Newbie switching hosting providers…

I spent all last night recreating my blog fiction site, something I was more or less forced to do because I switched it over to a new hosting company.

This is the third hosting service with which I’ve dallied since I put up a site for my dog book last spring. The first one was like the Times Square of hosting services. Loud, flashy, and everything falls apart as soon as you get it home. Sometimes before. It’s primary objective is selling, not supporting, so every time you go to your account you have to press through a mob of virtual hawkers. “Hey, lady, need a new domain?” “EXpired DOmains, 2-fer-1 if you buy today!” “PRI-va-cee for your domain he-EEER.”

The next service I tried was considerably more tasteful, but as it turns out you can go too far in that direction, too. They apparently cater to a clientele that’s ready to spend more money than I am, right now. Their less-expensive stuff was too stripped down. I mean, webstats only once a week? Come on!

Now I’m with Hostgator and, knock on wood, I think I’ve found someone I can at least date for awhile. I was a little intimidated at first by how much more technical I have to be to use them (I was actually editing .php files last night, yikes) but the payoff is that I’ve got a lot more flexibility.

And since their tech support (and the people on the WordPress forums, too, for that matter) seem willing to hold a newbie’s hand for awhile, I’m not getting all stressed out. Which is a good thing, lol.

Now, I wonder if I can do something about the color of my blog header . . .