Two days ago I updated my wordpress installation. It went very smoothly. Thanks WordPress! You are great. NOT so great is my web hosting company, Lunar Pages. I’m still getting apparently automated emails from them that I need to delete my old WP installation. And no help is available. So I’m cleaning out some old files in the WP directory and testing it to make sure I didn’t delete anything critical.
Fortunately (or not) the people at Lunar Pages are too stupid and lazy to find this post. (Plus I backed up my site in case they exhibit even greater incompetence or actual maliciousness and delete my files. (For more insight from people who’ve had even worse experiences with them than I have, please visit this web site.)
Isn’t this an interesting post? 🙂
Testing the comment function now. Some of you may know I do some computer support on the side. Here are some other tech-related things I hate, besides Lunar Pages:
Microsoft Wireless Keyboard. Paid a fortune for it and it constantly skips. Finally “upgraded” to a wireless Logitech that costs a fraction of the price.
Dell Home Sales Tech Support. Just try ordering an install CD from these people. It’s an incredible experience. With other PC companies such as HP or Gateway, it’s a ten-minute phone call. With Dell home support, it’s a series of discussions with several different departments for a total of about one hour.
HP Online Software Purchases. Tried to purchase and download Windows Mobile 5. No download link came in after I paid. Spent ten days waiting for HP Sales and various other departments to get me a valid download link and ID. They couldn’t get it to work. Finally gave up and requested a refund. Purchased the upgrade on Ebay instead.
NYC Time-Warner Road Runner Broadband Tech Support. You have to call a local number, then get switched to the broadband dept, then get switched to tech support, and then get switched to the department for the thing you are calling about. That’s assuming you call from your home phone. God forbid you call from a number they don’t have a record of, and they will ask you for an obscure password that you set verbally years ago when you first opened the account. Then they will ask you for the amount of your last bill. Hopefully you can find your bill. Or maybe you use online billing. in which case you can’t get to your bill because you don’t have your password. Total time for a simple password reset: two hours.
Verizon Tech Support. Not nearly as bad as TW (see above). You can actually get through to someone pretty quickly. But please don’t call Verizon tech support unless you don’t need them, because they will give you info that is simply WRONG, and if you don’t know better you will waste a lot of time and energy and start crying. I only call them for password resets and occasionally to make sure the DSL line is working when the internet is out.
Never work with computers, children, or animals. I have this on good authority and could recount many hilarious tales of computer-illiterate folks trying to use computers. Part of me dies inside.
One of the more painful tech experiences I endure occasionally is configuring a router to allow various programs through to the great expanses of the internet. Please, make it stop…!
It took a week to view and approve your comment because I was switching to another web host. Lunar Pages deleted my blog (not sure if it was malicious or just incompetent) but I was able to export the SQL database to my new host. I did ask LP to retrieve it and after two business days they responded rather tepidly that they would try. Five days later it’s still not there but my DNS servers are pointing to the new host now. Will break with Lunarpages.com completely as soon as I am sure I copied everything over and I CAN’t WAIT.
I agree that it can be amusing when people are not computer literate. (I had a Geek Girls client ask me via email if she should get an “anaesthetic bag” to protect her hard drive. (I think she meant an electro-static bag”. However, it’s merely tragic when the people who are computer illiterate are the alleged techs at LunarPages.com.