Never trust 000webhost.com or hosting24.com

I used to post here. After a while, I realized that as a photographer it was better for me to have a photoblog, so I decided to have two sites: a photoblog (www.twistedeye.com.ar) and a blog (www.backinthemood.com.ar).

I've researched a long time, and decided to use Pixelpost as the photoblog software, and Wordpress for the blog. Since I was unsure of my capacity to setup both sites, I decided to go forward with a free web hosting solution, and after a while I decided to go with 000webhost, basically because of their offered capacity.

I've created both sites in a few days, but after some weeks it was clear that I was more into updating my photoblog than my blog.

I was not a regular person, posting every day, but I had my periods, and in one year I posted around 85 pictures. That's a lot of work. In the meantime, I registered my site on photoblogs.org, coolphotoblohs, photos.vfxy.com, etc., so I started to have a lot of visits.

In the last month only I had more than 100 different visitors per day (as per Google Analytics).

In the meantime, I didn't make any decission about my hosting solution. 000webhost seemed to work ok, a little bit slow from time to time, and with lot of downtimes due to a poor SQL hosting service. I was considering going all the way to hosting24.com, their paid site, but then things started to go wrong. Terribly wrong.

Two weeks ago there was a major down time. For almost two days. I don't know what happened, probably one of their servers was down. Two days is a lot of time. There was a text explaining that one of the servers (server27) was down, but that was not the server where my site was hosted (server14), so I went to the help desk service and posted a ticket. The answer was that they knew about the problem and that they were working on it. They took their time, but sometime after almost 2 days the problem was over. In the meantime, my site was down for almost 2 days.

One week ago, again with the same problem. The service was down and my site wasn't working. I went to the help desk again, after 5 hours of my site being absolutely down, and posted a new ticket. The answer was quite fast, letting me know that a disk was broken and that they were working in the problem and in 5 hours everything was going to be ok. They asked me not to ask again because I was making them loose time.

After 12 more hours, nothing was going on. Since I had lot of visits, I know this was really bad for my site. You cannot be 17 hours down, twice in almost a week. So since the original 5 hours were due long ago, I decided to ask what was going on, replying to the ticket that they ask me not to reply. I also told them that I appreciated their service but that was not good enough for my needs, and that I wanted to have access to my files make a backup and probably move to a more trustable hosting service.

Their answer was fast. They cancelled my account. They did it even without telling me the reason. I've lost everything. My work of 1 year in this site, the comments of my visitors, my pictures, the web design, everything. They gave me no access to my site again. Not even to ask them what happened. I keep posting notes on the Contact form, but they don't even bother in reply to me.

Long story short: if you trust them, you know what you get. This is an advice: Your effort is to valuable to put it in the hands of these thieves. Don't trust them. Don't recommend them. Don't use them.


Ariel.

Moving forward, moving out

This eclectic blog is muting in blogspot, only to get his own new domain.
Please continue reading it in its new address:

http://www.backinthemood.com.ar

The design is still lame, but I will be working on that (very slowly, in fact).

Thanks!!
Ariel.

Again, where in Paris?

This is a test

Endless. Pointless?

Camino de Santiago, June 2006

Back in the road. All over again. Same old road, same step after step. Yes, the process is gratifying. Yes, it's all about the experience.
Is it?
There is no option. To answer the question I'll have to walk it. Again.

Se tudo pode acontecer (A lightning in the dark)

If there is an idea that some of us tend to believe is that everyone is born with one gift, and a bunch of defects. It's up to us to search and find that gift, as well as correct the defects, in order to shine in our own particular way in this world.
For some of us, mere mortals, this is a life lasting task, which normally ends up in spotted shiny moments and a significant number of darker ones.
For Arnaldo Antunes, for evident reasons, this was an easier task. His voice is his natural talent. His evident talent, his gift.
But this gift is not a normal one. He is not Whitney Houston. Once you hear him once, you will recognize him forever. Undoubtedly, he has one of the deeper voices you will ever hear.
For some of us, that gift would be more than enough to feel satisfied in life, but not for Arnaldo. He is also a perfectionist. A perfectionist of the language, an instigator of unexpected images. He delights himself by finding the greatest combination of words, an unexpected parallel universe that, together with his voice, rocks your senses, from the basement to the top of your head.
If, as his song says, anything can happen, his leit motiv would be "let's make it happen".

His last work, Live in Studio (Ao vivo no estudio) is many of those things. It's a live album, recorded in a studio. It's also an opportunity to revisit his previous album with slightly different arrangements. But among this things, it's also the enjoyment of listening to a man that strongly believes in what he says and what he creates. A man that is used to transform any possible defect in a gift that it's almost as powerful as his natural gift. A man, transformed into a poet. A deep voice poet.

Enjoy him:

Se tudo pode acontecer


Contato imediato

London suit

Ealing, London, June 2008

Canterville was a little bit far away, so definitively was not that ghost who left it there. Could have been any other ghost, probably not so famous as the Canterville one, but in that case, this wouldn't be relevant at all.
Let's say that this is Guy Ritchie's suit. Yes, this is totally confirmed. He was filming around the area (Ealing), and with so many cameras, and people, and expensive things to care about, he just forgot his suit. It could have happened to anyone. It happened to Mr. Ritchie.
By the way, I will sell it on eBay, so if you want it, just let me know.

Little car in Paris

Paris, June 2008

Let's end up with the big lie that ruled our world for decades! One size fits all concept was created by somebody tall and fit!
This is what Jerome Malaver, a short Parisian engineer thought not so long ago. Despite being short and unattractive, he was self confident. So he used to go out every night, seducing a wide range of women who were easily attracted by his magnetism and charm.
But the world was unfair with little Jerome. Cars were like submarines too him, and cloths were specially design to fit his needs.
He was tired of feeling short in his car, so he invented his own. The little Malaver, presented in the picture above, was the famous partner on his dandy adventures until the moment of his premature death.
He got hit by a tramway in 1965, dying immediately in the accident. Car was reconstructed, and is now property of Pierre Richard, famous french actor and known car collector.

Costanera Sur