Now that the honeymoon period is over with my recent switch to GoDaddy, I'm starting to notice some cracks in the veneer. Primarily with their e-mail service which has a tendency to assume that any e-mail originating from the Bahamas is spam, especially ones that come from my bank. But they also don't allow any e-mail through that comes from a mail server that doesn't have a reverse DNS entry.

All in all, it just makes me wonder why they have to be so draconian while Google is more effective without all the rules. Besides which, I'd much rather get spam (which I can delete) than have people get bounced messages (which I don't know about) and not be able to get hold of me at all.

The next beef I have is the lack of a toll-free number. It didn't bother me at first because I was using a Vonage account to contact them. But now I'm in Calgary for the summer and it's not so free anymore. What's even more inexplicable is the 1.866 number at the end of this ad which, when you call it, just gives you options to complain about the ad.

Finally, and this one isn't totally fair, their "biggest" e-mail plan is 100 e-mail address and 2Gb of space. That's 2Gb total spread out over the number of e-mail addresses you have. In our case, we have about 10, which means 200Mb per address. Kind of lame since Google Apps offers 2Gb for free. But I knew this limitation going in so that's why it's not really fair to whine about it now.

Summary: Thumbs up still for the dedicated server which is running nicely. The e-mail service will probably remain for the year that I paid for mostly because I don't want to put my family through another migration so soon after the last one.

Kyle the Sent

Achtung, Internet service on Hillbilly Island has been as spotty as granny's back these days. So much so that I have, once again, followed in the footsteps of James Kovacs, this time by switching to GoDaddy for reasons similar to his own.

Based on his experience, I went directly with a virtual dedicated server but quickly decided that it was going to be insufficient for my needs and I'm now the proud owner of my own bouncing baby dedicated server.

The main (and upon reflection, only) downside to the virtual dedicated server was the physical limit of 10Gb for the disk space. That is unupgradeable. The only way to get more disk space is to get another virtual dedicated server. (Note: This is for a Windows 2003 server; the Linux packages could be upgraded to 50Gb.)

And since two virtual dedicated servers is almost the same price as a single dedicated server, it doesn't take an actuary to add up those numbers. Twice the price for over ten times the disk space. Assuming you need the disk space.

Among the reasons for increased disk space:

• One of the apps currently hosted on the Bahamian server is a web-based document repository of almost 1Gb of word documents (oil & gas-based contracts and fiscal terms from around the world)
• An app I'm building for a client/my dad that will host, among other things, AutoCAD files
• My online music library, which currently stands at 12Gb alone

Yes, the last one isn't exactly mission critical but it helps my argument so I'm using it. In addition to these apps are the many other little web apps I have built and/or plan to build (including possibly turning my dad's app into a Sharepoint site).

Early impressions of GoDaddy are good to excellent. Startlingly prompt (i.e. almost no hold time, especially compared with my recent numerous calls to Expedia who are perpetually, "experiencing an unusually large number of calls"), friendly CSRs, timely service, and great prices. The only minor complaint I have is that the server I was provisioned had Windows Server 2003 installed but not service pack 2 or the .NET 2.0/3.0 runtimes.

Anyway, it's good to be back in civilization, if only virtually. As it is, I still haven't been able to get my old dasBlog site.config file or the log files moved from the cess pit that is Cable Bahamas yet. But to you, my faithful reader(s), who have been wandering Hillbilly-less these last three days, thank you for not forsaking me.