Stuff You Need To Know
August 1, 2007
First, some Fandemonium stuff.
Tomorrow I'll hopefully have info on where I'll be in the Artists' Alley
during the con and my schedule. Oh, and I will be running a GURPS
Bunnies & Burrows game.
So, stuff you need to know. Yeah, as per today's comic, there will be a
guest appearance in S*P. Yeah, it's who you think it is. And yeah, in
the next few weeks, Midnight
Macabre is picking up right where it left off - and I plan on doing
it by filling in the gaps from where I left off. The problem with MM
has been, as I mentioned in the past, it was made as a gift for someone
else and it was awkward to try and pick it up. I've found a new reason
to work on it now, finally divorcing it from my past... besides, my dad
asked me to do something with less foul language since he's reading my
stuff now and I figured I should be a good son for him at least once in
my life. I'm shooting for a relaunch on August 13th. Cross your
fingers.
As for the other one?... one thing at a time, please.
Oh, here's a little big of funny news. Did you know the misspelling of
our url, somehtingpositive.net, is owned by someone? And no other
version (.com, .org, .tv) - just somehtingpositive.net. I almost feel
important when someone felt the need to buy the most commonly misspelled
version of my URL. Woot.
And, finally - S*P is looking for a new host. This is something I've
been putting off for a while. It boils down to constant problems wit
Burton Hosting - at least once a month I'm having to ask them why people
can't connect to my site - like clockwork. Last month it was every
other week. Frankly, I'm tired of having to field questions from
readers over it (although I need to know when there are problems) and
I'm sick of the staff at Burton either ignoring my complaints, trying to
pull some bullshit, "Are you SURE there's a problem? Maybe all the
people emailing you about it are mistaken," or an array of other
condescending stuff. When I left Speakeasy in mid 2004 (another
nightmare I must say), Burton was amazing. Since around November of
2006, however, the service has been abysmal - and considering how much
money I'm putting into my servers a month (it's almost the same as I pay
in rent) there's really no excuse for it.
This means, in the near future, there will be a weekend when the site
will be down. I'll be sure to let all of you know in advance so I don't
get panicked, "DID YOU QUIT THE COMIC" emails like when I changed from
Webslum to Speakeasy or from Speakeasy to Burton. Hopefully this will
be as painless as possible.
And before you offer me space on your server, S*P (and just S*P) goes
through almost 700 gigs a month - and honestly I'm not the biggest fan
of taking free webhosting. I've heard horror stories in the past from
other cartoonists.
This move won't affect Rhymes
With Witch or Punch An' Pie
(which I host on a different server). The time will come, of course,
that they'll be moved, too, but I wanna do one thing at a time and S*P's
going to be the bigger headache.
And I've gotta admit - I am notlooking forward to this. There's
nothing as annoying as dealing with providers when you're looking for
hosts. I remember, when the Speakeasy misery began, getting such
stellar offers as a server that I had no shell access to (I do
everything in pico - everything - all the HTML is done by hand), limited
control over the server, an insulting douchebag running the server who
was "concerned" I'd destroy his provider single-handedly because only he
could grasp Unix (I've been using it since 1994), and all it was going
to cost me was a percentage of my ad revenue.
Yeah... I can't fuckin' wait.
And I realize I'm asking for trouble by saying this BEFORE I leave
Burton, but fuck it and fuck them. If you're thinking about webhosting
or a dedicated server, please - keep looking past them. They're really
not worth the headache. -R
