Finally Home

I'm finally home, after flipping through 4 web hosts in 3 weeks. I have discovered a lot of details about finding a good web host that I just didn't know before. I noted a few of them previously, but there are some I forgot. I'll add to the list some other day, but suffice to say: it can be a hassle to move to a new host if you don't know what to look for.

Sure, I was being severely overcharged at my original host, but at least it was quiet and required little thought/stress.

But I've sorted through all of that and come up with a winner, so my site has a home. For now.

I also just got home from the Tragically Hip in Seattle, having managed to sell my extra tickets at the 11th hour to someone I work with. They must have been happy they bought them, as the show was just fantastic. It was one of the best shows I have seen the Hip perform, partly because it was up close & personal.

We stayed at the Moore Hotel, which was a pretty nice place right in the heart of Seattle, and just 4 blocks from the Pier 62/63 venue.

We also hung out at the zoo with a whole assortment of animals.

Pictures soon. Sleep now.

Tragically Hip Tickets - Seattle

I happen to have 2 extra tickets for the Tragically Hip in Seattle this weekend for the Summer Nights at the Pier Festival.

The show has been sold out for months and I'll sell them at cost. Just e-mail me and we can work out the details.

The show is at Pier 62/63, which is a very cool venue on the water, right by Pike Place Market.

More about the Summer Nights Festival

More about the Tragically Hip Show

My Friend

My heart goes out to you.

Disaster

I thought it would be a simple matter of changing my DNS entries, uploading my content to the new provider and that would be the end of it.

Unfortunately, I wasn' t nearly that lucky.

I happened to sign up with my new web host just after they started to experience inordinate downtimes, overloaded servers and user revolt. There was also no way to speak to a human, and their customer service was atrocious.

I finally located a number for them, which is just a recording that says: "Hello. If you would like to leave a message, press 1". I left 4 messages and still haven't heard from anyone, 5 days later.

I have learned a few things:

• Never sign up with a web host that doesn't have a Support/Customer Service phone number.


• Call the numbers and see if there is anyone actually there


• Similarly, never do business with a company who's address is a PO Box.


• Don't just send Sales an e-mail when you are looking around, send a note to Support as well. See if they reply and how long it takes.


• If a company advertises a "99.9% Uptime Guarantee", ask them what the Guarantee actually is.


• Never assume you get anything with the account, no matter how obvious it seems. If you want it, make sure you ask up front.


• Do a Traceroute on their domain, find out what kind of network connections they have. You might even be able to find out if they are hosting their machines on another provider.


• See if anyone is linking to them using Google's "link:www.sitename.com" feature. Sure, there might be a lot of links, but you might find an important piece like this one: www.qwestoutage.com.


• Make sure they have a 30-day Money Back policy. Print it out, it might not be there by the time you want your money back.


• Don't tell your current host your leaving until your site has been completely moved over to your new one. That includes e-mail, ftp accounts, everything.

Switching Over

Well, after 6 years of loyalty to the same Web Hosting company, I have decided to switch to one that offers (among other things):

• Better Bandwidth


• Database access (MySQL)


• PHP with current modules


• Online Control Panel


• More E-mail accounts, FTP accounts, Disk Space, Domain Re-directs and Transfer Allowance


• 24/7 Support


• Mailing Lists

And I am going to pay the same amount over 1 year that I would pay my current Web Host in 2.5 months.

So why did I stay with them so long? Because I felt loyal to them. They hosted my very first site and the site of my first web developer job. They were a pretty good ISP/Hosting company for the first 2 years, but lost out to greed. Everything became an "extra" that got tacked on to the account and my monthly bills kept mounting. In fact, they only introduced PHP last year, and that was after some considerable wrangling on my behalf.

I e-mailed them a few weeks ago to complain about their less-than-competitive price vs. service, but their answer was simply "Yes, we should re-examine our pricing structure".

Well, after hearing nothing about new pricing for almost a month now (and the fact that they billed me a whopping $60 for this month's web hosting), I've finally made the move.

So, if you don't see my site for a few days, it might be because my current Web Host is cranky.

Bob the Angry Flower

Have I said that I love Bob the Angry Flower before? I'm sure I have.

Regardless, he now has a permanent link from my site.

Now, that's love.

Dental Emergency

While innocently eating chocolate ice-cream yesterday with my friend Chris, I felt something hard in the ice cream. I thought it might be a piece of ice, but when I retrieved it from my mouth, it looked a lot like a filling. After a quick examination of my teeth, I discovered that there was a rather large pit in one of my molars.

For those of you who don't already know: I hate dentists. I have had way too many "incidents" for my short life. I just wish my teeth could learn to get along with the world and quit all this death and decay talk.

My dentist's office is open 7 days a week, so I showed up this morning promptly at 10am with my fallen filling in-hand. They told me to come back in half an hour, likely so they could prepare the old rusty equipment. I returned exactly 30 minutes later trying to visualize anything that would take my mind off my impending doom: my happy place, puppies, kittens, having sex with Kate Hudson...but none of it worked.

As soon as I sat in the chair, I was reminded of all the horrific events I have survived over the years. I found it impossible to relax in any way, even though this weekend dentist was very nice and reassuring.

She told me that the filling had just pooped out due to normal wear and tear (it was 20 years old). She would have to freeze the area so that she could drill the cavity in order to "rough up" the surface so the new filling would hold.

I heard freeze and drill. Everything else was a kind of faint echo.

I was given the option of doing it now or waiting for my regular dentist, who would return from vacation on Thursday. That was too long to wait, so I told her to go for it.

She applied some topical freezing and got ready for THE SHOT. I closed my eyes, clenched my fists and hoped for the best. As she applied the needle to my gum, I felt this shock going through my teeth on the bottom right side of my jaw. It was much more painful than I thought it was going to be, and I was squirming around quite a lot. I think I might have been moaning loudly as well.

After the shot, I felt really really dizzy. It might have been because I hadn't had anything to eat in 20 hours or so, but I felt pretty bad. I sat up to collect my head, which was probably the worst thing I could have done. I almost fell off the chair as the blood drained from my head.

I laid back down and tried not to pass out as the dentist and her assistant dove into my mouth, drilling and filling, buffing and cleaning. After a few minutes my reality had returned to normal.

By the time I walked out, my old mercury filling had been replaced with a nice tooth-white porcelain one.

Actually, the drilling and filling procedure was almost painless, but the emotional scars may last for some time.

Damn dentists.

Cat Pictures

If you have read my previous posts, you'll know that I am currently rebuilding my site from scratch.

This includes the Random Catname Generator, which I just updated with new names that have been submitted over the last month or so. The current tally is 11,357 names!

I want to change the way the catname page looks quite a bit, but I am going to need your help: I'd like you to submit pictures of your cat(s).

Send the picture(s) to me@alistair.com. The details:

• Include your name and your cat's name


• A caption (optional)


• Image type: JPG, JPEG


• Image dimensions min: 250 x 250


• Image dimensions min: 1024 x 1024

Any other questions, let me know!

With Friends Like These...

This is what happens when you leave your friends in charge of your headstone.