Photography is Not a Crime

By Carlos Miller
Thankfully, I had just returned from my Anger Management class Saturday when I called Lunar Pages to inquire about why they had wiped out two weeks worth of my blog posts.

With the valuable insight gained from the court-ordered session, I was able to maintain my calm when the customer service representative informed me that he had no idea why I had suddenly lost eight blog posts.

I even gave him a cheerful thank you when he assured me that somebody from the tech department would look into it and give me a call within a few hours, if even that long.

I maintained this upbeat mood even after they didn’t call me, email me or revert my blog to its previous state by Saturday night.

I even refrained from throwing the phone across the room when I called Lunar Pages again and was greeted by a recording suggesting I leave a message because the support desk had already gone home for the weekend.

And I didn’t even punch a hole through my computer screen when the Lunar Pages website encouraged me to email their “24/7 support desk” to have somebody get back to me no earlier than Monday.

And even now, as I write this, accepting the fact that those goddamn motherfucking assholes Lunar Pages most likely lost my posts forever, I can still manage to sit here and sing, “I feel pretty” (we actually watched this movie in Anger Management class).

Pretty pissed off, that is.

After all, the only reason I joined Lunar Pages in the first place was because they were highly ranked by several Websites, including ranked first on this site.

At the time, I figured they would be better than Go Daddy, my previous web host company, which actually did have an active 24/7 support desk, if that is what you want to call a bunch of clueless teenagers who have to put you on hold when you call while they seek out the “the expert” to resolve your problem.

But it wasn’t until I found out their CEO and founder, Bob Parsons, is a raging republican who supports the Iraq War that I finally jumped ship. Not to mention those constant annoying emails he keeps sending you.

That’s the last time I choose a company based on the sexy chick in the TV Superbowl commercial. I should have learned my lesson from that damn Miller Lite commercial. As hot as that commercial was, it didn’t make up for the blandness of the beer.

Although, I admit, I did enjoy watching that commercial tonight as I drank a Heineken.

Come to think of it, the Anger Management class is not nearly as effective in quelling my anger as a couple of Heinekens, which is the reason I’ve been able to maintain a good sense of humor about this situation tonight even though those goddamn motherfucking assholes Lunar Pages wiped out two weeks worth of posts and an untold amount of comments.

By now, I can hear all my readers screaming at me that I should regularly back up my database. Well, I had it set up where it would email me my updated database every single night.

But two weeks ago, I suddenly stopped receiving these emails, not that I noticed at the time because these are emails I don’t notice until I have a crisis, as I am now.

Now I realize that I stopped receiving these emails when Lunar Pages moved my blog from one server to another after realizing my blog was using “excessive resources”, which was a result of my blog’s increasing popularity as well as the fact that I had not upgraded my Word Press codex in a while.

Of course they could not just come out and say it like that. No, they had to complicate the hell out if by sending me the following email:

Hi, Your account is utilizing excessive resources, causing a significant degradation of services on the server. This is a shared environment and we can not allow one user to utilize the majority of the resources on a server as it affects all users adversely. Because of this, you have been temporarily moved to the Atlantis server. A detail of the problem is shown below as: CPU: 4.76 % Memory: 1.16 % Mysql: 0.3 % magiccitymedia.com 4.76 1.16 0.3 Top Process %CPU 103 /usr/bin/php Top Process %CPU 66.0 /usr/bin/php Top Process %CPU 62.0 [php] As per above usages your account is more suitable for a VPS or dedicated server, not a shared situation. We moved you to Atlantis first to solve the issue of the degraded service on the server and second as a courtesy in order to prevent any downtime on your site to allow you time to rectify the situation. Currently, your site is not suitable for a shared hosting environment. Atlantis is not a production server and is not guaranteed to run in the same manner as your old server nor will it support all functions you may have. This is a transitional server only and is not intended to be a permanent placement. Please make a decision on how you would like to proceed .Your account will be suspended if no other arrangements are made. You may log into Atlantis using http://atlantis.lunarmania.com/cpanel or https://atlantis.lunarmania.com:2083/ You will not be able to log into Atlantis using the Lunarpages main login page as the server is non-production and not available via that page. You have the following options: 1. You may take steps to correct the problem. You will need to let the technician know the steps you took to correct the issue and get approval before being returned to a production server. 2.You may upgrade your package to our VPS hosting plan. For more information on the features and pricing, please see http://www.lunarpages.com/virtual-private-server/ 3.You may upgrade your package to our Dedicated hosting plan. For more information on the features and pricing, please see http://www.lpdedicated.com Since we do not have the exact scripts to provide (since the manner in which PHP scripts are provided on the server only shows the username and not the script name causing the high usage), you would need to review your account for scripts that may be the cause. Please check ones such as forums, blogs, content management systems, and galleries as these are especially likely to create high usage. Please note that the acceptable usage range for shuttle and voyager plans is 1.0% average %CPU or less, 1.0% average %Memory or less and Top Processes below 20%. Currently, your usage far exceeds this range at magic64 magiccitymedia.com 4.76 1.16 0.3 Top Process %CPU 103 /usr/bin/php Top Process %CPU 66.0 /usr/bin/php Top Process %CPU 62.0 [php] 4. You may look for a dedicated/VPS server or other hosting solution. Please remember that propagation takes up to seventy two (72) hours so if you decide on changing hosts you should allow enough time for propagation. We value you as a customer and want to work with you toward a solution that is mutually beneficial. Please let us know as quickly as possible how you would like to proceed. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding in this matter. — Best Regards, Ankur kumar JSA I System Administrator Lunarpages support@lunarpages.com Phone: 1-714-521-8150 (International)

