When the Perfect Storm Hits Your Webhost

Update 03/05/14: My email servers (all but one) are back online, although anything mailed to me from Saturday through Tuesday was lost. IX Webhosting is definitely going to be in trouble. They have already lost a lot of business, based on their status blog comments ... and I will be going soon. I need a template program that will work and a company that is prepared for "the worst." Hope this finds you well and sassy on Hump Day! 

Updated: 03/09/14:

Help! The perfect storm hit my webhosting provider and they were NOT prepared for the worst.

“Web hosting that grows with you.” HA!! At what point can we sue for false advertisement? Seriously, anyone know?

The IX Webhosting tagline is big and bold on their home page. I have been a loyal, if often disgruntled customer since approximately 2005. That’s a LONG time in this click-per-second society. Though they’ve been in business since 1999, for my purposes this company stopped growing around 2009.

Part of IX Webhosting’s original appeal was not only the ability to host up to fifteen websites in one place, but for a non-techie like me, they provided a simple, DIY web building template program that worked just fine for my simple websites. 

Site Studio was a key component of my decision to sign with IX Web.; along with simplicity and site stability as close runners-up. How was I to know that Site Studio would be abandoned by its creator to leave unsuspecting people like me stunted in their web growth?

Oh wait! IX Webhosting – full of technically advanced personnel – MUST have known this years ago. Wikipedia, “Developer Tommy Pavlicek announced in September 2005 that he would discontinue development of Site Studio and his other applications due to time constraints.”

So by the time I began my association with IX Webhosting, Site Studio was already a crippled program. Great. Just freakin’ great.

Apparently Site Studio or the current version of it is administered by Parallels – a “global leader in hosting and cloud services.” But they were not available during my frenetic weekend scribblings to comment on their connection with IX Webhosting and the program's sorry state of technological antiquity.

However, IX Webhosting has continued to “sell” Site Studio as a viable program and part of their “free” services for more than eight years.

My complaints to IX Web. are often met with techie-disdain and suggestions that I move my sites to Wordpress or another simple site-hosting venue. Wow – that’s so easy to SAY.

I have painstakingly built three primary websites: BlastFromYourPast.net, 39AndHoldingClub.com, and PenchantForPenning.com. Just those sites, not including other peripheral or in-development sites, likely contain more than two hundred pages. Do YOU want to rebuild them elsewhere? Do YOU have time to fuss over another learning curve?

I sure don’t. TIME is MONEY, wouldn't you agree? If I could afford a custom website builder I wouldn’t have this issue. Since my budget will not accommodate it and the site-building feature is part and parcel of this company’s services offered, for which I PAY – why are they not taking responsibility for maintaining it properly or working with Parallels to do so?

Site Studio is my principal problem with IX Webhosting, though not the only one. Over the years there have been many server issues resulting in website downtimes – including the recent complete outage – which in total (for all affected servers, and there were dozens) lasted nearly six days. Sigh.

Enough is enough.

I have made other arrangements, which further strained my budget and I now need to force gradual site-rebuilding into my unforgiving schedule.

Wish me luck. At least I will no longer be stuck with a webhosting provider whose tagline taunts me.

Cheers to your day!

P.S.: I swear the next blog will be about writing / publishing. :-)