About a year ago I started surfing the web looking for a web host to host my blog, my fiance’s blog, and eventually the Bloggerstock website.  Spent some time on Google and I landed on JustHost.com.  They gett pretty high ratings when you search for hosting reviews.  Almost always in the top 10 if not in the top three.  They offer a pretty darn good price for unlimited everything (which isn’t truly unlimited), and they make some pretty bold claims about their customer service right on their homepage.  They even provide a “secret link” at the bottom of their page which if you click, will get you a discount on a few months of hosting (oops, it no secret anymore).  In my humble opinion, all this comes with a giant BUT….

Over the past year I have not really had any cause for concern with my web hosting. Everything was working, the sites were up, and life was pretty good.  The backend was a little tedious, but many hosting companies use the same c-panel software, so there was no reason to really care about that.  Once I had the sites set up and working I rarely went into the back end other than to make backups.

Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I started getting emails from JustHost.com telling me that my account had been suspended and that I was violating there TOS.  How?  Well, apparently something in my account was using too much processor time.  Somewhere in the TOS is a little line that tells you how LIMITED you actually are when you pay for UNLIMITED.  Of course, instead of just putting a CPU limit on your account, they actually just suspend your account if you spike over 10% CPU usage.  They don’t provide a means to monitor your CPU usage, nor do they give you any warning.  It’s just BAM! “Sorry, we suspended your account.”  Of course this means that you can’t even log in to make adjustments to try to correct the problem.

The first time this happened, I replied to the email and the tech asked for my IP address so that he could open up access for just me.  Response time was fairly quick, within an hour or so.  Fine.  He also sent some suggestions, but nothing really useful.  I followed all the suggestions he gave, and they re-opened my account.  However, they forgot to reset their monitoring software so within two days I was locked out again for the same exact case.

This time, I called their 24/7 support phone number.  Guess what, I got straight through to a real person!  But, hold the phone, this person could not do anything but tell me that I should send an email to their support team!  WHAT!?  So, I tried their online chat support.  Again, got right through to a support person but the answer I got was exactly the same, I had to email support.  Can someone please explain to me what the point of having on call support people readily available if they can’t help?  I would rather sit on the phone for an hour to talk to someone who can help then instantly talk to people who can’t.

So, I fire off more emails to support.  It took an entire day this time to get a response.  In fact it seems like it took a little threatening to leave their company.  At this point they said that it had been a mistake, that they had not reset the monitoring software and that my account would be re-opened immediately.  While this made me feel a little better, I was still very frustrated by their support system.

Which brings us to the end of last week and this weekend.  Once again I get an email about server overload and my account being suspended.  I am sorry, but while I would love to have tons of people visiting my sites, it just doesn’t happen.  I haven’t changed the code here beyond updating to the latest version of WordPress, so I just don’t understand what changed.  In any event, since friday, my account had been suspended and despite my multiple emails to JustHost.com support, I received to a single response until the wee hours of this morning.  I talked to two online chat techs who both claimed to elevate my case to highest priority, but  nothing came of that.

One tech actually told me that the only way you can ever talk to a high enough level support person is through email.  I am sorry, that is just no kosher.  If I can’t actually talk directly to someone who can help me then your support system is flawed.  I don’t care if I have to wait, I would rather wait if it meant getting the service that I need.

So, with a few quick clicks I had a brand new hosting account with GoDaddy.com. With a little bit of fighting with JustHost.com I was able to get them to give me a download link for a site-wide backup of my account.  The domains that I purchased through them are being transferred to GD, and my blog is up.  My fiance’s blog is back up, and bloggerstock is coming back soon.  My account with JustHost will be cloased, and in theory I should get some money back.  I better get money back or I will make their lives miserable.

Moral of the story, don’t always believe internet rating sites, and don’t use JustHost.com unless all you need is hosting for a super simple website and you don’t want any kind of customer support.  They are temptingly inexpensive, but not worth the frustration in my book.

While I don’t normally advertise on my blog, I kind of want to rub this in JustHost’s face.  So, to show how happy I am with Godaddy.com:

So, I have been having some ongoing issues with hosting of my blog and some my fiancee’s and my other sites.  We are in the playing with migrating web hosts and I have move some sites to a new host already.  Suffice it to say, this weekend was an interesting weekend.  I learned that even with the great support that my original host claimed to have, they were not very impressive. I might write a real review later after we decide if we want to complete the migration or not.  I have 30 days to decide if I want to stay with the new host or not.

It just really bugged me that even though I got right through to a real person on the phone, there was nothing they could do to help me except tell me to email support.  I couldn’t get a direct contact information for one person to deal with, so there was never a time when one hand knew what the other was doing.  All a big mess really.

So, what does that mean?  Well, what would be really great is if some of my readers would take a couple minutes and poke around through the blog and tell me if they see anything not working right or if things are silly slow or anything.  Basically, I just need more eyes than my own to look at things and give feedback, it will help me to figure out if it is worth staying with the new host or if I should leave things as they were. Besides, you might find an old post that you like!

I appreciate the help!

So there is this really cool thing that I discovered thanks to Island Gal over at NYC Island Gal and that is a German organization that is working on neutralizing the carbon footprint of the blogsphere.  This is a pretty interesting concept, and the fact that it is free makes it even better.  Sure, many hosting services off the option to host your site on “green” servers, but usually you end up paying a premium for that service, and in the end, shouldn’t being green be something we just do and not have to pay for?

I can’t really tell you what else this company in Germany does on account of the fact that their entire website is in German.  I am not really sure how to even get to the english part of the site that talks about the project other than via the links that I have seen.  As soon as I started clicking around the site I was back in German.  I suppose then this would lead many to wonder if they are even legit in what they are doing.  I can’t speak to that, but as the program is FREE, then we, the end users, don’t have anything to lose other than one blog post.

