Finally found out some things (my site)
 

I tell you one thing, it sure does suck trying to talk to a live person at my hosting company. First some background. My site is hosted by http://www.featureprice.com I have the budget plan. You can see in the link, what it comes with and the cost.

No problem what so ever until everyone started downloading Eddie's videos, my bandwidth went south. This sucked bigtime. Here I am thinking everything is fine and bam. With them, you have free phone tech support on the budget plan, but you first have turn in a trouble ticket and wait for a reply before you can call. No problem. I guess this is fair. Don't take long to get a reply. But, and a big but, calling tech support is another experience.

I've never had so much trouble getting to talk to a tech at anything I've ever done. But tech support is easy. Trying to talk to the sales techs is nothing but a damn joke. You call the toll free number and wait of course. Then a recording comes on and tells you they are swamped (in other words), and to call back later. Well after two days of this crap, I made my mind up I was talking to someone or die trying. So, knowing I was off today, I started calling last night at around 11:00 pm my time. As quick as I was told to call back, I used speed dial to call back. I didn't keep track, but I think I did this 25 times in a row.

Finally, someone answered the damn phone. I asked how much bandwidth the budget plan comes with, since I seen no mention of it on their site. It comes with 10 gigs a month. My site must be using more than I thought. I guess the videos put it in overdrive for awhile. I said fine, how much is extra bandwidth. $2.00 a gig per month. Not going to happen.

So here is the thing. I'm staying with what I have now. The next plan up is the premium plan. It's $16.95 a month, with 25 gigs, 5000 megs of space, etc. You can see the extra things you get in the link. I'm not upgrading. It's totally stupid on my part. If I made anything off this, or made enough to pay for it, maybe. But, I'm not making a damn thing. Paying $9.95 a month, paid annually, plus $29.95 a year for my domain name registration at Network Solutions. All of this for what? Fun. This is all it's for, fun and something for me to play with. I love it, don't get me wrong. But at times, it is a pain in the arse.

I put a few banners and links on my site to try and make a few bucks in commissions to help overcome the expense. So far, it's nada. I never wanted any banners or ads, but damn. The links I have only pay me a small amount if and only if someone uses the link to go and buy something. It's not one of those click things to make money.

Anyway, I'm still thinking about this real strong. Right now, I don't think I will do anything. It really pisses me off when you can't even download a couple videos without shutting down the site. The web hosting thing is a big ass money racket. I need to figure out something to bring a little money in, instead of paying it all out.

I'll get off my soap box now. Just wanted to rant a little and let you know what I found out.

you should start making us pay for your advice, you could probly make a living off of that:D

living hell, he could make a KILLING with the advice he gives!

Mike, I totally understand the pain in the butt these hosting companies can be. Serveral years ago, I signed up for one year (in advance) with a company called iMesh. Well, they went out of business after 2 months. The only reason I found out they went out of business was that my site was down for about 10 days. Bought out by a company called Ampira. So, when it finally comes back up, it's stuff that is really old. Guess they lost a server or something and didn't do frequent backups. On top of that, iMesh services were Windows based, so the ASP stuff worked. However, Ampira was Unix based and all of a sudden, all the ASP stopped working. They promised me they would get the ASP working, but after 2 months it was still now working. I complain to them about the problems I've been having (via email), and nothing! I try to find a phone number and that was impossible! I looked all over their site, in the online yellow pages, and called 1-800 information and couldn't find a number. I finally filed with the BBB and they got me a number. To make this LONG story much shorter, I got my full refund for the year and I got the rest of the years services for free. But, it was definitely NOT worth it.

So, basically I'm saying, I feel your pain. :)

Mike I know you put a lot of time and effort into maintaining your site and giving advise on this site. Where can I send money to help defray the costs of maintaining your site? Don't want to give you an adminstrative headache, but if I got a yearly reminder to help support your webpage, I would and I am sure others in the Truck community would as well. I know asking for money was not the intent of your thread, but I use your site frequently and your info has saved me money. It would be a real shame and a loss to Truck lovers everywhere if you were to pack it in. :bowtie: I will be visiting your site even more frequently once it get above freezing up here, :whine: and I am able to start tinkering on the beast once again. Cheers:canada:

i know people. i'll see if i can find you a better deal for your hosting somewhere else.

Mike- Man that sucks big time. I agree with everyone that you need a better company. Talk to Piston. He does server accounts and can make you a better deal for sure. Plus he's a member here :)

Mike, I would really hate for you to have to shut down your site. I would love to help and would like to know where i can send some money to help you out. I visit your site all the time and dont want to see it gone.

Cameron

Guys,

it is real nice of you to offer money, but it wasn't my intention when I posted this. Far from the truth. I really appreciate the offers, but it's not necessary.

