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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 11/16/2005 |
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The changing world of websites
and hosting Every one
of you should have a website. I
don’t just mean business people listening, I mean people people. The
world has changed and the internet has become a permanent part of our life,
and having your own website is something I think everyone needs. A website
is a perfect place for people to always be able to contact you
, and a wonderful communication tool for you or your business. The cost
of it all has drastically decreased. When the web began in 1992, there was a
single company
- Network Solutions
- that had a monopoly on all domain name purchases and registrations. Years ago
I had bought my domain name of mtamicro.com from them, I think for $ 75 a
year, and the annual renewals were around $ 50. Then if
you have a domain name, you need to rent space somewhere so that your website
can be on the internet. This is
known as web hosting, and there are thousands of companies now that offer this
service. I had
purchased a simple web hosting plan from Earthlink years ago, $ 10 mo for 20
megabytes. I quickly outgrew this. I realized I needed much more space and did
some comparison shopping. Godaddy
offered on their simplest web hosting plan 5 Gigabytes of storage on a 2 year
plan for $ 3.16 a month, which included a one year free extension of my
domain name.. That’s 250 times the hosting
space I was getting with Earthlink at less than a third of the cost. A No
brainer. So I
changed my web hosting from Earthlink.net to Godaddy.com. When you
change web hosting, you need to be aware of the games internet businesses
play, to avoid downtime and other problems. The first
thing I did was make a complete backup of my website, which you need to do
also. Then I
bought the godaddy hosting package online, and my new website would have been
accessible in about 3 days according to theory. I called
Earthlink to cancel my web hosting, and talked to a customer support rep who got in a snit over my canceling on them. Within 5
minutes after our phone conversation my website was down. I then
called Godaddy to ask them how soon it would be before I could upload my
backed up website to my new hosting site with them. They said I could
configure and setup my website space with them immediately, but it depended
on Network Solutions, who had to “release my website registration”,
and that could be 5 to 7 days. I then
both emailed and called Network solutions asking them to expedite
my transaction, but found
that Network Solutions has reserved the right to delay transfer of domain names over to other
domain name registrars like Godaddy. They say
it’s to protect the consumer from having their domain names stolen or
transferred without their permission. Actually I think it’s all sour
grapes on Network Solutions part, as they’ve lost their monopoly, and
now their losing all their customers. It took 7
days from them to release my domain name to godaddy, and then finally- it
took me just about twenty minutes for me to upload my site on the godaddy
servers and get it back online on the internet again. Would I
ever do business with Earthlink or Network Solutions again – no ! And neither of them responded to my complaint emails
either. So as
always in the computer world, caveat emptor – buyer beware
! For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2005 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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