{"id":9317,"date":"2018-04-19T08:08:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T14:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9317"},"modified":"2018-04-24T22:03:18","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T04:03:18","slug":"a-small-rotten-orange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9317","title":{"rendered":"A Small (Rotten) Orange"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog disappeared for three days earlier this week, which seems like a long time on the Internet. The reason was a dispute with my hosting company, which was solved by ditching them and going with a new, much more helpful host<\/a>. Details below.<\/p>\n

I don’t even remember where I first parked the chasclifton.com domain, but it ended up with a small, Pagan-friendly service, Draknet, which also hosted The Wild Hunt<\/em>\u2014here is TWH founder Jason Pitzl-Waters’ interview with owner Jennifer Lepp.\u00a0<\/a>If it was good enough for Jason, it was good enough for me, and I became a happy customer.<\/p>\n

Jennifer seemed available for service problems at all hours of the day or night. Maybe that is why she finally sold out to Austin-based A Small Orange, which was OK too . . . until it was bought by Endurance International Group (EIG).<\/p>\n

Some of the largest and most successful web hosting companies in the industry, including HostGator, BlueHost, HostMonster, A Small Orange and HostNine have been bought out by Endurance International Group (EIG).<\/a><\/p>\n

Have a look at the comments on this review of A Small Orange as it is today:<\/p>\n

When I read through the Terms of Service for all of the services offered by A Small Orange the general message becomes clear. The proprietors of the company, Garret Noling and Mohsin Kamal, designed and operate A Small Orange so that it will exploit a popular social trend, mislead and confuse the prospective customer, promote a service fee as necessary when it is not, collect as much money as possible, and perform absolutely no customer support for domain registration customers.<\/a><\/p>\n

I could add mine too. Every stereotype of bad India-based tech support is there, starting with the robotic responses in slightly odd English that never exactly answer the question that you are asking.<\/p>\n

Another reviewer put it this way:<\/p>\n

Customer service does not exist. Its either bots or people just copying and pasting the exact same message over and over again. I’m not joking here, I received the exact same email each time after responding to their emails. Including one where I asked them why they keep responding with the exact same message. Not acceptable on any level<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year I tried to get an SSL certificate because Equinox Publishing wanted one, since they also run this blog on The Pomegranate’s <\/em>website.<\/a> A Small Orange took my payment but never could deliver the service, to the point where I had to cancel the credit card transaction.<\/p>\n

When a well-known politics-and-law blogger recommended Hosting Matters<\/a> last month, I started thinking about switching.<\/p>\n

Then ASO struck again: they announced that I had exceeded my bandwidth limit for April, 50 gigabytes! Hello, does this blog generate that kind of traffic? Are thousands of people downloading movie trailers? T<\/a>hey shut down this blog and another unrelated subdomain last weekend.<\/p>\n

What I suspect happened was simple extortion. Back when Jennifer Lepp owned Draknet, she tried raising money at one point by selling lifetime accounts. I paid $150 for a Lifetime Junior account\u2014plenty of service for my needs\u2014and then paid only the domain-registration annual fee thereafter. It was a good deal.<\/p>\n

When ASO bought her out, they honored those lifetime accounts, and EIG had honored them too, only they were bothered, I suspect, by the “lifetime” part. Solution: force users to pay for more bandwidth.\u00a0 Of course, I could not get a straight answer from them about traffic logs, etc., but you have to wonder what their plan was.<\/p>\n

So, as I rode Amtrak’s Lakeshore Limited eastbound across upstate New York, I was tapping away at my keyboard, and lo! someone was replying with coherent, relevant responses. There were a couple of glitches, but by Wednesday, this blog was back online.
\nFor a complete list of EIG’s companies, go here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog disappeared for three days earlier this week, which seems like a long time on the Internet. The reason was a dispute with my hosting company, which was solved by ditching them and going with a new, much more helpful host. Details below. I don’t even remember where I first parked the chasclifton.com domain, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-9317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blogging"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2qh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1022,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1022","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":0},"title":"Gallimaufry with Bells On","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 These women know how to dress for an outdoor festival.\u00b6 Jason links to articles and web sites for new, nontraditional Morris sides. I am not sure if I would call what they are doing \"reclaiming\" -- nor do I know if Jason chose that word for its this-side-of-the-pond connotations.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=45","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":1},"title":"Online Pagan News","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 24, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Two more sites, in addition to the almost-too-huge Witches' Voice:1. Pagan Institute Report's online features.2. Jason Pitzl-Waters' Mythworks, which unfortunately is not updated often enough.","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":916,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=916","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":2},"title":"The Dark is Rising . . . on Film","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In the heart of the English Fen County, Pluvialis is spitting . . . . . . chips and blood. I am crackling with furious static. Any minute now, small pieces of paper, coins and pens are going to drag themselves across the tabletop, bent and pulled towards me by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":551,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=551","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":3},"title":"Music for SamhainThe podcast, .mp3\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Music for SamhainThe podcast, .mp3 file, and playlist for Jason Pitzl-Waters' Samhain 2005 radio show are all available here.And if you have had enough masking, chocolate, and all that, the astronomical cross-quarter point of Samhain will come just after midnight, Mountain Time, on Sunday, November 6. More details at this\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=381","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":4},"title":"The loneliness of the long-distance\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 10, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The loneliness of the long-distance columnistJason Pitz-Waters looks at some of the press coverage that newWitch magazine is receiving and wonders why no one mentions his music column.Ain't it the truth. You shoot these columns off into the dark and wonder if anyone ever reads them.Some years back, I wrote\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1167,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1167","url_meta":{"origin":9317,"position":5},"title":"A Sikh at the Solstice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Jason, a funny account of a British Sikh at a Pagan solstice celebration:There, surrounded by the verdant, wild beauty of the heath I felt connected with Nature herself. I lay on my back and stared at the sky that was preparing a slow welcome for twilight. I became acutely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Litha\"","block_context":{"text":"Litha","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=litha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9317"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9347,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9317\/revisions\/9347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}