Edit: So, I’ve cancelled my PH account and today I think made peace with Jonno. I understand where he is coming from but still don’t agree with how he is running PH. This is probably the best solution.
So it turns out that my first ‘hosting me’ experience was less than ideal. Initially, the support was great and I felt so at ease going with Parade Hosting. Unfortunately, being so excited about the idea I didn’t investigate enough. I didn’t take the time to find out the owner was passing Parade over to someone else or what their reputation was, I just jumped on in!
I signed up and was told 24 hrs and an invoice I’d have… but I didn’t. Everything just took so. long.
So I was finally a member of Parade and transferring everything over and getting it all sorted out and everything was working and then it went down… and came up and went down and up, down, up, down and oh my how painful!
I got banned from accessing my own Cpanel, I couldn’t add additional domains and when logging a ticket I received one word replies. It was so disappointing to see the lack of support Parade had considering the community the forums appeared to have.
Then I found out more about Jonno, the new owner. Jonno who had multiple jobs and other hosting companies and more other responsibilities than I can count. Every time Parade went down another job or responsibility was revealed but they were never excuses… never! How could we ever think that? How could we ever think anything other than perfection about Jonno? For he had lovingly taken over Parade and kept the support forums even though he detested support forums! Should we not bow down to him?
Apparently we should. All of the mods on the forum do. Here is just a few of the replies I received when questioning the service or getting frustrated with its unreliability:
@Everyone else: What people fail to realize is that Jonno is human, too. And unless we replace his brain with a computer and install some sort of satellite internet access in his body, he can’t possibly be online 24/7.
If the service isn’t satisfactory, you can leave when you wish. No one is forced to stay with services they’re not satisfied with.
Either stick it through until services are repaired or go on your merry way. I’m so very tired.
I believe it’s down.
:O
Nobody’s complained, so I doubt he knows.
Closing the topic, to prevent complaining.
I felt so supported! There is so much bias over there! No talking about other hosts, no negative comments about the service, no complaining… unless you’re Jonno of course. Jonno can complain about everyone else and how they’re being so very unfair to him because he’s just so very important and so very, very busy!
I dealt with most of it time and again with promises of a better service and a new server and this and that but they never came.
Then, the last straw, the site was down and as advised by the mods I email Jonno and receive no response. The site is down for hours and yet, nothing. I leave it be and come back the next morning and the site is up! But the SQL server is down again… for days but I should be patient. Just be more patient! No, I don’t think so.
Thankfully, I was noticed by rival hosts and Brad from HostCrave gave me an excellent deal and helped endlessly to get me transferred over as fast as possible! Less than 24 hrs and everything was changed! However… the SQL server was STILL down over at Parade and I had to play the waiting game.
Finally it came back up and I backed up my database as fast as I could. Phew, especially considering that Parade is down again and has been off and on for the last few days apparently… and where has the fearless leader been? Missing.
All in all, what have I gotten out of this experience? Do more investigation of your host! And especially? don’t go with Parade!
3 responses to “And so I escaped that sinking ship”
Hello~ I’m a Parade Client.
You didn’t research to find out about the company’s change of hands, because I don’t think there was ever a formal announcement. It was just done, without any feedback or heads up. I only learned through the forum that there was new management.
Lately Jonno has been a lot more decent. At first he was really rude and stand offish, lots of bad language. But now he seems more mellowed out. Like he realized ‘hey these are my clients, maybe I should go low key with the sh*t talking’. lol. It’s been a lot better lately, with the new rules Jonno has set up. And lately support has been more faster to resolve issues. He’s a busy guy. Understandable. Though if it were me, I wouldn’t have taken added responsibility if I didn’t have the time. But I am not Jonno & Jonno is an adult (i believe 20 something). Maybe he’s the type that likes to stay busy and productive (type a personality or something)…
There seems to be more tech support now. And with this pleasant change in attitude from Jonno, I think I’ll stick around with Parade a bit longer. I’ll give credit where it’s due- he’s done a lot better recently.
So now the mods are the issue. I’m betting that butthole reply you posted came from that ‘heart of pandora’ whatever chic, yah? Most (keyword most, not all) of them have their nose so far up Jonno’s butt I wonder when’s the last time they saw the light of day?. I don’t think Jonno needs his own version of the Red Guard to terrorize clients. I think they need to look up the word ‘moderate’ as they don’t seem to have a grasp of its meaning. What they seem to forget is I doubt Jonno is hosting anyone free of charge. People are paying and if they have an issue with a service, they have a right to voice their concerns. The forums are like some communist regime or something. It’s like they are completely oblivious that some people are resellers and lose money and clients when there is frequent downtime. I don’t know what alternate dimension they reside in, where it’s okay to ‘talk’ to people the way they do. In my family, I’ve often heard the yiddish saying “du kannst nicht auf meinem rucken pishen unt mir sagen class es regen ist” (translation: you can’t piss on my back and tell me it’s rain). Somehow that phrase just seems appropriate when discussing the mods.
Recently, I saw some of the replies Sharmaine sent me via Twitter posted on the forum and I was offended. Some of those were messages (although public) were sent to me, they had no right to do that to her, or me. It’s none of their business. If they want to hound you at the forums and not let you speak your peace fine, but they have no right to e-stalk. I’ve even seen one of th mods repy to someone’s myspace groups post, and the mod their told her right off, you’r not the mod here so back off. They do not, cannot, and will not moderate the entire WWW. I don’t know what illusion of grandeur they are under, but they need to snap out of it really fast. Sharmaine isn’t even on the forum, so why keep talking about her? Is their life seriously that lackluster? The reason people turn to blogs and twitter is because they can’t express their feelings on the forum without being dogged out,so it’s not a matter of ‘going behind PH’s back’. If you encounter a service that is unsatisfactory,the responsible thing to do is let others know so they won’t have to go through it as well. I bet in a few days your blog will be posted, so the mods can continue flinging feces. Must be nice to have so much freetime. Que sera, sera.
Anyways, sorry for the uber long post! I’m happy you were able to finally transition to the new host and I really hope your new hosting experience works out well. my first hosting experience (all the way back in 2001) was awful as well. It’s hard to find a reliable host with decent pricing. So I sincerely hope all your future online endeavors work in your favor!! And thank you for replying to all my U2’s @ Parade,btw.
Take care!
-Alicia
sorry for the double post but i noticed the webhost review link.
if you submit a review to Whoishostingthis.com,they will give you a $10 GoDaddy coupon. I had submitted a review about 1&1 hosting, not even knowing that and a few days later i got a coupon code via email. that's one renewal fee taken care of.
One thing I learned from hosting is patience. Clients is a mixture of good and bad and without patience, there's a big tendency that clients will be pissed off. As a hosting provider, I'd say that uptime and secure servers should come at the top of the list, followed by support 🙂
Caroline, I saw that post also from the PH forums: http://phclients.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=885…
I feel sad as well because Sharmaine cannot even tell her side because she's banned.