Okay guys, in about 2 1/2 months, I’ll be either renewing the site with the current host or going to a new one. Since I still have a lot of time, I wanted to know if you guys like the host we have now, or think we could do better. I know the forums go down quite a bit, even when we had the old ones so that may be something to consider.
Also, the domain names are also going to be up for renewal, catslair.net and thundercatslair.org. Do you guys think we should keep both, or just use one?
If you have suggestions for a host that is comparable to what we are currently using (www.simplehost.com) feel free to let me know. The only thing wanting me to renew with the current host is the fact that we get unlimited storage space and the moment we use about 1.5Gig.
If we are leaving, I just want to get a headstart on searching for a new host since I have to contact the billing department beforehand whether to cancel or continue the hosting of the site. It’s on auto-renew, so I don’t want to get billed and decide not to stay.
I know I am quite new here and my therefore it is harder for me to voice an opinion on this…but I don’t know too mant hosts that provide unlimited storage so as far as I am concerned…I would stay
The forum has only crashed once when I have been logged on.. I don’t know how much of an issue you guys feel this is..
FWIW, I think this site and these Boards are reliable enough for what we need - I did once see the site go down in its complete entirety for about half a day but otherwise I don’t have major problems myself. I agree with Kyle about the unlimited storage, so if you’re happy, Manny, I would say stick with Simplehost.
Re: the domain name issue - I don’t think its completely necessary to retain www.catslair.net, particularly not if it’s costing a lot of money. My only reservation is that it strikes me that a lot of our URLs go to a derivative of www.catslair.net (I personally access these Boards by logging onto www.catslair.net/forums), so for people who visit areas of the site, like these Boards, via bookmarks rather than through the front page, you’d need to make sure that their bookmarks were updated. Otherwise, I don’t think it’s necessary.
BTW, Manny, did you get my last PM in response to yours? I sent it (I think) two nights ago. It’s not in need of an urgent reply (and, true to type, it was a loooooooong message! ;)), but I just wanted to make sure it had reached you OK. Please can you LMK? Many thanks!
Im not too sure how widely www.catslair.net is being used i do enter the forums mainly thru www.catslair.net/forums but wether more people do it is unknown to me. The question now is how much it will cost for the renewal of both domain names…If it is fairly affordable which i think it is then we should definitely keep both domain names. I believe it cost less than $10 to get the domain name last year so renewing it shouldnt be more than that.As far as the hosting goes my vote would be to keep it. I have not really seen any major problems with it and with unlimited storage it sure cant be beat. I’d say lets keep simplehost
Technically, catslair.net is the official domain name according to the host ONLY. Reason being is, when I signed up, we got a free domain name from their partner site and that’s what I used. MannyC registered thundercatslair.org shortly after for 7.95 (or 8.95) at godaddy.com. If I were to keep both, catslair.net would be renewed through simplehost for 14.95 and thundercatslair.org would be registered at godaddy.com for 7-8.95.
Because the host recognizes catslair.net as the official domain name, most visitors do enter the site through that domain.
It would be nice to only have to pay 10 bucks for the domain since the host will cost me 90 upon renewal so yeah, if you guys are okay with just one domain name, I would be okay with it too.
Chris: I did receive the PM and will reply ASAP. Sorry for not replying sooner!
So are you suggesting that the official URL of the site be changed to www.catslair.net ? I’m a little confused, and could well be getting the wrong end of the stick here, in which case please accept my apologies!
One thing I am going to say, of the two domains I think www.thundercatslair.org is the one we should keep - my reason for saying that is because everywhere I’ve seen the site linked (including the link I’ve asked Tim Perkins to place on his site), the URL that’s been used is www.thundercatslair.org. Whilst this does redirect to www.catslair.net, people have been coming to this site via www.thundercatslair.org, and I’m concerned that people may think the site has disappeared if they end up following an obsolete URL…
I’m not terribly knowledgable with things like this, so if I’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick, just ignore me!
