The hostest without the mostest
As I write this, my FTP client is firing an enormous amount of stuff at a server which will hopefully, in very short order, become the new home of my website.
It’s ironic that, in a year in which I’ve made such a big honkin’ deal about some of the site’s core content being 20 years old, and having been on the web for over 10 years (and at the same domain name for exactly 10 as of Memorial Day weekend), my site, which I’ll admit may well be celebrated this much only by its owner, has spent so much time being DOWN.
After spending a good deal of May fending off repeated hacking attempts, I held my breath as my hosting service sent out an e-mail to announce that they have new owners and management. I was hoping for some improvement – Globat.com (my web host since late 2003) had been steadily going downhill, with the most frustrating incidation of that in recent years being the tendency for their database server to collapse under even fairly mild loads of activity. As theLogBook.com has increasingly become a database-driven site (for the better, in my opinion), this was more than a little bit unacceptable.
I turns out that the new management and technical teams are, in fact, a step down from where Globat already was. I think these people were unfrozen from 2002 or something: their .htaccess defaults (which govern how your site can be accessed and by whom) was hardwired to favor Microsoft Frontpage, a web authoring platform that even Microsoft has stopped supporting. Additionally, their CHMOD settings – basically, the security level of your files and directories, governing who can write/change stuff – is hardwired to a setting of 777: in effect, anyone can change just about anything on your site. When you’ve been fighting off as many hacks as I have for the past month, this is so far beyond unacceptable that the light from unacceptable will take four billion years to shine on me.
The final straw? In an attempt to fix my blog, Globat apparently toasted the database. It’s gone. The post I wrote from the hospital on the night my son was born, and the accompanying congratulations from my friends? Gone. There is a backup, but it’s fairly old – thankfully, my blog posts have been automatically mirrored in two places (Facebook and Livejournal), so I can cut-and-paste missing entries back in once I get things set up at the new hosting service.
I’m incredibly impressed with the new place; not only was the price right, but the options and amenities are mind-blowing, and they go out of their way to show you how to do stuff, including migrating your site and databases from another site. It sure beats the hell out of unreadable-going-on-cryptic “support tickets” written in some sub-dialect of Engrish.
My site is not only one of my proudest (and certainly longest-lived) achievements, but it’s also a vital cog in my attempts to support my family and myself. With the site down and even my e-mail inaccessible, not only is no money being made, but I can’t even solicit future business or sell stuff I’ve already made. It’s having a tangible impact, not having the site working.
So it’s without much of a heavy heart that I plan to bid farewell to Globat very soon. If nothing else, I think the upgrade will be a fitting 20th birthday present for the old thing.
I’ll have more updates soon; for the moment, there’s a massive amount of files to move in order to make the whole thing work. Do not adjust your set.… Read more
A little update from the plague house: my diagnosis was a nasty sinus infection …plus strep throat. This basically translates to “get the toddler and anyone else who isn’t a cat way the hell away from me.” The “alpha site” has turned out to be the in-laws’ place, so I’m sitting here with Olivia and Oberon, with occasional visits from the dog during bad weather. Supposedly we get a break from that weather over the next week – a pity I don’t feel like getting back out there and tackling the lawn (on the other hand, when I still have no appetite and my body temperature fluctuates between freezing and a brain-boiling near-104-degree fever, I’m not sure how trying to mow could actually significantly increase my physical discomfort).
This is the result – the whole thing suddenly looks impossibly slick, and there’s a very cool persistent nav bar that stays at the bottom of the screen at all times. I had to do some work on it to get certain things to format the way they did in the previous theme, but overall, I’m beyond pleased.
As part of the fun going on for theLogBook.com’s 20th anniversary, virtually the entire site has gotten a nice little facelift. The code’s a little tighter, and so help me, the look might just be a little cleaner. There are still some minor tweaks to be made, so if you find anything broken, let me know.
I hate being sick, but being sick in the run-up to Christmas sucks big time. I’ve gotten no shopping done at all. (Being broke has nothing to do with it – when has that ever stopped the average American consumer?) I’ve had days recently where I’ve just been capable of the bare minimum of taking care of the kiddo, and that more than anything makes me feel like a large failburger with a side order of fail fries. I’ve been wanting to write something or create something…and just haven’t had the energy. I’m just kind of running on automatic pilot. It’s hard for me to just sit immobile and rest at the best of times, and nigh-on-impossible with the boy to take care of. He’s also still under the weather, though he’s gradually showing more energy and enthusiasm than I am, so hopefully this means he’s coming out of it. His cough is going away; mine seems to have moved in for the winter. I just want to be out from under the cloud of “blah” and be able to enjoy the holidays – is that so wrong?
Two lovely bits of news:
There are times that I really lament that theLogBook.com’s main menu isn’t is much fun or topical as this week’s is – 