It worked! This site is showing and working properly. YAY!

Phase One of the migration is almost complete. “Only” about 15 sites left to go. Well, that’s what tonight is for. For now I just have to check that everything I moved still comes up, and make some minor fixes.

At least these things don’t happen often. And now that I’ve got a different setup, I can handle the next migration the way I’ve always wanted to: By hiring it done!!!

This is the PITAful kind of migration. Different IPs, different server, different software. Basically that means doing it manually instead of typing one magic command into the shell and having some script kick in and do the rest. I loathe this aspect of web business. If there wasn’t a deadline (either move out before the next billing period, or fork up another $325!) I’d probably never finish.

I very, very rarely drink. But there’s a bottle of Godiva Liquer on the counter, just waiting for me to finish this job, and come over there with some vodka, ice cubes, and a rather large glass.

One good thing is that it’ll give me a few posts’ worth of things to talk about. There’ve been a few unexpected occurances worthy of mention, but I’ve been too busy getting everything moved to post about ‘em.

Edit: WOW this box is blazing FAST!!! This site has always lagged like crazy after I hit post. I usually have to wait about 3 minutes for it to go through, but this post went up IMMEDIATELY!

Either that, or the pinger is now busted… :uhoh:
*Hides from Murphy and his Law*

Half my sites have been moved, and now just need to have the DNS changed.

This one is one of those in that batch. So, it will have a bit of downtime shortly while the rest of the ‘net catches up to the fact that it’s gotten a new host.

The address will stay the same and should start working again by a reasonable hour. Early morning…is not a reasonable hour. Although hopefully the DNS will propagate even sooner!

Royalty-free music!

Who doesn’t want it? Nobody that I know of.
And, some people actually need it. They need to be able to use music, for instance on their sites, without having to worry about how many times it’s played, or how many hits it got…and without having to worry that one day they’ll find a big bill or a suit from the RIAA looking back at them.

If you’re looking for something to sell online, Royalty Free Music is perfect if you can target those who need it: those who don’t want to pay every time they use a tune, but still want legal music.

How can you both enjoy royalty-free music and sell it, too? Easy! A site called 100Everyday.com is selling packages of music–with resale rights–for only $9.95! That’s less than the cost of just a CD in most places. And, you get to resell it, too. In all, you get 30 tracks.

If you wonder what it sounds like, no worries. There’s a free demo on the site with clips. On the demo, you’ll hear upbeat electronic tracks. It’s not the latest top-10, but it’s good background music for some sites, as an intro to a sales presentation, or even as something to play behind a YouTube video.

So if you need some royalty-free music, something to sell, or both, check out this offer today!

The migration saga continues:

I’ve gotten one of my stores ported over to the new server.

Now, one of the things ZenCart loves to claim is that it’s oh-so-easy to set one of these things up. HA HA HA…

Obviously I don’t agree! Adding to the regular amount of frustration, I couldn’t just copy/paste the files from one account to the other. Oh, noooo, that’d be too easy! No. The new server has a newer PHP version. The old one, the old PHP. Result? Only the new version of Zen will run on the new server. Only the older versions will run on the old server.

So, it’s time for a complete reinstall. ZenCart’s instructions talk about a mythical 3-step upgrade that’s supposed to be “easy.” Well any fool can tell just by reading the instructions, that THAT’S fertilizer! One instruction set talks about using file-comparison software to determine what’s different between the user’s customizations and the new version. And they barely mention the big elephant in that room: All the code changes will show up as different, too! And if you change them to match…you’ll break the thing. Also, there’re enough changes to make your old templates not work.

All told, the bottom line is, you’re stuck redoing all the customization, even if you do manage to decipher their vaunted override system (which would be a waste of time, given the above paragraph).

Also, they say to port in your database first, and then run the installer to just upgrade it. Seems fine…WRONGGG!!

