[Andrew Field]

Disappointingly the main ContentGenerator.net site is still down - it became inaccessible to me at around 17.15 this evening and it is still down.

The main site is currently hosted with http://www.alentus.com and they report the following:

**********************

Network Issue - Outside Alentus
Status as of: 8/16/2008 12:59:30 PM (GMT-7)


August 16, 2008, at 12:45PM MST

There is currently an issue with an outside ISP that may prevent some customers from connecting to their website. Our techs are currently working to resolve the issue with the ISP.

There is currently no ETA.

Please check www.alentusnews.com for further updates. We apologize for any inconvenience.

**********************

Issues like this do seem to be occurring more and more and this is why I'm planning to change the site around further. At the moment I've got the main .net site hosted with Alentus because I was using asp.net technology when ContentGenerator.net first started. This forum is hosted on the .co.uk domain and I've got other connected sites such as http://www.cg-support.net.

These and all the other sites my wife and I run are hosted on our own dedicated server from UnitedHosting.co.uk. What I'm now planning to do is to move the .net domain to this dedicated server as well. At the same time I'll move the forum from the .co.uk domain to the .net.

Additionally and most significantly the ContentGenerator.net e-mail will change as well. Currently when the main site goes down, so too does the e-mail. The e-mail has been fraught with problems - e-mails being classed as spam, not being delivered either from and / or to me too.

Sounds a bit confusing, but it should hopefully mean further consistency - especially as I roll out the combined look with ContentGenerator.net sites using the above banner. The support site (available via the 'support' link' above) is key to this change as that will handle both order queries and support questions. I hope that can help avoid some of the repetition we sometimes find on this forum. With the change this forum will adapt slightly from a 'support' forum to a 'community' forum. Certainly no enforced changes but I'd like to encourage others to share how they are using the programs, sharing good pedagogical practice and suchlike.

I've been planning to do this for some time, but this latest downtime from Alentus has simply focused my efforts to get this done rather more rapdily. It may mean I need to 'lock' this forum when the change is made, but that will only be for a short amount of time.

I'll update this topic when I find out more.

[Andrew Field]

Additionally, the support from Alentus simply isn't good enough either. With UnitedHosting.co.uk I send a request and it gets dealt with literally immediately, no matter what the time is. Alentus still haven't responded to a request sent 40 minutes ago (not even an automated response or anything).

[goneunderground]

Dear me Time to move on, I think..

[Douglas Bell]

Seems to be back on-line now

[Andrew Field]

Douglas Bell, on Aug 16 2008, 10:07 PM, said:

Seems to be back on-line now

I still cannot get it I guess this fits with what Alentus's automated support have on their news site - that is affects particular ISPs. However, they still haven't responded to my support enquiry.

I've starting putting things in place to move away.

[goneunderground]

No I can't get it either.

[Andrew Field]

Still no news or updates from Alentus

Quote

August 16, 2008, at 12:45PM MST

There is currently an issue with an outside ISP that may prevent some customers from connecting to their website. Our techs are currently working to resolve the issue with the ISP.

There is currently no ETA.

Please check www.alentusnews.com for further updates. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I'm now in the process of uploading the site to our Linux server. Main issue though is that with Alentus the site uses asp.net pages (based on Windows server hosting) and the Dedicated Server is Linux based. This means I cannot just upload the site, I need to change every page. Plus the dynamic elements - where it loads the list of products and suchlike - will need to be completely changed.

[Andrew Field]

Replacement site now uploaded to http://83.223.125.22...ntgenerator.net

The dynamic parts of the site - such as the way it loads the product list have also been updated, although I've taken the 'current users' tracker off so I can adapt it properly. I'm going to change the DNS now, which should mean the ContentGenerator.net site will reappear within 24 hours.

This is also a stop-gap measure before I get the consistent look across the site.

[Andrew Field]

Currently the ContentGenerator.net site will either be visible to you (meaning that your connection works to the old Alentus server) or will appear that it just isn't there (meaning the Alentus issue does affect you, as it does me).

When the DNS change is recognised by the internet - which can take anything from 12 > 24 (or longer ) hours - you should see the ContentGenerator.net site again, but some areas will not function. These are the feedback / enquiry options and the dynamic links within any folder. As soon as the DNS change has been recognised I will change these dynamic links so they will work.

The fact that this forum is hosted on a separate domain has actually been really positive though - it means that at least part of the site is functioning well. What this move will mean is that nearly all the ContentGenerator.net sites are on the reliable dedicated server, hopefully meaning a smoother service.

It also means I can focus what time I have on producing the programs rather than messing about with server transfers

[Andrew Field]

The main site now seems to be back online (incidentally the old Alentus one is still offine) so I think things should be getting back to normal.

Each page on the new version ends in .shtml rather than .asp. However, I've setup the site to automatically redirect pages, so if there are any specific links they should all still work.

I need to fix the contact / order forms but everything else should be back working now

http://www.contentgenerator.net/

[goneunderground]

Yes it seems fine now! (one day I'll look up what asp actually means... )

[Andrew Field]

goneunderground, on Aug 17 2008, 02:35 PM, said:

Yes it seems fine now! (one day I'll look up what asp actually means... )

Excellent - and apologies for getting technical. ASP - Active Server Page. I originally setup the ContentGenerator.net using this technology but ended up never using it. It has actually been quite an immense undertaking to change every page on the site, but it wasn't too painful using Dreamweaver. It has also reminded me how the main site seriously needs to be updated. Then again, this forum is where the real updates appear.

[Andrew Field]

The ContentGenerator.net e-mail is still down though - I'm going to move this away from Alentus too. However, currently even their helpdesk isn't available to me so I cannot make sure that I don't lose any e-mail.

What I'll probably do is just switch it off anyway and move it to UnitedHosting.co.uk - that way everything is together. I suspect this will also fix a huge amount of the e-mail / spam issues I've suffered too.

Basic story seems to be: "Don't use Alentus".

[DerekB]

I just want to add to this. Not only is the Alentus web hosting very problematice. So is their Exchange hosting. Our web sites with them go down. Our Exchange mail is now down for about 20 hours. The communication is poor, the service responses are curt and often not helpful. We are looking to move all our web sites, Exchange and SharePoint from Alentus as soon as possilbe. If you look around the web you'll see this is a wide spread problem that is getting worse.

[Andrew Field]

DerekB, on Sep 14 2008, 06:03 AM, said:

I just want to add to this. Not only is the Alentus web hosting very problematice. So is their Exchange hosting. Our web sites with them go down. Our Exchange mail is now down for about 20 hours. The communication is poor, the service responses are curt and often not helpful. We are looking to move all our web sites, Exchange and SharePoint from Alentus as soon as possilbe. If you look around the web you'll see this is a wide spread problem that is getting worse.

Thanks for posting this Derek - much appreciated. I have now moved everything away from Alentus and got everything onto my dedicated server based in the UK with UnitedHosting.co.uk. I was happy with Alentus initially, but I have encountered many issues, especially with e-mail and ContentGenerator.net e-mail addresses being blocked - this has caused no end of problems. As I've now got the e-mail on a different server my hosts have been working very hard to get it unblocked. I suspect it was an issue with sharing a server with many other sites, which must have caused issues.

That said, Alentus - once I put my move request in - were helpful and supportive and I hope they can sort their issues out.