So here is what these guys are doing:  First, you write a post about them (like this one), then you send them an email, and they will then plant a tree for your blog in a forest in California.  They also would like you to display a badge on your blog, which is fine with me.  Why does this work?  Well, according to them, the average blog produces around 8 pounds of carbon every year.  The average tree scrubs about 11 pounds of carbon each year from the atmosphere.  So by planting one tree for every participating blog, you actually neutralize more carbon than the blog produces.

Why do blogs produce carbon?  Well, you have to consider that no matter where your blog resides, be it on blogger or wordpress.com or on your own server or hosting account, that machine uses a lot of energy to host your blog.  Most of us are not on dedicated servers, even those of us who are self hosted are usually on a communal server in a server farm somewhere.  So, not only is the server itself using energy, but it takes a lot of energy to maintain the servers and keep them cool and functioning.  This all contributes to the carbon footprint of your blog.  I suppose you also have to consider the energy used by your own computer when you write posts as well!

If you want to read more and see the quoted research that all this information is based on, you can fid it here.  I didn’t think that I needed to take up too much space quoting them.  As I said before, they sound pretty legit about the whole program, and any little thing we can do to make an impact in helping out our home seems like a worthwhile cause to explore.  So, if you are interested in joining the cause or finding out more information, here is a link to the organization.

Just a few easy steps to make it green:

1. Write a blog post about the initiative + insert your favorite button
2. E-mail the link to your post to CO2-neutral@kaufda.de
3. They’ll plant a tree for your blog in Plumas’!

Why is it that sometimes you think that you have a great idea, a thought for a post that couldn’t be better, but when you sit down to try to put the words on the page, it just doesn’t feel the same?  I know that everyone feels that sometimes.  I wouldn’t so much call it writer’s block as much as it is just the possible lack of flesh on the original concept.  I don’t even actually remember what it was that I had thought was such a good idea to write about, but as soon as I opened the page to start writing it just didn’t seem as worthwhile anymore.

Sometimes there are ideas that really just flow from the brain through the fingers and onto the page.  Other times they seem to need a little coaxing.  Every now and then they don’t really want to come at all.  It is strange though, that many of the times that words just flow is when you least intend for that to happen.  It is like getting in the zone, you have to see where things take you.

Inspiration can certainly come in many forms and at any time.  I am sure that when I take the time to actually put pen to paper this summer and write some real letters to people, words will come.  I do think though, that there is something magical about real mail that you don’t get from email, IM’s or blogs.  I also think that there is something about the physicality of actually writing (which I think is becoming a dying art) that makes it very conducive for creative juices to get going.

I suppose the other thing that I could take into account is the fact that I am up way past my bedtime and the past days have been very long.  The days will only get longer though as the summer progresses.  It seems that all the good ideas come lat at night though.  Not the best combination of events when you spend a summer at camp.  Could be a lot worse though.  When you think about it, how many people do you know who will write something about not writing something and actually make it a post you can ponder?

In the end, what does it boil down to?  Could be a post on nothing….

You know, for as much as blog awards are kind of the chain letters of the blogshpere, I don’t think it matters who you are, you probably still enjoy getting them.  I suppose it is partially the feeling that someone out there actually does read your blog and also that someone thinks enough of your blog to pass along the award.  So, this award comes from my friend, the lovely Wilmary of NYC Island Girl.  It is the “I ♥ Your Blog” award.  It doesn’t really need much in the form of introduction as you can tell by the name what it is pretty much all about!  It was certainly a nice thing to get to end this weekend (not that it was a bad weekend, just hectic).  I of course, have a few people in mind to pass this award along to, which I will do later on in the post.

Due to now having a second blog award I decided to make a couple little tweaks to my layout.  Odds are that most of my visitors will never notice since you probably just read my blog in your reader.  However, if you do visit my actual site you will notice that I added a little widget at the bottom of both sidebars.  One has awards and the other has sites that I am a proud member of.  I have shrunk the badges and linked them to the sites and the awards link back to the post of the person who gave them to me.  Maybe it is a little ego-centric, but I figured that it would be nice to display those things where people might actually notice them.

In other news, I spent the day yesterday running around in the rain in Vermont watching my mother run on the Covered Bridges Half Marathon.  Despite the rain it was kinda fun. I also got to play more with the puppies, who are a lot of fun, but they are little terrors sometimes.  After the race we headed over to Hanover, NH to have lunch with my siblings before heading down to Boston.  I got to see my brother’s new apartment in Boston when I dropped him off, and then I settled in at home to do some blogging and email and general catch up.

Without further ado, I suppose I shall now pass along this award.  I don’t know how many people it is supposed to go to, but here are a couple of the blogs that I think deserve some love:

• From the Stupidest Corner of My Mind by Ella Unread.  I love the way that she writes.  No matter what she is writing about, it is always a beautiful read.
• Tall Brunette: The Northwest Girl by Tall Brunette.  Probably one of the most eloquent bloggers that I read.
• There’s Beauty in the Breakdown by Penny Ann.  A relatively new blog that I just started to read after chatting with Penny on 20SB.

I am sure that there are more people I could give this award to.  Possibly almost everyone that read is a potential candidate.  I ♥ you all!

I am still so far from being caught up on all the blogs that I follow.  My reader has piled up a pretty sizable number of unread.  I am sure that I will get around to reading them this week, but it seems like one of those things that once you get out of the rhythm, it is hard to get back on.  So, for those of you who a I read, I will get to you eventually, I have not forgot about you.