IX in India, Fast air, northward
So yesterday I developed an issue with one of my WordPress sites I host with IX webhosting. When I would try to authenticate to the WordPress dashboard I would be presented with a 403 Forbidden error. Sometimes a WordPress plug in can cause odd behavior like this so the first thing I did was rename the plug ins directory to eliminate that possibility. It still threw a 403 error. Oh well I guess I’ll have to call support.
Any long time blog reader of mine is aware of the many, many issues I have had with IX Webhosting over the years, there are too many to enumerate. However one thing I actually did like was that their call center was located in Ohio and I could at least speak with somebody that has English as a primary language. They also have an online chat but that is staffed by Romanians whose communication skills are less than stellar, so I prefer to call in when I have a problem.
So I call the number and am on hold for a very long time, at least 15 minutes. The reward for my patience was the other line finally being picked up by somebody with a very strong Indian accent on a poor quality line. Immediately I could feel my blood pressure elevate. Don’t tell me that IX has outsourced their call center to India…
So as is almost always the case when dealing with an Indian phone representative, the conversation was peppered with lots of “What?”, “Say that again..”, and “Huh?”. It was frustrating as hell. The communication barrier and the guys obviously lower level of technical expertise resulted in my problem not being resolved. I hung up in near disbelief. After having a four day plus outage several months ago that cost their customers collectively hundreds of thousands of dollars in downtime, they decide to ship phone support to India, something that is is universally seen as a hated practice for customers. Indian help desks suck, plain and simple.
The move just piled onto the multitude of reasons I should have abandoned IX webhosting years ago. The ONLY reason I have not bolted is because of the massive amount of work and time that will be required for me to re-home the NINE web sites I house there. It will be horrible. It needs to get done however, I can’t continue to reward horrible customer service with my dollars. I guess I need to start doing some homework.
Cindy has been having some issues with her phone connecting to my in home wifi network. I found something online about some compatibility issues with my D-link router which is at least 5-6 years old at this point. I used it as a good reason to refresh my in home wifi network. I purchased an ASUS RT-AC66U dual band router after reading a number of surprisingly good reviews. I never bought an ASUS router nor knew they even produced them. This is the first time I have ever used anything beside a Linksys or D-Link router in my house.
After screen shotting all of the configuration on my old router I shut it down and put the ASUS in place. Getting the ASUS online had some hurdles to clear and bugs to squash but I had most of it done before we ate dinner. I like the UI for router, it is easy to navigate and as powerful as you need it to be. The wireless performance boost was noticeable. The 54 megabit top speed of my old router is now tripled, Cindy’s laptop was showing a 150 mb wifi connection, sweet.
Tomorrow Cindy and I fly out for PA for my sisters wedding. It is going to be a very quick hitting visit with our flight back leaving early Monday morning. I believe it is the first time I am stepping foot in the greater Reading area in at least three years, wow. The major to do besides the wedding is to see my brother’s new house. Other than that I will be giving Cindy a whirlwind tour of the area that I used to call home.
Tonight I have to run the dogs back to Ali’s place so they can be picked up by dogsitter number two. Ali does not return until Saturday sometime. I then will head home to do a whirlwind packing job followed by hopefully reasonable bedtime since the flight rolls out at a ridiculously early 6AM.