Dealing with Idiots
Its been a week and a half since moving to Missouri, and its been a bit rough. What I have learned is that it is really tough to live without the Internet. 
Alot of things havent been easy; you never knew how much you relied on the Internet until the point you didn’t have it.
First major fiasco of last week was our stupid webhosting company known as Netbunch. It used to be Mesopia when we first made the website in 2004, but then it was bought by Netbunch (which is owned by WebHostingPlus) sometime in the last 8-12 months. Since that point it has been downhill — bad customer service, late response (sometimes no response at all:!: ), and no support forums!!!
Well one day last week, because I was home and thank goodness for the Business Center in the apartment complex where I could use the Internet, I noticed that our website was down. 
I immediately shot off a support ticket request to the Netbunch folks. About an hour and half later I get a response saying that 16 of their servers have been hacked, including their backup, and all data has been wiped clean. 
YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!!
What type of web-hosting company are you running if you cannot secure your customer’s data — including backup!!! Boy was I frustrated as I scrambled to find a backup on my office laptop. I found one, which was old (July 30, 2006), but now didn’t have the resources ( i.e. Internet access on my laptop) or the time to sit and fix the website. I told Netbunch that I wanted to know if they were able to recover data that would be more recent than July 30th, but they said (which took them two days to respond 
) that at this time, they had zero of my data. IDIOTS!
During the time that I was waiting for their response, I began to look for other web hosting companies. I searched, read reviews, got recommendations, and made a new choice. I sent a support ticket back to Netbunch requesting my money back on the remaining months on the contract, which would be till June 2007. I am still trying to fight that war as they haven’t responded yet:!:
Here’s a good tip for those who might be looking for web hosting companies — NETBUNCH/WEBHOSTINGPLUS is not a good choice. It might offer you a good deal, but you don’t get the customer service, the uptime, or any type of satisfaction with this company!
Then Friday night I stayed up till 1 am to restore as much as I could with the website. Neeraj and I had driven back to Morton Friday after he got back from the office, as we were going to spend the next three days(Monday was a day off due to Labor Day) traveling with the family to Minnesota (leaving early Saturday morning). So I knew that I wasn’t going to have time all weekend and plus Friday night was the first time all week that I had an Internet connection for a longer period of time than a half hour, and so I sat and restored as much as possible.
We haven’t had Internet at our new home because it takes so much freakin’ time to get anything setup. We wanted a broadband connection like we had in Morton, and so to get DSL you have to have a phone line. Well, we got the DSL modem and all in the postal mail on Friday before we left for Morton, but the phone line wasn’t going to be activated till this last Tuesday and then just yesterday they activated our DSL line. So it took a week and a half to get everything hooked up. I had to return my office laptop too because last Friday was my last day with my old company. Neeraj and I ended up buying a new desktop computer — Dell E310 Dimension Desktop with Windows XP Media Edition.
Life hasn’t been too rosy for us — we were trying to get Dish Network (satellite provider) to come and put in our television channels, including the Hindi channels. They finally came yesterday (Saturday) but gave us bad news. 
It seems that your balcony (that’s basically the only place we can put the satellite dish) has to face the southwest direction to make it work right. Guess where we are facing??? North. So we aren’t going to have our Hindi channels. 
I was pretty upset. We even tried to ask our landlord if we could switch apartments, but she said that there is a rule that you can’t switch until you have lived here for six months.
So it hasn’t been fun. I can’t find my other posts so I am going to restore those and write them before I start on the others. Sorry about that.
Alvida. Jai Mata Di.
September 10th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Good to see ur blog up again!!
I know how it feels when u lose all your posts.. has happened with me once!! netbunch is terrible… i second that… their customer service is extremely poor…. btw, where have u moved ur site now?
regarding hindi channels… is dish n/w the only way? don’t you have some other options there?
September 10th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
Oh that is terrible
it must have been really bad to find out you had lost all your new posts due to the stupid hosting company!
Hey even in Australia it is the same with internet connections getting set up, they seem to take forever.. :???:and when you are missing being online even a week can seem like forever!