What’s wrong? The installer will immediately go to the “completed” screen after upgrading the db if you do that. WITHOUT putting in your URL parameters. So…welcome to links that go to www.localhost/store.

Here’s what I ended up doing:
Installed a fresh install of the ZenCart.
Then, dumped the database it put in.
Uploaded old database.
Navigated to the install files, and THEN upgraded the old database to the new format (at least this part really is just click-click)
Customized the cart.
Replaced their hideous new free-clipart-looking buttons with the old ones

You may wonder why I put up with figuring out that kind of crud. Easy. ZenCart is free!! And it, once finally configured and customized, does as much as (and sometimes more than) fairly expensive paid cart software! So, I deal.

But I do wish they’d quit claiming it’s “easy.” It’s only easy for uber techies and PHP mavens. They have a LONG LONG way to go to even come close to a true automatic updater like you would find on a piece of commercial software.

Have you ever been so frustrated that you said you were ready to heave your computer out the window?

Well, this guy wasn’t just frustrated enough to say it…

Police in the northern city of Hanover said they would not press charges after responding to calls made by residents in an apartment block who were woken by a loud crash in the early hours of Saturday.

Officers found the street and pavement covered in electronic parts…

Yep, that “loud crash” heralded the end of a 51-year old German’s frustrating computer. The parts were all that was left of it after it got “0wn3d”…by gravity.

No ticket was given, but he was made to clean up the debris.

I have to wonder…will his next move be to go and buy another computer?

Paying for a brand name has always been something I’ve tried to avoid. I’ve got the no-brand trash bags, the lookalike iPod Nano, and the generic Excedrin. Whenever I can get something just as good as the brand name, without paying the premium, I do it.

So when I became aware that I was paying about 3x more for my server than I needed to be, you can bet that my loyalty to the old place went into freefall. Sure–they’re known as the best managed hosting company on the net. But they’re also one of the most expensive!

Well, the other day it finally came to a head. See…migrating sites is no fun thing. To say the LEAST. And this had kept me from my normal reaction (JUMP SHIP!) for a long time. But, all my old software was getting pretty obsolete–so, I’d have to move to a new server anyway. I figured that this new server would be in the same datacenter, after all, they’d always been quick about answering my tickets and I figured the service was worth something…

And then they gave me a quote!! Holy Toledo!!! It was way expensive. And then, the saleswoman irked me by calling (I don’t take sales calls! So I let the voice mail eat it!) and when I updated the ticket with instructions to write me instead…she didn’t.

Well that did it. In one window, I was looking at a supposedly-serious quote for $150 more than I’d been paying…delivered by someone who was so interested in pulling some fast talk BS on the phone that she wouldn’t write. After I frothed for a while, I opened another window. This one, to the unmanaged server company that I’d seen recommended on forums. And then another one, to an outside server management firm–in case I really needed server management after all.

For less than the original bill, I could have everything that I wanted and then some. Even things that Company #1 had always refused to deal with.

I was going to have to do a migration anyway, so I figured that this was a great time to migrate away from the Big Brand at the same time. And by the next day, my credit card number had been entered.

I closed the ticket with the offer in it as “Unsatisfactory” and said that we had nothing else to talk about.

The next Monday (what happened to 24/7?! Sales was there on Saturday, after all!), I get a kind of boilerplate “we don’t want anyone to be unhappy…I can see your frustration with this ticket…blahblahblah” response along with a note that my contract was up at the end of the month and maybe she could offer me some re-signing deals then.

I told her that there was a “yawning gap” between anything they’d ever offered and the new place and that in any case, the money was already spent and, basically, buh-bye.

Sometimes I wish I would get motivated on stuff like this faster. I have never looked forward to a migration–until now!! I am soooo glad to be outta there and not feel like I’m getting taken to the wringer just because they are well-known. Also they did several irksome things. I had the feeling that this calling BS was from some higher directive. 6 months ago, I was harrassed, absolutely harrassed, by phone about some silly survey. Again they had ignored my complaints and instructions to write!! Only that time, it had gone on for WEEKS! Also some head sales guy made sure most of my complaints stayed outside of their normal ticket system. WHO’S ass was he kissing anyway?! It was clear that he had a brown nose from someone’s. What mattered to me was that the calls kept coming!! I had to delete messages for weeks–all of them left at godawful times of the morning when I wasn’t even up.

