This is from my inbox. Quite interesting. 
Never underestimate your Clients’ Complaint, no matter how funny it might seem! This is an interesting real story that happened between the customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive. Please read on…..
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So far I have written about how to “manually” switch hosting providers i.e. how to backup and restore the files. Following is the list of previous posts:
There is another easier way to do this through cPanel.
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This is the 5th post in the series for shifting websites from one server to another. The earlier posts in this series were as follows:
- Shift website hosting – part 1 (static site)
- Shift website hosting – part 2 (leftover emails)
- Shift website hosting – part 3 (1) (dynamic sites, CMS)
- Shift website hosting – part 3 (2) (dynamic sites, Forums and Blogs)
In my last post I mentioned that series of manually transferring the sites was complete. But then I thought about this new way of transferring dynamic sites (with a database) with minimum downtime. Irrespetive of DNS propogation or DNS cache with ISPs, this method can transfer your dynamic sites almost instantly. Downtime will only last the amount of time you take in transferring the database from old hosting provider to new hosting provider. In my opinion, this is the most efficient way of transferring dynamic sites. Here are the steps.
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This is the 4th post in the series for shifting websites from one server to another. The earlier posts in this series were as follows:
- Shift website hosting – part 1 (static site)
- Shift website hosting – part 2 (leftover emails)
- Shift website hosting – part 3 (1) (dynamic sites, CMS)
In this part, I ennumerate the steps for transferring a forum and a WordPress blog from one hosting provider to another. In earlier posts, I have written the steps in details. However in this post, unless necessary, I have not mentioned the details because they remain almost same.
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In part 1 of this series I narrated how to shift static sites (i.e. sites without a database) to a new server. In part 2, I wrote about how to get left-over emails after the hosting is shifted. This is the 3rd article in the series which is about shifting dynamic sites (with a database) from one server to another. For the sake of convenience, I have divided this 3rd article in sub-parts and therefore call this one as part 3(1).
There are various types of dynamic sites with databases. The database content is changed by the administrator/owner of the site or the the visitors or both. These are the 4 categories of sites with databases:
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In part 1, I wrote about shifting static sites from one server to another. This is a small addendum to that post and other posts that I will write about shifting sites. This one is about how to retrieve left-over emails. I kept this separately because the same steps apply whether the site is static or dynamic. It also doesn’t matter how you backup/restore your site. Steps to retrieve emails will remain the same.
Here are the steps in brief. Please note that these steps are to be used after DNS propogation is over and not before that. This is for retrieving mails from “old” hosting account. In my opinion, at least for a week, you need to have access to both the hosting accounts – old and new.
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Slowly people are realising the importance of paid hosting or at least professional and quality hosting. In website hosting, there is a golden rule – if something is too good to be true, then probably its not true! Many people use free/cheap hosting services to save money. But soon realise that quality of services (uptime, speed, support, etc.) is not upto the mark.
But then comes the dilema of shifting from one server to another and a whole lot of doubts set in, especially for those who have never changed servers!
- How to do it?
- What to do?
- What not to do?
- When to change DNS of domain names?
- What if I lose some important mail in the process?
- and so on …
Here I have enumerated steps of transferring a “STATIC” site. It may look a little confusing if you haven’t done it before, but the steps are pretty straight-forward once you understand the logic behind them. Here are the steps in short:
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Once there was a time when I didn’t have a single credit card. I never felt the need for any card. My dad still doesn’t have a single one. Everytime someone offers him a card, he says “I don’t want any credit!!”
I applied for my first HSBC credit card 4 years back and paid 2K as annual fees!! Times have changed and now I have 6 credit cards and all are free. 
The first HSBC card has also become free now, I have 1 more HSBC card, 1 SBI and 3 ICICI cards.
I had applied for ICICI card almost 6 months back and when nothing came, I thought my application is lost somewhere. But I was surprised to receive, not 1 but 3 cards after such a long time. First week of September was pretty hectic! Everyday there was some mailer from the ICICI – 3 cards, 3 pins, site password and some other miscellaneous mailers! They kept coming in from ICICI.
Some days back I received yet another marketing call, this time from Citi Bank, offerring me a lifetime free credit card. I asked whether its VISA or MASTER? Caller said its MASTER. Out of the 6 cards that I have 4 are VISA, 2 are AmEx. So I agreed for 1 more card. I was told that they only need a copy of my PAN card, LIC premium receipt and my autograph 
on their form.
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Some months ago, I went to ISKCON Chowpatty temple to click pictures of deities. We wanted to put some special pictures on Deity Darshan. I mounted my Nikon Coolpix 5200 on my tripod and clicked a few pictures.
I clicked with flash and was highly dissatisfied with the colour reproduction. Colours in the photographs were very much different from what I could actually see. Then I switched off the flash and clicked a few more pictures. Once again, the result was not to my satisfaction. I was highly disappointed. If a camera worth 20K can’t reproduce the colours properly, whats the use of spending so much? But I hadn’t lost hopes and knew that I was missing out on something.
Then I shifted the tripod to the other end of the temple hall. Once again, I clicked a few pictures with and without flash and this time even switched on and off a few lights in the hall. But it didn’t work. After a struggle for about an hour, I left it there for the day.
I went home and flipped through the pages of the camera manual hoping to find something that will improve the colour reproduction. Then I came across something and I was over-joyed. I tried various available modes. Also switched on and off a few lights in my room and took over 20-25 pictures. (Would have I ever done that with a film camera?) I checked the colour reproduction of those pics and immediately realised what was wrong! Afterall my camera wasn’t faulty. I was relieved.
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I will think about blogging only if I have nothing else to do, today being an exception. Today I am blogging to take a break.
Since they have now learned to talk, they used to ask about me quite a few times in the day. So on one day I left all pending work and left early just to be with them. On that day all 4 of us were happy – me, Mahi-Meha and my wife. My wife was happy because I was home early. And she was more happy because she got a break. 
