i·me·michael

About a year or so ago, I did some host shopping, and after a bit of research, I was pretty confident about my switch to a new host. I knew it was a small, two-man operation, and apart from a few glitches, and slow response to support requests, I was happy with the cost/features. I had even made a point of recommending them to anyone I knew requiring hosting [ed—Something we don’t do often. Good hosting is subjective/relative.]

So this past July was a surprise, when I started to run into problems. The first clue that there was a problem was my site went offline for a few days, though email was still working. After contacting the host, I found out that they were in the midst of a server move, something I hadn’t been notified about, and something I wasn’t completely prepared for as far as backups were concerned. I also found out that they were having a problem, and were working with their new server company, (recently aquired by Hostway), to find a quick solution. The site came back online not long after, so I made a couple of quick backups (not everything), and assumed all was well. Wrong assumption.

In August the site went offline again. This time email was down as well. One day turned into two, into three, and so I contacted them again. This time there was no response. A week passed. Nothing. I waited patiently. I emailed them. I opened a support ticket. Still nothing. I checked the host’s website. Their homepage was changed to a note that they had received hundereds of emails and couldn’t get back to everyone, but that it “should be sorted out in a matter of days”.

By the second week I was signed up with a new host, and getting ready to put things back together. Near the end of the month I’d gotten a message from one of the people I’d recommended the now funked up host to that there were some new people answering questions in the forum, so I poked my head in to see if I could get some answers about the status of my site/data.

First, it was, “We have no record of you on our servers”, then it was, “Sorry, but you should have backed up your data”, and although it was a bit frustrating, the most frustrating part was that this info wasn’t coming from the site owners/admins Aron Nimani, and Jorge Catena, but from Brandon Rivers and Martyn (last name witheld by request) of Southeast Creations, who had recently merged with the troubled HostCulture, and although they were now partnered with HostCulture, were acting as though they were just good samaritans, doing a thankless job by posting DNS settings, and fielding questions from customers wondering what the hell happened to their websites. Their lack of professionalism and experience in customer relations quickly showed, and I became increasingly irate with their detached attitude, and the pretense that they’re only involvment with HostCulture was in a support capacity.

I mean, here’s a company (Southeast Creations), who although they weren’t defending him, had decided it was a good idea to go into business with a kid (Aron) who shirked his responsibility to his customers, and then ditched them when things went bad. You think they’re helping out of the goodness of their heart? Please.

So instead of addressing the concerns of those that lost websites, they simply adopted an attitude of, “Your site’s gone. It’s your fault for not backing it up. What more do you want us to say?” Then when they had enough dealings with irate customers, they closed the thread, directed all support questions to the Southeast Creations forum, and then closed the HostCulture forum. Now they’re having fun playing at being a multi-national corporation complete with a board of directors, which you’ll notice Aron is on. All the pretty Dreamweaving and Photoshopping on the site aside, you’d think a company that professes to be a “global leader in Web Solutions” would know how to to prevent directory indexing on their site.

At the end of it all, I was left extremely upset, most especially over the fact that someone can set up a business, throw up some bogus TOS, forgoing any responsibility or liability, and leaving the consumer without any expectation of warranty for services rendered. What are you supposed to do when faced with entering into a non-negotiable service agreement with an online business? Grin and bear it?

For all intents and purposes, we’re back to normal around here. If something is missing, or not working correctly, please let me know. There are a couple of things that won’t be returning [Ed note—Because we got caught with our pants down. Hey, it happens.], but most everything else is back. I will go into details soon. Boy, will I go into details!

Covenant is Carey’s first CD, and is a collection of guitar driven music that any fan of great guitar playing should own. Carey has been wowing me for a long time now, and a CD was way past due, but now you can be wowed too. I urge you to buy a copy of his CD and check it out for yourself. If you’re unsure, just download and listen to the mp3s he has available. I’m sure you’ll want to hear more.

It’s amazing what you can do in 24 hours.

We started off some time after 2pm on Saturday, heading east towards Boston. The reason? Beck performing at the FleetBoston Pavillion. Tickets had been purchased weeks before by my boss, who had asked myself and two coworkers if we were interested in going. We were all fans of the funky, folky sounds of Beck, and since none of us had previously seen him perform, this was going to be a great opportunity. I personally had never been to Boston other than for a short business trip or just passing through, so it was also an opportunity for me to check out a bit more of this revolutionary town.