I was only posting this to provide info to the guys who were interested in what was going on. I'm not shutting down the site. Don't worry about that. I'm as hooked on it as you guys are. It's a lot of fun to have. I love to provide info and help to everyone and just mess around with it in general.

On another note, while in this post. I just transferred my domain name to another registrar. Network Solutions is totally full of it. I paid $29.00 when I first registered last year. Now they are charging $35.00 a year. I went to www.godaddy.com and transferred for $7.75 this year, and it will be $8.95 a year after. Much better and cheaper for the exact same thing.

Anyway, somehow in all the confusion, I was on NetSol's site, looking at my account last week. In my stupidity, and everyone can call me Homer if you like, but I renewed my subscription for another year. I'm not sure how in the hell this happened, but oh well. My current subscription was scheduled to run out the 28th of this month. I took a shot at calling to see if I could stop it. No go. They don't give refunds. I *****ed and the whole nine yards, to no avail.

Oh well, I pissed away $35.00 plenty of times before. I guess this is part of a learning process. Learning always cost me money. I guess it does for everyone. It just gripes my arse when I do stupid junk like this. It's not the money, it's the principle. You know?

Once again, thanks for the very kind offers. You guys never quit amazing me. Who says the world is going down the tubes? They need to start hanging out on some of these message boards. They would change their minds.

Mike

Good to hear you changed servers. If you ever need $$$ help with the site, I know I and others here would be happy to lend a hand. Even though I don't have a '73-'87 i've used your site plenty of times, and its no problem for me to send you a couple bucks to help maintain the place. :)

Homer

Homer
 

As (a) Homer would say, DOOOOHHHHHH! :D

Homer

Can the new site handle videos?................................ j/k Mike :)

Glad to hear you got away from that company who seemed tobe trying to pull a fast one on you.

Sorry guys, Mike didn't say he changed servers for the site, just changed registrars for the domain name. It won't affect bandwidth or anything.

To add to this saga, I have now changed servers as well. I spent the better part of yesterday evening uploading all my stuff to the new host's server. I found a better deal, I think. I have 500 mb of space, but 30 gb of bandwidth. I had 10 gb with the other server. Cheaper too, $7.95 a month instead of $9.95.

For the present, I'm still on the old server, since my domain name is not through the transfer process yet. Once it's ready to use at the new registrar, I'll change over to the new host. Then I'll have to go through the cancel process at my old host.

One thing I already like bette is how much easier it is to find help with this server. They even have their forum with real live actual people there to help if you need it.

Things will get back to normal in a week or so I hope. :)

what hosting did you end up using? http://www.powweb.com??

Yep. I read a lot about them. Checked out the forum they have. Thought about it for a while and decided to go with them They seem to be right up my alley.

Mike

happy i/ the other forum could help:D

btw, how much space does your site use?

Glad to hear it Mike! I've been thinking about setting up my own site....I might check into that webhosting service! I'm just a bit leary of trying though.....I know nothing about designing a web site! I've got MS Front Page and Adobe photoshop 6, but I really don't know how to use them!

Casey,

first thing to do is delete Frontpage off your computer. I'm serious too. I wouldn't use the software on a web site of mine for sure. It causes too many complications IMO.

Next, there are plenty of places on the net to help you figure out what you need to do to start. When I first started, I used Netscape as a browser. It comes with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor.

You need a good html editing program. My favorite is Namo WebEditor 5.0. This is a first class piece of software. It's the best I've ever used. It makes it real simple, once you learn how to use the program. It includes a WYSIWYG editior, html editor, and a preview, all in one program. It even lets you upload to ftp.

I recommend WS FTP Pro for your ftp program. Another great program I use all the time.

Do a search on google for html or web designing, etc. You will come up with a ton of stuff to keep you busy for awhile. I have some links that will help you too.

This site will help you a lot. It did me when I first started, and still does.
http://wdvl.internet.com/Quadzilla/

Here's a basic html site that is pretty nice.
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/basics.html

This is a beginners guide to html.
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General...TMLPrimer.html

There are a ton more. This will probably blow you away for awhile. Just keep reading and you'll start to understand before long. Personally, I wouldn't use any software like Frontpage or Dreamweaver, but that's just me. I perfer to write or make my own pages.

Have fun.

Mike

glad to hear all is well mike...

Man that a lot of work. I'm gonna hate moving my site. :(
Should look a lot better though. :cool:

SmartFTP is a really nice FTP program that I have been using for several months, and it is FREE.

http://www.smartftp.com

I agree that FrontPage sucks. It creates bloated coat that often only looks right when viewed in Internet Explorer. I have dropped it and gone to DreamWeaver. If you have DreamWeaver, they have some nice templates for it here:

http://www.macromedia.com/software/d...oad/templates/

Slonaker

Wow! Thanks a lot Mike!

I'll definitely check out those sites and follow your advice!

Thanks again.