Death of an Abused Blog

blog_suspended.jpg

So if you thought the suspension of account was because I stopped paying the hosting bills, I wasn’t. The account was suspended without my knowledge. Yesterday morning, when I clicked laygeek.com bookmark even before brushing my teeth, I saw the account suspended message. So what did I do? Went over and brushed my teeth. Very funny.

I logged a ticket and the friends at TCH replied that the abuse department is looking into it as they suspected some Movable Type & comments abuse. I had no clue of the abuse so I was assuming all the ‘junk’ that was written is long gone. Much to the wrath of the abuser, the blog content a.k.a junk is all back. Anyway, its not worth blowing into a big issue. But if only the data was also gone, I would have been angered.

The reply from the TCH friends is soothing and they kind of say that the blog is being fetched more than enough times a day that it deserves a dedicated server. FYi, A dedicated server costs $79 a month !! I am not sure if dedicated server would be an immediate solution but I know that I lodge the blog content on blogger and Google would take care of it. So I’m looking to go back to Blogger and this is the probably the fourth time that I’m ranting on the moveback to Blogger. Until such day, there is a choice to upgrade Movable Type 2.61 to the free version of Movable Type 3.

Though it took the hosting company some time, I’m happy that they got things back in shape. Thanks. I am still pursuing to get more details on the ‘abuse’. But then things are back and so cool. Here’s the reply that I got from the hosters.

Your account is back online.

At some point in the near future you may need to consider a fully dedicated server. As your account grows more and more, it consumes more and more resources. As in the case of your site, your blog is growing fast and this is great. However, with success sometimes comes costs.

For now we will do our best to continue to serve your site.

I am very sorry for the way this ticket was handled. Several of our technicians are off this week with vacation time and sick leave, so we are a tad short staffed.

If there is anything I can do to help you transition into a dedicated server, please let me know.

Romba Nandri guys for writing-in, sending snapshots of suspended blog page, commenting on someone else’s blog about this blog’s status and g-talking with me on the death of a blog. Prabhu even offered space to write until the blog is back. Didn’t want to do show that philim. I am sure no one would be starving if the blog was down for a day. And ofcourse, it was like a compulsory vacation.

14 responses to “Death of an Abused Blog”

  1. Preethi Avatar

    “I am sure no one would be starving if the blog was down for a day.”

    Hi Lazy,

    I beg to differ. There are many people like me who open http://lazygeek.net atleast one time a day (the count increases on some days, hoping for a post on a hot topic). So it does make a difference if the blog is down, even for a day.

    Anyways, happy it back up again. Have Fun!

    Like

  2. F e r r a r i Avatar
    F e r r a r i

    Great to see the site up. At the same time i see it as an eye opener. We need to take a regular backup of what we write boss. Irrespective of anything crows kid gold kid 🙂

    Like

  3. Lazy Geek Avatar

    Hey Preethi, Thanks for the kind words. I understand what you have said here and happy about it.

    Like

  4. Lazy Geek Avatar

    Ferrari, Yeah. I think regular backups help. I agree. Thanks for offering space, macha. You are anyway attending the ARR show without me so damn you 🙂

    Like

  5. MadMan Avatar
    MadMan

    Email me and I can offer you some assistance with this.

    Like

  6. Manu Avatar

    yeah, Madman can help you. He recently helped sepia mutiny to cut down on bandwidth usage.He should document his tricks (make it open source 😉 ). I’m the webmaster for http://shaastra.org.We get more than 70K hits a day and we don’t face any problems with our hosts(site5.com) and the site is very responsive. Our hosting plan is unlimited (it was a limited offer). Post your traffic details please. I want to know how shaastra.org compares with lazygeek. 🙂

    Like

  7. Lazy Geek Avatar

    Madhu, Thanks a lot for asking. Will email you with details.

    Manu, Shastraaaaahhhh. Lovely memories. IIT Shaastra is one of my haunts. And you reminded me of Chennai again. Anyway didn’t know shaastra kicks off on the first week of Oct. Cool news.

    BTW, traffic stats…you are managing IIT’s microsite but I’m just a blogger. why compare 🙂

    Like

  8. Saravanan Avatar

    Based on ur sitemeter and netstat statistics, I find the page views per day is around 3000. I dont think bandwidth is a problem. The problem seems to be script execution which takes more CPU time and database load. In your blog CGI script is executed whenever the user does the following action,

    1. Opens the comments page
    CGI script execution can be avoided by giving the links directly.
    Ex:
    Old Link: http://www.lazygeek.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=945
    New Link: http://www.lazygeek.net/archives/2005/09/death_of_an_abused_blog.html#comments

    2. selects a commentator home page link.
    CGI script execution can be avoided by giving the links directly.
    Ex:
    Old Link: http://www.lazygeek.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?__mode=red&id=23775
    New Link: http://www.lazygeek.net/

    3. comment submission – Needs script execution no other way.

    statuary warning: i have no previous experience in setting up/maintanence of any blogging platform. These are observations based on url pattern of ur blog.

    Like

  9. Bharath/Hawkeye Avatar

    good! so you are back! athukulla 4 posts. cool!

    Like

  10. Zero Avatar

    Saravanan,
    good insight! Now I really get the reason (blame it on me for never giving it a thought) for why Blogger’s default comment links in all templates is to the post page (ahem.. Bharath, blog page ;)) rather than the pop-up which is dynamic content and should ideally be used only for actual commenting..
    high-time I change my comments then! (the pop-up looks cool, though!)
    Thanks..

    Like

  11. Nithya Avatar

    Finally the site is up!!:)
    Agree with Preethi, I am one of those who open ur blog first thing when I enter office! And nethu idhunaala officela velaiye odala..;-)

    Like

  12. Swapna Avatar
    Swapna

    LG,
    Great to see ur site up and working….
    Me too with Nithya and Preethi….
    Based on the number of comments, you can probably guess the no of ppl who have starved!!!
    And as for the vacation….hope u enjoyed it atleast by the end of the day…:)

    Like

  13. Lazy Geek Avatar

    Saravanan, Thanks for the valuable input. I did wanted to do your suggestion some time back but somehow got lazy on the way.

    Bharath, Oru energy thaan !!

    Nithya/Swapna, Nandri for a ton. Appreciate it.

    Like

  14. Uma Avatar
    Uma

    Good to see you back LG.

    Like

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