In case you’ve been wondering what’s up with this blog, we’re in the midst of moving it from one host to another. Truth be told, Jennie is in the midst of moving it. This will be my last post from Media Temple. My next post (a real one — it’s already written) should come later tonight from WP Engine.
When I left PBS at the end of 2008, Media Temple was state of the art, but that was then. After five years on essentially the same server platform with only a couple memory increases along the way, things were getting a little brittle as many of you have noticed. The hardware is old, some of the software is no longer even being supported, as such downtime has increased and from time to time my digital slip has been showing.
There are now specialist outfits like WPEngine devoted solely to WordPress blogs like this one. It’s more expensive but they also do more. And of course as a new customer my blog will be loaded on their newest equipment, so it can’t help but be faster.
If I’m going to fault Media Temple it’s for bad communication. They were apparently planning a big hardware upgrade but didn’t bother to tell me until I said I was leaving. My last two support tickets remain open and unanswered. No hard feelings, but it will be a relief to go… I hope.
A new host is like a new girlfriend or wife. Everything I’ve heard about WP Engine is good. Now I can just hope it’s all true.
Bob, I am a current media temple customer and I could not agree more with the fact that MediaTemple has lost it’s edge.
The problem with Media Temple and WordPress is that if I set up a site in the month of June, 2013, I can post pictures, I can add pages, no problems.
But on July 1, 2013, I can’t upload a picture using WordPress. I can ftp it up and link to it, but I can’t make WordPress work the way it’s supposed to work. They refuse to fix the issue, claiming it’s a problem with WordPress. They don’t officially support a workaround because they don’t support WordPress. They make it incredibly easy to install it by clicking the big WordPress icon in Plesk, but they don’t support it at all.
Meanwhile, every other Web host I know of supports WordPress just fine.
Their entire system is needlessly difficult to figure out. I can by a domain, set up the DNS, create a new Web site and publish in 30 minutes with any other host. In Media Temple, it take hours, the written support is lacking, but their tech support seems very solid.
However, they cannot explain to me why my Web sites with minimal traffic are pegging my server with 299% usage. If I knew what the issue was, I would fix it immediately.
I am going to suggest my company move to another platform.
Wally, can you link me to news about that change at Media Temple?
I’ve always referred my clients to http://www.etwebhosting.com and they’ve been very good over the years. You get what you pay for, I think.
Gee….and I thought this new so called “Cloud” new world made these events impossible to happen! LoL
Quality may vary from one host to another, but as long as what’s being hosted is WP’s commenting software there’s only so far that you can go, improved experience-wise.
Good point. Bob said “After five years on essentially the same server platform with only a couple memory increases along the way, things were getting a little brittle as many of you have noticed.” But problems didn’t start until this year (2013). The question is what happened this year to cause the problem. I fail to see how newer faster servers will stop the error messages like “you already said that” or “website is off line”, or make it so that our posts and the comment count update instantly like they did last year vs. either in a few minutes or overnight, which has been the case lately. In other words the problems seem too complicated to be fixed by merely by doubling or tripling the speed of one computer.
FWIW, the above post and the comment count on this page and on the index page all updated properly. Hooray! Also, thanks for getting rid of the text-blocking “return-to-top” button.
Good luck, Bob & Jennie, with your move!
I really liked your road-side sign… But I wonder, is it a Feminist Homage, or maybe a mildly Sexist P.O.V.?
Jennie, what say you? 😉
It’s obviously Jack White in a kilt and platform shoes..
Hi Bob & Freinds,
I’ve always hosted on https://www.webfaction.com because of their incredible great support. They always work any problem until the user is satisfied, even when it’s not in the support contract!
Also, they were the only ones to give me free no questions asked hosting for a charity project I did years ago.
I hope the new hosting is GREAT!
Ciao,
B
I am currently helping a firm move their website from a hosting service to a cloud service. It hasn’t been pretty. While there are some very good things about cloud services in other ways it is a giant step backwards. The environment is a lot more complicated. The support teams are a lot less knowledgeable and experienced. Simple requests like opening a firewall port between two of my virtual servers takes days and is often done incorrectly. If this is the future, the next time this firm changes their website it may be to bring it in house.
You’ve failed the real world technology test —
a transfer could have been organized nearly transparantly — you existing site has had problems since day 1
ERROR: please fill the required fields (name, email).
They were apparently planning a big hardware upgrade but didn’t bother to tell me until I said I was leaving.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, wait, I really can’t come down on the price any more. You’re leaving? Well, let me talk to my boss………….Hey! Pssst! Don’t tell anyone, but my boss told me that just for you, since you’re a good customer, I can give you a free tire upgrade, a better stereo, and 20 free car washes, if you buy right now. But don’t tell anyone, I can’t give anyone else this deal, we’ll actually lose money on it, and it’s only good for today.
Good luck with that, and I mean it. I just switched 8 customer websites over to WP Engine in the last month and their support is horrible. Average response time is 24+ hours. If you have a serious problem over a weekend you are in trouble. And God help you if it happens on a holiday, as happened to me last week on Memorial Day weekend.
Their product is awesome. You will love the platform and the performance. Luckily, you’re probably enough of a VIP that you won’t experience the terrible service that I have.
Anyone else reading this thread, STAY AWAY.
If you have an outage or emergency, they suggest to call rather than submit a help ticket. Their service has always been A++ for my clients.
