Re: [cobalt-users] Re: a little OT

[Brent Sims <bs@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Zarrir Junior wrote:

}       I have a Raq colo with them (8 months already). Up to this point, no
} problems, including nice tech support. It happened just today: They have a
} special going on and i emailed them asking them to transfer the data on my
} Raq3 to a Raq4 i intend to colo (the special) but guess what,  although i
} have 2 hours/month free service on my Raq, they refuse to transfer my Raq3
} contents (via serial cable or something) to my wannabe-Raq4. And the problem
} is that i do not trust the CMU feature.

Hi Zarrir,

	I hate seeing this kind of thing. Is this really indicative
of poor service? You yourself don't trust the CMU utility. Why
should they? I've yet to meet a serious professional that would
even consider relying upon such a tool. They may use it, or
something like it, but everyone I know would go to work going
over the installation with a fine tooth comb the moment the tool
finished doing it's thing. The bottom line here is that if you
only have one site running on your server and that site contains,
for example, Matt's formmail script which was configured with an IP
address, then someone has to go in and manually edit that script in
order to make it work on the new server - assuming the IP addresses
are going to change. Multiply that by a hundred or two hundred web
sites, many of which are sure to contain scripts, the author of
which was too lazy to or incapable of writing code that would make
it possible for the script to not require hardcoded paths, and add
the numerous technical mistakes that most "web designers" make, toss
in the changes you may have very well made to the server that are
unknown to your provider and your looking at what might be best
descrived as a nightmare.

	Think about it for a minute. We're renumbering. We've got a
RAQ2 sitting here that has maybe a dozen sites on it. I'm bringing
in an extra body later tonight just to help renumber that one
hardly used server. That body will cost me about a hundred bucks
for the time it takes to complete the renumbering.

	Instant gratification is very cool but good work takes time.
I can't speak for anyone else but, depending upon the size and
complexity of the site, it takes me between 15 minutes and two
perhaps three or more hours to transfer a single web site from one
server to another. Being unfamiliar with the site we have to run a
link scan on it and very possibly manually check this and that to
make sure everything works before we even get started. Then after
installing it on the new server we have to do all of that again to
make sure that every is working as it should on the new server.

	Peace be with you,

	Brent Sims
	WebOkay Internet Services, LLC
	http://www.WebOkay.net
	mailto: Brent@xxxxxxxxxxx
	(719) 595-1427 (Voice/Fax)