b.cognosco

I just had a similar experience with BlueDomino.com. BD is a new hosting outfit run by the guys at CoffeeCup Software. It's appealing becasue it is so affordable -- starting at $8.95 per month. Unfortunately, their tech support sucks like a Hoover and they have no interest in supporting Radio users.

I think the problem lies in BD's use of the ProFTPd ftp server. I was never able to get Radio to upstream files to the BD site. Lawrence Lee of Userland was quite helpful, and he was able to get a successful upstream to the site. I never could and neither could another new Radio user who was also testing BD, but using a completely different computer and network.

Despite several attempts by Lawrence Lee of UserLand to gather ftp session data and help me debug the process we were ultimately unsuccessful. Thankfully, I was only trying to upstream a category -- and it was just a test category, at that. No harm done.

But Blue Domino is not a place that Radio users should consider. They made no effort to help or provide any useful information. I'm not even sure they looked into the problem, although I did get a blow-off answer from one off their tech support reps.

What does this have to do with Steve? Well, I was considering trying ProHosting next. I know several people who use ProHosting successfully, and CRM Association (an industry group I work with) has used ProHosting for two years without a hitch. But I am leery now of trying them with Radio.

I guess the point is that, for a reason I can't fathom, Radio may exhibit some issues with certain ftp servers or host systems and we need to be careful where we plan to move Radio-based weblogs. I successfully upstream ftp to Interland and Mindspring, but failed at BlueDomino.

If you're going to move your weblog be sure you start out slow and test the waters with a simple Category upstream first. Check with others to see if they have used that hosting company successfully. If not, see if you can get the host company to give you a test directory for testing before you move your domain. But try to validate your ability to upstream successfully before you commit.