Technology & Gadgets

Shocking Proof of Hostgator’s Awful Customer Service!

I have been using Hostgator’s hosting services since 2008. However, over the years, I have realized they are not as good as they used to be. Here is a proof of how they hire support execs that don’t know a damn about what they are doing. Notice the time taken by them to resolve a simple issue. Worse, they lack manners and wouldn’t mind NOT saying “give me a moment” before they leave you stranded forever. The following is the worst experience I’ve had with Hostgator. Clearly, I am switching to a better hosting service provider soon.

(7:52:36pm)Isaac S. : Welcome to HostGator Live Chat, my name is Isaac, and I would be happy to assist you.

(7:52:36pm)Isaac S.:Welcome to HostGator Live Chat, my name is Isaac, and I would be happy to assist you.

(7:52:37pm)Isaac S.:What can I help you with today?

(7:52:50pm)Sushant Sahoo:Hi

(7:53:36pm)Isaac S.:Hey Sushant. What can I help you with today?

(7:53:49pm)Sushant Sahoo:sure

(7:54:01pm)Sushant Sahoo:give me a moment

(7:54:36pm)Sushant Sahoo:I having the following issues:

(7:54:39pm)Sushant Sahoo:WP HTTP Error: Couldn’t resolve host ‘wordpress.org’

(7:55:00pm)Isaac S.:Where are you seeing this?

(7:55:23pm)Sushant Sahoo:On my WordPress dash board

(7:56:26pm)Isaac S.:Please provide the steps taken to reproduce the problem you are experiencing, any error messages you are receiving, exact urls you are visiting, and any other information you might find relevant. Any further detailed information in reference to the problem you are experiencing would be greatly helpful in our troubleshooting procedures.

(7:57:05pm)Sushant Sahoo:ok

(7:57:28pm)Sushant Sahoo:I have several WordPress Installations

(7:57:45pm)Sushant Sahoo:on all the websites I am experiencing this issue

(7:58:24pm)Sushant Sahoo:the server on which my websites are hosted are unable to connect wordpress.org

(7:58:38pm)Sushant Sahoo:this issue is since around 2 weeks

(7:59:22pm)Isaac S.:May I please have the email address associated with the account?

(7:59:54pm)Sushant Sahoo:hostgatorsucks@gmail.com (Changed)

(8:02:20pm)Isaac S.:For security purposes, I will need you to verify your identity by providing the PayPal transaction ID of your most recent payment, or the last 4 digits of the credit card on file for the account, depending on your payment method.

(8:02:20pm)Isaac S.:I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

(8:03:31pm)Sushant Sahoo:ok

(8:03:35pm)Sushant Sahoo:giv me a moment

(8:05:12pm)Isaac S.: Take your time.

(8:05:13pm)Sushant Sahoo:Transaction ID: 1111111111 (Changed)

(8:07:35pm)Isaac S.:Thank you, Just a moment please.

(8:08:07pm)Isaac S.:How can I see this error Sushant?

(8:09:14pm)Sushant Sahoo:Can you login to the server where my files are hosted?

(8:10:21pm)Isaac S.:In the cpanel?

(8:10:27pm)Sushant Sahoo:no

(8:10:36pm)Sushant Sahoo:in the server, SSH?

(8:11:29pm)Sushant Sahoo:are you a technical support representative?

(8:13:03pm)Isaac S.:Yes I am Sushant.

(8:13:21pm)Isaac S.:What does SSH have to do with your WordPress error? That is the error that I need to see.

(8:13:28pm)Sushant Sahoo:then why don’t you understand the problem

(8:13:37pm)Sushant Sahoo:it’s not the wordpress issue

(8:14:12pm)Sushant Sahoo:it’s the issue with the http request from the server

(8:14:58pm)Sushant Sahoo:when my wordpress installation is making any request to ‘wordpress.org’ it’s not working properly

(8:15:44pm)Isaac S.:Alright.I need a step by step way to replicate this Sushant. Once I have replicated this issue and have seen the error live. Then I can get this fixed.

