Posted By
Dante on March 28, 2009
First off, I should apologize for this somewhat detailed rant about my technical challenges getting this blog up and running considering this is a blog about gaming. ;-}~
Given the numerous difficulties I’ve encountered trying to get this blog setup on my hosting plan over the past five days, I thought the image on this post was appropriate . I should preface the rest of this post by saying that I’ve been developing and programming web sites in varying degrees for over 15 years now, so I know my way around servers and code fairly well.
I lay the blame for my suffering squarely on my web host provider. Now don’t get me wrong–I love my host provider, yet on a fundamental level there seems to be missing a certain ability for some of their support folks to comprehend simple questions.
For example, I submitted what I thought was a very direct, easy to understand question: “Is there an IIS server configuration that will will allow me to install WordPress in the root of a child site hosted on my hosting plan?” The response I got was as follows:
“You contacted us about installing WordPress on your server. You can install it by logging into the Control Panel and going under Windows Labs. You will find the installer there. This will walk you through the steps to install it. WordPress will be installed where it needs to go to function properly.”
Maybe it’s just me but even a simple “yes” or “no” would have at least answered the core question to a certain degree. I did read the scant installation instructions that my hosting provider supplied: “WordPress enables you to create and publish your blogs. Warning: Browser Pop-Up blockers must be disabled to install this application. Select one of the web sites and click the “Continue” button. However, nowhere on the hosting site was there more information to be found on the subject. Subsequent inquiries to tech supported simply yielded the following response:
“We provide this as a courtesy to our hosting customers. WordPress is a third party application and as such is not directly supported by (name of hosting provider).”
OK, I can understand their position on not wanting to provide step-by-step installation or “customization” instructions (as they described my desire to install WP in my root directory) for such installation, but if that is the line they’re going to continue to use, I’d recommend they either drop the product offering or at the very least, provide accurate responses to technical questions about server configuration and what is or is not permitted on a shared hosting plan.
That’s all I want. Details. Can I do this or not? If not, why?
::sigh::
-Dante
