Tag: hosts

Monday Web Woe

Why can’t anything ever be easy? I knew changing hosts and setting up a new ecommerce website would be a challenge- especially because I had to use a new ecommerce solution that seemed to be very very beta. But I work with what I am given. The easy thing was customizing the free template to match the WordPress theme I custom made for the new site. Oh what a walk in the park compared to other stuff. I have encountered new things these past weeks: Private SSL, openssl,Dedicated IP,openbase,corporatese and sysadmins who might be drinking on the job.

Corporatese I can manage.I read 1984, I knew it was coming:the newspeak. I can imagine it comes as second nature to business school types. I went to art school and the jargon I picked up (to mock it) was just as full of hot air. In artschoolspeak the point was to sound like you were really saying something especially if you were talking about your work. In corporatese the point is not to let anyone know what you are talking about especially if you are talking about your work.

The ecommerce site launched like a tiny little dream with https all over the place. 2 days later the dream vanished and we found ourselves without a dedicated ip. Ssl certificates will not work without a dedicated ip address. It is as if we don’t have an ssl installed at all and are reduced to self signed. Browsers just love this.There is no way anyone is ever going to buy anything if they have to add an exception to do so.There is even a button on the error message that says Get me out of here! With an exclamation point and everything. Who is going to see that and say “oh, I don’t care but I want to buy the item anyway”.

Powweb and Purehost.com are sister companies

I had many clues that this was the case but it was confirmed when I emailed Powweb support about domain name transfers and received an email from Powweb stating Purehost is it’s sister concern.
After all my bitching about how badly IIS Windows Server 2003 worked on Purehost’s configuration
in regards of ease of use and actually working and not just breaking everthing I tried to get done, this is a big laugh. Namely because Powweb accounts had worked so well and so easily and never broke that I recommended them to folks who asked me who was a good host to use.
So here are the pros and cons of Powweb.

Pros:
Unix server-
Everything works (until the server melted a few days ago)-
Great uptime-
fast-
really cheap! Only 68 dollars a year-
very well attended user forums,pretty much any question you might have about how things work on Powweb are answerable there-
Cons:
sister co. to Purehost (this is just spite at this point)-

To at least say one good thing about Purehost’s Unix platform hosting,I did manage an account on it’s Unix platform and things worked very well and were easy to use, although as far as I can remember there wasn’t a user forum.
But Purehost costs a lot more, 200 bucks a year and the reasons for this price spike I can’t figure out because Powweb offers 75 free databases,costs a 3rd what Purehost costs and has a user forum.
Purehost presents itself as business account hosting which seems to me means they just say they are a solution for business account hosting! They do not actually provide more options to their business account customers than does the much cheaper plan at Powweb.
If I was someone looking for new hosting I would never pick Purehost. And I can’t any longer with a clear conscience recommend Powweb,either.Of late their customer service has gone down to practically zip.They were really good when I signed up one year ago but now don’t answer their phones,livechat or answer emails in a competent manner.
There you have it.