Thinking about switching hosts to here.

[ikester7579]

I have never switched hosts before.

1) How long will my site be down?
2) How do I transfer it (download upload)?

And is there anything else I should know?

[bdh]

Generally, if timed right, the downtime for the site can be as low as zero. How it works is we set everything up for you on our side and you can upload all your pages to the IP address of the server and only after that, do we change the DNS of the domain ... so that when the switchover takes place, it's invisible ("seamless" in geek-speak).

What is the URL of your site? You can email it from here if you like https://webnet77.net/contact.html. Once I have that, I'll quickly be able to tell you if we can copy your site (99% of the time it's not a problem) to do [and it's free] and then that problem is solved for you too.

The only other thing you should know is which registry your domain is registered with and if your host did it for you, whether they are prepared to give you access to get it transferred. By law they have to but in reality some web hosts get surprisingly uncooperative when they need to give up a domain, even though it does not belong to them. Once I have the domain name, I can check that for you too.

[ikester7579]

I'm pretty sure my domain is with Christian domains. And my host is Arkwebs. And it was part of the deal of hosting that they also pay for the main domain name.

[bdh]

Understood. All you need to do is to get them to release the domain - which I don't think will be a problem. I also took a look at the site - copying it should not be a problem. Just be sure to make a note in the "Comments" section when you signup that we need to copy the site. I will then put it on an IP address for you to preview. Once you are satisfied the pages all look like they are there, only then do we change the DNS.

[ikester7579]

Okay, thanks. More simple than I thought. It won't be until next month towards the beginning of it. Just trying to stay ahead of things. I like your cat pic. Been thinking about getting one myself. Or a dog. Did you hear about the cat that lived to 38 year old? It made the Guinness world records.

[bdh]

I like your cat pic.

That's Rusty my baby. She's with me all the time and wherever I go she goes.

Just keep an eye on your domain as it expires in August I think. You need to get the ball rolling at least 10 days or so before then (or renew the domain) because once a domain has lapsed -- even by 1 hour -- it has to be renewed at the old registry before anything can be done with it.

[ikester7579]

I told my host and waiting for reply.

[ikester7579]

I had to go through a process of what they wanted, I guess for security reasons. But I did what they wanted so transfer of main domain should be any day.

[bdh]

They are transferring ["pushing" as it's called] it to you I take it? There is one trick you need to remember. People don't tell you this and when you come to transfer the domain later, the registry won't allow it:

You can make whatever change you like to the administrative contact for the domain once it is in your hand, but you cannot make any changes whatsoever to the registrant. If you do, the domain is locked out from transfer for (I think) 45 or 60 days. It's a weird rule that catches most people off guard but all registries have it as far as I know.

[ikester7579]

I just got the confirmation e-mail. So my main domain is now in my account. Just a little longer to get some money and buy the hosting service I need. Thanks for all the help so far.

[ikester7579]

I have to say, this is much faster. My website always loads all the way. Before I was having problems with the webpages not completely loading. And I would have to refresh my browser. And sometimes that would not work either. Now it just zips up in about 2 seconds. Thanks. Now I know it was my host, and not my imagination that there was a problem.

[bdh]

Great to hear. Glad our servers are giving you the results you want.

(It's interesting - when I copied your site from the other company, I checked the server out: besides being old and small, it was not overloaded, or hot or running too hard etc. My guess is that the network [data-center] that server is on is overloaded and consequently bandwidth can only come out at a trickle and that's what was causing the slowness)

[ikester7579]

Question: I tried to edit a page where I found a couple of words misspelled. All I did was fix the words and the page went to being twice as wide stretching well beyond the width of my monitor. So I undid the correction to the spelling of those words and it went back to normal. I don't get it because I did not change any code. The editor I used is the one inside the file manager. I'd like to use the online HTML editor because it's easy to use. I also have Namo editor on my computer which can get quite involved. I could use it.

Maybe you have a suggestion?

I have edited the home page with the online editor with no problems. That is why this one page stumps me on what's going on.

[bdh]

That's real easy to do and there are many ways to do it. For example consider this code:

<div style="background-color: #008000; width: 20000px;">
<p>bla bla</p>
</div>

it will write the word "bla bla" with a green background 20000 pixels wide!

The Built-in HTML editor is really not meant for anything more than the most basic of edits and stuff like the above can creep in easily and waste hours of time tracking down. I would not try to maintain a website with it.

If you want to maintain a site, you need to look at a proper editor. Something like Expressions or Dreamweaver, Coffee Cup or even the free NVU (www.nvu.com).

Alternatively, use the built-in Site builder (RV) or lastly, switch to a CMS like Wordpress, Mambo, Joomla, Drupal etc. They are quick and easy to install from within the control panel From under the "fantastico" or "softaculous" menu (near the bottom - some servers have one or the other some have both but they both work the same)

[ikester7579]

Thanks. I'm just going to use Namo webeditor. Had to relearn it. I tried Joomla 1.5. I read what it did and it sounded like it would allow me to edit my site using my site templates through a legacy plugin it has. So I installed it. Went in to use it and it's a little complicated than I thought it would be. And I could not figure out how to edit my webpages with it.

But what ever is put into it will load much quicker because it has some type of cache control. And also uses Gzip which speeds up page loads as well. I think I may have it installed wrong (Not in the right place on the server) as to why it won't work. I guess I need to go to the joomla forum and ask,