Website/Hosting

If you want to host a web site, DO NOT choose crappy PowWeb; you might remember that I switched to them early this year and quickly had loads of trouble; eventually I switched again (to InMotionHosting who have been excellent) …
I also had MINIsOnTop hosted with PowWeb – that moved to a service provided by MINI owner Rich (BungleSolutions)
But since then I have been beating my head against the wall trying to get a refund from PowWeb!

Back on July 25th I wrote and told them to close down the MINIsOnTop service; the PowWeb web site claims “Cancellations are processed in 7 to 10 business days from receipt”.
It took four days for them to acknowledge and close the account (July 29: we have canceled your hosting package).
I then waited … and waited … and eventually sent another email on September 8, reminding them that they still owe me more than $100.

It took them SIX days this time to reply: Somehow your cancelation case was closed before the refund was processed. That is the reason for the delay. I have reopened the case and assigned it to a
manager for the refund. That will be processed within the next 24-48 hours

Well, guess what?! The $100+ is still held by PowWeb 😦
My credit card company won’t do anything because the original purchase was too long ago – so I guess PowWeb think it is fine to just ignore me. But at least hopefully a few people will “hear this message” and avoid them.

Tonight I upgraded GBMINI to MovableType V3.2; let me know if you have any problems with the weblog / comments / etc.
The upgrade is claimed “the easiest yet” but that is wrong for me at least because I had to update some internal “DBI” on the server before the new MovableType would run. After that though, everything was plain sailing.

One of the biggest changes for me is the improved spam comment protection – I get few spam comments anyway but just once or so each month some spambot will latch on to GBMINI and throw 50+ comments in a few seconds! The upgrade should prevent these reaching the readable pages.

As a package, MovableType does all that I need to run my weblog – I particularly like the amount of customisation possible with it – you can almost program the way you want the weblog pages to look; maybe too complex for many users (although you certainly don’t need to use all that flexibility).

In case you are wondering … (from Gabes other web site):
My other weblog, MotoringFile, is currently down. We are currently upgrading the site to a new host. We had planned on having minimal downtime this weekend however, due to circumstances out of our control, things will take a bit longer than anticipated. We expect the site to be back up sometime on Sunday just in time to post some more juicy bits of info.

Seems like Gabe has finished with PowWeb too, like I did a while back!