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Transfering Hosting from IONOS to Fasthosts

By Creativity, Technology, The WebNo Comments

I recently departed company with IONOS, after being a loyal customer for years. Here is why I left this hosting provider:

  • Their SPAM blocking features in email were rubbish. They blocked people that I regularly email, yet didn’t block clearly SPAM and potentially harmful emails.
  • Their WordPress websites were slow and full of bloatware.
  • They started adding things (at a considerable cost) to my contract, without my permission or at least a discussion. For example, they added PHP Extended Support.
  • They kept changing billing amounts and billing dates. This was making it impossible to keep track of my money and led to a couple occasions where they were paid late.
  • Their prices had increased significantly without any explanation.
  • The IONOS account was constantly trying to sell me products, often ones that I wasn’t interested in or weren’t relevant to me.
  • The customer support agents didn’t always call back when they said they would.

Here’s why I choose fasthosts:

  • They’re UK-based (although the Customer Support isn’t always).
  • They offered a money back guarantee.
  • They offered a reduced price initially, which is perfect when trying something new.
  • They offered WordPress specific hosting.
  • They focus on high performance, quick loading websites.
  • They gave all the standard features I needed: email, access and the ability to upload my own files to the server, SSL certificates, daily back up/restore, etc.
  • Their security and protection of my account is second to none.

I can’t lie, the transfer over wasn’t easy. After having a blog and a domain name for such a long time, challenges were to be expected, but at times it felt maddening and frustrating.

Fasthosts backend could be a little bit easier to use, for example I signed up to two additional contracts for email, before sussing out with the help of Customer Support that I already had email as part of my WordPress Hosting Package. It just wasn’t where I would have expected it to be (i.e. under email).

Fasthosts Customer Support have been brilliant at helping me with my teething problems transferring over. But they could enhance their offer to potential customers by offering a managed WordPress transfer.

Only time will tell is fasthosts turns out to be as good as I hope it is. But I’m more than happy at this moment with their service and products.

If you want to sign up to fasthosts use this link. In the interest of full disclosure I get credit on my account for everyone that signs up using this link, through a referral programme.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 4 June 2023

Hosting Switch: Transferring my WordPress Blog to 1&1 from Vidahost

By Technology, The WebNo Comments

My blog has been hosted on Vidahost for a number of years. But they recently emailed to inform me a price hike. So I decided to switch to another hosting provider, this blog post is about the process of transferring my WordPress blog from one server to another.

I should add that it wasn’t just the price hike that caused me to make this decision. Customer support is much poorer now than it has been in the past. For example: I got an email stating I was running out of disk space. I opened a ticket to see if I could increase disk space without upgrading package. The Customer Agent basically said no.

Then when I was transferring my files from Vidahost’s (old) server to 1&1’s (new) server (more details below) I noticed huge error logs (2.5GB one of them) and many .core files (100-200MB each). These files had eaten up my disk space (from the usual 2GB of 10GB used). At one time a Vidahost’s Customer Agent would have looked at my files on the server to see why I had run out of space all of a sudden, spotted the problem and resolved it.

1and1-hosting-screenshot

I recently switched hosting provider to 1&1’s.

 I asked my friends on Facebook if they could recommend a good, UK-based Hosting provider. One of my friend’s husband recommended 1&1’s.

I decided to transfer my hosting as 1&1 offered a better price, unlimited bandwidth (which I was always in the red on Vidahost), unlimited disk space and more up-to-date servers (I’d recently had a few problems updating WordPress plugins on Vidahost servers due to PHP version).

But the prospect of moving my WordPress blog from one server to another was daunting. How the hell do I do that? I thought to myself. So I Googled it and found this great Step by Step Guide by WPExplorer.

There were a few hiccups. I successfully exported my WordPress database, but when I went to import it on the new server it timed out. I checked the database on the new server and found it was missing the last few fields. So I googled and found this site Exporting Your Database from Your Previous Host by WPEngine, which explains how to export specific fields. I exported the missing fields and then imported them. First problem solved.

Then I downloaded my files from the old server and uploaded them to the new server using ForkLift by Binarynights without any problems. I changed my wp-config.php and uploaded it. My second problem was an Error Establishing Database Connection. I googled the error and found How to Fix Error Establishing Database Connection by wpbeginner. This site helped me realise what I hadn’t updated in the wp-config.php.

My final step was to change the NameServers for my domain. I did this and my blog and emails went down for about 24 hours while NameSever propagation took place.

Once my blog and emails were back up, my final problem was that my blog wasn’t displaying right. Nothing I did fixed the problem. In the end I opened both the old server and new server’s File Explorers in Google Chrome.

It was then spotted the problem, all folders and files had different file permissions on the new server. So I changed them to match the settings on my current server, which solved the problem. Here is an article that explains more about file permissions: Ask Unbuntu – What is meaning of 755 permissions.

Another website I found extremely helpful in this transfer process was: WordPress Migration Problems and How to Fix Them by Nelio.

So there we have it. Job done.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 16 July 2017

Vidahost Review: Reliable Hosting, Outstanding Customer Service & Discount Coupon

By Reviews, TechnologyNo Comments
vidahost-logo Just over two years ago, I was chatting with a friend about how unhappy I was with my old hosting provider. He suggested that I checkout Vidahost and I’m so glad that I did.

I decided to give Vidahost a go; it was really easy to sign up, quick to transfer my blog and without any downtime. It didn’t affect my search engine ranking either. Vidahost offered me more features for less money. Vidahost features include:

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  • Really easy to transfer my domain name, website and email accounts.
  • More disk space: great for images and an ever growing blog/website.
  • Reliable Hosting, hardly any downtime. EVER.
  • Fast Servers – meaning that your website, uploads, images, music and videos load super quick.
  • Plenty of email accounts, subdirectories and SQL databases allowed. (Many more than my previous provider).
  • Easy to use through CPanel and My.VidaHost Dashboard. CPanel comes complete with WordPress and the other software/scripts you’d expect.
  • Truly outstanding customer support via live chat, email and a support ticket system. All Vidahost Staff I’ve wrote to have been friendly, quick and efficient.
  • They Back Up their Servers regularly.
  • Competitively priced with a range of packages, one that will suit everyone’s needs.
  • The ability to host multiple websites on one hosting package.
  • Unlimited Password Protect Directories.

I’ve been with Vidahost for two years and have never been so impressed with a hosting provider. They’ve made continual investment in the hardware and software throughout the time I’ve been with them.

My friend was looking for hosting and I recommended Vidahost to him, telling him all about my experience. He bought hosting for a month to give it a try and was so impressed that he bought an annual subscription. He said that Vidahost had exceeded all of his expectations.

And it’s not just my friends and I that are heaping the praise on Vidahost. Here are some testimonials from other Vidahost customers:

“No matter who I speak to I always feel that you guy’s are really helpful and very professional. 10/10. Thanks and well done to you all.” – Tony

“Another designer / developer recommended that I use Vidahost and I have not regretted the decision for a moment. Support has always been accessible and responsive, and the packages come with a full featured cpanel. I have since had the opportunity to recommend Vidahost to others and have moved another 2 domains to this hosting.” – Andrew Kennedy

“In short : Does what it says on the tin.
After being messed about and being treated like an insignificant inconvenience, by some far more well known names, I discovered Vidahost.
They’re efficient, friendly, there when you need them and don’t laugh when you’ve missed something glaringly obvious.
I’ve paid five times more for a tenth of the service I get from these people, and It’s become a mission to recommend them whenever the occasion arises.
Bravo Vidahost – I look forward to many more years with you.” – Allan J Wilkinson

(From: Vidahost Page – Customer Testimonials, Last Accessed: Saturday 2nd November 2013.)

Thanks for the last two years of superb hosting Vidahost; I look forward to the next two years and beyond.

If you’re looking to transfer your hosting or get some, without any hesitation I would recommend Vidahost. You can get 10% off your hosting by entering the Coupon: HOSTRED during the sign up process.

Review soon,

Antony

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Wednesday 6 November 2013

A Catch-Up

By Friends & Family, Life, TechnologyNo Comments

Hi all,

I really haven’t had chance to blog recently, so I just thought we would have a general catch-up. So what’s new? Well…

I’ve fully transferred my website to a new hosting provider (see Transfer of Hosting). The main technical glitch was many of the images not showing up. I’ve manually fixed every page and every blog post so they should all be working now. But if by chance you stumble upon a broken image link, copy the address bar in your browser, paste it into the message body on the Contact page and click send. Then I’ll know where the problem is and I can get it fixed.

I’ve had a spell of ill health in the form of lower back pain (see Ouch…Severe Lower Back Pain), but apart from the odd painful twinges here and there I’m now feeling much better.

My good friend Sye is back from Uni and has temporarily come to live with me. It’s great to have him here, he’s good company, I feel happy being able to support him. He knows he is welcome to stay for as long as he needs too.

Sye’s also been a huge support to me in a difficult week I’ve had recently. The reason for the difficult week was financial pressures, Sye was my listening ear (along with a few other people close to me) and has given me some good advice. I discovered I have a leaking pipe under my floor, need to replace the two front tyres on my car and have had some hassle of my buildings management company.

I’ve been to my friend Steve’s graduation-from-Uni meal. It was delicious food in the Hilton in Manchester. Unfortunately I only managed to sit through the meal due to my back pain but I still enjoyed the night out.

I’ve caught up with Simon & Chrys at a recent Food & Fire Evening at Chrys’ house. It was lovely, relaxed and social, just what I needed.

I’ve also been reading Pure by Julianna Baggott which is a post-apocalyptic story about two young people whose worlds collide. Pressia a wretch in a world with deformed people and animals after the detonations and Partridge a Pure from the Dome that was protected from the detonations. It’s a trilogy with the next book out next year and the final book out the year after. It’s a fascinating read and will review it after I’ve read it.

I’ve downloaded OS X Mountain Lion. One of the reviews in the Mac App Store described it as an evolution of OSX Lion rather than a revolution. This review is right, they’ve built on OSX Lion rather than a complete redesign like Windows does. OSX Mountain Lion feels more streamlined, the iMac boots up faster and complete operations with more speed. It seems to just work, it has fixed my sound issues (see Intermittent Sound Problems on the iMac) and has a few cool new features.

The first feature I love is Siri. It’s current use is as an dictation App, but in the future it is likely to be utilitised for starting Apps, putting reminders in iCal and other functions like the Iphone 4S. I think it’s very clever how it learns your voice characteristics and uses this learning to improve the dictation. I like the Notification Centre but it doesn’t work as I’d like. For example, my new emails don’t appear in the Notification Centre like on my Iphone 4. The share button in Apps is useful and being able to post Twitter updates from my desktop makes life easier. But I was disappointed that Facebook integration is only coming in Autumn as this was one of the features I updated for.

That’s about all I’ve been up to. However I’ve got a few events here and there, working on some creative projects I hope to share with you soon and am coming up with some good ideas for thought provoking blog posts.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Thursday 9 August 2012
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