Quote Originally Posted by gjh42 View Post
and you know how often in all walks of life people fail to read the fine print.

The point of all this is that Godaddy claims to be good for e-commerce as well as HTML pages, yet does not guide users directly to their more-or-less adequate versions of hosting.
gjh42 - You make a solid point and I understand exactly what you are saying, and I understand the frustrations a lot of people have when they get into what they were told would be easy only to find that it is actually quite complicated. All anyone needs to do is look up the average national salaries for Web sector jobs to see that those people in the sector command those salaries; and for good reason. But my main point was that it is NOT GoDaddy's fault that Zen Cart does not work well in Windows. In fact, it isn't anyone's fault. It is what it is.

As for the fact that GoDaddy isn't clear and up front about which hosting plan a user should choose; it would understandably be a consulting nightmare (not to mention completely confusing to the end user) for them to list every possible scenario for someone to "choose wisely" from. Instead they take a different approach. Give the user EVERYTHING and let them figure it out on their own. When the user hits the brick wall, they do little to fix the issue. But why should they do anything. Would you fix a $500 problem for $5 a month? No. But they do have developers on hand willing to do things for an appropriate fee. All I am saying is that GoDaddy is no worse than other platforms out there (Think Network Solutions! OMG! That place is like the most retarded Server Administrators from GoDaddy had kids and started a company). Anyway, you get what you pay for. Godaddy's main down fall in my opinion when it comes to supplying the masses is offering TOO MUCH. That is why their stuff is difficult for most to wrap their heads around. But they do have some features available to correct the issues. For example; if you choose a Windows plan for hosting, then install Zen Cart 1.5 (With their installer) it actually installs fine. It runs as it is supposed to, albeit at 10 seconds per page, which pisses people off. (And yes they could have a little disclaimer explaining this will happen, which I have suggested to them) However, and this is the really cool part about their setup, you can go in and flip a switch to change your server over to a linux box (ironically called a "down" grade... go figure) and it happens seamlessly in a little over an hour! Imagine that... they take a complete site directory from a windows based server and flip it to a linux box in a relatively short period of time. And amazingly you do not need to "talk" to anyone to get it done.

I tested Zen Cart 1.5 on not one, but 3 different hosting platforms in a Windows environment. Not one of them behaved any differently. They all sucked. I did 6 total installs across all of them. 3 with the host's auto installer and 3 manual installs. No change. All behaved exactly the same... and yes, one was GoDaddy. The other two were CrystalTech and JodoHost. Both of which I have tremendous experience with and both are VERY good. So, is it Godaddy? CrystalTech? JodoHost? no. Zen Cart simply does not play well with Windows (As is stated in LARGE PRINT during the installation... you can't miss it.)

All I was trying to state is that "developers" in here would rather tell someone to move their site to another host rather than give a quick tip on how to satisfy the issues, regardless of the host... and to your point, not everyone who gets into this is or should be a developer, which makes a statement like "move your site" all the more ridiculous! Imagine the look on the poor saps face when they are told to move their entire site setup... As if they would know where to begin on that challenge (Site dir, database with all data, etc).

In close, I appreciate your point and it is understood - we see eye to eye on that, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't make a better attempt at helping out even if we can't stand the host they have chosen... I too roll my eyes when a client mentions NetSol - but I still hunker down and make a smiling effort to help. Sorry if I come across crass, it is not intended that way. Text doesn't show the smile.

Cheers.