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Chris: I did receive the PM and will reply ASAP. Sorry for not replying sooner!
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No problems, it took me a while to respond to you - and, I know my PMs tend to take some wading through! I’ll look forward to speaking with you soon, buddy!
No I agree with you. If we were to just keep one domain name it would be thundercatslair.org. catslair.net is what the host uses as the official name, but we use thundercatslair.org as OUR official name. I like it much more than catslair.net. It is very confusing.
I’ve never had a problem with viewing the site or forum as far as I can remember so I think the host is great.
As for the domain, I’ve never liked catslair.net, but I understand why it was used what with that being the domain registered at the time the hosting was arranged.
I’ve been using and advertising the name www.thundercatslair.org so I definately agree that’s the name we should use. As for catslair.net I wouldn’t renew it. People need to get to know the official name for the site and if we keep using another domain folks are gonna get confused. If we want to strike out as thundercatslair.org now is the time to do it. Another year of catslair.net will attract new members to use that name and the more members get used to it, the more members we are likely to lose in the future, if in the future we decide to ditch catslair.net
So yeah, I say ditch catslair.net now. Don’t renew it.
I wanted to let everyone know of the update as far as hosting and domain renewal. The domain www.thundercatslair.org has been renewed for the next 2 years and Im hoping to also renew catslair.net Also the hosting is under works right now to be transferred over. Once that is done i will renew the hosting.
Another important point i want to bring up to everyone is that we are not even in the top 10 or even top 20 on google searches. Im not quite sure how to bring us up to the top ten but we need to do something. eot.net has tons of members and they have been online since july 2005. They show up in the top ten and we dont…perhaps something needs to be done to increase the membership. Something needs to be done
I will be moving the site to a different host. I know it would be easy to just stay on SimpleHost, but I do not like the type of service we are getting (slow cpanel, dead links, lots of downtime). For some reason, SH already charged me for the catslair.net domain name without letting me know in advance (supposed to be charged at the end of August) so we are going to be using catslair.net for another year.
I’ve narrowed down the hosting to three companies. The upside is that we’re going to increase the bandwidth 2-3x that we currently have. The downside is we’re going to be limited in the storage space (no longer unlimited). But if I’ve calculated correctly we use less than 5GIGs and each of the host I’m researching offer at the minimum 15GIGs so we should be okay.
The move will probably happen in the middle of August because I’m scared SH will charge my card sooner rather than later. I’ll download everything that’s on the site beforehand and upload to the new server a couple days before the DNS change. During the move, there will be some downtime due to the DNS reconnecting the domain names to the new server, but it shouldn’t be more than a day or two. Someone can write something on the front page and on the forums to let people know about the move when that time comes.
Hey Manny just send me a PM with timeframes or perhaps a few days before this happens so i can post on the forums that there will be down time. Just want to give people a heads up a few days in advance.Thanks for the update!!!
Changing of host will occur in the next week or so. I’m trying to do it so that there will be no hiccup in between the transfer…but there might be some down time.
I am downloading the content on the site right now.
Changing of host will occur in the next week or so. I’m trying to do it so that there will be no hiccup in between the transfer…but there might be some down time.
I am downloading the content on the site right now.
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ok guys, now I’m officially confused. I thought MannyC was in charge of the site hosting now?
Manny I thought you had temporarily left the site?
Can someone explain what’s going on? Have I missed something?
All I’m doing is paying for the site host and some other minor background things. I’m not doing anything content related unless otherwise said. I asked MannyC if I could keep control of the site hosting and he said it was okay…or if you guys don’t want me to handle that, just let me know.
Manny and I spoke about the site hosting and he will have that area of responsibilities for now. As far as everything else goes…content,decisions,etc then that would be my area,as far as renewing of domain it is paid for the next 2 years.Manny is mostly on an inactive status, once that changes I’m sure he will let us know when he will be on active status.
I’ll look forward to speaking with you soon, buddy!