My Current Website Woes

[mrlich]

1. My site is currently hosted by some clearly unprofessional hacks
2. They just received a large payment for my hosting fees. This despite the fact that I have decided to switch hosting over to a much better service as quickly as I am able to get the new revision of my site built for upload.
3. They shut off my site due to a billing error which I have since fixed.
4. When my site didn't come back up, I tried to call my current host's 800 number only to find it disconnected.
5. It's been several days and my site has not come up, and their phone is still disconnected.

I've logged a trouble ticket in the remote hopes that maybe they're still functioning on some level. Their fax machine still appears to be working (found through a quick whois lookup). I'll also try email, though I'm not holding my breathe for any of these to garner a response.

I would be fine with all of this except for the large payment they just received (>$100). That annoys me. A lot.

Comments

[boutell.livejournal.com]

You might want to consider http://www.boutell.com/hosting/ good sir

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

I had thought about that, but I think that I have other plans for you sir.

*wringing of hands together maniacally with evil laughter*

Actually - I might as well mention it now. I was thinking that I would like to 'play' with Drupal a bit. Would you be interested in hosting a Philadel Drupal site? I'm not sure if the group would be interested in such a thing, but I thought that we might pose that to everyone. If there's an interest, I would gladly play admin (so you wouldn't have the added headaches) and I would likely host on your server.

In an ideal world, I would like to try to do some advertizing or something to defer costs, but I would not expect you to host for free. (Again - this is assuming that the group would be interested in having such a thing.)

[boutell.livejournal.com]

Yarr, matey! Yer mission be creepin'!

You're talking about a Drupal site for philadel, a private community of thirty-odd people. But you're also talking about advertising. What are you really seeking to build here?

Drupal hosting I can do, yes; I've set it up before.

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

Advertizing was just the first thing that I thought of to defer costs. You're right though - obviously wouldn't work with such a small group.

I realize that using drupal for this group is probably like using a submarine to cross the creek, but I thought that some of its core capabilities (chat, forums, picture sharing, etc) might be useful to the group, and I've been interested in learning a bit more about it. A friend of xtingu's and mine set a copy up for us to play with, but I thought that users might prove good incentive for me to learn more of the ins and outs.

In other words, I know that it's not needed, but it might be fun.

[boutell.livejournal.com]

I could set that up, and I would not charge for it for philadel purposes. I think it could lead to some confusion if people post to the forums and other people wonder why they are not seeing things on the mailing list, but you have to break eggs to make an omelet.

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

That would be awesome!

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

if y'all wanted to go to an entirely forum/BBS model, you could just set up the mailing list with an auto-reply saying "hey, don't use this anymore - go here instead".

I'd rather stick with the mailing list, fwiw, but then I mostly read it in a voyeur capacity.

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

I think that both have their place. I would certainly not want to do away with the list unless we found that the site would cover that ground nicely (which I don't believe it would). In addition, I think that a drupal site would function nicely for those with voyueristic tendancies. Photos, more 'conversations' etc.

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

1. call credit card company
2. initiate chargeback

if you're not getting service you paid for, you don't have to pay for it.

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I know. I've been giving them "just a little longer" in the hopes that they got their act together. That will be stopping tonight.

thank you

[(Anonymous)]

thank you, guy