The missing ability to run a simple cronjob on my 1&1 hosting package actually contributed to the decision to eventually move all my domain names and sites to another server.
Kwaheri, 1&1…
I don’t know about 1&1 in the US, but here in Germany where they started many years ago (I had become their customer in 1999 when they were still called puretec.de), 1&1 = United Internet AG just suck. It’s their web hosting package that doesn’t provide enough flexibility (limited amount of MySQL dbs, no cronjobs, etc.) as well as how they treat their broadband customers. Back in 2004 when flatrates were introduced to the DSL market in Germany, the flatrate option was only made available to new customers, leaving those with an ongoing contract (min. 24 months) stuck to a volume- or 20h/month contract. And the worst, really worst, part on 1&1 is their so-called customer service. Whoever does their L1-support should be fired and kindly asked to stay away from computers.
Technically, though, 1&1 is great. During all those…9years?? with 1&1, I never experienced any server failures nor speed issues.
And it’s not that I or other customers never told them to improve. The management @ 1&1 (United Internet) obviously never studied The Cluetrain manifesto. Did I already mention how much I hate their customer service? Well….
Anyhow, the missing cronjob and limited number of available databases (5, which already was an improvement to the previous 3!), my good mood on a thursday morning and the perspective to be paying much less in future (I’ve spent like ~2.8000 € on hosting services since 1999 alone) eventually led me to switch to a cheaper and much more competent web hosting service. Not the cheapest – and maybe I could/should have switched to one in the US instead (who btw also often have some hidden extra costs), but one that just delivers. Fast. The way I like it.
As a consequence of that, I’ll be moving (done!) all of my domains and sites from the old server to the new one in the next few days. Let’s hope it all works out, especially the database backups. For those of you trying to get in touch with me via e-mail: try my gmail address or twitter account (@jke). Thx!
It also means that I’ll be implementing some changes, or rather – I’ve thought about changing a basic issue that has been bugging me for quite some time now:
change of name / blog title
My online presence under the nickname “Kikuyumoja” started off in early 1997, with my own home page residing under different URLs (AOL, geocities.com, Rhein-Main.Net, Manri.com) until I managed to register kikuyumoja.de in early 1999, quickly followed by uhuru.de and umoja.de.
While searching for an adequate blog title way back in June 2005, I chose to continue using “Kikuyumoja’s realm”. My blog was accessible either via https://kikuyumoja.com or even via http://kikuyumoja.de .
Now, imagine the situation where someone asks you what “Kikuyumoja” actually means. That is, to me it’s just a name, but to many others it’s either “Kikuyu1” or “Kik-Kuuu-ju-moh-jha”. Something that remains difficult to explain. And yet it’s just another (sort-of) brand name like WhiteAfrican, Afromusing, Mentalacrobatic, tHiNkEr’S rOoM to name just a few.
So please allow me to ask the following questions:
1. What do you – dear reader – think I should do? Change it from “Kikuyumoja’s realm” to just “Kikuyumoja”? “Kikuyumoja’s”? “JKE”? “Kikuyumoja Inc.”? “Kikuism”?
2. I didn’t use uhuru.de as the starting page of my blog, as I am currenty hosting different sites on my webspace of which some are accessible via uhuru.de/xyz.
So I was wondering: should I configure my blog to take uhuru.de as the ultimate starting page and force other sites on uhuru.de to use their own domain names? Much like it already is the case with WhiteAfrican.com? Solved!
3. How long does it take to load my blog in areas where there’s no broadband available? Should I maybe reduce the amount of posts shown on a single page? And what should I do with that blogroll? Do ppl still need it? Will I need it or may I just kick it out?
4. What about those Google Ads on my site – are they offensive in any way? I’ve noticed some advertisement for Asian dating services on my blog – which is kinda strange. I understand that GoogleAdSense isnt the only advertisement programme out there, but they at one time in the past at least helped me to *pay lunch* – so I thought about keeping their ads inside my blog.
Ah, so many open questions. Comments on these are highly appreciated!
Thank you.
[EDIT: DAMN….will still have to do something about that UTF-8 issue…argh!!! Fixed!]
[EDIT2: just registered kikuyumoja.COM after 9 years of kikuyumoja.de – and although I do not think Kikuyumoja is such a good name, it still is a brand).