Yes, I’m still alive, folks.
In case you missed it … my blog ended up crashing on Saturday morning after a major malfunction at my old web host (Yahoo).
I won’t bore you with the technical details, but let’s just say Yahoo’s customer service was atrocious. In fact, after spending most of Saturday and part of Sunday on the phone with them, they essentially told me their engineers had no idea how to fix the problem. In fact, they decided it would be best if I tried to fix the problem on my own — even though this all started with a malfunction on their side of the fence, so to speak. “Try the WordPress forums on the Internet,” they said. Oh, yes. They really did.
“But I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” I protested. “Besides, the problem started with you guys.”
“We’re very sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes, we’re very sorry, Mr. Penzo.”
“So that’s it?”
“I think so. Unfortunately, Mr. Penzo, we just don’t know what is wrong with your site.”
What’s wrong with my website was that I had knuckleheads for a web host.
I really don’t know how Yahoo manages to stay in business with customer service like that. I really don’t.
Can you imagine if you went to the doctor for a medical problem and, after running a few measly diagnostic tests, your physician told you, “Sorry, I’m completely stumped. Perhaps you should try asking the Internet users group over at WebMD. Maybe they can help.”
Unbelievable.
Anyway … by Sunday afternoon, some of my fellow bloggers had come to my aid. I want to thank J Money from Budgets are Sexy, Tom from Canadian Finance Blog, Larry from Investor Junkie, Joe from Stacking Benjamins, Sandy from Yes, I Am Cheap, and Andrea from Nuts and Bolts Media for all of their help. And, boy, did they deliver!! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
I eventually settled on a new web host provider, Rack Geek, which is led by its extremely dedicated and competent owner, Brandon. Within a couple of hours, Brandon was able to figure out what Yahoo, incredibly, couldn’t in more than 24 hours; it turns out that my database credentials had been corrupted.
As you can see, with Brandon’s assistance, the site is back up (hooray!) — but I ended up losing two months’ worth of posts; everything after February 15th was lost. So I’ll be spending most of the next week or so trying to recover those articles that went up in smoke — yes, it can be done — and get the site back to where it was prior to “the Great Crash of April 12th.”
I hope to have the blog back to normal by next Monday — but it may take a bit longer. After all, Easter week is here and that will cut into some of the free time I’ll need to fix things.
In the meantime, I intend to post a Black Coffee this weekend. I’ll also be rerunning some of my more popular posts from the past while I’m working behind the scenes here to get things back to normal.
One more thing: Once I finish recovering my lost articles, I plan on giving the blog a bit of a facelift. I know. Obviously, blog design was never my strong suit. So if you have any suggestions, let me know! What do you like about the current layout of the site? What do you hate?
After the facelift is done, I promise the site will load much quicker, and be user friendly on everything from ipads and computer screens to smart phones.
Okay, it’s getting late and I need to hit the sack.
Thankfully, my blog nightmare is over. I just hope I didn’t lose too many of you in the process.
Photo Credit: Keoni Cabral
Sorry to hear about the crash Len. I am just glad it is on it’s way to recovery. I really missed it! As for a suggestion on a site lay out, is there anyway to continue using the old lay out while you experiment with a new one? I am thinking it would default to the current version with an option to switch over to the beta for a peek (Got this idea from Yahoo…sorry). You could even get votes for what everyone prefers. Opinions and interaction with his fans…now that is one of the things Len does best! Good luck getting the site back up and be sure to take time out for the family this Easter weekend. It is much harder to reboot a family than a web site. Yes, I speak from personal experience.
Good idea, Duane! I’ll see what I can do. Thanks for the suggestions!
Len, I am glad your back. I was real worried the government took you down for telling the truth. Someday it may happen. But for now keep up the good work and tell it like it is. We look forward to you blog reboot. Thanks.
Thanks, Rick.
When didn’t see your weekend edition of Black Coffee, I wanted to dial 9-1-1. Glad to see you back!
So that’s what happened! Thank Goodness, you’re back. Looking forward to the new blog design, Len.
Me too, Catseye. Me too.
I wondered why the most recent post I could see was from a month ago!
Sorry for the hassle, but what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Your site will be better for the experience. I know, easy for me to say.
The worst thing that can happen to a blogger, my man. Good for you for staying patient and getting it done!
Glad to see you’re back up and running, albeit with some kinks still to work out! You can rest easy now knowing that RackGeek will keep 7 days of backups at all times and this will NEVER happen again. I’m happy you reached out and I was able to help. 🙂
Is this thing on?
It is now! Thanks, Sandy for your help. As you can see, I’ve still got some work to do, but at least the site is up and running again!
Glad to see you back!
I’m so glad you’re back up and running; I was worried you were lost in cyberspace forever! I’m guessing you’ve learned to back up your blog entries from this experience (even if it’s just copying and pasting them into a Word document on your desktop.)
Re: A facelift for the blog; I like your straightforward layout and the ‘most popular’ links in the sidebar. I come here to read financial and money advice, NOT to be dazzled by a fancy layout. Thanks for your posts and I look forward to more!
Thank you for the suggestions, Lauren!
Yeah, I was wondering where all the new & recent posts went. I didn’t see anything newer than Feb. I even googled Len Penzo gone?
Sorry to hear about your troubles and that it took a whole weekend to fix! I can only imagine how unbelievably frustrating that must have been. Best of luck recovering what’s still missing and the blog makeover. I’m looking forward to checking it out!
Losing Lenpenzo.com is like losing a family member (almost). I also like the straightforward layout of the current version. Don’t make any rash changes.
Thank you, Randy. That is quite a compliment!
(And that you for the suggestion.)
Yahoo is horrible. I have had their email for over 15 years but recently they have been changing/ inconsistent/going haywire too. It almost makes me want to change over to my google account permanently.
Welcome back! Sounds like a right old nuisance, and that is pretty poor from yahoo. So long as they maintained a decent attitude then one can sympathise, but really they shouldn’t have been giving you more positive answers and trying their best to find a solution.
Hopefully it won’t happen to you again!
Glad to see you back again Len! I missed reading your posts. Rotten Yahoo 🙁 Thanks for all the hard work you have been putting in this week getting it all put back together.
Glad you are back, Len! Just in time for my Easter Birthday tomorrow!
Awesome! Happy birthday, Jan!
That is exactly why I host everything myself. I just don’t trust others to do it for me as most web hosts hire people who really only know how to fix basic issues.
Glad to see you’re back, hopefully this new hosting works out a lot better.
If you want to get your articles back, it could be a little painful, but consider going to http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.lenpenzo.com and getting your articles back that way. Google cache might also have copies if you can remember the URLs.
My only problem with the site is there aren’t enough Viagra ads. You holding out?