I know this is still going on, and I know it can be infuriating too; but the fact is that if you ever see a link to this blog’s URL structured as follows:

…kkomp.com/archives/****

then I’m afraid that link is a dead link: Here’s why: -

This blog was founded in June 2008 using fasthosts.co.uk as hosting company. Between then and September 2010 all inbound links were structured with the rather-un-SEO-friendly structure as shown above in italics.

- Now as it happened; fasthosts.co.uk turned out to be a rather unfriendly host, and at any and every possible excuse they transferred this blog in its entirety onto a backroom scripting server hosting domains that were using far more than their reasonable quota of server resources. This wasn’t due to any gross violation on my part with regard to this blog and its WordPress installation.

The fact was that at times and for very brief periods my share of server resources exceeded the allocated percentage; as in for 3 minutes or so total time per day my installation would utilise 10% more resources than it was officially allowed to. Normally, it appears, any other host would pay no heed to this unless the shared-platform server was mission-critical to some important classified government project or suchlike. Fasthosts, however, like splitting hairs: They’d even email me to tell me that my installation had used more than its quota for a fraction of a second but they were unable to prove it, therefore this time they’d allow the matter to be ignored. Usually, though, they’d move my installation onto the backroom scripting server before queuing an email informing me that I was the most evil customer they’d ever had for using even a tiny fraction more than my quota for even a picosecond.

The result of putting my installation onto the backroom scripting server was that nobody much could contact the server, and therefore this blog didn’t get many views because basically nobody could see it.

(Fasthosts had always made it perfectly clear that WordPress was third-party software, and the official line was that they point-blank refused to assist in any way in regard to it. A few of the staff were sometimes sympathetic late at night when all was quiet; but even then it could at times be like pulling teeth as far as getting any assistance with WordPress was concerned.)

After this had happened several times I got fed up and decided that I’d hire my own dedicated server. Fasthosts were overjoyed and quickly assured me in regard to how simple it was to run a dedicated server and how many problems I could save myself by doing so.

That was all good until I needed help: Ubuntu Linux isn’t exactly the easiest server operating system in terms of user-friendliness, particularly when everything has to be completed using the command-line only – using PUTTY or whatever. Basically they weren’t interested: Other than the occasional late-night staff-member with time on their hands, the usual reply was: -

“I can’t help you as it’s beyond my remit. – Either pay a second-level technician sixty pounds plus VAT for a half-hour’s work, or sort it out yourself. If you don’t know where to find the information you need then search our FAQ or try Google or wordpress.org.”

It would have saved them a lot of time and effort if they’d changed the script to just two little words: –

“Fuck you.”

But 9 times out of ten I did find the info I needed using Google or some other free online resource; so I used their total indifference to prompt and boost my personal learning-curve… Until one day all the pages on my blog vanished. I rang fasthosts and was given the stet reply: “I can’t help you…Etc.”

This time I couldn’t find out what was wrong no matter how I tried. I couldn’t even upload files via FTP either, as the new files showed up on the FTP client as being on the server, but they didn’t exist as far as the http side of things was concerned.

I reported this to fasthosts.co.uk, who first called me a liar, then blamed me for the fault prior to any investigation, before finally discovering, following proper investigation, that the file-system on the server had gone tits-up; before telling me that I’d have to fix it myself via the command-line or pay £60 + VAT per 1/2 hour…

I’d had enough: I moved the entire blog, the domain, even the nameservers, a long way away from fasthosts.co.uk, to JustHost.com in November 2010. Since then I’ve not had a single complaint of any kind about my installation to date.

The problem was that fasthosts’ server had corrupted all my database and all its backups… So the blog, as we knew it, was totally useless. – In essence, after having written over 600 posts, there was no blog left.

- But I’m not outdone that easily: Some of the articles on the old blog were getting outdated anyway, a lot of them were tech-news, which was now history. Many others would benefit from a rewrite… I had copies of everything from January 2009 on Windows Live Writer. – I’d restart the entire blog.

- And so I did, but with a different, more SEO-friendly URL-structure. – Hence all existing links on search-engines and other blogs were rendered dead links.

So if you see a link structured

…kkomp.com/archives/****

then you can be sure that it’s a dead link, and you know that if you click it you’ll end up on the 404 page with an option to search the blog. – ‘Sorry; but that’s how it is.