Quick Recap
Io.com -> (something, bought by EarthLink) -> FatCow.com -> HostGator.com -> MediaTemple.net (bought by GoDaddy.com) -> NameCheap.com experiment -> BlueHost.com (current for KramerWetzel.com) -> DreamHost.com…
From what I can surmise, at least three: FatCow.com (cool origins story), HostGator.com (cool origin), and BlueHost.com are all now owned by EIG. I didn’t dig deep in to records, just a quick, not-exactly-fact-checked look at what EIG is — some kind of a super-holding company that has roster of domain registers and hosting companies, plus, buzzword, cloud infrastructure services.
Digging around, more weird tales? Io.com was first located in a questionable old Austin neighborhood, which, now is so-cool East Travis Heights — new Austin. I recall getting “mad props” from a kid when he discovered I was on the old gaming server, legendary, but that almost three decades past, and those are internet years. My horoscopes used to drive a spike in Monday’s traffic.
From thence? The site has moved around. From painstakingly “hand-rolled” basic web structure, learning the nuts and bolts by doing it, everything has changed, shifted, grown, and mutated. Being able to handle my own bits and bytes is both fascinating, painful, frustrating, and ultimately, freeing as it reduces my dependency on the good will of others to nothing.
FatCow.com, when I first signed up with them? It was a small server facility in Albuquerque, NM — built right next to the military pipeline that carried data in and out of the Air Force Base there, in town, where they kept the alien bodies (space aliens, you know.) FatCow.com lasted for years until I finally hit their upper limits of “unlimited.”
Quick Recap
I moved to HostGator.com, and in some respects I still have no qualms with either structure, other than, of course, the cost/performance, and the onerous terms of “unlimited,” which as it turns has a few stipulations. Not complaining, just looking for what works best and contains costs.
The MediaTemple.net backend was excellent, if a little too dressed up, and I liked the idea that it was, at the time, a boutique kind of server farm, which it was. Still is a “premium” service. Same product, different wrapping, and guess what? Costs almost doubled for the last month. Honestly? Yes, I was hitting that extra bandwidth, and the first step was to alleviate the traffic pressure.
Didn’t find enough relief, and just the oddest coincidence that the usage doubled and tripled, previously I was using as little as ten percent, to see it spike over towards near a hundred and fifty? Strange, the surge in processor, disk I/O, and overall usage started in mid-March.
Since I spun off KramerWetzel.com, I was tire-kicking alternatives to host astrofish.net. The goals are to increase efficiency, streamline processes, and reduce costs.
Two local services come to mind, one is a totally green server farm, but it is way more high-end than I need, and the other is Rack Space, but again, way more than I require.
Quick Recap
Running my single weblog, my own vanity motor, KramerWetzel.com, BlueHost impressed me with its offering, as affordable, fast, efficient. Seems to work, and I would heartily recommend it, but I have this thing about conglomerates. Just not a big fan of profits over people. Or, I might just be a sucker for a good story. To be fair, I’ve had zero problem thus far with BlueHost.com, serving up the single site faster than than the previous two homes.
DreamHost.com had a good backstory, liked that. Not — apparently — owned by a holding corporation, or some other industry giant. Cost a few dollars more, but seemed worth it.
Because I’m an astrologer, I felt motivated to do this, guided by the stars. New Moon, in Taurus, as observed, loosely conjunct the internet planet Uranus, and sort of square Saturn? Good as any time to move ourselves ahead. I ponied up, paid up, and then started the process of data migration. The first few hours, Saturn, made this difficult, but I stumbled into a specific setting, and while the backend structure isn’t how I would lay it out, as electronic architecture? It’s safe and sound.
For my specific installations, there’s a built-in “migration tool,” and it works. Fast, effective, minimum of muss and fuss.
So far, once I paused long enough to understand all the steps, I was able to move three-four sites with no trouble.
Quick Recap
There’s a special piece to this puzzle, though, and that missing link? Separation of Church and State. I get my hosting one place, and I use a different company for the domain name registration — which? In this specific example? Updated registry and pointers in seconds so the outage was less than 30 minutes.
That’s impressive.
Just kicking the tires, and I have closed up shop, just trying new approaches to answer old questions. That’s where I’ve been.
As they say, “Your mileage may vary.”
