All Systems Down: ReliableSite.net Review

So I don't know if it was some weird juju, but it seemed like the perfect storm hit many of my sites...

ReliableSite.net: Even though I have chosent to remain a customer, I do have quite a few concerns about their service. So much so that I am writing this blog entry about you.

I must warn you that the billing situation for their site does not handle auto billing - so you must either login to pay your bill OR you have to pre-pay for a full year. I had mine going to my yahoo account (but as I am looking back through my emails and they might have stopped sending my bill to the correct address) .




In any caser, I don't really check my yahoo email accout often unfortunately. In any case, here I am - 10 days overdue on my invoice and I login to see the problem in my yahoo email. So I immediately login to pay my bill. Unfortunately in my haste, I didn't realize that I paid with an E-Check (which takes a few days to clear).

I paid, but the system would not let me access my account - due to the fact that it was an e-check apparently. So I put in a support ticket stating that I had sent in payment, but that I was having some difficulties, etc... They wrote me back telling me it was an e-check.

I immediately logged in and then paid via C20.

I then used their online support as you can see below. They told me someone would be with me shortly as they:
payment as well as the c20 payment i had just made

[20:55] ReliableSite: Ok
[20:57] ReliableSite: We're mid-restore on a very large server right now.
[20:57] ReliableSite: We should be able to bring you back up within the next 12 hours.
[20:58] djfractalien: ok, thanks


on 6/26 I receive this response (apparently their Reliable Servers had crashed):

----- Original Message -----

From: Support - ReliableSite.Net

To: mauricio@chaosexistence.com

Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:28 AM

Subject: [37D-0FF59F09-2606] Invoice #1075

Hello,

Someone should get back to you shortly, we have the control panel down for the time being for a server restore.

Thank you,
ReliableSite.Net Support

New Products:

• Windows Server 2008 Shared Hosting - http://www.reliablesite.net/v3/shared.asp
• Affiliate Program (earn $15 for shared, $25 for reseller, and $30 for clustered referrals) - Sign up now at https://payments.reliablesite.net/register.php

---

From: mauricio@chaosexistence.com
Sent: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:27:53 -0400
To: Support Department
Subject: Invoice #1075

[20:53] djfractalien: hi reliable site... I think have a mess... I think you terminated (maybe deleted my account) but I had made a payment - but since it was an echeck (not intentionally) it had not cleared and thus why the problem... sigh. I went in to try and repay via c20 but it looks like maybe im too late because I cannot get into helm :(
[20:55] djfractalien: I have a ticket submitted... [040-0FF2D18F-E8A3] . In addition you will probably receive my paypal payment as well as the c20 payment i had just made

I have made the payment already via C20 but my account has not been reinstated yet, can you please help? I have several sites down. Thanks,
Mauricio Zuniga

=============================

By the 30th of june, I still had not received word - they had received my payment from C20 AND Paypal... still I could not access my control panel:

----- Original Message -----

From: Support - ReliableSite.Net

To: mauricio@chaosexistence.com

Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 1:06 AM

Subject: [2BF-0FFC29FB-CC6A] Invoice #1075

Hello,

Please excuse the delay, the account should now be active and you should receive an e-mail with the login instructions.

Thank you,
ReliableSite.Net Support

New Products:

• Windows Server 2008 Shared Hosting - http://www.reliablesite.net/v3/shared.asp
• Affiliate Program (earn $15 for shared, $25 for reseller, and $30 for clustered referrals) - Sign up now at https://payments.reliablesite.net/register.php

---

From: mauricio@chaosexistence.com
Sent: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:34:19 -0400
To: Support Department
Subject: Invoice #1075

I have paid this through C20 AND my payment through paypal ALSO cleared... my sites are still down - have been for about a week now.

[20:53] djfractalien: hi reliable site... I think have a mess... I think you terminated (maybe deleted my account) but I had made a payment - but since it was an echeck (not intentionally) it had not cleared and thus why the problem... sigh. I went in to try and repay via c20 but it looks like maybe im too late because I cannot get into helm :(
[20:55] djfractalien: I have a ticket submitted... [040-0FF2D18F-E8A3] . In addition you will probably receive my paypal payment as well as the c20 payment i had just made
I have made the payment already via C20 but my account has not been reinstated yet, can you please help? I have several sites down. Thanks,
Mauricio Zuniga

==================================

EVERYTHING HAD BEEN WIPED OUT! NO RECOVERY... ALL MY DNS / Domain ENTRIES, Databases, Files, etc... (about 600 domains).

I put in a support ticket - they said that they did not have a backup (although they alluded that they might). Luckily I have much backed up, but not the latest versions of the databases unfortunately...

===================

Finally, I get around to trying to work on the disaster recovery a day or two after they send me my new login info. What do you know....I have to put in a support ticket yet again. I cannot add or delete domains in my account: yet delayed ONCE again.


My sites went down for weeks... everything deleted, sure I'll take some of the blame... but having used their online support I was in contact with people in their company - I would assume they understood that I was trying to make a payment, and thus might make some type of effort on their end to not delete everything. You seriously delete your accounts 10 days after the invoice is due? I am surprised by how nonchalant the loss of my data was for them....

Sigh - why do I choose to remain here... well there are other factors I don't want to get into right now, but I would be weary. They do have some good deals and technology - but their support seems more concerned with closing the ticket than actually resolving the issue.

Zip Codes Database Table MySQL Export (2006 version with Latitude & Longitude)

As I had promised to myself and a few others. Here is a 2006 Zip Codes Database MySQL Export with latitude and longitude coordinates.

I had been looking for a zip radius solution for one of my projects and I ran into micah's zip code class online. The class is very nicely done; and I am very grateful for people like him who share their work with the world.