I am comparing WP Engine against RackSpace. You’re one of the few that have complaints against WP Engine. I’d like to know more before we switch 65 sites.
Thanks
Can’t wait to see what you have to say about Microsoft’s proposed reorg….
Maybe WP Engine will have a great personality.
i saw a documentary you hosted “triumph of the nerds” and im a huge fan of you now!!
That road sign reminds me of the cover of a neat ( and possibly accurate ) little booklet I found more than a few years back now:
https://www.amazon.com/Official-Computer-Widows-Widowers-Handbook/dp/0945776152
p.s.
It’s 4am MST.. I expected to see your next post already…
Do you expect us to buy the book to see the cover?
No.. I put the Amazon link in as it shows the cover. Oh.. I see.. the _second_ image there shows the cover.. I’m assuming the “no image available” means no _official_ image available.
Here’s a direct link to a photo: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/3183sw1f51L._SL500_AA500_.jpg
BTW: I’m not an Amazon customer nor affiliate. Not an affiliate link.
The problems with your site, for me, started when you moved to the new (sorely dated) look and started posting the long-form excerpts from Accidental Empires.
Never had a problem with Media Temple – and I’ve been running over 20 WP sites off alternate domains with their original GridServer for years. I’ve yet to encounter anyone happy with WPEngine, but good luck with that.
While you seem to be quite a tech historian, I don’t get the impression you’re truly knowledgeable about web technologies – at least based on some of your previous posts. That said, I enjoy reading what you have to say and will continue coming back, regardless of what company you choose to host with…
Internets hosts are like beautiful women. For every new boyfriend, there’s another guy that’s tired of putting up with her shit.
can we have your take on the PRISM issue (somewhere)? -thanks
I’m waiting for the day when Google is revealed to have been an arm and creation of the NSA. Only then will their revenue numbers make sense.
Oh yes, thanks for removing that awful ‘Go up’ button. I don’t care if it took a full website hosting switch it’s worth it!
BTW, how is the switch actually going? That ‘later tonight’ post never came…
At least the site is working very well from our point of view. But you’re right the next article still hasn’t shown up yet.
Can’t we have the animated tag cloud back, I rather liked it?
I guess there were some snafus with the transition?
Well, it was good while it lasted… The slow loading problem is back. And now it is worse than ever. I took over three minutes to load the site. Then another minute or so to partly load the comments without the comment form, then some more waiting to get the form.
Well, it was good while it lasted… The slow loading problem is back. And now it is worse than ever. I took over three minutes to load the site. Then another minute or so to partly load the comments without the comment form, then some more waiting to get the form.
Agreed. Problems back. Wish we could turn back the clock about 6 months…worked fine last year.
The web site works fine for me. but like others I have not yet received the RSS feed or any new blogs.
Hope you aren’t having gremlins… 🙂
This is an interesting business phenomenon. While Moore’s law makes computing better and cheaper each year, there is an expectation the same thing should happen with IT support. Firms expect their support costs to be less each year. Since most of the cost in support is labor than the labor costs should increase at the rate of inflation each year. If you can’t increase your rates, then you have to cut your workers raises and risk losing them; or cut labor; or … As firms cut the quality of their services suffer and in time they start losing business. The problem is simple. If you raise your prices you risk losing business. If you don’t raise prices you risk losing business later.
In Information Technology things are always changing. What may have been the best decision in 2008 is probably not the best choice today. In 2008 Media Temple was a top notch hosting provider. Today WP Engine looks quite good.
In business it is especially important to be tuned into your customers. You need to listen to them. You need to understand how well you are servicing them. You need to constantly find ways to provide a better service AND reduce costs. Every business has had to do this for years. The IT industry has not been very good at it.
Much better! When reading on Opera on my ‘phone, comments used to gradually indent until only one character was shown per row…it really helped my vertical reading!
test
Time stamp is 7 hours ahead of actual time! Also, text entry block doesn’t show its contents so I had to use Notepad to compose a comment.
Hi there Bob! Reading this post truly breaks my heart. We’re sorry to see you go. I wish I could get into account specific information publicly but I hope you understand that we can not. With that said, I apologize if you feel that we did not communicate properly on the End Of Life on our (dv) Dedicated-Virtual Server 3.5. However, we do have this blog post from April 2012 – http://mdtm.pl/Hw5QCi . Additionally, we sent support requests about this to all (dv) customers around that time.
You are right in saying that, generally, WordPress related issues are considered outside the scope of our support. However, we have made great strides in improving our support for WordPress. First, even though an issue is out of scope, if it is something we have seen before and are familiar with, we’ll take the time to help anyway. Second, we have a very helpful WordPress evangelist on Twitter at @mt_suzette. You can get in touch with her anytime. Lastly, if you are truly stuck on a problem that is outside the scope of our support, we offer Cloudtech – a paid service that covers almost any issue you could possible encounter. More info here: http://mediatemple.net/cloudtech/
I hope this information has been helpful to you and you’d consider sticking with us, but if not we understand. If there is anything we can ever do for you, we’re available on Twitter 24/7 @MediaTempleHelp.
Drew J
(mt) Media Temple
@MediaTempleHelp
You could certainly see your skills in the work you write.
The arena hopes for even more passionate writers like you who are not afraid to mention how they believe.
At all times go after your heart.