My site transfer to hawkhost was completed yesterday. I only noticed the site down for a few minutes while the domain propogated to the new host. Most of you probably didn’t even notice. It was a pretty smooth transfer. Let me know if you find anything that doesn’t look right.
I found Hawkhost.com while looking into something unrelated. They have just about everything I need, so I am giving them a try. I paid 3 months, so if all goes well, they will be my host for awhile. Wish me luck that I won’t need to change again anytime soon.
Well, I am canceling with Fatcow and continuing my search for another host. Considering that after my year was up, the renewal cost would skyrocket, it’s best that I bail now while I can still get my money back. They advertise far more than you actually get, so this host should be avoided.
I’m still having a few minor issues with FatCow, so I’m rethinking of using them. First, I can’t seem to get the SSL to work properly. I have put in a help ticket to ask about it. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.
Then I try to set up the store they have, and it’s pitiful! I signed up because that sounded great along with the included SSL (which I can’t get to work right).
Now, I almost signed up with the credit card processor they are affiliated with, iPayment. They sound great on the surface, but they want a lot of personal information to get set up, nothing like what paypal expects for pretty much the same thing. Luckily, I did a search to see if they have any complaints against them. Thank goodness I did that. They apparently have a huge yearly compliance fee they charge every year that isn’t obvious as you sign up. In fact I looked, and the disclaimer is in light grey at the bottom of the second signup page.
So, I quickly closed that browser and will stick with paypal and Google checkout unless something else comes along, but boo to FatCow for almost convincing me to signup with a company that would ultimately cost me far more than it would save me. What the heck is the point of that!? Ugh!
After a very rough start, all is smooth over at Fatcow hosting. They even uploaded my forum backup, since it’s too large for me to do it without tripping the maximum allowed mysql questions. Jeesh, though it does seem that no host truly knows what unlimited is. I will have unlimited bandwidth, as long as it’s not related to a database? Seems silly to me, but oh well.
I know I had issues with one of my previous host attempts, and was constantly getting the exceeded error, but I think they had the max set at some absurdly low number, like 5,000. Fatcow has it at 75,000, which I can’t imagine my little forum will ever use in an hour’s time.
I made the mistake of renewing for another month with Godaddy, so I’m paid up with them through the middle of May. I figure I’ll keep my eye on the site over at Fatcow to monitor any problems. If it looks good by mid April, I’ll switch everything over. It should be pretty seemless, since everything is live over there. Just a matter of transferring the domain over.
Most of you probably won’t even be able to tell I’ve made the switch. 
At least I hope so.
The only other drawback to all this is that it has distracted me from working on Sierra Sky. I really want to get back to that story and will definitely work on it this weekend. I promise! But then it will literally take months of waiting for submissions editors and then actual editors and then the publisher’s waiting list before the book is available. I’ll be on pins and needles until then, waiting with baited breath to see what my readers think of my new “style”.
Due to GoDaddy being ridiculous about their renewal rates, I am looking for a new host (again). At least it’s been 2 years, but I’m already having a hard time of it. What did Godaddy do this time? They only offer discounts to new customers, which I find unacceptable. So they give huge discounts to new people, but make all their loyal customers pay $4.99 a month no matter if they pay by the month or 3 years in advance. They do not offer unlimited service nor do they give us CGI, so naturally they shouldn’t be able to charge that much.
So now I’m looking elsewhere. Thought I found a great deal with FatCow. Not only do they have everything I need, they also provide all their customers with SSL for no extra cost. I signed up for a year with their special discount and have uploaded files all day. Well 3 hours ago, everything stopped working. I tried their live chat, only to be told their servers were having issues, so it was affecting my site. No updates listed on their site, so how many users are being impacted? This doesn’t look good to me. If my site were already with them, it would have been down for 3 full hours, with no end in sight. I’m currently on hold with their support team to find out what the issue is. Maybe I can have better luck getting an answer than from their chat or ticket system.
I just don’t know why I have no luck finding a host that is reliable. What does everyone else use? I have gone through half a dozen and always have issues. Godaddy has gotten a bit pompous, but I didn’t have to deal with down time with them, and I have never been locked out of ftp before. I can’t even access ftp with FatCow. If this keeps up, I will be asking for a refund and leaving them in the dust.
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