(8:15:59pm)Sushant Sahoo:ok

(8:16:25pm)Sushant Sahoo:then install wordpress on the server, where my files are hosted

(8:16:49pm)Sushant Sahoo:login to the dashboard and you will see the error on the dashboard

(8:17:29pm)Isaac S.:Alright. So I have to install wordpress?

(8:17:44pm)Isaac S.:To what domain should I install it?

(8:18:14pm)Sushant Sahoo:use anyone you have

(8:18:34pm)Sushant Sahoo:don’t mess with my domains

(8:20:03pm)Isaac S.:What domain were you using to see the error Sushant?

(8:20:39pm)Sushant Sahoo:it does not matter

(8:20:53pm)Sushant Sahoo:I am getting this errors on all the domains

(8:22:45pm)Isaac S.:Please provide me with the domain and the login so I can see the error. I want to help you fix this Sushant. Please.

(8:24:47pm)Sushant Sahoo:give me your email ID

(8:25:00pm)Sushant Sahoo:I will create an account for you

(8:26:23pm)Isaac S.:You can use cubecitytest1@gmail.com Sushant.

(8:28:55pm)Sushant Sahoo:got any email?

(8:30:24pm)Sushant Sahoo:are you there?

(8:31:06pm)Isaac S.:YEs I am here.

(8:31:27pm)Sushant Sahoo:did you get any email?

(8:31:42pm)Sushant Sahoo:with username, password and url to login?

(8:31:46pm)Isaac S.:What is the email subject?

(8:31:53pm)Sushant Sahoo:forget

(8:32:06pm)Sushant Sahoo:http://seo-contentwriter.com/blog-wp/wp-admin

(8:32:10pm)Sushant Sahoo:login here

(8:32:28pm)Sushant Sahoo:username: aaaa (changed)

(8:32:36pm)Sushant Sahoo:password: aaaa (changed)

(8:32:48pm)Sushant Sahoo:after login you will see the http error

(8:33:50pm)Isaac S.:Thank you, Just a moment please.

(8:34:21pm)Isaac S.:Alright I can see the error now Sushant.

(8:34:32pm)Sushant Sahoo:now tell me

(8:34:40pm)Sushant Sahoo:why this error is coming?

(8:36:57pm)Isaac S.:I am not positive yet Sushant.

(8:37:11pm)Sushant Sahoo:what the fuck

(8:37:33pm)Sushant Sahoo:are you a technical support executive?

(8:37:54pm)Sushant Sahoo:do you know abcd of networking and system admin?

(8:39:40pm)Sushant Sahoo:tell me whether you can solve this simple DNS issue

(8:39:51pm)Sushant Sahoo:else I will change my host in the next hour

(8:40:18pm)Isaac S.:Yes I am Sushant. I am trouble shooting this Sushant. I am sorry these things take time.

(8:40:39pm)Sushant Sahoo : this is just a simple issue

(8:41:20pm)Sushant Sahoo : it should take a minute to figure out why the server is unable to resolve a host

(8:41:42pm)Sushant Sahoo: I am wasting my time with you here

(8:42:02pm)Sushant Sahoo: the issue should have been resolved in 5 minutes

(8:42:10pm)Isaac S.: I am about to fix this Sushant.

(8:42:24pm)Isaac S.: I need to make some updates to the database.

(8:42:25pm)Sushant Sahoo: how much time it’ll take?

(8:42:45pm)Sushant Sahoo: which database?

(8:44:12pm)Isaac S.: I need to locate the database first. I do not know exactly how long this will take Sushant.

(8:44:40pm)Sushant Sahoo: why do you need to update the database?

(8:45:58pm)Isaac S.: I am checking on the database first then if necessary make the update Sushant.

(8:46:31pm)Sushant Sahoo: why do you need to update it?

(8:46:36pm)Sushant Sahoo: explain

(8:47:22pm)Sushant Sahoo: I don’t want you to mess with the database and put us in trouble by damaging it

(8:48:22pm)Isaac S.: Well first I am making sure this is our server issue. If it is then there should be a change to make in the database to fix this. If it is not then you need to go to wordpress.

