Crescendo.net - Hosting and Equipment Purchasing

Hosting and Equipment

Often in pursuit of technical solutions, I find I need to purchase equipment or services for the end client. In some cases those services are managed on a long-term basis with the customer.

While these do not represent a permanenet business relation of any sort, these are venues from which I often obtain customer needed equipment and services.

CI Hosting
CI Host is probably the most common provider I reccomend for customers who are looking to manage their own connection but who are not technically adept. They do a good job of providing interfaces for commons services and requests from shopping carts, to email, to secure services and such. My busiest non-profit client Anthrocon, Inc. clears thousands of convention registrations and their financial transactions as well as notifies and organizes their convention using the toolsets offered by this provider with a minimal level of integration.
RackForce.net
For customers who are technically adept, or for my own work where I am on retainer for full maintainance, I will usually go wirht RackForce. No one seems to be able to beat their cost points on co-location and bandwidth price-points. Most folks who end up hosting on my machines do so at a RackFoce facility.
SpeakEasy DSL
SpeakEasy is probably the best no-nosense DSL provider out there. They have their act together on multiple OSes and have a good price-point. I have set up several small offices using SpeakEasy.
New Egg
This is a wonderful site from which to purchase about any commidity PC or related hardware. Their technical support and ability to make tight shipping deadlines is excellent.
Tiger Direct
Another discount provider that occasionally edges NewEgg out on price. If it's not a tight deadline, I'll occasionally pull from here.
Blackbox
Blackbox is the ultimate in finding that hard-to-find tech hardware. They are one of the few shops that still carries mainframe stuff or will custom-cable. They are expensive, but often the only provider for the truly needed equipment.
Offize Zone
A good office supply location. Also a good place to obtain direct-mail and similar products such as badging solutions. This site is used heavily for badging by Anthrocon, Inc.