You might experience some downtime for Resto4Life.com over the next couple of days as I’m in the process of transferring web hosts. Until the DNS servers propagate the new address, you might reach a maintenance page instead of the home page (although if you’re reading this via the homepage, you’re seeing the new version). Hopefully this transfer should eliminate all the performance issues R4L and Blog Azeroth have been experiencing since we signed up with Nightmarehost! I’ve already noticed a big speed difference browsing the BA forums, and images seem to load much faster on Resto4Life.
P.S. Many thanks to BigRedKitty for his recommendation on the new web host! We (Toothy and me) like it already. 
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May 14th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Remember the feeds! i’m totally dependent on em!
May 14th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Apparently Feedburner hasn’t gotten the memo that my DNS has changed so their burned version of my feed is still pointing to the old site. That should clear up within the next couple of days, I think.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I’m seeing the new site and everything is loading a LOT faster!!!
May 14th, 2008 at 11:00 am
THANK GOD I’M SO BORED AT WORK WHILE I’M IN BETWEEN ASSIGNMENTS.
P.S. The new layout ALMOST even works with Safari. Grats.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Crazy that you had to switch again, I’ve been with Dreamhost for over a year with a single hitch, and they resolved it via support ticket almost instantly. I’ve read lots of posts against them, but they’re a HUGE hosting provider. [geek] If you look at their root hosts file, they provide nameservers for over a half million domains- and I’m sure not all their customers park their domains with Dreamhost. [/geek] If you have consistent issues with their service, requesting to be moved to a new server is generally the easiest- they’ll do it without any hassle. I have a Pingdom account monitoring my various sites (some with considerable traffic) and uptime is practically perfect.
The real power in Dreamhost I’ve found is in compiling your own version of PHP and tweaking your host settings with a .htaccess file. They allow it and provide a decent script to compile PHP with, however it isn’t supported via their technical support. Most of the speed issues in loading sites (namely with the caching support) is that their provided build of PHP is not optimized for cached threading. Having your own version with your own settings and options is your best bet. However, it IS still a shared host though, and doesn’t and won’t ever beat a virtualized or independent dedicated server.
To be curious though, what hosting provider did you switch to?
-Brian
P.S- The design finally does looks great in Safari! The tree gets cut off most of the time, but I tend to have a narrow browser window; if I stretch the window out, I can see it fine.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
P.P.S- There was an error on the kind-a-captcha page when submitting my above comment.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
@Pookies: Yes! And I can see a tremendous difference on the PHBBB forums for Blog Azeroth. It’s almost like my browser can’t keep up with the delivery speed!
@Runycat: Woot! Now if only my feed would update …
@Brian: I wanted to like Dreamhost, I really did. In fact, I really liked the PEOPLE at Dreamhost. Most of them were very friendly and understanding about my multiple support tickets. I was one of the unfortunate many customers who endured essentially a 3-week outage of service due to a bad file server (on the Blingy cluster). And my site never seemed to run at the speed I’ve seen on other blogs when it was working. Maybe I just got unlucky, but I actually did ask to be moved off that file cluster and was told that they would not do that. I imagine the number of customers demanding to be moved from the problemsome Blingy cluster were pretty astronomical.
After the second day in a row where my blog was just inaccessible for several hours in the morning, I spent some time investigating a bunch of web hosts, mostly those recommended on the “Hosting” page at Wordpress.org. Practically every one I spoke to told me that I probably require a VPS due to high traffic and the nature of my site (PHP-based). As you probably know, a VPS costs upwards of $40/month. R4L doesn’t have any (makes-me-money) advertising, and I cover all the hosting costs out of pocket myself so that simply wasn’t an option I could consider. Which is when I got the idea to ask BRK about what he uses. He gets more traffic than does R4L and I figured that any host that can handle his site can handle mine. He recommended HostMonster.com, and so far I’m very impressed. They even phoned me after I set up my account to welcome me. And they have LIVE technical support chat (not just sales like some web hosts).
