Photo / Photography
Exhibit
Exhibition
Exchange
Studio

2) Portfolio
Folio
Collection
Scrapbook

3) Vault
Safe

Then you can add a prefix or suffix that is something random, for example:
- Holiday (e.g. Holiday Scrapbook . com.) lol, first thing that came to mind :P
- Media (Media Collection . net)
- Photo Safe..
Just combine the words from above.... It is just an idea to get people throwing in keywords they like the sound of.

Plus domain name TLD's like ".pro" or ".gallery" or ".photography" etc...
mjau-mjau wrote:We will be setting up this server the next couple of days ... Although you can use your own domain, we will set up a base domain so that users will get an assigned URL username.flamesnap.com. I am not 100% sure what domain to use yet, either flamefolio.com, flamesnap.com or flamepix.com ... Opinions accepted.
» I Imagevue X3 «
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

07 Dec 2014, 08:03

Thanks for the suggestions.

It is not clear to me exactly what you mean with all the keywords. Basically the owner can use their own domain-name, which is recommended and the best solution. However, by default they will also get an URL on our base domain which would be:

username.flamepix.com
jim-sphotos.flamepix.com
x3.flamepix.com
whateveryouwanthere.flamepix.com

The username can be picked, but should relate to the name/nickname/title/company/ of the gallery owner. The second part flamepix.com is obligatory and not an option.
 
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

07 Dec 2014, 09:10

Ok. You've obviously already decided.

I was providing some words to throw around. - user.flamepix.gallery for example (no .com required anymore)
But it doesn't matter I guess... I must learn to stop trying to contribute... :P
Above you said:
flamefolio.com, flamesnap.com or flamepix.com ... Opinions accepted.
» I Imagevue X3 «
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

07 Dec 2014, 11:05

No, its just that those are the domains we have, and I think they are pretty cool ... Any subdomain name can be selected up2u.flamepix.com, but we will stick to one of the aforementioned domains. Besides, this is just for initial access or when the user doesn't have their own domain name.
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

13 Dec 2014, 05:39

Update: We have setup the server already, but we are just awaiting preparation for adding user areas.
http://flamepix.com/
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Flawless managed+hosted X3 by ImagevueX

17 Feb 2015, 04:17

I just wanted to note in regards to this topic that we have launched our first X3 gallery on our dedicated X3 hosting platform. Implementing several technologies, it is incredibly fast, and we are more or less ready to start hosting client websites. Demo:
https://demo.photo.gallery/

The hosted service will be 19$ per month, including 5GB storage, and X3 installed (without purchasing a license).

I would like to summarize the methods and technologies used to serve awesome speeds in the new service we are proud to offer:

X3 (0.9) Performance Score
First of all, with the latest v0.9, we have pushed X3 performance score to the limit with best implementation techniques anno 2015. These benefits are mostly available to the self-hosted version of X3 also, but they play an important role nevertheless. See the full performance score report here:
https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=8512

Powerful DV Server
Our powerful dedicated virtual server at Digital Ocean can easily run demanding X3 processing tasks like creating pages and resizing images without breaking a sweat. Unlike most shared hosting, you will hardly notice any delay when pages and images are processed in the initial stage (before getting cached). Data is stored on ultra-fast SSD disks, and served through Tier-1 Bandwidth pipelines. Furthermore, our server is using latest software and several modules configured specifically to speed up delivery of X3. We don't allow anything other than X3, so we can keep it lean, mean and clean!

X3 Core CDN
The concatenated, minified and compressed X3 core javascript file is served from a content delivery network (currently Cloudfront). This guarantees that the most important X3 resource is delivered as fast as possible to all visitors in all geographic locations. It is paramount that this file loads as fast as possible, because it is the core X3 script that needs to load before X3 can start rendering the initial page.

Content Delivery Network (images)
We are using a CDN service to drastically speed up delivery of static image assets to users worldwide. Currently, we are using maxCDN in the demo, but we will also be using KeyCDN. If you only have a local geographical audience, using a CDN will not provide much benefit. If you however have a global or transatlantic audience, using a dedicated CDN for image files can easily speed up loading of images by 2-300%.

A CDN distribution servers network map looks something like this:
Image

We will be offering the dedicated CDN add-on package for only +5$ per month.

Cloudflare
We utilize Cloudflare to protect the website from malicious bots, excessive requests, and as a first line of defense to protect the origin. Protecting the website with a globally distributed network, helps speed up delivery for true visitors. Cloudflare also acts as a firewall and content delivery network for static resources and images (when not using the dedicated CDN option).

We also use extreme edge caching with Cloudflare, which means the website page output also gets cached on the CDN server for extremely fast delivery globally. This is a bit tricky, because by caching pages like this, the pages are still cached when pages get updated. Luckily we have an API for this, to "purge" the cache once pages get updated.

SSL
We offer X3 websites from secure SSL (https), as in the demo. Google now emphasizes websites on secure servers (SSL), so this is a considerable benefit to SEO (read more).

SPDY
Our X3 hosted service offers Google SPDY, which is a server technology that substantially speeds up delivery of content: Read more

We offer the combination [Cloudflare + SSL + SPDY] as an add-on package for +10$ per month for custom domain names. (+5$ per month if you use https://NAME.flamepix.com instead of a custom domain).


Let us know if anyone is interested in trying it out!