6 Unheralded Benefits of Blogging (Or How I Gained a Degree in Technology in Less Than 2 Days)
[Editor’s Note: This post has been edited from the original. The names have been changed (or deleted) to protect the guilty.]
Okay, the blog was down for nearly 48 hours. So Coryan, what happened? In a nutshell, hosting problems (with a sprinkle of database errors and other challenges). So, after a very frustrating 30+ hours of work to get the site back up, I thought it would be good to present the unheralded benefits of blogging:
1. Learning how to use redial on your phone…to call tech support 30 times in one day. (You think I’m joking?) Tech support, a job for individuals who failed the waterboarding exam at Interrogation School.
2. Adding to the already useless acroynms you toss into conversations to sound important (php, html, pop3 and my new favorite SQL). OMG, like Internet users don’t know how to spell out an entire word, IMHO.
3. Learning financial lessons like - the “low cost” provider is rarely the best provider. “What do you mean a $150 to reinstall a 71 kb database? BlueHost.com does it for FREE.”
4. Finding new friends on support forums who are willing to help you solve a problem, even if it means an hour or two of work on their part (a real thanks to CptCANUCK and Moderator Thur at BloggerForum.com).
5. Discovering the Internet ghost towns - forums where you can post a question, get visits from ghosts, but never get a response (except a know-it-all teen who tells you that you posted in the wrong forum, WHICH I DIDN’T you voice-cracking pubescent fool.) Here’s an idea, if you want your forum to work, try to see that everyone gets a response, even if it’s, “Sorry, no one on this forum is intelligent enough to answer that question, or offer suggestions, or even say how sorry we are that you are having a problem.”
6. Saving yourself a trip to the therapist. Just writing this post provided me more relieve than a visit to the therapist (who only charges $100 an hour, not $150 for 10-minute task like some hosting providers).
So, what do you find as unexpected benefits of blogging? Leave us a comment.
9 Responses to “6 Unheralded Benefits of Blogging (Or How I Gained a Degree in Technology in Less Than 2 Days)”
By Ben on Jan 5, 2008 | Reply
So this opens my eyes to GoDaddy!. Sounds like you had an interesting last few days, I am really glad I didn’t have to go through that. I’m hosted with GoDaddy and am afraid if I switch hosts that I will lose my entire site.
Plus, I like the new theme!
By Coryan on Jan 5, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Ben, but in all fairness, I can’t say that everyone will have the same experience I had with GoDaddy. Nonetheless, they have not been helpful or understanding in helping me to resolve this problem…unless I fork over $150.
So, I will begin the process of rebuilding the blog from the ground up. It is tough to think about the two months of work that is lost, but I’m not willing to pay the $150 to recover my data. But I’ve sure learned a lot from this experience - #1 Make data backups early and often. By the time I made a backup, the data was already corrupt.
By Neil Matthews on Jan 6, 2008 | Reply
I checked and some of your posts have been cached by google, so you should at least be able to cut and paste some of your posts.
You can see your cached data at
[edit: link deleted due to length]
Hope that help a bit
Neil
By Coryan on Jan 6, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Neil. You and I were thinking alike last night. I had forgotten that Google cached sites that they crawl until just before going to bed last night. My wife thought I was nuts when I yelled from the office at nearly midnight!
I copied everything last night and sat down this afternoon to start putting the content back on the site.
BTW, you have an interesting blog at fraudulent-clicks.com. Thanks for visiting.
By Heather on Jan 7, 2008 | Reply
OMG, IMHO this is the best start to my week! I had to ROFL reading about the acronyms. My unexpected benefit from blogging…..finding there really are people out there who think like I do!
By Coryan on Jan 7, 2008 | Reply
Hi Heather. Just in case you need a few more acronyms for your impressive net vocabulary, check this out: http://www.gaarde.org/acronyms/. Really, it’s a whole ‘nother language!
By Shari Voigt on Jan 9, 2008 | Reply
Aren’t hosting problems the absolute worst? I ran into this with another company in November on a customer’s site. It was so frustrating to log hours on the phone and not make any progress. I finally pulled the account and moved it TO GoDaddy because they’ve always provided me with excellent customer service. I’m sorry that you had such a bad experience with them.
By Coryan on Jan 10, 2008 | Reply
Hi Shari, I’m glad to hear that GoDaddy has been a good host for your blog. Honestly, I’ve had sometime to think this over and I’m a bit less critical of GoDaddy. I still think they could have been more understanding and helpful. And I definitely think a $150 to restore a database backup is outrageous, but I am not sure this problem was their fault to begin with.
Therefore, I’ve decided to edit this post to delete the references to GoDaddy. Anyone reading these comments will make the connection, but I feel much of my post was pure venting of my frustration. I still have a couple projects hosted by GoDaddy and before this database issue, I found their support folks to be very helpful.
So, I’m ready to move on. BTW, I was able to recover 100% of my posts through another source. I have just four more to move over. That will be finished tonight. Life is good!