You may have noticed my blog takes a bit more time to open if you are reading from Europe or Asia.

The reason is, I’ve migrated my blog to BlueHost recently.

Why?

There are actually 3 reasons.

CEZ explaining how I need to wait 1 month for reply.

1. Downtime

You may have seen one previous rant about this.

In the last month, the local power company is making the neighbourhood look like a christmas tree. I’ve signaled them plenty of times and they only returned me a couple of trouble tickets with standard answers and a ticket resolution in 30 days!

In 30 days, Google, Yahoo! and Bing! may mark my blog as unstable (not online frequently) or demote my site to PR 0. I’ve worked for PR 2 almost half-year, building valid links (no link baits and no black hat links). Took me a lot of Yahoo answers replies, establishing contacts with other bloggers and leaving insightful comments in their blogs. Getting to know people in forums with area near to my blog area and writing specific articles to answer their questions, so I am not posting there some spammy links to my blog but provide a resource to help them for real.

It is not good to get demoted because of such a downtime:

root@router:~# cat /var/log/messages* | grep restart | sort
Jun 10 04:40:01 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 14 01:03:47 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 14 06:32:00 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 14 09:00:28 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 16 07:55:41 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 16 09:26:39 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 16 13:55:09 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 16 17:23:17 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 16 17:39:10 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 16 17:43:35 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 17 04:40:03 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 19 17:13:59 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 20 10:14:25 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 20 12:57:54 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 21 14:27:37 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 21 17:00:49 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 24 04:40:01 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 28 09:48:51 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jun 28 12:48:22 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jul 1 04:40:01 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jul 1 08:42:13 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jul 2 06:16:38 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
Jul 8 04:40:01 router syslogd 1.5.0: restart.
root@router:~#

The other reason is my ISP.

Sorry guys, but we are living in 21-st century. You can’t just disconnect me for overdue payment without prior notice.

I am not poor, I can afford your service.

I am just forgetful. My focus is on my beloved one, my work, my blog, my pet and my hobbies. Sending me an SMS or an E-mail to remind me the end date to pay you is after 3 days will cost you less than $0.03. I am paying you $18 for 10 Mbps. It’s not THAT much of a loss. Merely 0.0054%. Any self respecting company would do this for the customer.

And thank you for not replying to my E-mails for a whole week.

Both of them into the mix.

Now imagine my ISP, blaming the power company…

Guys, why you did not invest in UPS? Downtime = unhappy customer. You can’t just reply to my call with

“We have no power in our local tech center, so we are waiting!”

“LOL WUT !?! Waiting?“

Why is this happening? What are you waiting for? It is one-time investment, and for what it is worth – happy customer with no downtime will bring more happy customers just from “word-by-mouth“.

2. Safety and serenity.

So, I’ve decided it is over with self hosting. It is dirt cheap and incredibly easy to be done. I’ve explained it in one article before. But it is not free:

1. You have full control, but in the same time – you still pay your ISP for the internet connection.
2. You also need to pay your electricity bills, because the server is consuming power 24/7.
3. You still need to keep your server OS and services up to date. Otherwise, the next exploit can be a reason you get rooted, your databases dropped and your whole site, erased or defaced – just because some script kiddie decided to test if he can crack it.

3. Hosting area

My main auditory lives in the USA, so the US hosting was a no-brainer. If the majority of the readers are living in the US – they better get no delay opening the blog articles at all.

Being hosted in the same country as your audience is also good for the SEO.

I was planning to do this sooner or later. The ISP and the power company only forced my hand.

BlueHost

Why exactly did I choose them?

They are quite friendly bunch and so far, there are only 2 things I found annoying:

1. There is 20% VAT tax attached to the total payment.
2. SSH is not enabled by default and you need “proof of ownership” before they allow you to enable it. But it is okay, because you only need to give them a screenshot of your credit card with the important digits masked.

But…

The migration itself takes less than 30 minutes for a blog with 120 articles and there is one interesting thing:

You are encouraged to bring more customers to them, by placing a banner and affiliate links and you are paid for each customer willing to use their hosting service $65. It is not going to provide me with a passive income living, but it may pay for the next year’s hosting tax.

So I’ve decided to stay. And if you are curious – I am quite happy – the cPanel creates a new blog or forum with just 3 clicks. No more software updates and reading tutorials how to set it from scratch. Yes. It is informative and important experience, but my time is more expensive than $4 monthly.

