web hosting nostalgia, pt.2
I left off last timeat the point I had just sold my first Internet domain to an ISP.
So there I was, with a windfall, but suddenly domain-name-less. Since I had been using the domain for my email (and provided accounts for others too) I had to quickly come up with an idea for a new domain name to register. It had only been a year since I registered it, but already it was much more difficult to find a short but appealing domain name. This time it took me a lot longer than a day.
This time I didn't use Network Solutions to register the name, since $35/year was a bit of a scam, even back then. I went with a Corenic registrar, a company called Web2010 to be exact.
It was also at this time that I switched we hosts again. I had been wanting to host other websites/domains but on a virtual hosting plan they of course restrict you to one. So I decided to get into the reseller scene. Most reseller accounts simply gave you discounts on the hosts existing plans so you could upcharge and resell them. I was more interested in Web2010's reseller configuration (they did both webhosting and domains) which gave you a block of disk space and bandwidth and allowed you to slice it up and resell it in any manner you chose. I signed up and within a few months picked up a couple clients to cover my costs. This was late 1999, and I would stay with this host for 1.5-2 years.
During this time, people were hosting more and more content on their websites, and using more and more bandwidth for it and their email too. The resource allocations at Web2010 did not keep up with the rest of the internet, so I decided to switch again. One day I heard that a friend of a friend had setup a webhosting company. I checked it out and decided to sign up. The new host used separate accounts for each site, but that made it easier to manage their resources anyway. I setup my reseller account and sub-accounts and moved all the sites from Web2010's servers to the new host, which I will refer to as "Cloudy Day". (I don't want to name names because as I said this company belongs to a friend of a friend).
The new host was all about this new concept of a website "control panel". I was turned off on it from the start. It did a lot of things, but none of them very well. There were a lot of bugs; some of which I documented a reported first hand. Anyway, I trudged along with things working "well enough" for the time being.
I stayed with "Cloudy Day" for several years, during which they pursed their own changes and upgrades which required a few server moves over the years. These were wrought with problems. Some of the problems were exacerbated by my domain registrar, Web2010. Eventually I tired of Web2010's incompetence and sought out a new registrar. I chose another CoreNIC registrar, for ease of transferring my existing domains. I settled on TLDNames, a registrar based in Paris. They had good prices, which were made even better by the favorable exchange rates at that time. TLDNames eventually became, or was purchased by, Namebay, of Monaco.
After switching registrars, I was completely satisfied with the management of my domain names (and those of my clients) but I was becoming increasingly disgusted with "Cloudy Day". The first big problem was a billing error after one of their server moves. Unfortunately I didn't notice this billing error until six months after the fact, but for those six months I had been over billed by almost 100%. When I talked to "Cloudy Day" they actually tried to refuse to refund the money. The error had occured on of their server moves, after which I ended up getting billed for accounts on the old server (which no longer existed) as well as the new server accounts. The owner of "Cloudy Day' had the nerve to suggest that the billing error was my fault because I did not "request cancellation" of the accounts on the old server -- Even though this whole move took place for the purpose of porting my sites for their old server to their new server. I was livid. I eventually convinced them to apply half of the money they owed me as a credit on my account with them. I really shouldn't have accepted anything short of a full and immediate refund, but I felt marginally culpable for not noticing the billing anomaly sooner. Grrrr.
The billing fuck-up was the final straw. I was already disgusted by the "control panel" interface on their new server. They started were using something called Cpanel. I was at first curious about this product so I researched it and I downloaded and evaluated it. I could go on and on, but I'll resist; and instead I'll just say that I think the product is shit; I think the creator is an asshole, and I have absolutely no interest in ever using or managing it again. There.
So anyway, by late 2002/early 2003 I was once again shopping for a new web host.