It’s not that one instance, or even two, are enough to move servers for. But these are only the last couple of aggravating things they’ve done. To list them all would take several posts. Each one isn’t much, but irritations like this add up on a company. Eventually, the service they provide clearly isn’t worth what they charge for it. And, my aggro-holding tank has passed the “full” mark.

What was once high satisfaction, is now a desire to get all my sites moved, ASAP. The only reason I’m not doing that tonight is because some additional hardware I ordered isn’t configured yet, so I have to wait for that. This hardware, at the other place, would have cost me more than the server itself! But at the new place, it not only fits into the budget, but even WITH it, the bill is lower than the old one!!

So what’s the upshot? Who’s this Company #1 that charges like it’s Rolls-Royce, but now has salespeople that act like they work for a used car lot? I’ll be glad to name ‘em. AFTER I get my sites safely outta there, so when they Google themselves and find this site, they can’t have any mysterious disk-wiping “glitches” “coincidentally” happen…

As for the actual IP/DNS change, it should be seamless, but you never know. If you see some 404s trying to pull up the Chronicle in the next few days, you know that there was a seam after all.

Credit is something almost everyone uses. Only kids and die-hard cash-only people seem to be able to resist ALL the chances to buy something now, but pay later.

Personally, the biggest benefit credit is to me is convenience. Credit cards let me buy online, pay bills online, and basically make things easy. The hitch with those is, if you don’t pay the bills right away, they get to sock you with their mega interest! While credit card companies are hoping for just that, the best use of cards is to pay them off right away every month, so you get the convenience without paying any interest.

When you need a loan that you can’t pay off quick, it’s probably better to get real personal loans, which generally have less interest attached to them.

Credit Loan.com has lots of info and options for getting loans. They also have a strong emphasis on bad credit loans. So if your credit is less than stellar, check them out.

Also, this is one of the only loan-oriented sites I’ve seen that gives a proper look at bankruptcy! Rather than trying to shoehorn everyone into some kind of reconsolidation, they realistically look at the laws, and the pros and cons. It’s very informative about the (relatively) new requirements for declaring bankruptcy.

Every couple of years, the water pump here needs servicing. (Yep my area still uses well water ). And, this service is one of the things I do myself.

The part in question is a cheaply-made mechanical gizmo that attaches to the side of the tank. It’s called an “air volume control” and it’s what determines the air/water ratio inside the tank. Rather than get into why that’s important here, I’ll just say that if you want to know the mechanical details of air/water volume in a pump system, check out HowStuffWorks.com. They’re sure to have a synopsis. Last time I looked there, they even mentioned a kind of pump tank that NEVER needs new air volume controls, or loses its prime. But alas, t’aint what we’ve got.

Anyway, this control thing lasts anywhere from 1-5 years, after which point it needs to be replaced. They’re really made cheap/junky. It disappoints me every time I see it, because the one for the old pump tank (which finally corroded to death) was made with real craftsmanship and they lasted for about 10 years each! But this tank only accepts the cheapie thing. What goes wrong with ‘em varies: Sometimes the iron in the water clogs ‘em, sometimes they get a pinhole leak in their housing, and sometimes a different part of the gizmo starts to leak. But they die fairly regularly.

I’d been noticing the pump fast-cycling again, meaning that it was That Time. For each toilet flush, it pumped 3 times. It’s supposed to only need to pump once for every 1 1/2 flushes. What makes it do that? The air/water ratio being wrong. Too much water and not enough air, usually.

