The Webhost Wagon Trade-In

Sometimes when you’ve been on the bandwagon for just a little too long, it’s time to trade in for an updated model, that’s what I say. Of course, saying that almost always gets me into trouble financially when it comes to new tech, but hey – this isn’t about my spending habits, right?

I like to equate using webhosts in the same way. You may start out on a site that is hosted off on another domain, just so that you don’t have to worry about things like design, management, and those three little words – File Transfer Protocol. This eventually morphs into your own domain, and sometimes, if you’re popular enough, your very own server.

Through it all, the webhost wagon is with you, whether it is a dinky little wooden ride or the best that the Wild West of the Web has to offer you. While saturation in the market is sometimes viewed as a bad thing, when it comes to webhosting wagons the multitude of choices is great. This is because it forces webhosts to try to compete to keep your business, whether it’s a site about the best and brightest of monkeys and primates or a political pundit’s pulpit (ooh, alliteration kids, learn it, love it).

Overly Positive has been on Lunarpages since its inception. Lunarpages is a great little company because they’re good for when you’re just starting out. The plans are cheap, the space and resources are seemingly unlimited, and the sites just stay up, running, and working. I can’t really complain about getting what you pay for, because you do, and then some. I’ve been on the Lunarpages wagon, along with a few other people I know, and it’s served us well.

But the time came when the old, beat up wagon had to be traded in. It may not look it from the humble little 84 subscribers I possess, but the site has become increasingly more popular in the last year or so. Generous linkbacks from blogging powerhouses like Syp’s Bio Break as well as a couple lucky pings from major sites like Slashdot, Massively, Game Politics, and Mythic’s Warhammer Online have been awesome for the site. They’ve proved that yes, despite presenting only a bright, happy, and sunny picture of geek media, there’s a place for positive vibe on the ‘Net. They’ve also creaked the little Lunarpages wagon to its foundations, too – on two separate occasions the linkbacks from major websites have broken the shared server that OP was on, causing downtime for not only myself but others as well.

A few weeks back I was told by the good ol’ monkeys at Lunarpages that I was outgrowing my little shared webhosting wagon. And so with the threat of suddenly breaking down (again) in the middle of nowhere in the World Wide Web, I began searching around. Shared hosting plans are great little wagons, but tiny limits on resources that you find out about later make them hard to use for a long term site that gets a bit of traffic. The next step up is something called a Virtual Private Server, which for all you non-computery people out there is basically a slice of resources carved up from a really powerful set of hardware. This slice, unlike a shared plan, is exclusively yours, and while it isn’t as good as having a dedicated physical machine, it works for the mid-range folks like me who need an updated wagon and not a Ferrari. The new wagon was made by the helpful engineers at Knownhost, and test driving so far has been a breeze.

So while I’m sad that I had to let go of a tried and true model, I’m glad I made an upgrade for the long term future. This, of course, is where I get all sappy and thank you, the readers, for making this possible. Way back when I thought of creating a positive slab out of my portion of the Internet, I never really thought I’d amount to more than a few friends for readers with the occasional outsider. While I’m still small potatoes, the blog has certainly grown in readership since I started it, and I hope to keep growing it for people who want to read optimism and idealism, and feel better about things. Thanks for supporting Overly Positive, and be sure to recommend (with a big ol’ grin of course) me to those who want a break from the rantish anger of the ‘Net for some feelgood postings about geekery. I’ll be sitting here on my new wagon, ready to greet ‘em.