Photography is Not a Crime

By Carlos Miller
I’m back. Again. This time with even more hate for Lunar Pages.

You might remember back in early August I was having issues with my hosting company, Lunar Pages, when they informed me that this site was “using too much resources”.

Because I was getting an exceptionally high number of readers due to interest in my trial along with the Scott Conover exclusive, Lunar Pages ended up removing my blog – without warning – from the shared server it was on, which essentially meant that my blog disappeared from the web during a time of extremely high readership.

I ended up having to cut and paste the Conover story on my other website, Magic City Mania, which is my more literary blog and not designed for the more journalistic tone I take on this site. I’ve since put that story back on this site and would like to remove it from that blog, but it still gets tons of page views.

At the time, Lunar Pages refused to place the blog back on the shared server, telling me it would be detrimental to all the other blogs on the server and lead to a complete breakdown on the World Wide Web.

The only alternative, they told me, was to upgrade to a Virtual Private Server, which meant I had to pay $45 a month instead of eight dollars

I agreed to upgrade my account on a month to month basis with the intention of shopping around for another hosting company. I ended up back online a few days later.

At the time, I had specifically informed them that I wanted to keep my shared server account open because I did not want to move my two other sites to the VPS, only to have to move them again when I switched to a new company. Migrating websites to a different hosting company is more stressful than relocating across state borders, which I’ve done several times. At least for a techno-dunce like me.

Because I find this so nerve-racking and because I could not find a company that would charge me less than $45 a month, I stayed with Lunar Pages, telling myself I would eventually get around to doing it.

After all, every company I spoke with informed me that my blog gets way too much traffic for a shared server. One of them told me they figure this out by checking out my site’s stats on Whois, something I haven’t been able to figure out how to do.

I did find this hard to believe because although my blog’s readership has increased dramatically since my trial, I don’t get near the readership that some blogs do. Of course, I have no idea what platform they are using to host their sites.

On Thursday, my site went down again, along with my two other sites and my email accounts. When I called Lunar Pages, they acted as if they had no idea why this was happening. They first tried to blame Go Daddy, which is where I bought my domains, then they tried to blame me for not properly uploading the files to the new server, as if a mistake like this would suddenly pop up more than two months after the fact.

The truth is, they ended up placing my site back on the shared server after I had agreed to upgrade to the VPS. And last Thursday, they decided to shut down my shared server account without informing me because they figured I had all my sites on the VPS.

It turns out, I never had anything on the VPS. I was paying $45 a month for nothing. All my sites were on the shared server, including this site, which miraculously did not cause a breakdown in the World Wide Web.

They didn’t admit this until late Friday afternoon, after I had spent hours talking and griping to a multitude of tech workers who make up Lunar Pages’ “help desk”. And they told me it would be nearly impossible for them to retrieve my lost files.

They tried to justify their actions by blaming me for not uploading my files to the new server, which I specifically remember doing. They also blamed me because I insisted on keeping my shared server running, which apparently caused them much confusion.

“Most people only use one server,” one condescending punk told me.

When I asked him how come my site was back on the shared server, especially after the problems it supposedly had caused, he blamed me by telling me it was my responsibility to make sure it goes on the right server. He informed me that their job is to only provide server space and nothing else.

When I asked him to at least help me set up my email account again, he grudgingly walked me through a few steps on the Plesk control panel, but only after telling me, “I won’t spend all day with you”.

Friday night, I finally spoke to a guy who admitted they had screwed up by neglecting to do whatever it is they need to do to make my site go live. He also said they had canceled my shared server account – without contacting me – because they had assumed I had migrated all my sites to the VPS.

He was probably the tenth person I had spoken with since my site went down and was very professional and courteous, unlike the previous nine. He set up a new shared account for me free of charges and was able to retrieve my lost files and place them on C-panel, where I was able to download them to my computer.

On Saturday, I decided to switch to Go Daddy on a month to month basis to see how it goes. I am paying $14 a month for “unlimited space” on a shared server, so we’ll see how true that is.

I am far from a techno guru, so I’ve been spending the last two days trying to complete the migration. I’ve managed to get two sites up and running, but I still need to get my Magic City Media site up again. But I’m having some issue with the SQL database and the “delimiter”. And the solution to the problem lies somewhere here.

And although I’ve placed the proper settings on my email account so it will work through Go Daddy, I am hearing reports that some emails are getting bounced back. But others are making it through, so who knows.

I’ve also lost some comments on the last post before the blog went down, which I will try to retrieve though my emails. So no, I’m not trying to censor anybody.

And although my billing month with Lunar Pages ends on Nov. 7th, they’ve already charged $45 to my credit card. Today, I called to cancel my account and order them to return my money, as well as the money they charged for the previous months, but they told me I had to cancel via email.

When I asked why, they said they do this with VPS accounts because they want to get it on record that the customer wanted this, in case they delete his files without him backing them up. Obviously, they don’t practice this custom with shared server accounts.

So stay tuned to my email, which I will post here and plan to CC to Lunar Pages CEO Ron Riddle, if I can find his email address.

Popularity: 5% [?]