—

Disclaimer 1: The opinion noted here is my own and is not shared by my associates, compatriots and co-workers.

Disclaimer 2: The links pointing to BlueHost noted above are affiliate links and by making purchase by following them, you are giving me a direct revenue as a BlueHost affiliate (but you loose nothing).

I’ve come with the idea to make this blog post today, because I almost kicked an old woman while trying to go to work (overslept again). She was staying in a very narrow path and dozens of people were trying to get around her, while she was obviously doing something important.

Something that kept her mind away from the people that need to get to the bus or the subway FAST.

I was so obsessed with my phone that I saw her in the last moment.

So this blog post is about the most annoying people you meet while trying to go somewhere quickly

… and how to avoid them 🙂

The slow granny

The slow granny

The one I have described above is the most annoying. (and most dangerous)

The slow granny does not care you are in a hurry. She is doing something very important and needs to stay exactly in the center of a very narrow snow trail.

She is occupied by reordering the bricks in her purse.

Why do I call them bricks?

Try to make the old granny move away.

She will swing her purse and hit your head or crotch with sharpshooter’s accuracy.

You will FEEL the bricks inside.

How to avoid the slow granny? Simply get your sorry bottom around her. Don’t comment. Don’t try to move her. Just go. Around.

(Granny image source va_sfak@flickr)

Mannequin with huge ... smile.

The show-case stopper

This one is the second most annoying (and dangerous) walker.

Imagine you are in an underpass or  a sidewalk with some shops beside you.

You are walking vigorously behind someone and (s)he suddenly stops and starts drooling in front of a show-case. It is either a

• Heterosexual male, that just saw a mannequin with enormous … eyes.
• Homosexual male, that just saw *fabulous* pair  of shoes or
• Heterosexual female, that just saw anything worth her attention @ 100%.

Whoever of the aforementioned DOES stop suddenly and you can crash your chin in his/hers head.

How to avoid? Never walk vigorously behind a huge hulks, trendy looking boys or slow walking girls. If they stop suddenly you may get b!tch-slapped. Either verbally or literally.

(Mannequin image source Paul Laury@Flickr)

Hitchhiker

The hitchhiker

He is less dangerous breed but at least as annoying as the previous two.

• Huge backpack
• Walks slowly and looks around all the time or
• Walks vigorously and looks back all the time.
• Tries eye contact with you, regardless you are not interested at all and asks a question in barely understandable English.
• Needs long and through explanation to where he is trying to go, regardless he is seeing you are in a hurry to somewhere else.
• Sometimes asks for spare change …

How to avoid the Hitchhiker? Simple:

1. Don’t speak English.
2. Don’t allow eye contact.
3. Walk beside him, without taking his presence in mind.
4. Keep walking, even if you are the last person on earth, (s)he is sexy and there are no sheep around.

(“The answer” image source Patrick Hoesly@Flickr)

Wheels and luggage

The shop-loading worker

Do you remember Gandalf shouting

You shall not pass!

• The shop-loading worker will park his bus in the side walk.
• Even if there is place for you to quickly pass by, the worker will occupy it with a wheeled unloader and will quickly block your way.
• There will be at least one more person with him, so even if you can find a gap between him entering the shop storage room, the other will find a way to block you.

Want to avoid this slowly working bunch? You can’t. Wait patiently or risk going to around the bus from the road-side.

(wheeled luggage, image source m_dougherty@flickr)

Staring kitten

The “go-before-me” starer

Narrow trail in snow.

You are in a hurry.

There is another person walking against you.

There is not enough space for both of you to pass each other on the narrow path.

You step in the snow to let the other person pass.

He steps in the snow too and allows you to pass.

Says nothing.

Just stares at you and waits.

VERY annoying! You are already knee deep in snow and you did nothing.

Don’t avoid him. Just say “thanks” and go quickly.

(Staring kitten, image source xlibber@flickr)

Steps in the snow

…and last, but not least…:

The stalker

I don’t know about you people, but I really hate being followed by someone that’s walking with the same speed as mine.

It makes me walk faster and faster and often the stalker also tries to keep the pace, making me even more vigorous.

How to avoid stalkers? Don’t. Let them pass in front of you and stalk them instead with evil grin on your face 😀

(Steps in snow, image source Miles B. at flickr )