danajohnhill.org

I spent this afternoon in internet hell.

Around five o’clock I went to check my email, but found that Outlook wasn’t connecting to my server.  Not terribly uncommon for it to do this from time to time for brief periods.  But hours later it was still acting up.  I figured this would coincide with my website being down, but, to make sure, I typed in my web address and was horrified beyond belief to see an advertisement with “danajohnhill.com” written next to it.  I frantically checked a separate Hotmail address I use just for my site admin stuff, and could not believe my eyes: I had missed renewing my domain name.  It looked like someone else had bought my own name and had put up an advertisement website.

I was in a frenzy, writing frantic messages to my host, checking on the status of my files, trying to see what I could do to reclaim my name.  It seems that my efforts have paid off, thankfully, and tonight I once again own “danajohnhill.com” and will for years and years to come.  I messed something up in the meantime, so “danajohnhill.org” doesn’t point here for the time being, but I’ll figure that out when I am less deranged.

With my website going off-line increasingly often, I am now shopping for a new host.  I may not be updating my site until then.  Your patience is appreciated.

Mine, of course!  I evidently have the worst host on the internet, and my site is down about half the time.  I had a lot of success with them–and I won’t mention their name here just yet for fear of reprisal–initially, but within the last year they have really let themselves go.  I had that terrible email crisis a few months back, I had a bizarre security breach that caused my PHP-coded pages to be vandalized, and now I have far too little up-time.  So, it is time for a switch.  Here’s what I need:

• Reliable service and low down-time
• A decent, intuitive control panel
• Support for WordPress
• Support for multiple domains

I almost switched hosts last year, but the transfer proved more complicated than I felt I could handle–I have a rather sprawling site with more folders and files than I would like–so I abandoned the idea.  I would love a service that offers me monthly billing.  I’d rather not have to pay six months or a year in advance.  But if you have a host that you’re really happy with and are certain that they are worth six months’ commitment, let me know.

Thanks.

I enjoy the leisurely writing I do for this webpage, combining pictures and text to document my life and hates.  There is no pressure and nothing at stake.

The same cannot be said for schoolwork, which is scrutinized and rated, and which is vastly more time consuming than any other type of writing I do, particularly when it involves expostulating on a subject about which I feel I have little insight, namely mercantilism vs. free trade, commodity fetishism, etc.

Sorry to have been so long away, but I have been experiencing computer problems something awful.  The long and short of it is that I haven’t been getting my email, and, as you can imagine, dieses ist nicht so gut.  I spent the early part of last week attempting to relocate my site to a new host, while arranging to have all my email sent to a Hotmail account I have for precisely these sort of emergency situations.  The code which forwarded my email to Hotmail also put my website out of commission for the duration.

Ultimately, the transfer of my site proved to be a huge burden, and I opted to cancel the move, and, instead, try and arrive at some solution to my email malady with my host.  It is still pending, so, if you email me, and I do not respond to you like you think I should, it may very well be that I haven’t received your communiqué, and not that I am an incommunicative jerkface.