Roughly three and a half hours later we were checking in at the Royal Sonesta Hotel and planning where we’d have dinner before heading to the show. One of our gang of four had lived and worked in Boston for a time, so he assumed the role of tour guide while we were there, and Hanover St. was where we were lead for dinner.

Construction seemed to be everywhere as our rickety cab bounced in and out of potholes, making its way to what had to be the most concentrated collection of Italian restaurants I have ever seen. Exiting our cab, we wandered Hanover St. with the throngs of other would-be patrons looking to make a connection with the right restaurant, and enjoying a brief break from the rain. We settled on one (the name of which escapes me), and enjoyed some good food and fine wine before heading over to the Pavillion.

The Black Keys were the opening act as the sky began to darken, the air became colder, and the rain fell once again. As an open air amphitheater, I’m sure the Pavillion is a gorgeous place to see a show when the air is warm and inviting, but a cold rainy day on the waterfront removes much of the charm. Still, we were prepared, and didn’t let the weather dampen the evening. The Black Keys ended their set without much fanfare, and we waited for what was sure to be an electric show by Beck.

Beck did not disappoint. He was heavy, funky, and infused the crowd with enough energy to keep them moving and grooving through his entire set. The crowd went especially wild for Beck’s brand of quirky dance step, and he knew it, and used it to full advantage. At the end of the night the crowd’s enthusiasm brought him back for two encores. The crowd then headed out into the rain-soaked streets, and we went looking to flag down the first empty cab we could find.

We extended the party by dropping by a few bars, ending up at Charlie’s Kitchen. By this point we were pretty drunk and silly, and the running gag was a concert shirt that my boss had been trying to snag from one of my coworkers. We sloppily made our way back to the Royal Sonesta, and before we got on the elevator, my boss motioned to me that we were going to make a move on my co-worker once inside the elevator. The four of us got in, each taking a wall, all facing each other, and the moment the doors closed we fell into a heap of wrestling bodies on the floor, finally spilling out onto the third floor. A bit more wrestling in one of the rooms (it was about 3am) and we finally broke it up for some sleep so we could leave fairly early in the day.

A few hours sleep and we were having breakfast in Johnny D’s, where we were greeted with great coffee and food. Without much leisure time, we were on our way home by 10:30-11, finally ending our trip at almost the exact hour it had begun the previous day. Sleep was utmost on our minds and much of what was left of my Sunday was spent in quiet repose.

It was a great trip, and one that has me wanting to visit Boston more often. It’s amazing what you can do in 24 hours. Maybe next time I’ll find the time to take some pictures.

Check out the eatpoo.com gallery. It’s not what you’re thinking. [via Newstoday]

If you haven’t seen it before, theWebMachine has some nice Adobe-centric graphic and web tutorials. Simple; easy to use; hate the frames. [ed—As our dear friend Amani might say, “Frames, frames, frames. Puke.”]

Jeffrey and Carrie announce their wedding plans. Congratulations!! Can I come?!

He must be extremely excited. He re-posted the entry about the TOC being up on his mini-site. heh

every program has its bugs…

Excellently done, with a great navigational system.

I’m warning you now—DO NOT click this link.

Two different tacks on navigational menus styled with CSS—

• CSS Tabs [via Kalsey]
• Hierarchical dynamic menu with CSS [via web-graphics]

While I don’t understand the sudden fascination everyone is having with tabbed, and pseudo-tabbed interfaces, Kalsey’s page has links to all the recent CSS tab experiments.

The Hierarchical Menu example does not work in IE for what should be obvious reasons. [ed note.—IE is fast becoming the buggy successor to NN4 in it’s lack of support for current W3C recommendations. You (they) snooze, you (we) lose.]

• Kalsey updates his Technorati plugin
• Hixie calls for comments on the first draft of the CSS3 Generated and Replaced Content Module
• Blogging Headline News [via Brainstorms & Raves]
• untitled 5 [via surfstation]
• Bored? Got mad skillz that are going to waste? Photoshop Marathon [via k10k]
• Sony announces PlayStation Portable
• Collection of Chinese advertising from the 20s and 30s
• I’m sure you all heard the latest about hacking iTunes