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TwitteriOS Developer Websites (@lcn_com)
Aug 26
So, you’ve started to develop applications, but you don’t know who to use for your website etc? Personally, I use a VPS from www.lcn.com. A VPS (Virtual Private Server) may be overkill for your needs, but if you’re serious about iPhone development, you’ll need one. If you’re creating and hosting your own achievement/leaderboard system, you’ll enjoy the flexibility of a VPS much more. You can also make it a lot more secure than shared hosting, and it’s much, much more reliable – especially with LCN.
I’ve used all sorts of different VPS providers – BurstNET, QualityServers, 123Systems – but in my opinion, none of them have lived up to expectations as LCN have. It’s probably to do with the fact that the server just works – i’ve had 0 downtime since I created a VPS with them 3 months ago. The same can’t be said at all for the other 3 providers i’ve used – there always seemed to be some sort of urgent maintenance, or moving between servers. They didn’t seem like stable companies (with the exception of BurstNET, where there’s just too many people on one node). With LCN, you’re paying around 6x the cost for an equivalent server, but you’re getting 1000x the stability and support.
With the one VPS I have with them, I host 3 of my own sites – but I also feel confident enough to host other peoples websites (clients) on the same VPS because I know that it just works. I’m conscious that this has become more of a review than an advice article, but I truly believe that, at least if you live in the UK, you should use LCN for your requirements. If you live outside of the UK (in the US, for example) i’d recommend Rackspace – not that i’ve ever used them, but I know they are there for the long run, and not about to switch servers.
One more story with BurstNET to finish off, and this is the reason I switched to LCN – I went on a family holiday to Australia, and literally the day I got there (just got off the flight, went to stay with family, and turned the MacBook on) I had an email from BurstNET that all my data was lost from my VPS, and that was that. Not because it was overdue, but because there was “a minor issue with the VPS control panel, ePortal, which caused the data on the VPS to be lost”. That pretty much sums up exactly what BurstNET value their customers data at. Anyway, luckily I had backups which were accessible, and I started the slow process of rebuilding the server to what it was – not to mention waiting for the domain names to propagate to the new IP’s.
That’s all – basically, use LCN for your website. I do.