Anyway I hope you have a nice week after all this drama :) and great to see your blog working again!
September 10th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
well….its good to see this website up and running. it must be crazy dealing with such lunatics?!Hope you get your money back. I am certainly not gonna go with netbunch…who is your new webhost? hope things run smooth from now on with you guys in missouri…I used to hate not having indian channels when dad and mom decided not having any channels whatsoever at home…but slowly got used to not having any cable…hopefully you guys will be able to move to a different apartment soon too..take it easy and good luck!
September 10th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
Its true life without the Internet is like living in some other age…..We are so very dependent…..
From your post I feel that few companies in India are providing better service keeping in mind the cut throat competition…We got Airtel BB in just 2 days in Bangalore…n same 2 days in Chennai…also the cable tv guy was quick…not to mention his own commission involved…
Neways good to see NP.com back in action….
Aap dono ke nay naukri kaise chal rahe hai??
September 11th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
I found cheaper…really cheaper hosting companies based in small ‘dabba dukans’ to work better than any Godaddies and Mesopian queens! :P
September 11th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
hi there guys
Nice to see that your postings back online. Sorry to hear about the problems you are facing now.
So how is the new job and all.
September 11th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Hey NP… just wanted to send some positive energy your way. Its been rough for you the past couple of weeks. Hope, things start to fall into place for you. I also made a move to another city (Edmonton) last weekend with a friend. We were without internet for a week, and that seemed like ages. Its amazing how internet has almost become a necessity. Good luck to you guys!! I am sorry to hear about the Hindi channels. I hope something works out. Take care.
September 12th, 2006 at 5:00 am
Really a bad experience… and its not possible to take back-ups after every few days.
September 13th, 2006 at 2:54 am
gosh it has been a long time that I didn’t come here … I was in holiday for about a month and couldn’t do blogging … Seems like a lot of things happening, how are you? *hugs*
That’s a very irresponsible web host company ….
Are you moving to another place and resign from Accenture?
Happy always
September 13th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
We have moved over to ANhosting. So far so good (touch wood). Let’s hope that this is better than that horrible service that Netbunch provided.
The hindi channels is a major bummer.
Hindi channels are provided by two separate companies, but both we have to be facing in the south direction. In this apartment complex the only place that we are able to put the satellite dish is in the balcony, and its facing the north direction. 
So now the only place where we can watch is when we go back home to Illinois.
Interesting Mary that it takes that long in Australia as well. I thought it was just the USA that was like that, but it seems that customer service is an issue all over the world.
I am really glad to be back blogging. 
Thanks for keeping on being an avid reader:!:
Thanks Kaush dear.
Our new webhosting company is Anhosting. Its been so far good so let’s hope it stays this way. 
I am still going to take precautions on my own side by taking backups whenever i have a new post. As for the Hindi channels, its still a bummer. Today we finally got a new cable package, and we have 155 channels — Neeraj is already hooked on the sports channels:!: 
Anyway, we are definitely going to move next year, I have already started looking at potential new homes and condos. 
Wow Mehak, you really wouldn’t expect that great service in India, but that’s really great that our desh is doing well on that. Something to look forward to when we move back to India.
Naukri toh aachi hai - jahan paisa wahan aacha hi hai. 
How cheap and can you give me some names Harry?
Usually cheap companies don’t provide good service (I learned that with Netbunch 
).
Everything is well Riya, hope the same for you.
Thanks for the positive energy Joy.
How’s life in Edmonton? Hope all is well. 
It will have to be possible Ankur.
How was your holiday Mona? Where did you go?
Yes, I have resigned and moved on to another company in another city in another state. 
Hope all is well with you and Suhadi:!: 
September 16th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
From my Experience, i think the only best hosting i’ve recommend is Dreamhost
Poonam if you dont believe me then just read the reviews of Dreamhost. i am having 99 uptime… its really cool and you see they banckup your data regurally but the only thing that matters is the cost. its been a little higher than anyother……
maybe Ankur what do you say about dreamhost ?