How bloody annoying. Yesterday, rather than renew my annual hosting agreement, I was switching to another package. While staying with the same host, their more modern platform costs less, and has better email handling and PHP5, which I “need” to play with SlideShowPro's API. The cunningly-devised plan was to get all the html, images, email settings, and databases working on the new platform before switching off the old one.

Unfortunately someone misunderstood the words “IMPORTANT - REFER TO XYZ (the guy at the host who handles the account) DO NOT SWITCH THE DNS SETTINGS UNTIL CUSTOMER REQUESTS”. OK, I was as long-winded and ambiguous as ever, and most of all I was foolish enough to enter those words in a box called “Special instructions”. Naturally enough, they were completely and enthusiastically ignored, and just an hour after signing up I had lost access to my old web space and had a 24-48 hour wait before the new web space would go live.

Not by luck, I had absolutely everything, including the mySQL databases, backed up to my PC. It will take a while to upload everything, but I've already hooked up the database-driven stuff like the blog and most of the pictures. I am lucky that I can handle it all myself. Yet thinking back to the recent Digital Railroad fiasco, can say the same about your online property?

Normal service will be resumed….