Saturday, March 5, 2011

Disappearing Libraries and Book Stores

Lately funding for libraries has been drastically cut throughout the United States. I worry that the free books and the libraries will disappear. Without free books, only the well-to-do will have access to knowledge. That's a scary thing.

It started with the kindle. Somehow they convinced people to buy an electronic device to read digital books. I admit there is place for such as a device, like downloading several books on one unit to read on vacation, rather then schlepping around a bunch of books. But for me, I'm not interested in purchasing every book I read, so the library is sacrosanct to me.

What do you think? Do you care if the library ceases to exist?

Disgusted With Dishonest Web Hosting Companies

Over a year ago, I decided to get my own website with my own domain name. How difficult could it be? Getting the website was easy, renewing it automatically was a nightmare. The dishonest billing and crappy technical support disgusted me so much, I gave up my website and vowed never to do it again.

Do you have your own web hosting horror stories? I want to hear about it. And I want to do something about these web hosting companies.

Here is the gist of my story. I asked a local business person who she used for a web host for her company website and asked if she was happy with them. She said she was happy with them and gave me the name of the company.

Great I thought, after doing due diligence. What could go wrong? I went to the website and noticed a more inexpensive price than my source was paying per month. They were paying $12.00/month and I would get my hosting for about $55.00 for a whole year due to a special offer. Sounded good to me.

I chose my domain name, entered my credit card information, and I was on my way to building my website. Things went well until it was time to renew. The small print stated I had to renew so many days before the expiration date. Without getting into all the details, I noticed the automatic renewal would be much higher per month than what I was paying, so I unchecked automatic renewal, called customer service, and was assured I could get the same price, if I just chose the manual payment.

To make a long story short, they charged me twice for the same thing and charged the higher fee. Email customer support was like talking to someone on drugs. They never responded to my specific question. That would result in my need to send another "ticket" and then having to wait again for a response, hoping I could finally resolve the matter. The next response from customer service would not even address the topic I was writing about. It went on and on. Ticket after ticket. Unable to resolve the double billing and overcharge. Finally they held my domain name hostage so I could not transfer it to another web host. I told them to cancel my hosting plan when my renewal date came. They canceled it immediately and would not give me access to my domain name. I was all paid up for 2 more weeks, and they just deleted my website and refused access to my domain name.

I'll provide some of the letters in the web host name. You figure out the rest. I-P-W-R.

Tell me your own web host horror stories. Or tell me if you have a great web host and why.
Wild Pondering is back with new blogs and new ideas. I pose questions. You supplies answers and comments. It doesn't get any easier than that.

What I'm pondering today. How do I buy a domain name and configure it so it can be hosted for free by Blogger. Does anyone know the answer? Please reply.