I finally found a hint of motivation to work on one of my other website projects today, only to find it wouldn’t load. There have been upgrades on my host’s server lately, so I thought it was related.
I checked my other sites (including this one) just to be sure and they all loaded. Then I checked Is it down for everyone or just me? and found that it was, in fact, just me. (Woe). Opened a ticket with my host, only to learn everything was fine on their end.
I can get to it via proxy or a parked domain, but not from any computer on my network. I was able to log in to FTP until after restarting my computer as was suggested. I don’t have this problem with any other sites. I’ve flushed the DNS, cleared the Temp Internet files folder, power-cycled the (fairly new) modem, restarted Firefox, checked it in Internet Explorer, asked other people to check it on their computers and still my house is the only house that cannot view my site.
It was working fine until earlier today. I loaded the homepage to make sure images were loading as some people were reporting Photobucket downtime, and later logged into FTP, but had not yet made any changes. None of my log-in attempts failed.
Motivation killed it methinks. Google-Fu has failed me so far in finding an answer, any help?
ETA: Now I can view the site, but can’t log into FTP. *grumble*
ETA2: It started working again earlier today, but I wasn’t yet ready to update. Now I’m ready to, and it’s not working again. *sigh*
I’ve written before about some of the awesome contests I’ve found online. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to win any save a small one on a forum I’m a member of a few months back. Other things online have taken priority recently, so I haven’t had much of a chance to look for new ones to enter.
Today, however, I found what has got to be one of the best contests I’ve seen online (or anywhere for that matter) in a very long time. BluFrog, a company that makes energy drinks is holding a contest through their blog in which the Grand Prize is the winner’s choice of not one, not two, but five grand prize packages.
The lucky winner will get to choose from among a Gamer package of an Xbox 360 Elite and multiple games, a trip to NYC for New Year’s Eve, tickets to Lollapalooza in Chicago, Richard Petty Driving Experience in Orlando, or Winter X in Aspen.
All of the choices sound really awesome, I don’t know that I would be able to choose if I entered and somehow won. Maybe Orlando to take advantage of my week-long pass while I’m there? Lollapalooza always has an awesome lineup though. Having my own 360 would be pretty awesome too…
What would you choose?
For the last few weeks, it has been raining nearly every day. Very strange for June in Utah, but it has finally appeared to stop, at least for a day or two. Good thing too, the dogs have been going crazy stuck inside all the time. If the nice weather holds, we’re definitely taking them to the dog hiking park this weekend!
Not too long after writing about how to choose a web host , I decided to move servers again. It’s not that I didn’t like my current host (Crucial Paradigm is an excellent, friendly, fast host), it’s that the price and features were much more than I needed.
After much time and headache, and very nearly falling for first a scam, and then almost choosing a host that didn’t have the features I need, I cannot stress enough how important it is to do your research before choosing a host for your website. There are so many ways to find the good eggs from the bad that it’s irresponsible not to take the time to do it, especially if you host clients, family, or friends on your account.
One that I’ve mentioned in the past, and would like to recommend again is Web Hosting Geeks, a web host ratings and reviews site. I came across it while researching my previous host move from that one host to Crucial P and used it along with other sites to eliminate hosts that weren’t right for what I needed.
I like how you can see which hosts are awesome based on specific criteria instead of just one big “here’s the best ranked blogs in order of which one gives the highest affiliate payout” like some other sites do. There are also tons of helpful articles for webmasters and hosts of all skill levels to learn from like avoiding common web host traps.
In the end, I decided to go with a small hosting company called AshPink. It’s pretty new, and thus hasn’t won any web hosting awards yet, but it’s still been pretty awesome so far for the most part (and the prices are absolutely excellent!).
The entire line is: “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. There is no little asterisk pointing to tiny print in the bottom that says “unless you disagree with their beliefs, then it’s totally cool”.
And you call yourselves “pro-life“…
With up to five people (and sometimes more, given the demands of certain household members to leave the network unsecured because typing in a password twice is “too hard”) using the Internet for streaming video, music, games, and heavy-duty surfing (the record is around 90 Firefox tabs), it gets a bit slow loading at times. Since our contract with our current Internet provider will be ending fairly soon, I’ve started looking for a potential new service provider that can handle our needs better.
In my search, I came across Charter’s Ultra60 Information Page which is a teaser for their new ultra-high speed service. It sounds excellent. Download speeds of up to 60 mbps, meaning videos should load instantly.
My computer has an annoying habit of continuing to play the sound of a video while the actual video is frozen in place, only to essentially fast-forward several seconds later to catch up. Very annoying when watching something like SNL on Hulu or The Colbert Report on Colbert Nation. I’ve missed several punchlines because of it.
The new service also sounds like it’d be excellent for gamers as well. Maybe I’d actually try WOW or FFXI like my friends have been bugging me to do if I could be sure there would be no lag (like there is now sometimes when I play POTC on the XPS).
Unfortunately, the service does not appear to be available in my area, but I”ll keep an eye (and a follow) on Charter’s Twitter Feed just in case they decide to break the Comcraptastic monopoly on cable. Until then, I guess I’ll have to stick with who we have, and hope that our city decides to be part of UTOPIA (fiber optic).
This is the tenth in (hopefully!) a long series of interviews. If you’re interested in participating, please leave a comment on this entry. If you’ve already requested one, but haven’t heard from me yet, nudge me via a comment on this entry. I send out interviews in batches (when I remember), so I may not get to yours right away. This week’s interviewee is Kelly of 12 String.
1. Describe yourself in three words.
Tall. Happy. Goofy.
The CPanel transfer of this site failed (the only one out of the ten or so moved), so I had to move it over myself. Everything should be functional here, but please let me know if there are any errors. Now to move the various folders and subdomains…
I recently got a code to check out the latest version of PayPerPost while it was still in Alpha and made an account, but there wasn’t much going on yet. Now PayPerPost v4.0 has been released into the wilds of the Internet. It feels like they are trying to make it similar in look and feel to its sister site SocialSpark and so far it works…mostly.
The interface is colorful, clean, and modern, and much easier to navigate than its predecessor. The only things I don’t like about it so far include the fact that opportunities are now assigned to bloggers and that there is no longer an option to browse and select other ones that are currently available. There is now also a rather high minimum payout amount ($50!) instead of being paid a certain amount of time from the date each one is approved.
Aside from those two things, the new version has the potential to be much better than the old one as it seems like the opportunities will be higher-paying and less dodgy than what similar sites offer. I feel that it is worth checking out for those interested in this type of opportunity.
[This was a sponsored post. 
]
The new modem came, was installed, and all is well (after a few minor hiccups and having to deal with tech support…).
I absolutely adore my current host, but it’s advantageous to me to move somewhere cheaper. So in the coming days, all of the various accounts will be packed up and moved to Ashpink. Hopefully the downtime will be at a minimum, but if in the near future there’s a this site doesn’t exist, wtf were you smoking when you typed the URL type error, that’ll be why.
