23rd World

Someone just called me at work about “Main Street Host Dot Com”. Now, whether that’s mainstreethost.com or main-street-host.com or mainsthost.com, whatever. They telemarket, so they obviously can’t make money by offering good/fair service. Don’t use them. And as long as I’m on a rant about crappy web hosts, if you want to procrastinate whatever it is you’re doing and have a laugh read this account of Lunapages misguided insertion of link farms on their customers’ 404 pages. The comments become puerile and ranty. In fact, I haven’t seen such childish bantering since 1996 bbs flame wars. I even get called a spammer for offering my referral discount code that gives people $90 off (I get to keep $7 of the total possible referral of $97) at Dreamhost.

THIS ARTICLE IS A DRAFT. I still need to smooth out some bumps, and even then any instructions found here are for your information and include no warranty or support. Use at your own risk and all that...

I've been using an amalgamation of hacks to track all the information I want to be able to recall later: del.icio.us for bookmarks, gmail for contacts and random notes, private blog entries for some organized content, and tracks for tracking projects. Blech. It's just too much. My memory is too weak. What I really want is a comprehensive PIM (Personal Informatio Manager). And so I installed MediaWiki because that's what Wikipedia uses and that's what Dreamhost offers as a One-Click Install (e.g. the path of least resistance).

I thought I'd share with you all the the process of customizing the default install to create a private wiki. Following are the specifics to my install but this will probably be helpful to many with a different host or newer version.

• Create a subdomain for your MediaWiki install, such as, wiki.yourdomain.com. Select PHP 5.x (not 4.4.2) and leave Extra Web Security.
• Install MediaWiki. Dreamhost walks you through this and it's also covered at the Dreamhost Wiki so I'm not going to go into detail here. But be sure to move the newly generated LocalSettings.php to the parent directory, and delete the config directory with its content.
• Chmod LocalSettings.php to 600
• Create a backup copy of LocalSettings.php, rename it something like .BAK instead of .PHP or something. Put it back in your Wiki install directory right away so it's safe and available if you need it later.

Restrict Wiki Access

Before bothering to put up our own cute logo or other fun stuff like enabling image linking and using clean urls, we're going to lock down our install. I didn't find a lot for this particular intent on the official MediaWiki Docs or the Dreamhost Wiki, but I did find this old Meta Wiki Article

• Prevent new user registrations. Add the following line to the bottom of LocalSettings.PHP:
  # This snippet prevents new registrations from anonymous users
# (Sysops can still create user accounts)
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;
• Make sure it's working by trying to create an account. You should receive an error message that says username not found, please create an account. To change the message login as yourself (you should have set up a Sysop login when you configured your wiki) and point your browser to wiki.yourdomain.com/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Nosuchuser&action=edit.
  I changed my message to:

  There is no user by the name "$1". This wiki is private and therefore closed to new accounts. Please contact Mahalie if you have any questions.

  I intentionally failed to provide contact information. If a user doesn't even know how to contact me, they really don't need an account on my private wiki!
• Prevent anonymous users from reading by adding the following to LocalSettings.php: # Disable reading line, for anonymous (not-logged-in => * ) :
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['read'] = false;

# ... and enable anonymous to read the followings pages :
$wgWhitelistRead = array( "Main Page", "Special:Userlogin", "-", "MediaWiki:Monobook.css" );

# ... same in an other language (French, with one UTF-8 special characteres) :
# $wgWhitelistRead = array( "Page Principale", "Special:Userlogin", utf8_encode('Aide en français'));

• Verify setting by logging out of your wiki and attempting to browse. You should get a 'Login Required. You must login to view other pages.' when clicking on any local link and the page should redirect to the main page after a few seconds.
• If you want to hide the side navigation if the user isn't logged in (because, perhaps you have private project names or something) edit includes/Skin.php and change the function buildSidebar(). Add these lines near the very top, after the globals.: global $wgUser; if (! $wgUser->isLoggedIn()) { return array(); } This will hide the navigation on sup-pages (not the default main page)

p.s. WebWorkerDaily just published 15 Productive Uses for a Wiki in case you're wondering why someone would want to do this!

[Do you] have recommendations for a good economical place which offers hosting for apache? I need to be able to have support for url rewriting using .htaccess file

For Linux / Apache web hosting I always recommend Dreamhost, and they always provide whatever specific thing people seem to be requesting…in this case .htaccess url rewriting.

Here’s my review of Dreamhost:
http://www.mahalie.com/notebook/2005/06/10/my-web-host-reccommendation/

Here’s the answer to the inevitable “what about xyz webhost for only $3/month!”:
http://23rdworld.com/2006/03/06/what-web-host-should-i-use/

Here’s their support wiki page for Mod Rewrite:
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Mod_rewrite

If you go with them I’d appreciate a referral (mahalie), but you
should go with them regardless, they’re great!

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me what webhost to use, I wouldn’t have to work anymore. Well, maybe not, but I could definately buy one sweet pair of designer shoes! That’s why I’ve been documenting my answers, so I don’t have to write it anymore.

I always recommend Dreamhost.com right off the bat because I have personal, verifiable positive experience with them which has only increased in favor over time and which is supported by thousands of adulations by other customer of Dreamhost’s, freely accessibly via a Google search for “dreamhost“.

I have written about this on my personal blog, and recently someone asked me “but what about this ultra cheap host”. Well, here’s my review, and for future folks seeking reviews of their potential hosts…please just follow the advice herein and substitue “1and1″ with your webhost under consideration.

In short, if you’re going cheap as possible, their plans are better:
https://www.b-one.net/
http://dhost.info/

Registration is cheap, hosting is cheap, it depends on your needs. Because your needs are small (probably) for [the website] it might be fine.

For the price, it’s great…but here’s where they get you, entry packages are basically crippled and do not provide standard items such as Server Side Includes until the $10/mo (for instance, you want your navigation to be imported from one location on every page so navigation changes only have to be made in one file, not every page on your site), no statistics (on basic), no form builder and likely no ability to run scripts (for feedback/mail form, newsletter signup, etc) till $10/mo though you do get their pre-canned CGI form. Databases are where they really get you - SQL only included on $10/mo and up - only one database allowed on $10/mo and 2 on $20 per month with a truly measly 200mb limit. Although if you go with Linux hosting, you do start off with 10 mySQL databases on their base plan, but with a 100mb limit.

Again, if you’re just going to have a couple of static html pages then this could be a good deal for you. It’s definitely geared towards web design beginners and the prices are quite cheap. But if you guys decide you want to install some kind of calendar system or blog software, all of these things will require SQL (or mySQL) and you’ll quickly grow out of this plan and into the $20/mo and up. I didn’t see streaming media anywhere - I doubt it’s included and would quickly push you into traffic overages (extra charges) - so streaming music and vids would be out.

And of course, the ultimate test is a Google search the host, in this case, “1and1“.
It returned one oddly vague yet glowing review and then long threads of rants about them.
Also, I find their myriad incarnations of 1and1.com, 1and1.org, 1and1.co.uk, 1and1.fr, etc. a likely case of trying to push bad reviews on other sites down in search ranking (a direct domain name match nearly always gets ranking priveledge).

If a host is both cheap and good, trust me, a quick search will turn up pages and pages of raves from customers on blogs and message boards. People love finding cheap hosting that works. In fact, an interesting way to find a good webhost is a good search for “love my web host“. The many fine folks in the Wordpress community have provided a small list of recommended hosts as well, even if you aren’t using Wordpress (blogging software), I’d bet these hosts are pretty darn good in general.

1and1.com has a well-designed and enticing site, I’ll give them that…but you know the saying, if it seems too good…