Last night’s post that got destroyed… or so I thought, and then like Hiro Nakamura just appeared from nowhere. Yatta!
I seriously don’t trust my host anymore – weird things have been happening to my account, and in the wee hours of the morning, the bastards, so they think I don’t notice – and I know it’s them, because this blog falls down and then another one I host with them on a separate account also falls down and the whole thing is just too suspicious. Add to that the fact that they don’t reply to support emails and you know the fish has been out of the freezer too long.
I thought it had something to do with the fact that I’ve ignored the brightly coloured bar in my WordPress admin area that keeps on reminding me “your version is out of date, and upgrade is available“. I could get into the blog and admin area intermittently and finally, when I did manage to upload everything, but before I implemented the upgrade, it came back online – so my shitty hosts have obviously been using the o.o1% downtime they claim to have.
When I get my new credit card, for which I was recently approved, I’m moving!
I’m using a HostGator reseller account for the collection of domains and websites that I host at work and it’s sweet, even thought I don’t actually resell anything on that account. The cheapest reseller option, the Aluminium package, gives you 24Gb space with 250Gb bandwidth and that you can then chop up and divide as you fancy through packages that you create and assign. I use to create different accounts for every different domain at work, but you could sell it off if you like. It costs just under $300, or around RM1,000, A YEAR, which is a steel.
They give you WHM (Web Host Manager) which allows you to automatically configure the mail servers and DNS and other technical rubbish that I know nothing about, and each account gets Cpanel access, allowing whoever owns the account to do their own email accounts, SQL databases and everything that has to do with the domain. WHM also does billing tracking and reminders and stuff so you could run it as a business – you can even brand the entire thing and sell it off as if it’s your great work and as opposed to that of HostGator’s magic.
The best thing is Fantastico – it’s an auto-installation script that comes with a shitload of software that you can automatically install – and of course, WordPress is one of about 6 blog programmes on the list. There’s also shopping carts, mailing lists, bulletin boards, live help-type applications and loads more.
The other thing you get with your HostGator reseller account is an Enom reseller account, which enables you to register domain names at $8.95 a pop – so it’s an all-in-one solution if you’re thinking of setting up a business, or just want to cut out several middlemen in your quest to host your own sites.
As for reliability, HostGator runs something akin to the Googleplex in Huston with Amazon rivers of bandwidth, redundancies, power generators and whatever else you need to be assured that your website will never go down and will always be secure and available.
My own shitty hosts started out with HostGator, which is how I got on to the Gators in the first place, but now, it seems, greed got hold of them and they moved to some cheep-o unreliable provider that makes my blog fall down at least once every two days (that I know of).
So a HostGator reseller account will be my first ever piece of credit card debt.
Why all this excitement over a credit card? Yeah, big deal right? You don’t understand. I’m an Expat in Malaysia not earning an Expat salary – things are difficult. My bank only gave me a car loan after I begged and pleaded and basically got a local friend to say that should anything happen she would pay for it – so they finally relented – poor friend, what a burden. And after according me that large heap of debt, they couldn’t fathom giving me a credit card, so I have been begging and pleading for that for a good year already – not that I need the credit, but being online without a credit card is like being in a candy store without teeth. So flexibility is around the corner, phew!
Anyway, earlier on I took Flabby Gut for a run. It’s been a good two weeks since I’ve done anything mildly exerting and Flabby Gut loves it. I aimed for a very doable 5km’s and the first two actually went ok – halfway around the first lap I latched on to two other blokes doing the circuit at an only slightly faster pace so I thought I could cope. After the end of the second lap I was finished, literally, so I walked the remaining 3kms. Hey, it’s still exercise – I walked fast and clenched my core, so at least I was building stomach muscles – there’s a six pack in there somewhere, I just need to find it so I can release it - at the moment, I can identify more with this kind of six pack.
Present time: After I spent a good hour assembling the above, I posted and what had happened? My host went down and I couldn’t post it. I was devastated. At work earlier this afternoon I posted a snippet of what had happened and then the draft appeared out of nowhere – didn’t realise it had auto-backed up because I couldn’t see it.
Good old WordPress.