Mike’s Rants and Raves

Two weeks ago, the decision was made to move the CLS Forums, the Clann Alba Forums and the T-Bucket Forums to a KnownHost Virtual Private Server.

Which left a hosting plan being unused at Downtown Host, as this blog and one other were still being hosted on another company’s server.  The service with that particular hosting company was lacklustre to say the least, so we decided to move the blogs onto our Downtown Host hosting plan.

The move was completely uneventful, as the database for this blog was bruised a bit and the database for the other blog was a bit of a train wreck.  But after a couple hours work to restore everything, we are now back up and running.

We’ve always had excellent service with Downtown Host, so we hope this move will prove to be a positive one.

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Approximately eight hours ago, the new version of WordPress was released. The upgrade has just been finished on this site and we are now running on WordPress Version 2.5

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So many times we hear the term - caveat emptor (buyer beware) - but the selection of a good Web host is one of those times we need to be extra wary.

When the Clan Lamont / Scottish Forums were first opened, the decision was made to go with one of those ‘too good to be true’ hosts. And the lesson was quickly learned - if it sounds too good to be true, there is a reason.

After about 12 months of really poor service, the decision was made to move to a host that offered an attractive hosting plan, but the price was more in accord with what was being offered. After being with this second host for about a year, we felt they had earned a fairly high mark for their service. They had a few shortcomings, but overall, the service was acceptable.

At about this time, the second host offered me one of those ‘too good to be true’ packages. And I had managed to forget the lessons learned with the first host. How’s the old saying go? ‘Fool me once, shame on you…’ Well, the shame is all mine, because I rose to the baited offer the second host made. I was gut-hooked and they jerked me cross-eyed when they set the hook. I spent a bunch of money on what was presented as a V.I.P. package. It was my mistake for wrongfully thinking V.I.P. meant something it quite obviously did not. But hey, they did ‘give’ me a second hosting plan for free and they even registered a new domain for me at no charge. I purchased a second vBulletin license and the T-Bucket Forums were brought into existence.

Service went down the drain, within a couple short weeks. And server performance was even worse. It was at about this time I discovered this host had indeed registered my new domain. In their name! It only took a few terse exchanges to get the domain properly registered in my own name.

After 5 or 6 months of really shabby service, the hunt was on to locate a new Web host. And after some patient shopping, I managed to locate the host every webmaster and forum admin dreams of finding. I was nervous about putting all my eggs in one basket, so I purchased a small plan from Downtown Host and we moved the Clan Lamont / Scottish Forums to one of their servers. Server loads have always been low and in the few times when a trouble ticket was necessary, DTH’s customer service has been outstanding.

After suffering all the lousy service I can bear with the second host, the decision was made to move the T-Bucket Forums over to Downtown Host, as well. Except the second host had locked the domain registration. Once again, it took a few terse exchanges to get the authorization codes to initiate the transfer of this domain into my domain portfolio with GoDaddy. The domain transfer has finally taken place and I’m hoping we will be moving into a new hosting package within the next few hours. I’m purchasing a large enough package to allow the Clan Lamont / Scottish Forums, the Clann Alba Forums and the T-Bucket Forums to all reside in one place, each with their own control panel.

For the time being, I’m planning to leave a couple of blogs residing on the second host’s servers, with an eye toward moving them to greener pastures, at the first hint of problems.

For those of you looking to establish a Web site, we highly recommend Downtown Host as your best bet in hosting. If you prefer to find your own company, just remember the line - buyer beware. When a host is offering 5 terabytes of disk space and 25 terabytes of transfer for only $2.99, I hope you’ll not be tempted to sign on the dotted line. When you’re paying a little bit of nothing for your hosting, that is the same amount of service you will be able to anticipate when problems arise. Don’t be shy about asking around about hosts and their plans. The Web Hosting Talk forums are a good source of hosting reviews. Spend a few days educating yourself before pulling the trigger with any host. It might take you a few days more to get your Web site up and running, but you’ll be thankful for that after the first few months.

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After a few years of putzing around with the operation of AZTech Consulting as a sole proprietorship, I finally made the decision to form an LLC.

The company was originally established to do minor bits of Web development work, but we’re now concentrating our efforts more on performing vBulletin forum and WordPress blog installations, configurations and modifications.

I am now in the process of developing the AZTech Consulting Web site, so potential customers will be able to see the services we offer.

In addition to offering professional installations of both vBulletin and WordPress, we also configure the scripts for our customers, install add-ons and plugins, optimize these sites for better operation and also do work in the area of search engine optimization.

If you, or someone you know, is interested in setting up their own blog or forum, but lacks the necessary technical skills, please visit the AZTech Consulting site. We are currently offering a free WordPress installation for first-time bloggers.

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I’ve been using Windows Live Writer on a Windows box to prepare blog entries, for the last week or so. In that time, I’ve been looking for a desktop blog authoring system for my iMac, but much like everything else I’ve found for a Mac, they come with a price tag.