I’m very happy to hear that the site looks good in Safari. =) The tree does get cut off in narrower browser windows (like my second monitor), but I actually like the way that works since the content is kept centered. What sort of trouble did you run into with the captcha page?
May 14th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Holy crap that hosting looks decent. Though I’d really want to know how they preform first. I researched Dreamhost heavily before signing up with them, but it was also before the epic failure of your cluster. Unfortunately I do have to see Dreamhost’s point in denying you a move because I suspect that almost everyone in that cluster was requesting the same thing, and they just didn’t have the systems to move everyone on to. One of the major differences I see though with Dreamhost over anyone else is their open-door policy on the bad side of the company- they posted the entire ordeal of the cluster failure on their blog.
Now that sounded far too much like a sales pitch (I don’t work for em! Though they do pay nice for interns… I don’t live out there!). Beyond that though, I don’t begrudge your move in the slightest- I’d have done the same thing in your shoes. I really hope this new host works out for you, you’ll have to keep us (or just me!) updated on how things work out with them.
Concerning the error on the captcha page, I was foolish enough to ignore the error header and submit the form before realizing I should report it to you. To note something, the 15-minute window you have set for after-publication comment editing did not take affect and I was unable to modify my first comment.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:49 am
I’m glad to hear things are transitioning well. It sounds like you may have finally left some frustrations behind!
I actually have all my stuff hosted with Dreamhost, and I’ve generally been satisfied, but it’s true I’ve had some problems over the years… most notably, I was among the many accounts affected by a security problem last year that really put a damper on things (sites hacked, spam links injected everywhere, a big mess!
). Some similar problems cropped up again recently, so I’ve really been considering a move myself. Unfortunately, I’ve been with them forever, so I have a lot ingrained in their system. It would be a pretty big undertaking. For now, I’ll have to live vicariously through your host migration adventures! If the day comes for me, maybe I’ll try these host monsta’s too. What’s good enough for Toothy is good enough for me!
May 15th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Yay, the layout works in Firefox now, too. I didn’t even realise I was missing out on a cute tree on the side until you pointed it out yourself.
May 15th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
@Brian: It’s only been a few days now, but I’ve been very impressed so far. I’ll keep you apprised privately once I’ve had more experience. One thing that I do find remarkable is their control panel. Dreamhost’s CP was nice, but not nearly as fully-featured as Hostmonster’s which was a pleasant surprise. Being able to instantly chat with someone when I have a question is also great!
I do think I had misfortune with Dreamhost. And that part of the slowdown of my server was at least somewhat related to Google spidering my site in particular (I’ve since applied limits to when, how often, and how frequently my site can be reindexed).
It sounds like the issue might be with the AJAX edit comments. I’ll keep my eyes open for any updates.
@Tone: I actually joined DH right after their accounting snafu that double- and sometimes triple-billed customers for the following year’s hosting. I had hoped that by barely missing that blunder I would end up loving my experience with DH. However, almost instantly Blog Azeroth’s forum system got bogged down. It’s just flying now, so I’m really relieved. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to not even want to visit your OWN site because it’s so slow, knowing that users must feel that 10x.
@Ketsugi: I’m glad you can see the (much-improved) Tree. Andrige does awesome work!
May 16th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Well hey looky here! I can actually see your site again at work!
Hopefully it lasts longer than last time. Congrats on accomplishing the move and the Firefox improvements DO look great!
May 16th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
The drawn tree was added the same time she revamped the site with the proper CSS code for Firefox, the artwork was my doing… *flex*…
Ehem… sorry ^^;
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
@Tigersoul: That’s great news! I didn’t realize that the blocking was by IP address. Also, have you ever seen http://www.killerstartups.com/Social-Networking/Unblockallnet—Access-Any-Blocked-Website/ ? It’s a site that supposedly lets you access anything despite the controls in place at work. I personally would be too timid to try it, but I figured you could take a look for yourself. =)
@Andrige: <3 I loves it!