Changing Hosts

Well this is going to be a big weekend here at JoshuaStarling.com. After having my website hosted with Yahoo! since February of 2004, I’m going to be moving it to a different hosting service.

Why? For starters, Yahoo! doesn’t allow their sites to use .htaccess. That has taken away some of the flexibility I would like to have…like curbing image hotlinking. Another is cost vs. features. Right now I’m paying just under $20 a month for 10 GB of disk space and 400 GB of monthly bandwidth. That includes PHP, CGI, and mySQL. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t seem like much for the cost. But I know that I’m going to have almost a 100% uptime because it’s with Yahoo!.

So where am I moving to? DreamHost.com. For starters, I get the following: I start out with 2048 GB of bandwidth a month and it grows by 16 GB a week. As for disk space, I get 145 GB and an additional 1 GB a week. Plus I get the ability to host as many domains and sub-domains as I want, they have one click installs for a ton of open source software, and I get to use .htaccess.

So I’m going to host this site and my other one (http://thestarlingfamily.com) for the low low cost of $7.95 a month.

Basically everything Yahoo! plus a crap ton more for over half the cost.

I can’t beat that with a stick.

If you are interested in getting a site hosted with DreamHost, you can use this promo code to get a free domain registration: JSFREEDOMAIN (that’s a $15 value). If you already have a domain and want to transfer it, I can create you a custom promo code to get bonus disk space, bandwidth, or a lower monthly cost if you like. Just let me know.

Anyways, since I’m moving to a different server, I have update the DNS settings associated with my domain name. So it may take a few days for the new settings to propagate over the interweb. In other words, it may seem like my site is down over the weekend when in reality, your ISP hasn’t received the new settings.

Since I have a four day weekend, I’m going to start the process tomorrow sometime…probably while I’m waiting for paint to dry. That way everything should be up and running ASAP. Oh, that also means there won’t be a post tomorrow. Yes, this is filed under, “Scheduled Maintenance” and doesn’t count against my current posting streak.

So wish me luck and say a little prayer for JoshuaStarling.com.

In case you missed the Miss South Carolina’s response to “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”, here’s a video with bonus tube map.

Bubble Struggle 2: Rebubbled.

New website seeks to provide greater access to maps that many US Americans do not have. Still no cure for mapless South Africa, the Iraq, and like such as.

The Top 20 Most Bizarre Experiments of All Time.

Square Ball.

Key West mayoral candidate suggests fixing homeless problem by dressing them up as pirates. Next: How to fix the pirate problem.