Well, it looks like Funny is FINALLY back online. Evidently one of the issues was that it took GoDaddy a good long time to re-direct the domain name to the new server, after I decided to move away from BlueHost.
What a hassle.
But more to the point, how disappointing. I’ve really liked Bluehost’s service over the past several years. When I decided to monetize Funny about Money, of course I had to move off WordPress.com, where the site dwelt for a couple of years after I’d moved it from Apple’s now-defunct iWeb. Until recently, BH’s reliability has been impeccable and its tech representatives quickly accessible, smart, and effective.
Lately, though, Funny seemed to be down every time I turned around. Jesse Michelson, our amazing Web guru, had already started hosting sites on his own server and so, knowing that was a possibility, I asked BlueHost’s techs what their story was. Repeatedly, they told me the server hosting my site was “undergoing maintenance.” So, we asked them to move the site to a different server, one that wasn’t constantly under repair. They assured us this would solve the problem.
Yeah: it solved a problem, if you regard having your site be online all the time as a “problem.” Now there was even more down time!
The last time I called them, the site had been down for some two hours during a period when I happen to know most readers access it. After the third or fourth call, I reached a tech who tried to upsell me! He suggested that if I wanted reliable service, I would have to pay a lot more for the privilege.
Izzat so, dude?
Funny has over 2200 posts just now, making it, admittedly, a fairly bloated site. BUT: it is now demonetized, its proprietor having tired of seeing her pages junked up with Adsense trash (the Scandinavian call girls really tore it!), which of late was returning exactly 0.00 dollars per month. With no advertising running on the site, there would be no reason not to simply back up the data to disk, delete about 90 percent of the old posts, and start over again at WordPress.com.
Well. There would be a couple of reasons, not the least of which is it would probably harm the PageRank. But since I’m no longer selling ad space, WGAS?
But I would like to use several categories to help build a couple of e-books, after I get the first three e-books in the pipeline up on Amazon. So I wasn’t crazy about the WP.com option.
Hence, over to Jesse’s servers. As transfers go, it had its…interesting…moments, but with Jesse running interference I only despaired once or twice. Probably moving to WP.com would have entailed just as much hassle, and I would have lost content and possible PageRank.
So, for the time being, it’s good to see the site back online…and I’m feeling reasonably pleased.
This morning the four-week comp course starts. Yesh. I did swear I would never walk into a classroom again. But it’s probably relatively safe. Students tend to self-select in short, intensive courses like this, meaning there probably will be fewer flakes and fewer overt crazies than typically show up in F2F sections. And it’ll be over fast. The proceeds will pay the new cleaning lady for a full year.
Technology….jeez. I had a similiar situation this weekend at the Apple store with DD2. Her laptop that we had purchased for our “prodigy” had stopped working. Called the Apple folks and made an appointment…went to the store and met a great guy at the Genius Bar…who diagnosed the problem in like 5 minutes…The bad news…hard drive…the good news…covered under the extended warranty that I had purchased when we bought this thing….I’m a genius! In addition the lap top could be repaired at the store and would be ready in 2 hours and a good chance they would be able to save her stuff, pics, etc….And he tries to sell ME a new computer…How great is this! Ran errands and returned to pick up the laptop. Our guy is at lunch so a not so accomodative gent brings us the computer and when questioned about some inconsistencies explained …”he can’t spend a lot of time with us” AND her stuff couldn’t be saved..REALLY? Well we leave and the computer is slow and not performing as it should…New Apple Computer my eye!! So back we shall go…I know your an Apple Fan…Your thoughts? And when the warranty is out…what are my options? Jeez….technology!!
It used to be Apple’s customer service was a lot better than it is. In the absence of Steve Jobs, though, I suppose it was inevitable that the place would homogenize and get dumbed down.
Get Carbonite for your daughter’s computer — and for your own. It’s an online data backup service. The cost is nominal, and it’s sure worth it to save one’s data. Especially when that data consists of school papers the kid is writing, photos you can’t replace, her beloved music, and business documents.
You also can get DropBox for free. At the freebie level, it holds an enormous amount of data if you’re not loading videos and music onto it. If your computer goes down, is stolen, or is consumed in a house fire, you still have whatever files you put on DB.
Also, be aware that Cryptolocker affects Apple machines as well as Microsoft, and it will get into your DropBox files because it sees those as part of your network. So also back up important files to an external drive and UNPLUG IT after the back up.
Thanks Funny….and the saga continues. DD2 spoke with the Apple folks by phone this AM and though apolagetic little progress was made as it seems that 2 of the 3 updates that were pending disappeared. My thought is that perhaps the new hard drive does not require these updates and were redundant because of improvements made in design. DD2 …not feeling it…we’ll see…Anyway phone call with Apple was cut off much to DD2’s angst BUT she has to head to intern orientation so this is on the back burner. Will share… young folks don’t have the patience that their tech challenged parents do. To quote…”she’s pissed and this is rediculous”….to which I replied “it’s just a computer”…. let’s just say if looks could kill…we’d be writing my obit….LOL… Thanks again for your help!
Don’t update the OS to Maverick if the computer is old!!!
Some of the newer operating systems do not run optimally on older models.
Tell her to make an appointment at the “Genius Bar” at the nearest Apple store. Don’t waste her time trying to talk to them over the phone. The people who answer the phone often don’t have a clue, and NONE of them really want to talk to customers over the phone, as far as I can tell.
Glad to see you haven’t disappeared. I enjoy your posts.
APPLE UPDATE….DD2 reports that her “baby” is up and running again better than ever! It seems after a couple of phone conversations with Apple Support and a couple of downloads and “tweakings” the lap top is running great. I can’t tell you how much the kid uses this thing for everything from school work to taking pictures to surfing the web to entertaining herself. Glad it’s back…it’s like a member of the family! Thanks for your input and advice…and to that end the “kid” now is the proud owner of an external hard-drive WHICH she unplugs when not in use…Thanks again…