From the TextDrive helpdesk site:

> Please be aware that due to some temporary hardware and network problems we need to work out, backups are not currently being made on any of the shared servers. This situation may take some time to resolve.
>
> So… let me take this opportunity to remind people how important it is to own your data and keep local copies of anything that is important.

This was posted on July 13, and it has not been updated since. In other words, none of my data has been backed up in a month and a half. Even though my blog has been on my VPS at the wonderful [Rimuhosting][] for about 6 months now, I still host my email on my “legacy” TextDrive account (which is down right now…again!). The email server has been down way too often the past few months, most often at peak business times, and I can’t take it anymore. I *will* be moving the remainder of my Internet presence away from TextDrive this weekend.

I know that some occasional down time is a fact of life on a shared hosting account, but what bothers me most about my entire TextDrive experience is the attitude toward the customer that pervades the company. In most of my communication with the company (whether it be direct customer requests or just trolling forums), the attitude has been similar to this: *”There’s something wrong with your server. Another dumbass user like you did something he shouldn’t have. It must suck to be you. Deal with it.”* The company is rarely apologetic and frequently blames its customers rather than take responsibilty for its poor service. One thing I learned at [Rackspace][] is that hosting is easy. It’s service and the customer experience that is important. Unfortunately, service and customer experience are the most difficult things to get right, and very few hosting companies are able to pull it off. That is why [Rackspace][] has been so successful while charging more than most of its competitors.

I joined TextDrive because of the hype in the open source community, and I love the idea that a chunk of my bill every month goes to [an open source project](http://www.rubyonrails.com). I would have been an easy customer to keep. I don’t want to worry about my web and email host, and I definitely hate switching, but I have been driven away. I stuck around too long, and I feel bad that the chunk of money that didn’t go to an open source project went into the pockets of the jokers at TextDrive. I rarely care enough to publicly slam a bad company, but the attitude at TextDrive is deplorable, and I would advise all my friends to steer in another direction.

Whew! Glad I got that off of my chest. I promise my next post will be much more positive.

[Rimuhosting]: http://rimuhosting.com “Rimuhosting”
[Rackspace]: http://www.rackspace.com “Rackspace”