If only…
Tonight I’ve been trying to transfer my domain samslife.com from Doteasy to Bluehost. Doteasy certainly haven’t made it “easy” to do this, but quite the opposite (you’ve got to email them and get them to unlock the domain first before anything can happen). I seem to remember trying to do this last year but gave up as they were so difficult to deal with! Anyway, this evening I managed to make some progress with moving the domain onto Bluehost. However, the Bluehost domain manager decided to prevent me completing the transaction until they’d “verified my account”. This meant an international phone call to the US…
Now having recently dealt with some of the most dire, pathetic, dreadful and appalling companies in the UK - notably BT (yes thats BRITISH TELECOM) and also Vodafone, I was supremely impressed with the speed in which my call was answered by a REAL PERSON (after 30 secs). This was followed up by a highly productive conversation with a Bluehost operator that sorted my issues out immediately (and who obviously enjoyed doing her job, not like the useless idiots that work for Vodafone and BT’s service companies). Oh…if only the service in the UK could be anything like the US…
Did a little run at lunch today and the 5 degrees C felt lovely and warm, despite the rain and strong winds. Must be because its been so cold lately. Miles run = 5.1.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
How’s the service for Bluehost?
You had many problems etc?
I’ve been thinking for a while about making the jump to a hosting my own site. I’d like to know what your thoughts are.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Never had any problems with Bluehost, and any issues I’ve had have been resolved with a quick email or phone call. Have had several accounts with them for over approx 5 year period and they’ve definitely been better than many other providers I’ve tried. Overall I’d recommend them!
Once you’ve got your account there’s a huge range of features. You don’t need to be an expert to set things like WordPress up either, as the “Fantastico” installer can do everything for you (or alternatively you can do it manually with SSH access to your shared server). And, wow, how much disk space & bandwidth do you want?!!
The only disadvantage of choosing a U.S. host is that ftp can be considerably slower to upload big stuff like movies or large images. But finding a provider in the U.K. with a similar level of features is a rip off, and will cost you big £££s!
On the subject of hosting your own site, the key advantages (over using free hosting) are:
- no advertising
- you can manage your own domain and therefore add subdomains etc, or even buy more domains for other stuff (you only need one Bluehost account to host multiple domains)
- can do anything you like, e.g. host a blog, run an online business, corporate presence, content management system, personal file space, calendar/todo list…
- practically no limits on disk space
- no fear of the free hosting shutting down and losing all your efforts
Hope this helps - I’m happy to help you get everything set up too!
August 31st, 2008 at 8:04 am
Just thought I’d drop you a line to let you know that I’ve moved my blog:
http://garethsblog.com
It’s going ok so far, just going to install Gallery, and try and get it integrated into my blog.
(can you update the link please!)