printThose who frequent Barely a Blog know by now that we’ve been down for close on two weeks.
Our host, the FrontPages Web Hosting Network, crashed the server, bungled the backup (or didn’t backup), and corrupted the “backup” data. All this, during a sloppy upgrade/transfer. Forensic recovery service was apparently initiated, but we saw no evidence of a positive outcome.
Follow-up service, moreover, was non-existent. I cannot speak for the hundreds of clients affected, but I was not informed of the bungle, or of the steps being taken to put things right. Hell, as far as I’m concerned nothing was done to correct matters. We were left hanging.
FrontPages Web Hosting is a Third World operation by any other name.
IlanaMercer.com is on the Microsoft FrontPage System, a clunker of a system, but extremely reliable—the site is automatically backed up on one’s PC. (Now that I’m in the process of having a new website designed, I also realize the FrontPage System offers the best editing tools.) We could easily have uploaded IlanaMercer.com right away on one of their functioning servers, but we decided that this would give the incompetents a way to wiggle out of forensically resurrecting the blog. So we waited until it became untenable. After contacting what goes for technical support at FrontPages Web Hosting repeatedly, it transpired that they were unable to locate the blog data base. Lost it; couldn’t find it, whatever.
Naturally, I had been backing my blog up diligently. As you know, BAB is a companion to my main site. On it I offer original daily commentary; not mere links to other reports and commentary. FrontPages Web Hosting appears to have made changes to the backup procedure, so that my backup had been incomplete for close on a year. The consequence of this is that a large portion of the blog has now to be restored manually. Your comments for the last year were lost.
If you are Fujifilm, Honda, and Intel—big customers with dedicated servers—you’re, no doubt, treated well by FrontPages Web Hosting. My business they handled with contempt. I would go so far as to say that this company operates in bad faith (not toward Boeing and the Library of Congress, I’m sure). What else would you call an Internet host that fails to back up its (smaller) clients’ data properly, or does so carelessly? Reliability, after all, has to be the most important feature in a hosting company. Suffice it to say that this isn’t the case with FrontPages Web Hosting. In fact, their advertising here is nothing but a farce. “Expertise, security, highest ranking in reliability”—are you kidding me?
Ilana,
Well, it’s nice to see the site back online. And it’s a darned good thing you backed up all of your data. Since you requested that I post the content of my email to you here, here’s some information that might be helpful.
Another site I frequent has recently been having bad problems with Servage. His account kept getting hacked, and malicious scripts inserted. Before considering them or other hosting companies, you might want to check out hostjury.com to see what others are experiencing. I recommend whenever contemplating a hosting solution, check the guarantees, and call customer support a few times. You should be able to reach a real tech who knows what he is doing and can access the machine your site is hosted on. If you get India, or canned responses, keep looking.
I’ve hosted my own company website before, along with mail servers and ftp servers. I’m not an expert, but I learned a few things along the way.
First, server software that supports Frontpage extensions seems to always be under attack. A lot of people are recommending not using that, and sticking with companies that host on Linux boxes, and that stay on top of updates and security issues. It’s not impossible to be secure with M$ software, but I try to stay away from it on either side of the connection. Wherever it’s not possible, it takes constant attention to stay ahead of the bad guys.
You already proved the wisdom of doing your own backups. Always do that!
Since your data throughput is not extreme here, you might want to consider hosting on your own computer. It takes some learning, but it’s not too bad if you make it another hobby. But that also depends on whether your ISP is reasonable. Back when I finally and with extreme prejudice was able to dump Comcast, that wasn’t an option.
Another alternative is to look for small ISP’s in your neighborhood that offer dialup and web hosting. If they are local, and run the machines in their own building, and know what they are doing, they might be a valuable resource. Even if you can’t get the techie on the phone until he shows up in the morning, at least he’ll be able to do a restore on your account and view the logs to find out what happened, and upgrade whatever needs to be fixed. That’s what we do for the small company I work at. I get a pipeline to a guy who knows what he is doing, and that’s worth the price of admission right there.
I’m running long here, but since you indicated that advice is welcome, I’ll check with a few buddies about the best low-cost way to keep a blog up with good security.
–John–
Glad to see that BAB’s back.
The irony of ironies is that you could’ve received better service with the free-of-charge WordPress service, whose servers are accountable to tens of thousands of blogs across the intro-net.
On a related note:
Wonder of wonders,
miracle of miracles,
BAB is back
and it’s here for keeps!
Each morning I start my day with a cup of coffee, decaf, yuch!! and then take a two minute look at your photo with the leather jacket and 4 inch earrings. At that point I take a swan dive into BAB and see what windmill I can tilt. With this routine upset my social equilibrium got out of kilter. I was afraid I might become queer or even worse, a democrat. Welcome back.
Your blog was the first info I found about this fiasco. The irony is that I switched to FPWH for my Share Point hosting after a prior hosting company had their servers crash. I thought I did my research on this company. It had an impressive client list to say the least. What are the chances of two hosting companies losing my work with in several months! Also, SharePoint sites are difficult to back up locally, so we don’t have everything backed up. What a mess.
Huh… Your blog is nice in general, but this very post… It is brilliant!!! It can be never better.