Windows has its faults, to be sure, but there sure is a lot of freeware available for Windows-based computers. Let me see, I can run a completely free installation of Live Writer on a Windows computer, or I can pay $17.95 to purchase ecto for my iMac.

ecto seems to be highly rated, but I’m going to step right up and say it looks like a skeleton, compared to Windows Live Writer. LW snags a blog’s theme, so you can see how an entry will appear, as you are preparing it. ecto provides a quite Spartan, e-mail type interface for entry. I think I’m going to be very happy this is a free trail of ecto, because I can see myself moving back to Live Writer in short order.

Actually, I can see this being my first and last Apple computer, as this iMac hasn’t really shown me much. Ubuntu Linux is just as simple to use and offers at least as many features. And there’s something about the price tags on Linux scripts and programs that really has me questioning the expense of the iMac. I’m not into graphics work, so I think the power of the iMac is going largely untapped on my desk.

It’s a pretty sad day when a Windows application outshines anything else, but facts are facts. My next entry will be prepared in Live Writer.

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Bah!  Jelsoft, the company that owns the vBulletin forum script has released a new beta version of their software.

And it seems a lot of vBulletin admins think this is the be-all and end-all of forum software.  Ah, well, I’ve never been good playing the sheeple role.

Frankly, I think Jelsoft have wasted their own time with this ‘upgrade’ and now they are going to be wasting every vBulletin license owner’s time as well.

We tried a blogging script, from an independent coder, on two of the forums.  The results were lackluster, to say the least.   What we discovered on our sites is that people wanting a blog will already have a blog set up, whether it is a freebie WordPress or Blogger blog, or another script running on their own Web sites.  People visit forums for community, whereas blogs are more individual in nature.

That didn’t stop vBulletin from releasing their own blogging add-on script, however.  That action buried the script we were using and left it virtually unsupported.  No matter, we weren’t getting any serious bloggers anyway.  However vBulletin has made a boat-load of file changes to better integrate their blog script into their forum software.  Which means those of us with modified forums are having to spend a boat-load of time to rebuild the modifications in these new files.

And now, to add insult to injury, this latest vBulletin version is lamely trying to build on social networking, by making each forum member’s profile customizable.  HELLOOOOO, is anyone listening?  People that are interested in social networking have had MySpace and FaceBook pags set up for months.  Social networking is social networking, blogging is blogging and a forum should be, well, it should be a forum.  For years, vBulletin forum owners have asked for an integrated Content Management System, to use as a landing page.  For years, vBulletin forum owners have asked for an integrated photo gallery, so forum members could easily display their images on the forum.  For years, vBulletin owners have pointed out that the vB search function is a grossly bloated function that unnecessarily consumes server resources.  And what response do we get?  "Here, buy a blog license, enjoy your pitiful social networking function and pound sand on the rest of your requests."

The vBulletin coders did try to build in a couple of features that could have been quite powerful for those of us trying to optimize our sites for the search engines.  Sadly, the way these new features have been coded make them about as useful as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

But hey, at least Jelsoft is doing its utmost to produce a lame facsimile of what Invision Power Board users have had for months.  And they proudly remind us all the social networking dead weight they are building into vBulletin can be disabled.  Pffffttttt, why did it need to be added in the first place?

vBulletin used to be the leader in forum software.  Today, they are not even doing a good job of following the leader.  Excuse me, I need to go edit some .php files.

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Well, after running PC’s for several years, I decided it was time to try something new and different.

I went out yesterday morning and purchased an iMac.

I try to keep at least two working computers around the house at all times and will generally use one for 24 months, before starting to seek a replacement.  My old Sony VAIO is nearly four years old, so it was time to line up a replacement for it.  The Sony is still plugging along just fine, so I am taking this opportunity to learn the OS X tricks in the interim.

It’s been a rather interesting learning experience, try to get used to a window’s close, minimze and maximize buttons being on the other side of the window and the window’s menu options being at the top of the screen, rather than at the top of the window.  But I’ll persevere and get it down, sooner or later.

My first impressions of the iMac are all good.  The glossy screen is a bit more reflective than I care for, but I’m already starting to adjust for that.  Leopard booted right up and the system immediately detected my wireless network, so everything went well there.  I was unsure about the notebook-like keyboard, but I’m already liking it better than standard keyboards.   The aluminum enclosure is different from any other computer I’ve ever owned, but it actually has a rather rich look that will fit in with most decorating styles.

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Well, there are some days when I cannot imagine how life could have gone on without a computer.  Or two.  Or three.  There was even a time when there were as many as five!

Since the very early 1980’s, I’ve owned everything from a VIC-20 with a 300 baud modem and a cassette tape drive to my current Sony VAIO and Dell XPS-410.  Everything from Commodore’s operating systems to Windows 3.1, 95, 98, ME (which is one I want to forget) and XP.  In the last couple of months, I’ve eliminated Windows from my systems and they are both happily running Ubuntu 7.10 a.k.a. Gutsy Gibbon, a very user-friendly Linux distro.

In 1984, I began experimenting with forum administration and opened my first forum site on a phpBB2 installation.  It only took about 6 months to see it was time to move on and I imported that site into vBulletin 3.0.5.  Through the years, I’ve added domains, sites and forums and currently own and operate three live vBulletin forums, with another vBulletin forum and a phpBB3 forum running on a test site.

So I have my days with computers.  Some are really great and then there are the ones that make me want to toss all the computers out onto the street.

So, stick around and you’ll be able to read about the ups and downs I experience.

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