First of all, what the fuck do these people have against using paragraphs?

Second of all, what the fuck are they even talking about?

Third of all, if any of you readers managed to get through that large block of complexities, please say so in the comments section. Likewise if you were unable to get through it.

I consider myself a smart guy with a few talents, but I have a difficult time absorbing and comprehending tech jargon. So I called Lunar Pages in the hopes that somebody could translate this obviously important message, but these people talk as they write, which is usually a compliment, but not in this case.

Finally, somebody explained to me that my blog was using almost 5 percent of the server when it is only supposed to be using less than 1 percent. They said that perhaps this problem could be remedied by upgrading my Word Press codex.

If that did not resolve the problem, then I would be required to switch to a private server at $39 a month, instead of the $9 a month I’m paying now for the shared server. There is no in-between plan. It’s either all or nothing with them. Either you stick to one percent or you buy the entire 100 percent. Fuckers.

Upgrading my Word Press codex is another thing I try to avoid because even though Word Press assures that you could do this “in 2 minutes by clicking through a series of on-screen tasks”, I am hard-pressed to believe that your average non-tech blogger could pull it off.

Last time I tried to upgrade, my blog disappeared and I thought I lost it forever and I had to stay up all-night exchanging messages in the support forum to get it back up again. I’m sure my screaming tantrums kept my neighbors up all night as well.

Of course this was before I was sentenced to Anger Management class, so as you can see, I was a little out of control that night.

I can hear Rick saying, “I told you so, Word Press sucks”, but aside from the constant upgrades, it really doesn’t suck. And there is no way in hell I would ever give up this template because it absolutely rocks (hats off to Chris Pearson).

And really, what’s up with Blogger locking down blogs after accusing them of being spam? And Blogspot with their new “flag blog” function?

If Word Press had that function, I can’t imagine how many of my critics would have had this blog flagged.

Anyway, back to Lunar Pages. They kept telling me to upgrade my Word Press codex, but it was impossible to upgrade because they placed my blog on a new server. I didn’t know this at the time and god forbid they would actually tell me.

I first tried to upgrade using Fantastico, which is supposed to do it for you automatically, but, of course, it didn’t work. Instead it told me I had to manually upgrade. So I went back to the Word Press forums, which are pretty helpful, and learned that I needed something called “fantversion.php” in the site root.

I eventually managed to upgrade through Fantastico. Or so I thought. When I checked my blog’s admin page, it still told me I was using Word Press 2.3.3 instead of 2.6, which is what Fantastico told me I was using. After several days, I learned that in order for the upgrade to take place, Lunar Pages needed to move my blog back to the original server.

So I was stuck in a Catch-22 with Lunar Pages telling me I needed to upgrade in order to address my problem of using too much resources, but then not moving my blog back to the original server, which is the only way I could upgrade.

Finally, after several frustrating phone calls and emails, I convinced them to move me back to the original server, which they did on Friday. But that caused my blog to suddenly revert to the July 17th database, wiping out eight important blog posts and resulting in this lengthy rant.

In fact, writing is probably the best Anger Management of all. Perhaps those cops who arrested me should start blogs. Maybe even the judge.

On a positive note, I’ve learned how to upgrade my Word Press codex without cursing at the screen or banging my keyboard in frustration and keeping my neighbors awake by my yells.

So as you can see, I am making progress in managing my anger. Judge Fernandez should be proud.

If only he weren’t so angry at me.

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