(8:49:00pm)Sushant Sahoo:then check your server first

(8:49:31pm)Sushant Sahoo:and let me know why it’s unable to resolve the host ‘wordpress.org’

(8:50:02pm)Sushant Sahoo:how much time will it take to check your server?

(8:52:19pm)Isaac S.:There is not an exact time frame. I am working on this as quickly as I can.

(8:52:43pm)Sushant Sahoo:I am wasting time with you since 1 hour

(8:52:54pm)Sushant Sahoo:and you don’t know what the issue

(8:53:10pm)Sushant Sahoo:you even don’t know what ‘resolve’ means

(8:53:23pm)Sushant Sahoo:if you know you can fix it, then let me know

(8:53:28pm)Sushant Sahoo:I will wait

(8:54:22pm)Isaac S.:I can fix this Sushant. I am working on this as quickly as possible.

(8:54:49pm)Sushant Sahoo:else, it’ll take me less time to change the host instead of chatting with a stupid support executive who does not know abcd of computer networks

Passion Makes Your Fight with Adversity a Little Less Challenging – Steve Jobs

The beauty of Steve Jobs lies in the way he speaks, whether it is the WWDC or any random interview. He speaks straight from his heart, from his experience which is what makes each one of his interviews, however short, worth a watch, and extremely inspiring.

An entrepreneur is effectively an artist too passionate about his creation to give up in the face of extreme adversity. The true definition of entrepreneurship goes much beyond putting together a company or building a successful business. It applies to all the people out there who have a dream or a vision to make something happen no matter how intimidating the obstacles may seem.

Dream to an entrepreneur is like a child to his/her mother; she would never ever let anything happen to her baby, come hell or high water. Chasing your dream is never that easy and comes with seemingly insurmountable challenges. Your success, therefore, boils down to the degree your passion and determination to make it happen. You’ve got to be at it like there was no tomorrow.

The Evolving Web in Plain English

This is a part of the Internet chat between me and my friend. I thought it would be helpful for many that are unfamiliar with what’s going on around the Web of late.

Google and You….Until Penguin Wrecked Havoc
People use Google for info. Webmasters use Google for business. Google wants businesses to make thier website relevant and use best practices so the users could benifit from their search results. Got the drift? However, that’s not how it works in real life……as you know businesses would always manipulate and game Google’s alrogithms to get better visiblity and rankings to make money money?


Google was built in 1998, and became a hit with the Internet demography. It made enough money and dominated the market until 2008 when Social Markeitng ate its pie. Google has been pretty much worried about its dwindling marketing share of late, esp in the past couple of years. Eversince Facebook and other startups in the the Silicon Valley gave Google a run for its money. Try to understand what Google is scared of

Google Until Facebook


In the pre-facebook era, you and I would Google it. Why? Becuz we want info but Facebook and the likes changed our perception altogther rendering Google nearly clueless as to how it should remain commercially sustainable going forward. But look whats happened in the last couple of years, how people get info. sharing, right? It wasnt like this in the pre-facebook era, was it?

Until yesterday, we would Google everything. Today, we wouldnt Google as much. The difference is? Facebook, Twitter, Quora and a whole lot of other startups that help us get what we need – relevant info. And we are just talking about a year or two now; imagine a decade of inventions on the Web. So the Search is definitely not the same as it once was back in the heydays of Google.

But Google is smart enough, it’s adapting to the changing times. Google has tried to introduce some products like Google buzz and Google plus to fight the likes of Facebook, Twitter but they fell flat. So Google realized the only way it could survive is by focusing on strenghtening its core product, which is Google Search – the biggest product it has till date

The Penguin
On the 24th of Apri, 2012, Google changed it search algorithms in a way that many people in the US went broke, they are crying now, cant support their families.

How does a change in Google’s algorithm affect people’s income? Lets say you have 50 different websites with loads of info with tons of traffic on a daily basis. You rank well, people visit your site; you rank badly, and people wont find you. So your income sorta depends on google rankings right?

