On Wednesday, 12 January, the webhosting for this domain, misterquid.com, is scheduled to go dark. The current host is  iPowerweb.com  and I can tell you that their service is both overpriced and restrictive.

I arranged to have  crisishost , with whom I host another of my domains (wilcox.cx), take over hosting mistersquid. After setting up the new host using IP address, the next step was to change the DNS pointers with my registrar. The registrar for iPowerweb is  OnlineNIC , and they do not provide a way for registrants to access their domain management directly, and iPowerweb does not provide means on its website to submit an update to the DNS. The only way to get DNS changes made is to phone iPowerweb (1-888-511-4678) and leave a voicemail message under option 4 with what sounds like an incredibly overworked tech. (UPDATE: It turns out that if you send an email to transfers@iPowerweb.com, which is not listed anywhere on the site that I could find, tech support had to tell me to do this, you can get an email response to DNS changes. Onlinenic.com does have a web interface that allows one to make DNS changes, but iPowerweb's obfuscation of this has already led me to change my registrar. Alas.)

I’ve left my information and am now waiting for the other shoe to drop. That is, I’m waiting for 24 hours to pass and for it to be 1 day before hosting for mistersquid.com dies and then I’ll really have reason to be dissatisfied with iPowerweb. One would think that for over $100 (US) per year that one would at least be able to change the DNS settings for one’s domain. Even  fatcow  provides that functionality in its control panel.

To top it all off, iPowerweb does not have a straightforward way for one to change one’s contact email. As a result, their automated response system has bounced nearly 80 messages to me in the last 5 days because it keeps sending email to a forwarding address that notifies senders to request a permanent email address, and iPowerweb’s automated responds to the notice which triggers a notification to which iPowerweb responds . . . absolutely brain dead. I’ve tried to change my contact email but iPowerweb’s system seems not to be monitored by a human.

I can’t wait to leave iPowerweb and OnlineNIC behind.

On a sidenote, crisishost has been rocking my world for more than a year. Their prices start at $25 (US) per year. I administer my courses through wilcox.cx and have had virtually no downtime. Also, the tech, Josh, is available by email and IM. I’ve never had a problem with crisishost that took more than a few hours to get set straight. Give  his service  a looksee.