Category: Websites

Site was down

I was chatting with my Mom on IM this evening about 7:00 when she told me that my websites were down (this one and www.missionarytalks.com). I thought that it was just a glitch and would be worked out soon. I waited an hour before calling 1&1 customer support.

I sat on hold for 40 minutes with some of the awfullest hold music. I finally spoke with a rep who told me that they would strive to have my site back up within 30 minutes. I waited 2 hours before calling them back. While sitting on hold with the second call, I got an email from them telling me that there were greater problems and that someone else higher up would be taking a look. But I did not see this message until after I got off the phone with the second rep.

The second customer support rep told me that my problem was being escalated up to the next level. I thanked him and asked what kind of time frame I might have to wait. I was prepared for him to say that it should be back up within a couple of hours. But was shocked to hear him say that they would “try” to have me back on-line within 24 hours!

Well, as it turned out, my site was back up within just a few minutes. Probably less than 10. But the frustration of thinking that I would have to wait potentially 24 hours before I was going again was irritating. When they tell you something like that they are really saying, “Don’t call us again for 24 hours.” Well, they would have gotten another phone call in the morning if it was not fixed.

I went to their site where they give a 99.99% uptime guarantee. If you click on the link at the top of the page for the guarantee, they go into detail telling how they are going to make this happen, but there is nothing that says what the guarantee entails.

I will be trolling through their site trying to find it. Does that mean 99.99% of a month? Of the total time I am with them? What does it mean?

If it is a month, then on a long month like March it would mean that if my site is down 45 minutes, then they failed. I was down over 4 hours. And do I get my money back? Or will they upgrade me to the better service which has SSH access? I am a bit embittered about the SSH thing. When I was looking at the different packages I sent an email to customer support asking them about SSH. I was assured that I would have SSH access with the package I was purchasing. After I signed up, I did not have it. I wrote back. Their reply, “sorry, that package does not have SSH access, you will have to upgrade.”

When I asked the rep on the phone about the 99.99% guarantee he told me, “We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you.” So do they guarantee that they will say “Sorry” if your site goes down.

Stay tuned for exciting details…

Voted for the Seven Wonders

I voted today, with the help of my son, on what we thought the new 7 wonders should be. Can I tell you how my vote went? Is that spilling the beans? No? Good!

We chose: the Statue of Liberty, Chichén Itzá, the Acropolis, the Colosseum of Rome, Machu Picchu, the Great Wall, and the Pyramids of Giza.

Apparently you can vote twice. You can vote via the Internet and telephone. When I was done with the voting process and confirmed my vote, I was offered a chance to vote again by phone. So you can be heard twice if you so desire.

I did not like that they made you give your gender and name for your vote to count. It is not a survey, so gender should have been optional and your full name should never be necessary. We are not voting for a world leader here. I am sure this is supposed to help curb the multiple voting by one person. But there certainly can be several people with the same name. Your required email address should have been sufficient.

Great photos!

Leesa’s woodpeckerI had dreams as a teen of being a great photographer. I ended up going into the darkroom instead of behind the lens. I worked my way through high school and college in a photo lab. I still enjoy it as a hobby today.

Anyway, back to the point.

I saw some tremendous photos today. I was reading one of my regular blog stops of the day when Terry linked over to Leesa’s flickr page and her photoblog site. I was stunned by the incredible work she has done with a camera. She has a blog and store where you can buy some of her work.

Just some great work by a true artist. I only dreamed of shots like these. I have taken some truely amazing pictures in my day. But fewer than the number of fingers I have on my hands. Leesa probably gets more than 10 wonderful shots each time she turns on her camera.

One Minute How To

Last night I was privileged to record a “how-to” for the podcast One Minute How To.

The host, George, gives people a chance to try to explain how to do something in one minute or less. In exchange you get to promote your blog, podcast, or anything else you would like to talk about. The episodes are about 3 minutes long and are released 3 times a week.

I did a how to on building an iTunes smart playlist. I actually did 2 in one show. I talked about how to make a playlist that only gives you podcasts which you have not yet heard. Then another one on all of your music (that are not certain genres) which have never been heard on either the iPod or iTunes.

George said I did it in 1 minute 2 seconds. He allows a little overage.

Fortunately for him, he has several shows already recorded and is set until sometime in April. Unfortunately for me, the promotion I was hoping to get out of this “how to” will not go into affect until April. Of course I promoted Missionary Talks. Have you heard about that yet?

Good running week

I only ran 2 days this week, but put in quite a few miles. All told just over 12 miles.

Tuesday my son and I ran for 1.5 miles at a pace of 12:01 per mile. Then I followed that up with a 3.7 mile run on my own at a 10:49 pace. I did some great stretching after that run. I have been working on some serious hip and leg stretches. After getting all nice and warm after the runs, I worked out quite a bit of soreness that had been building up over the last week.

I did not get a chance to run on Thursday, which is a normal running day.

Today we went for a 2.1 mile run at a pace of 12:13 per mile. It was long run day for me, but I was busy trying to get my main website back up and running after being hacked this week. So I compromised by having a shorter run at a faster pace. I started the second run after a 20 minute break from the first run. I ran 5.1 miles at 9:44 pace. That is a great pace for me for that distance. I really did not feel like I was working that hard. The 2 mile warm up was a help. So though it was not an 8 mile long run, it was still a nice 7 mile day.