Shanghai Tech Writer

Updated (4/27/2008): The new domain for this blog is http://www.shanghaitechwriter.com.

I use BlueHost to host all my websites and blogs. I say this as if I have a lot of websites and blogs when in reality, I have just two websites and three blogs. Both my personal and work blogs are registered under http://www.blindmansfaith.com. My other blog, called Simply Gluten-Free, is about the gluten-free diet. That blog is registered under http://www.simplygf.com. In addition, I also maintain several other websites/blogs for others.

I’ve been using Bluehost for three years now and am extremely pleased with their hosting service. When I first signed up for an account, I received 15 GB of hosting space and a limit of 5 domain registrations. Since then, I’ve already registered 5 different domains, both personally and for others. If I wanted to add/create a new domain to my Bluehost account, I couldn’t. However, when I checked the Bluehost website earlier this week, I discovered that new account registrations come with 1500 GB of hosting space AND unlimited domain registration!! I was annoyed. I’ve been a loyal customer for three years, so why do I have only 15 GB and a limit of 5 domain registrations? I wrote an email to customer service requesting an upgrade. Within minutes, I received a response from them.

This is available for our current customers, but you must be using at least 80% of your current limits in order to have the upgrade applied to your account. If you are using that current percentage we would be happy to update the account. If you are not at that limit we would kindly ask you to wait until you have reached that mark, contact us at that time and we can proceed with the update from there. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

I realized that I was being extremely greedy. Even though I had only 15 GB of hosting space, I’ve used maybe 1GB of space so far. That’s less than 7% of my current limit. I didn’t really need 1500 GB of server space! Let me be spared the curse of human greed on mankind. I did however want to host more domains on my account, so I sent them another email stating that I’ve already maxed out my domain registration and kindly requested an upgrade. Within minutes, again, they replied updating my account with unlimited domain registration! I am loving this!

Since then, I’ve added two more domains for friends. Many of my friends are still using Xanga, Blogspot, and Windows Live. Unfortunately, only Windows Live is not blocked in China and some have given up blogging altogether due to the Great Firewall of China. Now that I have unlimited domain registration on my 15 GB (with free upgrade to 1500 GB) of server space, I’ve offered my service to help people setup their own personal website/blog! The cost to purchase a domain name is about $10 USD per year, if the name is not already taken yet.

Now the question for me is whether I should move this NISH blog to a new website, like http://www.nishtc.com or something I’m not sharing yet until I secure the domain name. I guess when I started this blog, I wasn’t sure if I was going to seriously blog about technical writing. I didn’t think I could manage two completely separate blogs, so I registered this NISH blog under my personal website. But now, maybe it is time to move this blog to its own home!

Or maybe not . . . It’s going to be a lot of work migrating. I’m not sure I know how to do that but I’m sure I will find plenty of resources, also known as documentation, online. Ha. That’ll be my upcoming project when I have more time. I’m barely writing enough posts to keep up with my three blogs.

Meanwhile, I’m just super thrilled I can host more domain names on my Bluehost account! My new hobby now is helping people setup their own personal website/blog. Self-hosted blogs aren’t that novel anymore but I guess those who do know how to setup everything from start to finish (domain registration, server hosting, Wordpress installation, Wordpress configuration) are still a small minority. I am thankful I got a head start on using WordPress three years ago and have accumulated quite a bit of knowledge about using the software.

Anyone interested in having their own self-hosted website/blog?

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