Site5 Troubles, or: Watch Me Abuse Emphasised Text

So, I signed up with a Site5 reseller account a few weeks ago. Since then I’ve had to submit three help tickets and there’s another issue I need fixed, but the issue I’m currently battling them on has made me severely doubt tech support’s reading comprehension.

First issue was that in my welcome email they sent me the wrong nameservers and they took a fairly long time to give me the actual ones after I sent in a support ticket.

Second issue was that the FTP wasn’t working for any of the accounts I had set up so the faulty nameservers wouldn’t have made a bit of difference anyway since there was no way I could upload thousands of files via file manager.

Third issue: Someone I host needs domain.com/icons/ and icons.domain.com/icons/ to show what she actually has uploaded in those directories to keep her links alive versus a listing of Apache icons (which you can see demonstrated here if you’re unfamiliar with what I’m talking about¹). The subdomain, icons.domain.com, shows what she has uploaded to the icons directory, but domain.com/icons/ does not and neither does icons.domain.com/icons/.

I read in the Site5 Forums that they have been able to change this in a case-by-case basis. I explain very simply what is needed. I even include links. They email me to say:

Hi,

I’m able to access http://domain.com/icons/ without any problems. Are you still unable to access it? What is the error that you get?

I said nothing about errors in my original ticket. I even specifically said that when I access it it’s a directory listing of Apache icons and how that’s not what is needed.

I just ended up explaining to tech support how Apache servers work. I should be on their payroll.

I wake up this morning to this lovely message:

Hello,

What you can do is to create a symbolic link for the /icons folder. That way both icons.domain.com/icons and domain.com/icons will show the exact same content.

Please let us know if you have questions.

Dude, that’s like the exact opposite of what I want. Why would I want to do that?! I want it to display what’s actually uploaded to them, not display the exact same content².

And why would they just say ‘create a symbolic link’? How many people emailing technical support will actually know what they mean by that? Just because I understand why /icons/ displays what it does doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll know the ins and outs of .htaccess. It mostly means that I’ve been messing around with different servers for the past eight years and have seen a lot of different hosting and server situations. It also means I am a master Google-ninja extraordinaire so if I don’t understand something, I’ll just fucking Google it before I ask questions.

Does someone have good stories about Site5 and/or Site5′s support? Because right now I’m about ready to rip out my hair and I paid for an entire year in advance to save myself $100USD and because everyone says they’re so great.

Update: Partial victory! Apparently they understood enough to enable domain.com/icons/ which is good…except for the part where I said at least three times that domain.com/icons/ could be lived without and icons.domain.com/icons/ was what we were really looking for. I’m hoping it won’t be too difficult to get that enabled, but I’m not getting my hopes up. ;)

1. In that directory I actually have a file called rss.png uploaded and nothing else, but you won’t see rss.png at all, much less be able to link to it from elsewhere, like what she needs. ↩
2. Which it’s already doing, technically speaking, since both are displaying ugly Apache icons used for FancyIndexing. ↩

Muera, Por Favor

One of the things I’ve learnt in my pursuit of a BA in Spanish and French is that people tend to say stupid things in regards to my educational plans. Because, you know, a degree in anything besides IT or medicine or whatever is a waste of time. Clearly.

Below are examples of idiotic things said to me on a weekly basis as well as either the response I give or the response I wish I could give depending on who is doing the commenting.

“Oh. A useless degree.”

First of all, kindly fuck off.

Is there such thing as a useless degree, honestly? I don’t believe so. Least of all a degree in languages. Many people in English-speaking countries are monolingual; being multilingual is a sought-after skill in today’s job market. There are tons of things you can do with a BA in Spanish and French. Many people are unwilling to learn a second language. For some reason, this seems to be more rampant in countries where the predominant language is English.

Mostly, I’m getting a BA because I love languages and I like to learn, not because of the job I’m seeking.

“Nobody speaks French.”

I think the people of the 29 countries of which French is an official language would disagree with you. About 300 million people on the planet speak French. There is a French speaking country on every continent aside from Antarctica–as far as I know, emperor penguins don’t speak French. Or at least they didn’t in March of the Penguins which is clearly a vital source of penguin language information. It’s also an official language of both the United Nations and the European Union.

“French is useless.”

See above.

“Can you get a job with that? What are you going to do with that degree?”

I’m not getting a BA in Spanish and French to get a job; I’m getting a BA to learn more about something I love. I love to learn. I’ve always been that girl who’s constantly reading up about random things. When I was a kid, sometimes it was animals or dinosaurs or space or Sweden. Sometimes it’s still animals or dinosaurs or space or Sweden. I’m filled with tons of random bits of information about everything.

And, as I said earlier, multilingualism is a sought after skill even in non-interpretation or translation fields.

The Internet Is Like High School

A year and a half ago my mom (and the four other moderators who voted) banned this woman from a board because she was seriously harassing and stalking another poster. (Ack, parents on the internet! Weird!)

Now, this woman has been banned from every board ever created. She even got AOL for the dynamic IP addresses so she could no longer be permanently banned by IP. She posts with a million different usernames, but apparently you can always tell it’s her because of her writing style. Clearly, since she’s been banned hundreds of times from other boards, this one ban shouldn’t have been any big thing, right?

No. She went insane. For some reason, she targeted my mom and blamed her for the ban; perhaps because my mom has been the only one to stand up to her in the past. My mom and the moderators eventually just closed the board because they were sick of putting up with her friends as well.

Now when my mom posts at other boards about random completely unrelated topics this lady starts attacking her, accusing my mom of being obsessed with her¹, makes extremely rude comments, spreads my mom’s personal information, etc.

Yesterday my mom posted about something–perhaps French toast², I’ve no idea–and this lady started her attacks again except this time she’s gathered about fifteen minions and they’ve started mocking my mom for having cancer³.

You know what? Fuck. You.

These women are over 40 and they’ve spent the better part of 24 hours relentlessly spamming my mother and now two other people and acting as if my mom has no life. If you’re over 40 and you still gather your friends to gang up on one person and flame them, I almost pity you because you’re pathetic.

Oddly enough, my mom finds this all hilarious.

Ahem. And this is why the internet is like high school.

1. Who’s obsessed with whom here? I mean, my mom never mentions this lady anywhere, but she goes about looking for my mom so she can attack her! Somebody’s brain is in off-mode. ↩
2. Example of this lady’s madness: My mom will post about French toast. This lady will come along and go “G-D, WHY ARE YOU SO OBSESSED WITH ME?!” and then proceed to spend the next few days flaming my mom. ↩
3. My mom had surgery two days ago because she has breast cancer. She’s doing fine right now and will likely be completely cleared after she undergoes radiation therapy. ↩

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