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Welcome to InMotion Hosting!

[Our stay with InMotion lasted about a year. They, too, expanded too fast and their services became CRAP. I wouldn’t recommend them. We moved to WiredTree.com and I wouldn’t recommend them, either, unless you are a BIG NERD. Their service is truly up 99.99% of the time, but their user interfaces suck. None of their control panels are integrated and they are very difficult to use, so they are not for n00bs. Good hosting is HARD to find. Meh.]

The transitions of all the sites has been smooth thanks to my own BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell)! Nick has worked tirelessly all weekend exporting databases and moving files. He’s down to the last two sites now. WOOHOO! Indigodragon.net is the last one to go since all the other domains were under it in that stupid setup that the previous host used. No more. Now all the domains are individual sites and everything is installed clean. And everything is working, too, imagine that.

The Gallery problem I was having is also cleared up now that the database is untangled from my blog database and the permissions were fixed. Funny how the ITX people just couldn’t seem to figure it out.

They also couldn’t figure out that thinkweasel.com, nickmizgala.net AND taqueriaelvecino.com were hacked, which is why they were squirrelly. Hmm, might have been those FOLDERS FULL OF HACKED FILES ON THE ROOT LEVEL OF THE ACCOUNT!! Just damn. The support system up there has collapsed upon itself. It’s a shame, too, I really like the owners. But they’ve let their employees slack off and it shows. Badly.

But now we are on our own virtual server with guaranteed resources and we’re already seeing the difference. This site has been slow for a couple of weeks (of course the ITX ppl had no idea what to do about it) and now it loads as it should. Yay!

Enjoy the speedy new hosting service. I know we will! :)

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Out With the Old

Yep, we’re done. After a couple of weeks of nagging WP problems that were basically unaddressed by our previous host’s support team that culminated in my Gallery being completely blown up and Think Weasel! being down in the middle of the day, we decided to move to inmotionhosting.com yesterday.

They get 5 star ratings all over the intertubes – especially for customer service. I can confirm that from the HOUR that they spent w/ me yesterday going over the various solutions and answering my myriad questions. For the same money I’m spending at ITX ($50/mo), I can have a VPS (virtual private server) that guarantees my resource allocations (RAM, disk space, processor) and keeps me away from other users on the server. For comparison, there could be 100 users on a shared server with “business class” hosting, but there will only be 10 users on a shared VPS server because all the resources are guaranteed. What all this means is no more slow site loads, no more database slowdowns and no more bullshit email issues, either.

The chat for InMotion was answered within SECONDS – a shock when I’m used to 5 min waits and/or no answer at all. [It may be better now with our previous host, this is just what happened AT THIS TIME, right before we left. Please call or chat them yourself if you are considering hosting with them. I’m just one user. They have thousands who are happy.]

I’ve been with my previous host for over a decade. I was with them when it was just Adam and Paul answering the phones. Over the years their growth strained their support to the limit and consequently it became less effective.

The upshot is that my Gallery is busted, so don’t bother trying to see any pix and this site will be down for a bit when I move it to the new server. So don’t freak out when you get a 404 or whatnot this weekend.

Everything should be up and running by Tuesday at the latest.

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New Tech smell!

Ahh! New technology! Makes me feel warm all over! Apple announced the iPad today and it’s SWEEET! We don’t need one, but we may have to GET one. Just because we can! We need it for cons, right? RIGHT! Write offy goodness! :-)

Now I need to rant for a sec:
Too bad the afterglow of the announcement has been somewhat tarnished by the retards on FB. Man, there are some seriously dumb people on that network. One ‘tard was bitching about the price for a “slightly re-engineered” iPod Touch, insisting it’s “$100s more than the iPhone for the same stuff”. Um. No, it’s not more than the phone and uh, there’s LOTS more “stuff”. Then there was the brilliant PC dude who said “yah, but MAC [sic] is just not as flexible as PC for word processing. It’s more for art!” OMG. How can such completely outdated info STILL be believed?? HOW??

