Dear HickTowners and Consistent Lurkers,

I would like to offer an apology for the fact that you have not been able to access this blog since Thursday, November 29th, 2007. Today is Friday, December 7th. That means that for NINE days, you have not been able to get on and read this blog.

In addition to an apology, I owe you an explanation.

a. I had been using a private company to host my blog and the company is located over in India.

b. I love to support up-and-coming companies and paid my hosting fee a year in advance to have my blog stay online. My thought was that I would have uninterrupted service. After all, I paid a year in advance, right?

c. HickTownPress is now almost 6 months old (time is flying). Unfortunately, in the short time in which the private company has been hosting this blog, HickTown has averaged being offline at least once every two weeks. That is not acceptable and in fact, amounts to inferior, shoddy service.

d. This is the first time the blog has been offline for over 24 hours.

Regarding the most recent “saga”, here is what happened:

a. I received an email from the company owner hosting my blog on 11/29/07 telling me that he was moving my blog to a different server. Because he has switched my blog to different servers for various reasons at least 3 – 4 times in the five months I’ve been online, I did not think anything of it. Actually, I blame myself for this because I should have probed why he was constantly moving my blog from server to server. That does not happen with the larger, established hosting companies.

b. In the email, he said that because of the switch, my blog would be down for 24 hours. That bothered me, but again, I hunched my shoulders and decided to grin and bear the down time.

c. 24 hours came and went…

d. 72 hours came and passed… 90 hours came and passed…..Ut-oh! Problem!

e. I sent out numerous SOS emails. I cannot call him because he is in India and I’m not picking up that expense. Plus when it’s night here, it’s day there.

f. I was becoming increasingly agitated because I paid my hosting fee a year in advance, so why was I receiving this unacceptable service?

Long story short:

a. When he responded to my email a few days later, it was to tell me that through no fault of his own, a series of events occurred through a third party company he deals with that caused me to stay offline. Apparently that company got their records screwed up and thought he had not paid the hosting bills but he says he did. Well, guess who got caught in the middle? HickTownPress was caught in the middle, YET, we paid a year in advance. Life isn’t always fair, that’s for sure.

GOOD NEWS!!!!!!

You no longer have to worry about typing in my blog address, only to be told that HickTown does not exist. How could a town you “reside” in not exist? No longer do you have to worry about reading articles 10 days in a row and enjoying those articles, only to sign in on the 11th day and receive a signal saying that the blog does not exist.

In short, this is a professional blog that was averaging 450 hits (visits) per day at the time that it went down. It’s been down so long now that I will have to re-build my readership (most people won’t wait for you, they’ll find another blog)and I will need to check to ensure I still have my strong Google rating.

Lesson Learned

Fellow bloggers, ALWAYS use a large, well established hosting company (if you have a private blog such as I do). And if you have a hosting company constantly moving you to different servers, get out of there quickly. I’m too loyal for my own good. I stayed with the guy in India long past the time I should have. And the payment I received for staying with him and being loyal was to discover that his own blog never had interruped service as my blog was kicked off line—in spite of me paying a year in advance. Frustrating, but time to move forward!

Lynn