Google has become stricter and more aggressive with it search algo of late, it has changed its algo twice already this year alone . But, you know, a lot of spammy websites out there on the Web trying to make money. But there is something more to it, there are good websites and there are bad ones, right?

But there is no way Google can ensure that the good guys remain unaffected when it’s after the bad guys. So as a matter of fact, a few good guys suffered while Google was busy killing spammy websites. They called it Collateral Damage.

Why would the blogs suffer more?
I run a blog, in fact a couple of them. But i would just name two- takeyourtips.com and appsdude.net. My writers write articles, informative, both of them are affiliated to Google Adsense and Amazon, which means when people Google, for ex, about Amazon Kindle, they land on my website, read info and then click on my aff link to buy products. We get commissions. While this accounts for only 5% of my revenue model, out there, for many people, its 100%.
People make money, earn a living off fulltime blogging. Just imageine their blogs not appearing on Gogle

But any reason why they wouldn’t appear on google now? Any particular change to the algorithm?
OK, here is why: there are many bloggers out there on the Internet, everybody makes money, but in a varying degree because they get more or less traffic depending on the their visiblity on Google. If I get 10K visits per day, I make 1000 USD per day. Since it’s inception back in `98 Google has always wanted to offer the best and more relevant search results to its visitors. Google has varous data center across the web, for ex, Google.com, Google.co.in etc and Google has also a information retrival system.

When you and I search with a keyword or key phrase (they are seo terms). Google search for those keywords within its database and returns the most relevant results what we know as links. Therefore, google usually uses keywords and other factors to rank a specific website.

However, many websites/blogs have gamed these factors to rank ahead of each other without giving a damn about what searchers want. So the web searchers end up with bad results, irrelevant info which left Google angry, upset and determined to punish the bad guys on the Web.

There’s More to The Updates Than What Meets Our Eyes
Google wants its users to believe its doing everything to deliver the most relevant results to achieve better user experience. However, many experts in the search industry believe otherwise. Its not that Google is making changes to serve users. Its that Google is making these changes to remain alive, afloat. Do u know how? The mainstay of Google’s business is Paid Search (PPC), this is how it works for them,

How Google Makes Money from PPC
Google.com is where people go. So Google tells businesses to promote their websites on Google’s Paid Search (you see them on the right handside of your Google resultpages), if I subscribed to Google’s Paid Search service, I would pay to , say, 50,000 USD to google. Lets say I sell notebooks. So when people seach for notebooks on Google, Google dsplays their clients names/websites on the right hand side of their search results, people click on their ads, visit their website, buy things.

However, when people click on those ads, each click is worth some dollars determined by Google during their negotiations. So if each click is worth 10 USD, and i get traffic to the tunes of 10000 to my sites daily. So, how much am I paying Google daily? :)

So Will Facebook Eat Up Google?
So i mean Google is making 80% of revenues via Google Paid Search product. The reason why businesses are spending so much on Google’s Paid Search campaign is this: it’s still the best search engines people use for info. Search engines are built around people, their interest and their behaviors. In short, Facebook and many other companies have users data to the potential of building another search engine.


How the New iPad Will Confuse the World to Death

How the New iPad Will Confuse the World to Death

iPad3, iPad, The New iPad, Apple, iPhone4S

For reasons best known to them, Apple has actually disappointed many of its followers around world by not naming their new products the way we wanted. What does that mean?

In 2011, the world awaited, with bated breath, the release of the much speculated iPhone5, until they preferred to just call it iPhone4S. Although it still sold like hot cakes, many ambitious owners and Apple fanboys were apparently hesitant to upgrade their devices for it didn’t give them a chance to stand apart from the iPhone4 owners and flaunt an all-new iOS device.

Today, when the Internet world was awash with speculations and rumors about the launch of the so-called iPad3, Apple preferred to just call it iPad.  Compared to the frustrations last year, it’s going to be “twice as” more confusing for the Apple loyalists around the planet. Regardless of the feature enhancements on the new iPad, the brand-flaunting consumers still wanted a new name for their devices in order to carry an X-factor, something Apple fans have always been proud of.


