Website/Hosting

So I recently wrote all about how this website is maintained, and sang the praises of 1and1 (masses of storage, 10 times more bandwidth than I need, and all the features I am ever likely to need).
So of course they immediately respond by failing a total of three times in January for many hours at a time! Down enough that at least two people (apart from me) noticed and commented on it.

1and1 has no support/status page – you can send an email if you wish; each time I did that I got a reply (typically the next day) saying “all is well now”. No explanation of what was wrong …
You can also phone their support line (a recent innovation for them); the last time I did that I was on hold for more than half an hour and when I finally got through, my web site had just recovered so I got the same “all is well” response. I ranted, and was told something about a raid failure – but that was the same excuse used a week earlier to cover a six+ hour failure.

So I won’t put up with it any more. After some research, I am switching to PowWeb (the same hosting company used by Gabe Bridgers MotoringFile); this company makes a feature of their technology which ensures your website will experience virtually no downtime ….
There is also a PowWeb forum where issues can be discussed – apparently there is no censoring by PowWeb; indeed there are announcements of issues and ongoing maintenance & improvements.

Of course (refer to the subject of this post), last night when I was testing everything I started to get lots of “500 Internal Server Error” messages on php web pages – but I realised it was not my own mistake when I saw the same on MotoringFile and on another PowWeb hosted site … a quick use of their online chat confirmed that PowWeb had a problem, but were working on it (all is well again today).

So it seems that I will never find a reliable web hosting company – but I prefer one that admits problems to one that cannot be contacted.

Just been through a “beneath the bonnet” upgrade of GBMINI and with nothing much going on with GBMINI the car, I will instead waffle about GBMINI the web pages!

My web pages are hosted through 1and1. I signed up with them when they were offering a free trial – the package offered a reasonable 500MB storage as well as PHP support (the ability to execute programs on the server). I also use SSI which ensure that the right hand column of all GBMINIs pages is correct (because it is the same file!)
I recently upgraded and now for $10/month I have masses of storage, 10 times more bandwidth than I need, and all the features I am ever likely to need.
I also host three different sites (GBMINI, MargaretAndIan, and MINIsOnTop) within the same package – the same account, log-in, etc make it easy to look after all the sites.

I wanted PHP support because I wanted to upgrade from Blogger which I used to use for my weblog; I now use MoveableType which is much more flexible. Benefits of MoveableType include the calendar grid and the search facility (which Blogger did not have when I left them); more important I can totally customize the pages any way I wish (so long as I am smart enough to figure it out!)
I have just completed the upgrade to a new version of MoveableType which offers “dynamic pages”; this feature means that not all GBMINIs web pages really exist – instead they are created “on the fly” when accessed by someone. The downside is that those pages take longer to load but the upside is that when I post something new, or when someone posts a comment, the process is quicker.

Finally to look after my pictures I use Gallery. Gallery is a bit “clunky” and I am sure there are nicer programs out there now, but I have loads of pics in there already with loads of links everywhere – I don’t see me changing things around!
I was able to use the CRON feature available with 1and1 to speed up GBMINIs main gallery page; that helped speed Gallery up a while back!

Some pages (like the home page) are plain HTML not built by MoveableType; for those I use AceHTML which is a bit more than just a text editor and works well for me; the companion program AceFTP handles uploads & downloads, and I use WebSynchronizer to maintain a regular backup of the server – the program automatically handles downloading files changed on the server (weblog files for example) as well as files that I have edited on my PC.