[BlueOnyx:12897] Re: Help request Cisco & BO stuff.

[Michael Aronoff]

On 4/21/2013 4:33 AM, danny wrote:
> Apologies first - Posting here as a regular reader and know the good 
> tempers of the people involved in the project.
>
> My sister handled lots of "fun" hosting at her house for many years.  
> We lost her to colon cancer last month and her instructions to me were 
> to keep things going.  This may be a little more than I can handle on my
own.

My condolences on your loss. I have some idea what you have gone through as
I also spent the last year fighting Colon Cancer. I was only 41 (not old
enough to get regular colonoscopies) and it was found by accident. I had a
lower CT Scan while dealing with something else. I would urge everyone to
get checked and even though it is not fun to talk about if you have changes
in bowel habits talk to your doctor! I resisted and ignored it for almost
too long. By the time my tumor was found it was quite large and I had
metastatic disease with 2 tumors that had moved to my liver. So two tough
surgeries and 14 rounds of Chemo later and I am doing well but it was ugly
for a while. Trust me when I say the colonoscopy is easier! (Rant mode off)

[Section removed]
> Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

If you are hosting paying clients I would suggest you have a strong look at
your ISP and hardware costs and think about leasing servers instead. For
many years I did the same thing, with expensive high-speed lines to my
office and tons of hardware.

A few years ago I took a hard look at things and wound up moving all my
sites to servers I lease from Virtbiz (Hey Chris!). I get better speed at a
lower total cost and much less headache with the added benefit of a skilled
datacenter crew to help cover my back. I do everything myself but when I was
in the hospital it was nice knowing I could lean on Chris and his staff if I
needed help. No matter who you use it is nice not having to worry about
power/utility outages in a residential neighborhood and the other stuff that
a datacenter takes care of. Not to mention that when a server dies they just
fix it. Period. No cost to me other than time restoring a backup if needed.

I sleep better than ever and actually spend less money in the long run.

Good luck,

M Aronoff Out