Over the last year The Local Tourist has seen phenomenal growth. While this is wonderful, it’s also meant some growing pains. More users, more traffic, more content, and more community mean more resources are required to keep the site running smoothly. You might have noticed that over the last week it was down – a lot. In an attempt to make the site move faster we had switched to a fully managed dedicated server at a new webhost, and from day one there were a multitude of problems. Support was inconsistent: some were responsive, helpful and polite; others were rude and adopted the what-are-you-stupid attitude. I had to ask them to reboot the server multiple times daily. Finally, after five days of crying, begging, cajoling, and terse responses to their lack of a solution, they told me the hardware was bad.
AAGGGHHHH!!! Guess what I did? Called SingleHop. I should have done that right off the bat and I don’t know why I didn’t think of them originally. Their support has been fantastic, and since I have someone dedicated just to me (poor guy), it’s also consistent. I put in a ticket and barely have time to refresh Outlook before he’s responded. I can also – and this is where the geek in me comes out – reboot the server myself. From my iPhone. Fortunately I haven’t needed to yet, but after the last week of feeling tethered to my computer the idea that I have control from anywhere at any time makes me happier than Joan Crawford in a closet full of wooden hangers. Bonus? They’re in Chicago!
I’m also working on some more improvements to the site. If you have any suggestions about anything, including content, format, and structure, please let me know!
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