Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Monday 13 February 2006

I'm changing host for my 'Main website'

As I wrote here about a month ago I have been experiencing some problems with the existing host for my main website at http://www.billcameron.net. Although these problems resolved themselves after about a week I have decided, nevertheless, to take the opportunity almost a week of downtime on that website gave me to re-examine my existing hosting arrangements and to identify what I hope will be a better and more stable host in the longer term. I have now registered with the new host and will shortly begin the process of uploading all the webpage files to the new host server. This change will unfortunately affect the way certain links in this blog operate - basically they will not work until the changes are complete, but I do not think this should result in enormous inconvenience to anyone here (those affected will be a few of the links in the right hand column and some images used in earlier posts).

Once this begins to happen only a temporary 'holding' homepage will be available at 'billcameron.net', although there will be a subtle change in this temporary homepage once the domain name server change has propagated across the web - the propagation process for such changes can be anything from a few hours upto 48 hours, depending on how congested the web happens to be at the time I start the process, but my previous experience of making such changes is that they usually happen remarkably quickly. In any case, it will quickly be obvious to anyone visiting the temporary homepage on the new server - this is as much for my benefit as anyone else's, so I can monitor the change closely.

My hosting arrangements with the new host are at a higher level of service than those I have now (and cost more, of course), but I hope to be able to do certain things in future on my 'main website' which until now have not been possible - some of these changes may potentially affect the way I update my blog (the one you are reading), but I have not finally decided yet what form any changes will take, but obviously I will write about that here in good time as necessary.

UPDATE (Monday 13FEB06 16.20 GMT) Remarkable! I just changed the domain name servers about 10 or 15 minutes ago and already the temporary homepage of 'billcameron.net' is visible - you might need to do a 'hard refresh' to see it. Now I can get on with the easy job, although it is a bit of a slog, of uploading all the revelant files (there are probably close to a thousand, there may be more, I've never really counted) to the new server.

2nd UPDATE (Monday 13FEB06 18.05 GMT) I have completed uploading all the pages for my 'main website' (billcameron.net) to the new host server, including a full 'HomePage' to allow visitors to navigate the site. In theory, provided I have made no errors, the change of host should be completely transparent to visitors. The whole process has been a lot more painless than I had anticipated and I am happy that my meticulous advance planning seems to have helped. Note: if you do notice any missing links either there, or in this blog (linking to the other website) please let me know, either in comments to this post or via the 'Feedback' link in the right-hand column. Thanks!

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