One Year Later
Checking back one year later. See what it was like then and is the service still good? Don’t want to jinks it, no-jinks.
New Year. Want a new website?
Here’s the deal: astrofish.net/hcc for details.
I have an admittedly love/hate relationship with GoDaddy. Nice that the actual cost of domain, roughly 99 cents, was made clear. Horrible habit of “up-sell,” to include “clear-coat protection,” and special, “underbody spray-on coating,” to help save the underside of the motor.
The “clear coat” is a joke from too much time in the American high desert, places like El Paso, and further north and west, to include New Mexico and Arizona.
What I was told, the new car dealers applied a thin, plastic coating to car finishes to preserve the luster. Then, the salesmen would try to add that as an option, and that option translates to pure profit, usually rolled into a commission, back in the bad, old days.
For one, it was already “installed,” and for two, the extra monies were divvied up between dealer and sales commission. The extra plastic coating did make sense, it was just already installed.
The unscrupulous days before the inter-webs saved us from shady deals.
So that’s my complaint about GoDaddy, the up-sell. As a business person, I understand the need to generate income, and as a customer, I really don’t like the method.
One the one hand, the marketing, the GoDaddy objectifying of women? That worked for me. I liked it. On the other hand, the treatment of women as mere sex objects horrified me. Thirdly, Race Car driver Danica Patrick? How cool is that. However, that’s an expensive ticket to punch, and must’ve commanded some big bucks.
There’s a reason why I choose the software and services that I prefer. Ease of use and reliability. Customer satisfaction: no need for customer service.
New Year. Want a new website?
Here’s the deal: astrofish.net/hcc for details.
So far, in the last year, I’ve had two-three “issues” with the new host, Media Temple. Resolved in a timely fashion, seems to me.
The deal is, it’s not a “cheap” package, like $20 per month.
I like it. I’d endorse it, but I know precious few who require this type of horsepower.
I don’t just like it — and use it — I friggin’ love it. This has been the most stable, most enjoyable, easiest to configure and use hosting environment I’ve encountered.
It’s got two problems: price and ownership. I heard, unverified, that GoDaddy bought (mt). Bummer. The other problematic issue is price. I can find, I do recommend two alternatives for inexpensive shared hosting arrangements, like $2.95 per month (3 year contract, see fineprint for details, but that makes (mt) almost ten times more.
As a starter? That shared hosting works great. As a site builds legs and starts to get serious traffic, the shared hosting can bog down, the term “unlimited” has some constraints. Which is why I freakin’ loved (mt) for the last year. It worked. It’s room to grow. I haven’t come close to bumping any limits on their machines.
For reliable, high-volume, I still love (mt), just a little curious now that they are owned by GoDaddy.
In the past months, I’ve worked with two clients with GoDaddy accounts, and there is no offer from me on setting up accounts there. I found the interface too layered and needlessly complicated, and the data I required, too hard to access. With an annoying, “Can I help you and sell you more stuff” pop-up.
Back-to-back with (mt)? When I was in the throws of setting up the new domains, I found some tools — easily accessible — that helped me figure out which pieces of software were broken, what was pointing where, and what needlessly burned up staggering amounts of a bandwidth.
Setting up a single site to test the waters? I stick with the Hostgator solution, preferably with domain name done through Register4Less.
The rest?
So, other than being bought by GoDaddy, so far, I’m rather pleased with this hosting setup. Requisite horsepower and through-put. Perfect for me.