Kevin Kwak’s Blog

Sigh~ I’ve finally found a reputable webhost company that I can rely on. Transferring files and databases to different webhost directories is time-consuming. As of now, I’m most concerned about calpolyonline.com and getting the forum restored and back up and running.

Two weeks have past since the site was down and it is a tragic time for the site. The site has been down during the most critical time of the year, the first two weeks of the new Fall quarter!! Oh my.

The new webhost is helping me restore the database and Calpolyonline.com will soon open and ready to roll. Need to do more adjustments and editing for all other sites. After all is done, I can finally let the sites do its own thing and not worry about it.

This is what happened. One morning, I’ve noticed calpolyonline.com was down and I got the 404 error message. Not a good sign because 99% of the time, the site is up and back up after a brief moment of downtime. The site was down for the entire 2 days and even the webhost’s site was down. Apparently, there is a huge issue here. Visited a forum where lot of the webhost’s clients hang out and their sites were all down. We were informed that the owner of the company decided to pull the plug because him and his business partners were unable to manage the company efficiently. Although they had the network and server knowledge, they lacked the business operating skills and most likely, they couldn’t not manage their cash flow and finance part of the webhost business. Therefore, he decided to STOP the service without informing the clients in advance. What an unethical business practice!

The admin should’ve send an e-mail or put up an announcement on the company site beforehand. The clients then would have the opportunity to create a backup file of all our directories and databases.

Now most of the clients are SOL without their files. I for one had a September 11, 2005 backup with September 1, 2005 database backups.

From this bad experience, I’ve learned a great lesson. Choose a reputable company and follow the “you get what you pay for” mantra. Actually, I did pay a good sum for the annual hosting service but because the company is operating in Australia, U.S. clients can not file a class action.

[On a more happy note: CalPolyOnline.com is back up and rolling!]