Geeky Baldisms

This one's for you, Anonymous (for Obvious Reasons), THX1138, Fatman, Mad Hatter, Cowgirls (both the original, and #2), Chicago, Roland, Bogey1, bear in a box (who works somewhere on the other side of the International Date Line), fluffyjacket1984 (who has had to take up posting under different monikers due to inciting the wrath of the Moderator Gods), Freeloader, kangoid, Jim but not THE Jim, Oldest Timer (who is a dear friend of mine, now enjoying his retirement), Feign, Jam, mlk, oldITgal, Army Dad, Cmdr_Michelle, scoot, Digital Willie, 0/0, and all my other ST buds. I'm sure any I missed will let me know!

I busted into this fulltime geek thing at the age of forty back in 2000. I like to think of it as the year that going to work became something to be savored instead of dreaded :-).

Anyhow, one of my new coworkers soon turned me on to Computerworld's Shark Tank. I became an instant fan.

The premise behind Shark Tank is that funny and/or frustrating in a funny sort of way things happen in the IT trenches. And we might as well laugh at them, because it's more fun than crying, and you get in big trouble for bringing weapons to work!

ST has gone through some changes over the years. While always relying on a daily email to get the stories out, and archiving a couple year's worth on their site, a while back they switched to a short email teaser. The rest of the daily account is on their site.

I was disturbed at first. I had created a rule, first in Lotus Notes, then in Outlook when my company switched, to send the daily Shark to a folder to be browsed when the day wasn't going well.

But Computerworld added another feature at the same time: comments on the daily tale.

At first, I was taken aback by the number of people whose comments consisted of how lame the story was, and how ST had gone to pot. What was with these people? If they hated the concept so much, what were they doing there?

Enter JIM THE BOSS.

I've been a bluehill.com customer for many years. I believe it was 1999 when I started hosting my sites with them.

I used a VPS type system until 2006, then switched to a dedicated server.

The price is decent, only 50 bucks more than the VPS. But I am taking a couple of days off from my regular job to move everything over to a dedicated box I'm leasing from jtlnet.com for an incredible $99 a month.

This blog will provide two public services: first of all, the nuts and bolts involved in moving from one dedicated server to another, and second, a review of JTLNet and their experience for the customer.

So stay tuned. I expect to begin the process any minute now...

I received instructions for logging into my dedicated server on Friday afternoon about 3:00 local time. It is now Sunday, 10:20 AM and I am pretty much done.

Total; time spent moving stuff: about 15 hours.

I am receiving help generating a SSL certificate now. Once I set up a secure website, this project will be complete.

My overall impression of JTLNet throughout the ordeal: very positive.

I used Plesk as a web admin tool with bluehill.com. It was robust enough. My new host uses SiteDSM. It's different, better in some ways. For instance, it allows the creation of .htaccess files with usernames and passwords or ip address blocking. However, it's difficult to edit any accounts you have created. The interface can be quite funky.

But I have a fairly hot dedicated server for $99 a month! I have used yum from the command line to add software.

Overall, an unbeatable deal for technically savvy webmasters.

This big move to a dedicated server is now complete.

And I would like to give an unpaid, hearty endorsement to my new hosting company, jtlnet.com, at this point.

I didn't hear anything for two days after ordering my dedicated server. That made me nervous.

That was the last "negative" experience that i had with them. It's all been very positive since then.

I would rate my technical ability when it comes to Linux web server management at about a 7.5 on a scale of 10. I can tweak conf files, but not without help from others who post their own conf files online. I know my way around chmod's and chown's, and am able to add/remove/update software from the command line.

But I am far from ponytail stage.

That's why my ringing endorsement of jtlnet is now presented for the world to see: their unbelievable technical support.

Here's why I love it: