currybetdotnet has a new home
This week I moved currybetdotnet to a new server, which marked the end of a very strange chapter in the site's existence.
In April this year, whilst I was still travelling around Europe, I got a rather unexpected email confirming the cancellation of my regular payment to my hosting company. Well, I knew I hadn't been keeping the blog updated whilst I was away, but that seemed a little bit drastic.
However, my subsequent attempts to contact my hosts were in vain. After several bounced emails to their support team I eventually went through the headers on the emails and found an address from a different domain somewhere along the route. I emailed that on the off-chance, and someone answered saying that my hosts had new management, the payments had been cancelled by mistake, not to worry, and I should just set the transaction with WorldPay up again.
Except that I couldn't.
The transaction had to be re-started by the merchant, and email after email went unanswered as I tried to pay for my hosting.
All this time the site was still up and running, but I didn't have any confidence that I would get any technical support if it fell over again due to a slashdotting, or, as was more likely, because I'd done something silly with PHP or Movable Type.
With a bit of help I then contacted the person named in the original domain name registration about the situation. They confirmed that they had sold the hosting business on, and CCd the new owners in on the reply. Again I heard nothing from them, even though I was trying to sort out how to pay them.
What with one thing and another this situation dragged on for six months - with me at any second expecting the plug to be pulled on the server running the site. With no technical support, and not having paid for the hosting for several months, I guessed there would be little prospect of getting it back up and running quickly, if at all.
The currybet.net domain name was due to expire in the middle of next month, so I knew I had to do something, and a couple of weeks ago I got in touch with UK Reg, who the name was registered through back in December 2002. They have a domain name dispute policy, which I'm pleased to say in this case worked perfectly, and earlier this week I took control of the currybet.net domain name myself.
With my previous hosts I had to change servers three times in a couple of years - including a switch from Linux to Windows, then back to Linux, which was a real hassle for me to carry out.
The site is now happily sitting on a virtual Linux server which I am renting from Bytemark in the UK. I've been renting server space from them since July this year to host Greta Blue, Dahlquist and Paper Fig, and I've got nothing but praise for them and the service I've received.
I must say it has been a considerable relief for me. For the last couple of months I had been keeping a mirror of the site that could have been launched at currybet.eu with a moments notice, but I really didn't want to lose the site name and the links that I have built up over nearly 4 years of blogging.
Plus, pedant as I am, I would have had to have gone through and changed all references to currybetdotnet to currybetdoteeeyou, which, frankly, isn't as catchy.
Anyway, there a bound to be a few things broken around the edges - so if you spot anything looking wrong (apart from my usual grammatical and spelling errors) then please do drop me a mail at martin dot belam at currybet dot net.
Of course, if it is setting up the email for the domain that is broken, I shall never, ever know.