JapanSoc hits 100 users!Â
Edward Chmura put out a good word for JapanSoc on Japundit this week, helping to push the number of registered users over the 100 mark. Let me thank Ed, who is also responsible for the excellent Japan Talk podcast, and let me welcome any new JapanSoc users to my blog, the place where I post updates about the site (so please subscribe!).
Web host problems continue…
Lately I’ve been hugely frustrated with my current web host. I run a dozen websites and over the last month, I’ve seen more downtime than I have in my whole three years with the company. Even when the sites are working, they seem to be sluggish and often timeout when trying to load.
I won’t name names until I’m off my current web host, but I will say that they have been either impossible to contact or slow to respond to “trouble tickets”. Let me give you an example of how bad their service has become. This screenshot shows one of my sites had a sudden drop in traffic on Wednesday, March 5th. Usually the sites go down while the U.S. is asleep so I’m not affected too much, but this time it happened for maybe six hours during U.S. peak time:
Naturally, I sent a “trouble ticket” to my web host and had to wait over 24 hours for a response:
“The connection has timed out. The server is taking too long to respond.” I get the same error for all the listed domains. Please help. Nick.
Dear Nicholas. Thank you for the word to support. As far as I can see your site working properly and fast. Also we haven’t any records in our tech logs regarding problems with your web or mysql server. So please re-check your site once again. Should you have any further question feel free to contact us and we will be glad to assist you.
That was enough to make me sign up for another web host and start the laborious process of moving my websites across.
Upcoming JapanSoc downtime
I haven’t decided when to move JapanSoc or this blog, but it will probably happen within the next two weeks. When it does, I imagine there could be about 72 hours of downtime while I wait for the domain name servers to point to the new web host, and of course I’ll have to figure out how to import the databases and get JapanSoc running with PHP 5.
Once it’s all working, you should find JapanSoc loading faster and being online the promised 99.9% of the time. That should make the three days of downtime worth it, and I hope you all agree.
In the meantime, please continue using JapanSoc as you have been, and expect another notice before I start making the move.
If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!
Great news!! glad to see it’s reached the 100 mark!!
Congratulations Nick on the 100!
I feel your paid about the downtime on the server. My recent downtime from the web was giving me withdrawal pains. Good luck with the move.
I’ll be trying to figure out how to get that space in my JapanSoc button over the next few days and hope to have it working but I may be dropping you a line if I have problems.
Great news about the 100 mark Nick !! I do feel for you over these problems you have had and I’m sure you will lose nobody with the change. Geez the reply they sent you would have made me get on a bloody plane and fly over to them a create mayhem!
Really really sh#t service and do hope your your new “Web Host” does the right thing!!
Keith
Don’t get mad, get even!! I hope the person who sent you that reply has his armpits infested by a thousand fleas!!
Why is it that so many web hosts give users such a hard time about downtime? Is it the 99.9% uptime guarantees that everyone seems to advertise that forces hosts to be a little inaccurate of their assessments?
Either way, I hope that your migration goes smoothly, Nick. Should you need a helping hand, just let me know.