Whatever reasons Apple may have to call their newly released iPad just an iPad, this for sure is going to confuse the crap out its consumers. Here is how:

The Douchbag: There are quite a few Apple loyalists who swear by their iOS devices for the sheer brand value and make the most of it to enhance their social status. They are going to be the worst-affected lot with the new iPad leaving them in the lurch, as far as their social status is concerned. They were so looking forward to holding an all-new iPad3 and flaunting it before others. How are they supposed to manage their social status until Apple actually comes up with an all-new iPad (hopefully they’ll name it iPad3)?

The Jailbreaker: The all-new iPad has left the jailbreakers bemused as to how they will explain the jailbreaking process to their visitors. Even for a regular iOS device, the jaibreaking process has always been as complicated and confusing as it gets. However, with Apple calling the new iPad just an iPad, the jailbreakers will now have to brainstorm an easier way to explain how to jailbreak the new iPad and not the old iPad. This, I tell you, is going to be one heck of a challenge for the jailbreak community.

The Seller: The new iPad is out, and the price of the iPad2 has been slashed by $100. While it all sounds good to the tech-savvy prospective buyer, it is the seller who are going find it hard handling consumers that don’t know an iPad from an iPod. Selling an iPad (new) to someone who already owns an iPad(old) could be a monumental task, especially when the old-iPad owners don’t know much about the technology.

The Advertisers: In a world teeming with tablet devices, convincing the average consumers to choose an expensive iPad over the cheaper alternative has always been tough anyways. But, new iPad will make the process for the advertisers twice as difficult for the potential confusion between the old iPad and new iPad might not appear compelling enough for some target consumers, especially those who aren’t tech-savvy enough.

The Pre-owned iPad Seller: Selling a pre-owned device on e-Bay is a rather complicated process. I have tried doing that for my Samsung Galaxy 750 to no avail. If you’re looking to sell off your old iPad on eBay anytime soon, get ready for a giddy ride, because the newly announced iPad add to the chaos and confusion for your potential buyers on eBay.

It’s interesting to see how the tech-world is going to react to this now :-)



Let’s Save The Internet World from The SOPA/PIPA Censorship!

Let’s Save The Internet World from The SOPA/PIPA Censorship!

The ongoing Internet activism against SOPA/PIPA is an inspiring reminiscence of the epic movie Avatar where Jake Sully decides to lead from the front and fight a war against the military establishment to save the rich woodland and the native Na’vi tribe.

Even as the Congress has already scheduled a day to kill SOPA to mark the day for the Internet censorship, the Internet fraternity spearheaded by the likes of Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic and icanhazCheezburger Network have shut down their website for a day to propagate the potential perils of the Internet censorship, should SOPA and PIPA get past the Congress on the 24th of January.

Joining this historic movement, the Internet behemoths including Google, Facebook and Twitter have also demonstrated their stand against SOPA and PIPA today.

What The Heck is SOPA/PIPA?

Today, the Internet users enjoy a great deal of liberty – the freedom of expression – by participating in many online discourses that shape popular opinion for a better and empowered future. This freedom of expression empowers the users to convey their views by contributing online content to the socials sites and other websites.

The SOPA and PIPA, if passed in the Congress on the 24th of January, will stifle the free speech you enjoy today.

If you happen to be an Internet entrepreneur or a webmaster running several websites, you may have to police your websites to comply with many complex protocols laid down by the Internet censorship laws such as SOPA and PIPA, should they be allowed to see the light of the day.

According to Wikipedia, SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression and pose fatal danger to the free and open Internet.

Can We Stop SOPA/PIPA?

Yes! If you happen to log on to popular sites like Wikipedia or Reddit today, they will serve you with a black page as a means of protest, allowing you an opportunity to join the movement. Just sign the petition to inform your local representative that they should vote against these dangerous legislations.

Here are a few links to help you sign the petition against SOPA/PIPA:

http://americancensorship.org/

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CongressLookup?zip=751013&submit=Look+up

http://wordpress.org/

So what’s your stand on SOPA/PIPA?


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