It’s not MAC. It’s Mac, which is short for Macintosh, whereas MAC is short for Media Access Control (or MAC cosmetics). And if you PC people think that your piddly little version of MS Office compares in ANY way to Office:Mac version, you are sadly mistaken. The Mac version of Office will make you CRY it’s so much better than the PC version. Seriously. You. Would. Cry.

It’s ludicrous that people STILL believe that there is actually a software gap.
//end rant

It’s great that complete luddites feel they can contribute to the convo, but DAMN. At least have a tiny little clue, people! At least read the specs for the device! At least have a vague idea about the platforms before saying something as dumb as that PC guy.

Reality is that this device, the iPad (yah, the name certainly could be better, but WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE?), is the next in a long line of innovations from Apple that the rest of the tech world will emulate. Apple is the tech world’s R&D department and I think they should get 100% credit for it.

All the bitchers and naysayers seem to fall into two main groups of lusers: PC people who are clueless in the first place (as in: office workers who don’t know what “Windows” is and the like) and broke muthafuckahs who can’t afford anything great, so they feel the need to bash.

All I got to say to you guys is: hey, enjoy your knockoff (read: CHEAP) tech. It’ll trickle down to you in a coupla years when the rest of us are on to the next great thing. And don’t be hatin’ those of us who appreciate it NOW.

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All Hail The Gods of Geek!

I love that these hacks who took over Athena Farms’ web site and all that left MY info on the domain registration. These are the same guys that HAD TO HAVE the domain “under their control”. Right. You have to have it, but you can’t be bothered to actually change the info? Real professional, guys. Feh.

I got all Oracle’s content from the old site into the WP site. Yay! Miraculously, the PayPal cart info and all that transferred nicely! I shall make an offering to the WP gods!!

Now I’m gonna make the Taqueria site over in the likeness of my WP gods as well. Much worship will commence! LOL

I’m so glad it’s Thursday! W00t! Friday is right around the corner and there will be much rejoicing! Beer will be consumed to honor the internet gods and goddesses! Perhaps an animal will be burned and eaten as well! May the Gods of Geek smile upon our house!

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Moving on!

So, I’ve heard from 3 of the 4 web clients about the hosting and all that. Surprisingly, the ones I figured I’d have to hunt down got in touch with me first! The metal stamp guy is good to go, I’m moving him to GoDaddy (gods, their CP is SHITE). Once he’s moved and I’ve tweaked his site just a bit, I’m outta there. The insulation guy called me a few minutes ago and he’s going to need a bit of help with his stuff, but that’s fine. He’s doing the same thing we are, changing his company name and putting up a new site and I’ll be doing all that for him. The gallery folks have not contacted me yet, and I doubt there’ll be much drama there. They’ll probably move to GoDaddy since they manage their domain there already.

Speaking of domain management, another client uses Network Solutions for their domain just because they always have. I logged in to change the DNS info and had to laugh at this stupid splash screen:
Because you can't TM "website". :-/

Just like the suits at SciFi, I love people who just aren’t comfortable unless they have a â„¢ next to the name. And I’m sure people wrote them saying “Yanno, I just can’t deal with this ‘website’ term! Could you come up with something really stupid and trademarked so I can remember it better?” Riiiight. SciFi changed to Siffy (SyFy) so they could â„¢ the name. Well, apparently the suits at Network Solutions feel that calling a website a “website” just wouldn’t do since it couldn’t be trademarked. STUPID. Which is why I don’t recommend using Network Solutions. They’ve been caught taking domains from people to sell to corporations and they are basically a bunch of SUITS who are not the least bit techie and therefore have no sense of what’s OK and what’s not. I’ll betcha they all have secretaries who print out their emails for them every morning…

I’m pleased with the progress I’m making toward becoming IndigoDragon Studios and I’m happy with how the clients are handling the transition. I hope everything keeps going smoothly!

Now: on to Friday!!