Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Trying to Transfer Domains

This has started to become a complaint-fest on here. Hopefully this isn't the theme of my blog! I just gotta get this off my chest.

I'm trying to cancel my domains from 1and1.com internet. I am moving them over to godaddy.com. This was part of my move to change hosting which failed. On the 26th was when I signed up with GoDaddy and started the hosting. As part of the sign up I transferred all my domains over. After canceling the hosting I decided simply to keep the domain transfer going.

I noticed by the evening of the 26th I didn't have a notification from 1and1 that they had accepted the transfer, so I did some digging. I had to actually go to a page and cancel my contracts with them. So, I went through that process and they asked me for about 12 of my domains, to sign a paper and fax it in. Well, seeing as though I don't have a fax, I had to do that on Saturday the 27th.

On Monday I was way too busy to notice the transfers didn't happen but on Tuesday I called and they said they would "escalate it to the transfers department" which then I was disconnected. I thought perhaps that was intentional... that they would escalate it and I would have to wait.

So, this morning I received a bill in the mail from 1and1 for two of my domains. It was the registration renewal for the domains! I just paid them $18! Why was i doing that?! I called them up to ask about my transfer and got several people telling me nonsense. Finally after they simply told me it was in the hands of the department and would be handled, I went to the billing department to get my $18 dollars back.

Well, they went through the whole process with me again and told me that the domains would be released TOMORROW (New Years Day) even though I had completed all necessary steps. I'm told it takes 5 business days. Really? In this age of computers it takes 5 business days?!

Oh, and as for my refund. They're really sorry but I should have canceled my domain before the renewal so there will be no refund. AAAARRRRRGGGGG!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Work Woes

I'm supposed to be vacationing but instead I have been working!

Sunday @ 12:33am our primary Active Directory Server died. The hard drives simply got corrupted. It's a good thing we had a secondary AD server so we could continue to function.

On Sunday, my excellent 2nd in command spent all day working on the server trying to get it functioning while I was at The Works with my wife and a few of my kids. It was my wife's birthday on Sunday, she turned 35. I didn't have to field too many phone calls from work that day but I did get some status updates.

So, on Monday I worked even though I was taking a vacation day. I spent the day getting the new server online and also helping install three new networked copiers. That was interesting. They will be a great addition to the Museum.

I wasn't completely done with the server but I went home nonetheless and worked from home. Turns out, when I was changing the IP address of the server to what I wanted it to be (static IP) I accidentally assigned it the same IP as the other AD server! So... with both servers inaccessible from home, I had to drive into work at 9pm last night and fix it.

While I was there I simply stayed and finished up the things I wanted/needed to do with the system to get our network fully functioning again. I got home about midnight.

I'm hoping I don't have to work anymore this week.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Waiting at work

Wow, three posts in two days. I don't know if I can keep this pace up for very long.

We have a rotating schedule every two weeks with our offsite storage warehouse (who must remain nameless). It's been this way for over a year. They called twice to confirm that we would be here on the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas for the switching of the backup hard drives.

I spent most of my day here dealing with Godaddy. Then at 4:45pm I go upstairs to get the drives to plug them into the backup server and what do I see? The case I put up there was taken by the company but they never delivered with it the next set of drives.

So, I contacted them and the man said, "What do you want me to do about it?" I said, go get my case I need it today!  I described it as the black square case and gave the name.  I told him I wouldn't be there since I have to work Mater Dei Bingo but I would be in at 11pm to plug the drives in.  Well, I got here at 11:20pm to find out they brought the wrong case! We have only two cases, the guy brought in the BLUE case that they took away this afternoon!

So, now I'm sitting here at midnight waiting for a call back from the after-hours technician to determine if they even have the black case and when it can be delivered. My wife is at home with a sick child wondering when I'm going to be home and she has to work at 9am.

The man on the phone is eager to help me because he'll get paid triple overtime for doing the work. I, however, won't be paid for sitting here so I just want to go home.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Can't host with GoDaddy

I host with an excellent hosting company. I love them to death. However, I simply was looking for less expensive hosting. Now I know that price just isn't everything.  Well, I always knew that but it hit home today.

I talked to a great GoDaddy rep. She was really helpful. I asked questions about having multiple domains and then I signed up for hosting. I then found out the horrible truth about the things I didn't ask about. EMAIL.

I have several websites and on those websites I have a few that have list-serv's. These are like Google groups or Yahoo! Groups where people can subscribe or you can have a newsletter, whatever. Well, I have lists like that with my own domains.  I also have one or two that simply have an e-mail address that forwards to like 50 others.

So, I quickly found out they had no list-serv support. But then when I wanted to setup an forwarder it said I had to pay $2.95 for the option. Well, Okay, i'll do that. I paid the money and it says that if you want to forward to more than one address, add a comma between each one with a 129 character limit! What is up with that?! You can't forward to more than 6 addresses much less 50!  To add insult to injury, if you create a full-fledged e-mail account and set the option to CC an e-mail address when the e-mail comes in, that is a 256 character limit! You can forward to more people with a full address than one designed to forward!

Well, GoDaddy. You may be the cheapest out there. but you're not the best. I guess I have to continue paying what I am for great service.  But then again, why do people have personal websites anymore? I really should write a blog post on that topic.

First Post!

I used to go to this website "perversiontracker.com" It used to be a site that outlined terrible software written for the Mac. However, it's now blocked by my openDNS service as a porn site so who knows what it is now!

Anyway, each time they would post, people could post comments and there was always some guy in the top spot that said, "first post!" and that was it. His entire goal in life was to get the first post on this little website.  Now you can see it on woot.com and others.

So, anyway, this is MY first post. For all I know, it will be my last post.  I have thought many times that I should start a blog. I have had my website, fromtheduke.com, up for a very long time and I suppose you could say I was blogging on there before there was such a thing as a blog. But now I'm a father of 6 children and my time to update everyone on what is going on in our lives and post pictures is simply not as easy anymore. Especially when there's Facebook, Flickr, You Tube and the like. So why have a personal website? Perhaps that's a subject for another blog post.