But I did notice that the database table for zip codes being used was a bit outdated; I tried to find a mysql export, or as I like to childishly snicker "dump", with the 2006 zip code public data I had found online. I could not find one readily, so I offered some time to transfer the data to a mysql friendly format that would work with micah's solution (If you would like examples on how I made a zip radius search with Micah's class just let me know!).

It is late and I still have much else to do. I have been able to transfer the data, but I do not have time to break it up into 5 mysql files. If you are kind enough to do so, please send me a zip and I will post it here. Thanks for reading. If you would like to support me, please link me, digg me, or perhaps click on one of the sponsors of which you find legitimate interest.

Without further ado, here is the zip code table export.
zip_codes_2006.zip

Can't See Database Tables in Dreamweaver?

This took me a really long time to figure out. For some reason I couldn't see the tables in an asp/sql server setup that I had in dreamweaver.

I prefer to use ftp connections in dreamweaver, but I know you probably shouldn't. What you have to do is make sure that you are connected within the same network. Cross network connections via sql server are not as likely to work. I had my sql server for development set up on another network as I had some sites hosted on that server and my roommate likes to play wow. So I decided to get a second connection. But that is neither here nor there... make sure the computer is connected to the same network and save yourself the trouble of trying to figure out which ports are open and closed.

Then create a new ftp connection.

Where you set your HostDirectory and URLPrefix are Very important for these kinds of setups. Your HostDirectory should point to the exact root web directory. For instance if you connect to your host and then there is an html folder, you probably want to enter "/html/" in your HostDirectory setting.

Then, make sure that your url prefix matches up to where you can access the website: http://192.168.2.21

If these two match up to the correct locations, then you should now be able to see the tables in dreamweaver. The reason is that dreamweaver places some scripts in your root folder as well as the connection files. It uses those files to then communicate with the sql server connection and then send you back the information to your interface. If dreamweaver cannot talk to these scripts, you will not be able to see the tables in your database.

Hope this saves you some time! Thanks for reading ... now please click on a google ad :)

SQL Server MSDE Separate Instance ASP.NET & DSN Connections

Today I ran into an issue where I had a bit of difficulty connecting ASP.net to SQL Server MSDE Named Instance. The problem is that the website previously did not need to specify a named instance of MSDE/SQL Server. I was able to address the connection over asp rather easily, but there was a bit of development already done in ASP.NET and I was not very familiar with the ASP.NET setup.

A little bit of background on myself... I'm a newbie to .NET, but I am always willing to learn. I've been coding in VBscript (ASP), SQL, PHP, XML/HTML, and Javascript for quite some time. I've even had the opportunity to work on some actionscript / flex projects incorporating calls between dhtml and simple flex applications. So you may laugh at how basic this little bit of info is, or (I hope) you may actually find a useful tidbit of knowledge.

I had been handed over a web site from a previous programmer/software company and I had to figure out a way to deploy the website rather quickly. We went with a Dedicated Machine on Win2k3 Web Edition. I knew that a lot of the other O/S I ran in the past had issues with too many unneeded services (Win2k3 SBS I'm looking at you!). So to help client keep costs low and through previous experience (and knowledge about web traffic) and requirements of site, I decided that using MSDE would be a sufficient solution for the database.

I am familiar with SQL Server Enterprise Manager and SQL Server Query Tool. In using MSDE, I didn't think through that I wouldn't have a GUI if I used MSDE. This lead me through the maze of what is IT and Dev...

So yeah, I called some friends and apparently you can run MSDE and just install SQL Server Tools on a machine to get GUI access. Lucky for my client (and me), I have a legitimate copy of SQL Server I bought for my business. But here's the kicker... Web Edition 2k3 doesn't allow you (due to its licensing) to install SQL Server on the same machine. So now I was back to square one. Eventually I figured out how to use SQL Server 2005 Express Edition to serve as the gui for the MSDE DB I had already created. Don't ask me why, but I didn't feel like porting over to a new instance of 2005 by this point.

Guess what though... you cannot import (at least I haven't figure out yet) data the same way you can with Enterprise Manager. The functionality is significantly limited from Enterprise Manager for importing and exporting data. I have tried to connect to MSDE Instance via tcp ip, but I think my isp seems to be blocking port 1433/1434 udp... but that is a topic for another post I suppose.

so the basics...
1) check web.config file where you have the dsn / application connection string stored. It seemed that ASP.NET was not connecting. After a bit of debugging I realized that it should be connecting to a different instance of SQL Server.

2) in the web config - this can also be edited through IIS - ASP.NET tab...

previously looked something like this:
add key= "DSN16" value="server=LOCALHOST;database=DBNAME;uid=sa;pwd=XC123XC123x;"/

3) Now change it to
add key= "DSN16" value="Server=COMPUTERNAME\INSTANCENAME;Database=DBNAME;uid=sqlserverlogin;pwd=XC123XC123x;"/

One thing I would recommend is that you try to login with SQL Server only credentials when you are logging in through Enterprise Manager or SQL Server Manager 2005. It took me a long time to figure this out, but if you know that you can login with the SQL Server only credentials, they should hypothetically work when ASP.NET is using these credentials to talk to SQL Server.

Oh yeah, another thing is that I had to look up on SQL Server properties to give me a clue to use COMPUTERNAME\INSTANCENAME. Since I had to figure it out on my own and I couldn't find the info online ... I did find about connections with named instances, but without realizing that the credentials i was using weren't SQL server credentials... well it was useless. until I switched to SQL server only credentials, then it worked.

hope this helps and saves you a bit of time. Now please click on a google ad.
thanks,
Mauricio