The Lights are on…But for How Long?

SITE STILL ON SHARED HOSTING ACCOUNT SHUT DOWN TWICE IN ONE WEEK…FOR MORE THAN FIVE DAYS

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jan. 31, 2012) — 4:32 p.m. ET – It’s been a long five, almost six days.

As Arlen Williams generously posted here and here during The Post & Email’s inadvertent downtime, on January 20, our host, GoDaddy LLC, claimed that our site created a problem for other websites by utilizing too much space and shut it down after we hired someone to troubleshoot it.  We were not advised of the problem until the following morning.  On Thursday, January 26, just after publishing our account of the hearings in Atlanta on Obama’s eligibility, the site was shut down again without warning, purportedly for generating a “query” which caused a “runaway code” resulting in the same risk to other sites.  GoDaddy had informed us that its policy is that the site owner is not given advance warning of an impending shutdown.

We are not convinced that the overloads were not caused by hackers or other ill-wishers to the dissemination of the truth.

When we purchased the hosting plan in late September 2010, we were given unlimited bandwidth and assured that the server was adequate to our needs.  We know our readership has grown exponentially since that time and certainly wished no harm to come to other sites on the server.

Our second website developer called today to inform us that he was able to bring up the site, but it is still on the shared server rather than the dedicated server which we purchased in good faith to avoid over-capacity problems in the future.  For the last five days, we have paid for two hosting packages and been unable to utilize either one.

The website professional still had unanswered questions which were expressed to an executive assistant earlier today in a conference call, and within the last five minutes, it appears that GoDaddy responded to them as requested.  However, the message concluded with the following:

I noticed that your website is producing an error at this time.  Please let us know if you need further assistance from us regarding this migration or getting your setup completed..  We are happy to assist you.

Please contact us if you have any further issues.

Regards,

Who knows what that means?  Are they referring to the old hosting account, where The Post & Email currently resides and is an apparent risk to other websites, or the new hosting account, where The Post & Email was supposed to go and for which we paid almost $800?

The website developer has told us that we are “OK for now,” but that the site will go down again after a technical change takes effect.

The Post & Email wishes to formally thank Arlen Williams of Gulag Bound for his gracious posting of our work during our absence from the web. Last evening, Sharon Meroni of Patriots Heart Network also posted our update, and ObamaBallotChallenge wrote an article in response to our latest update which was published this morning.  If we have neglected to thank anyone else who posted our work, it is because we are unaware of it.

We would also like to thank everyone who has donated to our emergency fundraiser to cover the unexpected expenses of the “move.”  We have learned that maintaining a prominent place on the web is not an inexpensive business and have raised just over $700 of our $1,500 goal.

My office is in a state of chaos from the last five days, so it’s back to work on the breaking news of the day…for as long as it lasts this time around.