So, thanks, Steve.

I finally ditched my old host and signed up with a new one.  Since I was going through the trouble, I thought I ought to change the appearance of the site, as well.

Intersabre.com is the worst possible web host.  As you probably witnessed in the past, my website was frequently down.  Usually it was just for a couple minutes, but sometimes it was longer.  The worst part was that it was almost every day.  I would write to them to ask what was up, and they’d say something like, “It should be okay now”, but that didn’t change the fact that it was down all the time.

Then, about two or three weeks ago, I was checking my email at home, and I got the typical error message in Outlook that I associate with my website being down.  I tried a while later and got the same thing.  I could get my website to load, and I couldn’t get Intersabre’s website to load either, so I couldn’t submit a service ticket.  Days went by, and by then I thought they’d just closed down and not told anybody.  That would be like them, I figured.

Then some people told me that they could see my website, and I checked at work, and I could get it there, too.  So I realized that, for the second time, Intersabre had blocked me from accessing my own site.  In fact, they had blocked my IP address from accessing any of their servers.  They offer no method of contact besides their own webpage, so I had to write to them from work to tell them to unblock me.  Of course, at work I didn’t know my home IP address, and they don’t respond to emails sent from anywhere other than their own webpage, so I was out of luck and out of patience.

I looked around online for other hosting services, and I settled on the one that had the highest percentage of positive reviews.  Arvixe.com seems to have been around for years, and almost everyone who has used them says good things about them.  Plus, the have a twenty-four hour phone number for technical support.  Also, they are cheaper than Intersabre, and give me unlimited bandwidth and storage.  I could upload huge HD movies to my site now – not that I ever will.

Naturally, there have been the typical challenges associated with moving an entire website.  But, Arvixe took care of the whole thing.  I just gave them my log-in information for my old host, they backed everything up, moved it, and put it all together nice and pretty for me.  Even my email was moved.  Last night, when I needed to ask them a question about resetting my password, I called their number, and, for the first time, got their voicemail.  I left a brief message, and–this is absolutely true–they called me back in less than a minute.  I didn’t even have time to walk out of the room before my phone rang.

So, if you ever need a new web host, Arvixe seems pretty darn good.

Now, I still need to tweak some things with my new theme.  For instance, I don’t like the font at the top, or the way the “D” in my name is capitalized up there.  Also, I don’t know if I like the green hyperlinks.  And sometimes the text doesn’t wrap around the pictures.  I need to work on all that.

Meanwhile, it’s good to be up and running again.  If you feel like it, read my latest post called “Toward Entartete Musik”.  It even has footnotes.

A new site–with a new look–will appear soon, and you’ll still be able to read all the old content you know and love tolerate.

Hard times come again no more.

I logged in to the top-secret control panel for my website and discovered that my email had a default value of 10MB set, and presently exceeded that value.  I changed it to 100MB, and now am able to receive messages again.  I’m sure my teachers aren’t reading this, but for everyone else: if you sent me a communiqué that warranted a reply, and I did not, please send me the message again.  I most likely never received it.

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.

• 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.