I can access my sites via FTP, but I’m getting nothing on HTTP. It seems like every few days there has been some morning outtages. I mentioned this in my last service ticket. For now though, please get me back up as soon as possible.

This is an excerpt from an email I sent to support at my current webhost this morning. My site was down for about an hour. They responded relatively quickly, restarted apache, apologized, and I was back online again but I’m tired of it already. There’s usually never a really long outtage, just short annoying ones. AM downtimes, server slowdowns, and occasional MySQL connection issues are the most common. I’ve said before that I’m getting what I paid for, and I still agree. I will never decide on a webhost again based on price. From now on, if I plan to switch hosts, I’ll choose based on user recommendation.

In the recommendation department, there seems to be one blindingly obvious choice: Dreamhost. I’m really not one to follow crowds…well, maybe I am…but a lot of people have placed their chips and their honest word on this host:

Now I know that most people who recommend Dreamhost do so inserting their own referral links (like I just did there), but I am honestly interested in finding a host that suits my needs which I can rely on. I can fix most anything I can break, so as long as the servers aren’t failing (flailing?) on their own, then I don’t care so much about support. From what I’ve read on Dreamhost’s website and from various review sites, they seem like the perfect host for me. If anyone has any negative experience with them and would like to point me in another direction, please feel fee to try. Otherwise, I’ll be switching come November when my prepaid year with my current host runs out.

Take the MIT Weblog Survey

Back to the crowd following thing… I saw the MIT Weblog Survey link on Clagnut and decided to participate. I’m looking forward to seeing the results.