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Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
GoDaddy rocks!
It's been a while since I've blogged about some nerdy tech goodness, so after I fixed today's problem, I knew it was a perfect blog post.
The company I work for, I wear many hats. One day it's web developer extraordinare, the next it's fix the servers dude. Today it was Mr fix the email portal.
Our SSL certificate, a tiny little file that tells a server how to encrypt information (it's what makes a website go https://), expired for the website that is used as our email portal. All those that work outside of the company building couldn't get access to their email so I was called into fix it.
Usually not a huge issue to fix it, before I'd log into our SSL certificate's provider site, order a new one, and then put on the server and be good to go. Today they threw everything at me to get rid of a customer.
First of all, we had a special account that made purchasing the certificates a little cheaper. So when I would try to buy 'tokens' so I could purchase a new certificate I was getting an error message that our account had been "bogused."
I logged into chat support to find out what the problem was and what needed to be done to fix it. The company is based in South Africa, I didn't originally setup our account but it's the first sign that not all is right. This is the same company that the guy that leads development on Ubuntu made all his money from selling the company.
I get connected to a guy and he tells me that we didn't meet the requirements to have a special account and that I needed to buy the certificate at retail. No problem, he disconnects and sends me on to another person. I explain my story again to next person and they send me to the page to buy the certificate.
A SSL certificate is a really small file, about 4K in file size. On the average, they cost about $200-$800 a year depending on the encryption strength. These companies are really making a lot of money off of them. I hate spending money, but I even more I hate spending money that could be used for something more useful.
Well, I fill out everything to buy the certificate. It's going to cost about $450 for a two year certificate. Again, I can't buy the certificate because I am getting some kind of error message. I login to chat support again to find out what's the problem. They tell me there's an issue with our previous account.
This is when I start Googling other providers. I had spent over an hour trying to buy something that should have taken me five minutes. At the top was an advertisement for GoDaddy. I've bought a half dozen cheap domains with them and never had any problems.
So I check out the prices and they're a fraction of what we were paying. For a three year certificate it was about $50. I immediately canceled what I was trying to do with the other company.
Within five minutes I had purchased the certificate and was in business. Best part about it was that I had to contact support because I was having some issues applying the new certificate. I got to talk to a real life person that spoke English as their first language without being put on-hold.
You'd think GoDaddy was paying me to write good stuff about them, but I am just happy they made purchasing a tiny little file a fraction of the cost and made it really easy.
Now if they could send Danica Patrick and the GoDaddy girls this way.
GoDaddy rocks!
It's been a while since I've blogged about some nerdy tech goodness, so after I fixed today's problem, I knew it was a perfect blog post.
The company I work for, I wear many hats. One day it's web developer extraordinare, the next it's fix the servers dude. Today it was Mr fix the email portal.
Our SSL certificate, a tiny little file that tells a server how to encrypt information (it's what makes a website go https://), expired for the website that is used as our email portal. All those that work outside of the company building couldn't get access to their email so I was called into fix it.
Usually not a huge issue to fix it, before I'd log into our SSL certificate's provider site, order a new one, and then put on the server and be good to go. Today they threw everything at me to get rid of a customer.
First of all, we had a special account that made purchasing the certificates a little cheaper. So when I would try to buy 'tokens' so I could purchase a new certificate I was getting an error message that our account had been "bogused."
I logged into chat support to find out what the problem was and what needed to be done to fix it. The company is based in South Africa, I didn't originally setup our account but it's the first sign that not all is right. This is the same company that the guy that leads development on Ubuntu made all his money from selling the company.
I get connected to a guy and he tells me that we didn't meet the requirements to have a special account and that I needed to buy the certificate at retail. No problem, he disconnects and sends me on to another person. I explain my story again to next person and they send me to the page to buy the certificate.
A SSL certificate is a really small file, about 4K in file size. On the average, they cost about $200-$800 a year depending on the encryption strength. These companies are really making a lot of money off of them. I hate spending money, but I even more I hate spending money that could be used for something more useful.
Well, I fill out everything to buy the certificate. It's going to cost about $450 for a two year certificate. Again, I can't buy the certificate because I am getting some kind of error message. I login to chat support again to find out what's the problem. They tell me there's an issue with our previous account.
This is when I start Googling other providers. I had spent over an hour trying to buy something that should have taken me five minutes. At the top was an advertisement for GoDaddy. I've bought a half dozen cheap domains with them and never had any problems.
So I check out the prices and they're a fraction of what we were paying. For a three year certificate it was about $50. I immediately canceled what I was trying to do with the other company.
Within five minutes I had purchased the certificate and was in business. Best part about it was that I had to contact support because I was having some issues applying the new certificate. I got to talk to a real life person that spoke English as their first language without being put on-hold.
You'd think GoDaddy was paying me to write good stuff about them, but I am just happy they made purchasing a tiny little file a fraction of the cost and made it really easy.
Now if they could send Danica Patrick and the GoDaddy girls this way.
4 Comments
LGrant Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Dave Heinzel Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Denny Deaton Wednesday, May 28, 2008
LimeyGeorge Thursday, May 29, 2008
1) Having had fun doing just what you were doing, I can appreciate the problem and the happy resolve with someone who helps, helps quickly, and at a better price--they deserve the plug! Glad it worked out!
LGrant Wednesday, May 28, 20082) Humzoo was hosted by GoDaddy up until just recently, and we had good luck with them. Denny is the one who calls though, 'cause he set all that stuff up for us. But so far so good. I can't say enough good things about our current host though - slicehost. They are a different ballgame than GoDaddy, and you can't buy SSLs from them. Anyway, glad to hear you got it all solved for such a reasonable price.
Dave Heinzel Wednesday, May 28, 20083) I couldn't agree more Shoo. I love godaddy. I have been hosting dennydeaton.com (that dusty old site) there for a couple years now and have had no trouble whatsoever. As for the SSL certs that is where we got the one for Humzoo and it was super easy to install it on the Linux server. I can't figure out why everyone else is paying so much elsewhere when they can get a really good SSL cert at GoDaddy for $30 a year. I think they modeled their prices after Humzoo. Cheap and cake-like.
Denny Deaton Wednesday, May 28, 20084) Good result. I like the fact that you not only got better service but that its also cheaper. That's how markets ought to work so that the crappy companies lose out. Sweet.
LimeyGeorge Thursday, May 29, 2008Leave a Comment