Every time I change this thing, it’s a gamble. The pump may lose its prime due to too much depressurization, which makes a simple job into an exercise in pure masochism. To restore the prime, it takes pouring water into the top of the pump and then cramming a nut down as it pressurizes! This inevitably results in a VERY cold shower squirting by the closing nut! The water’s straight outta the ground, so it’s shiveringly cold, like a Northern lake in April! Needless to say, losing the prime is something I try to avoid!

Yet, to avoid getting a shower that’s darn near as cold (from water squirting out of the connection to the part), the pump tank has to be pretty much depressurized before l take the dead part off the side. This takes *about* one flush of the toilet. But if it’s gotten too bad, that one flush will kill the prime. Change the part before it’s dead enough, though, and one flush isn’t enough to avoid the alternate cold shower.

Even when everything goes right, the floor ends up sloshing wet, but it’s bare concrete flooring down in that room, so no biggie. It’ll evaporate by tomorrow. Water gushing out upon disconnection of the old part is fine and normal. Cold water spraying out, under pressure, is a whole different thing.

Turns out that it did try to lose its prime this time, but failed. There’s a thin copper tube that goes into one end of the volume controller. This tube tries to suck in air when disconnected–if it’s able to get too much, bye-bye prime. But this time I was able to jam my thumb over the opening fast enough! Then I got it connected to the new air volume control before it could gulp in any more air.

So it went well. In a few days, the air/water level will attain its proper ratio, and I can ignore the part…until it dies again.

Have you ever wanted to email someone a mega attachment, only to have it bounce for being too big?

Now you can avoid that frustration by using Driveway.com for file sharing. You just upload the big file to Driveway, and then send a link to that file instead of sending the file itself as an attachment! They even send out the email for you.

This isn’t the kind of “file sharing” that goes over some adware-infested nebulous RIAA-suit-drawing system. You don’t have to download anything, run any programs, or any of that!

It’s more like using a photo-upload place, or that video upload site (you know the one), only instead of just photos or videos, you can put up any kind of file you want (in accordance with their Terms, of course). Long PDF files, for instance, are no problem at Driveway.

Even with the 10MB filesizes of current free email providers, there are times when it comes in handy to have a way to share large files. In business, there are many files that are much bigger than that! Datafeeds, for instance, could be shared over Driveway without the normal hassle that goes with emailing them.

If you have a big file to share, and you either don’t have a server to stick it on or just don’t want to use up your webhosting space, let Driveway host it and just send the link!

What else to talk about on the 4th of July?

Usually I don’t get to see many fireworks today. Oh, they’re going on, but either they’re not in my area, or they’re too low to see with all the trees in the way.

But this year, I lucked in! The subdivision association must have moved their barge just a bit. Either that, or someone cut a tree down. Cuz there was a good view this time. Sure, some of them were still too low, but they had some really uber ones (as good as the Detroit Freedom Festival ones!) too. While not a 3-barge extravaganza, YET, the effects of their extra fireworks-fundraising effort last year were very evident. This was no n00b production.

After watching that and then taking a rest, we lit up some of our “legals.” The kind of fireworks unlicensed people can set off in MI are just those spark-spewing ones. Of course, some people had illegal fireworks, but those always strike me as a big ripoff. Granted, the only injuries really seem to come when people are fools about them, but the amount of cost isn’t justified by the display anyway. Those things that just blow little balls high up and then wimpily do nothing (or nearly nothing) else aren’t as impressive as even a tiny legal one! There’s just no show. And to get some that do have a show and do go high up, too, probably costs $100 a shot and even then aren’t going to compete with a true licensed fireworks display.

So I am happy seeing the actual professional display for the big show, and lighting up our $29 pack of legals afterwards.

Now all I need to do is set up a nice 500w floodlight, so I can have a nice barbecue at a respectable webmaster’s time like 3AM. Since I don’t have that setup yet, I’ll be cooking my steak inside in a pan tonight. Beats having steak at 5PM, which’d be my breakfast!