Host-Switching: From Bluehost to Linode
During the past week, I switched hosts from Bluehost to Linode. I liked Bluehost, but I outgrew them. My Inverse Graphing Calculator was “too popular” for them. They froze it, and I had to adjust it to text-only mode before they’d unfreeze it. I can understand that– a cheap, shared host plan isn’t really intended for the tens of thousands of visitors the calculator draws in. What was pretty inexcusable is the fact they didn’t call me, or even e-mail me, about freezing my site. If I hadn’t checked it, it could’ve stayed down indefinitely.
I bought a Virtual Private Server (VPS) from Linode. I had to take a crash-course in setting up a Linux box. Whereas Bluehost set everything up for me, Linode came bare-bones. I got to choose a version of Linux– I went with Ubuntu for now– and then I was on my own. I had to actually install and set up Apache, PHP, and MySQL. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. It turns out it’s extremely easy to install standard software on Linux– usually as simple as typing a single command. I learned a ton about how servers and the internet work. I was happy at Bluehost while I was there, but looking back with the knowledge I gained just this week, it seems like I was stuck in a tiny fishbowl.
Hosts are a lot like fish bowls. If you stay in a goldfish bowl, you’ll never grow beyond being a goldfish. To be a shark or a killer whale, you’ve gotta move your way toward the ocean. I was a little uneasy about making the switch to a stronger host, because the price increased by about a factor of three. But in a hundred years, I’ll be dead and gone– it doesn’t matter at all how much money I could save by being a miser. If a faster box lets me create just 1% more content of enduring quality, then it’s worth the additional price.
This website began on Blogspot, where I had virtually no control of anything. From Blogspot, I moved to Bluehost, which was a quantum leap at the time. I outgrew Bluehost a lot faster than I expected, and now I’m on a VPS, installing Linux applications from scratch. So what’s gonna be next? At this rate, in a couple years I’m going to be programming my own operating system in raw machine code! 
FURTHER READING
Moving From Blogspot To WordPress
Become More Intelligent by Doing New Things
My Experience with Computer Programming