Apparently HostMonster went down and took out all of my sites with it (Colony Worlds, IsraGood, Darnell (Concise Opinions) and a dozen others).

Lets just say for the record I was VERY UNHAPPY over the lack of communication regarding the unscheduled downtime, as the company didn’t notify anyone via email or twitter (yes, @HostMonster does have a twitter account, although they have yet to use it).

After hearing rumors of a DDoS attack, HostMonster was able to clarify that they were instead upgrading their site with new hardware (and scanning files for bad data).

During the outage, I was talking to Media Temple on Twitter (@MediaTemple), as well as Rack Space (via chat) in my quest for a new host.

My plan was to simply import my blog from the VaultPress archives and export it into Media Temple. Their service starts at $20/month for 100 GB and 1 terrabyte transfer (which is expensive but you get what you pay for).

Fortunately cooler minds prevailed, HostMonster apologized and my sites are (currently) back online.

However this whole episode has inspired me to transfer my domains from HostMonster to GoDaddy sooner (I was planning to anyways in order to avoid violating the 3 laws of domains).

I still have a few technical details before the process begins, but either way I will probably be exporting most of my sites upon Media Temple by the end of this year (I’d do it sooner, but I have to increase my geek budget as VaultPress isn’t cheap!).

Well, after a few hours, I finally finished 95% of the customizations for this site.

WordPress may have it’s drawbacks code wise compared to Blogger’s simplicity, but it’s a lot more powerful tool–something my best friend often reminded me of.

There is still a lot more I have to do behind the scenes, but for now I’m quite satisfied as I can happily blog from my iPhone. 

Peace, and if you notice any errors feel free to let me know.

Just for your info, this site will be under construction throughout the day as I iron out the details, themes, etc. of the site.

Hopefully this will not last longer than a day, but it may until Wednesday before the site is at its best.