Jackson's Blog » Hosting

Now hosted with DownTownHost

Jackson Leung — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:13:53 +0000

I just moved my server to DownTownHost. What a WORLD of difference. BlueHost = 8 cpus with an average serverload of 100. DownTownHost 8 cpus with an average serverload of .07.

Also, I applied for the 4.95 per month plan and it’s offering all the features I want and need. After the 25% discount using the code below it’s 3.71 per month. That’s even better than GoDaddy. For now, I am very happy with the service.

Anyways, if you want to check out the host yourself use this link: DownTownHost

Oh btw, use the code “happy2008″ to qualify for a 25% discount.

BlueHost = LackOfDecentHostBluesHost

Jackson Leung — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:50:03 +0000

So I’ve been with BlueHost for a couple of 2-3 months now. I can say with certainty that as soon as I find a decent host, I’m moving again. I’ve monitored BlueHost for 10 days from June 2 – June 12 and the logs show that BlueHost is pretty much overloaded all the time. When I called their tech support, they gave me some lame excuse like “It’s not unusual for servers to be overloaded during peak hours for 5-10 minutes at a time in a shared hosting environment”. Since the server load coincidentally went down by the time I was done waiting for the representative to pick up, I had no choice but to wait for it to go back up before I called. Unfortunately, the minute I hung up, the server load spiked again. This is when I decided to log the server loads. The log shows that server is overloaded per on an average of 50-90% of the time. I think that is simply unacceptable. If my web page takes FOREVER to load, I no longer consider it hosted. I think it’s okay if they’re overselling, as long as they keep the load under control. I’ve heard HostGator does a decent job of this, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to switch to HostGator. I want to find an even better host. Anyways, you can take my word for it, or you can click the links to my logs of BlueHost server loads (They’re in the format of: , ):

June 2
June 3
June 4
June 5
June 6
June 7
June 8
June 9
June 10
June 11-12

Bluehost Review

Jackson Leung — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:14:03 +0000

This entry is about my experience with BlueHost so far, after 2 months. I can’t say I’m particularly happy with their service. I’ve experienced high server loads at 3 am in the morning, due to mysql database backup. I’ve experienced high server loads from the hours of 10 am to 3 pm due to peak usage. I’m probably going to experience high server load as well during the evening. So my question is, when can I expect there to be a normal server load? When nobody surfs the web? What’s the point of having webhosting if that’s the case?

If you don’t know what a serverload is, it’s a number that roughly represents how many CPUs the load is taking. Your server performs best when that number is less than the total number of CPUs. I’m pretty envious at my co-worker because his server load at HostGator doesn’t ever seem to exceed 5 and doesn’t seems bogged down, whereas my server load seems to exceed 8 like ALL THE TIME and is constantly laggy.

I’m writing a script that tracks the server load and displays the information graphically. I’m going to use that information to try to get BlueHost to move me to a better server. If after all that, they still don’t do anything about my server load, I’m probably going to move on to a new hosting company.

Migration from GoDaddy to BlueHost

Jackson Leung — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:01:11 +0000

I have just finished moving my site from GoDaddy to BlueHost. This form of migration was the first one I’ve ever done, and it went quite smoothly.

I think a few tips that would help anyone migrate from one host to another would be to first figure out if you’re transferring the domain, web hosting, or both.

Domain hosting is simply the reservation of the domain name, such as google.com, yahoo.com, jacksonleung.com, etc., much like an address, or a telephone number.

Web hosting actually contains all the files and databases behind the domain name, much like the company an address points to, or the customer service representatives behind a telephone number.

If you’re simply changing the hosting, like I did in my case, not only will you have to migrate the database and the files, you’ll most likely have to change the namespace of your domains to the new namespace server of the web hosting provider.

Afterwards you have to make sure all the data from your databases were copied correctly from one server to another then you have to make sure all your script work with the new database environment. You might also want to move your emails from your old web hosting provider to the new one.

Although it might be unnecessary, I like to run through my scripts one last time just to make sure everything works, and after all that, you can cancel the domain / web hosting with the previous provider.