Site Construction

Have waited until now to post this blog as I wanted to calm down and look at things objectively!
Yesterday was frustrating in the extreme, due to misunderstanding of the facilities available at the web-host on the one part, and facility requirements of our site once in place.
In order of calamities it all went thus:

Old site stripped and bare ready for changeover.
Designer calls. Wants to know FTP and MySQL user data so he can access rnca.info.
Give him FTP.
Check with ISP on availablity of MySQL as I know we haven't got that.
ISP in their wisdom says we can't have that on present package as it's 'Microsoft based. Needs to be a Linux package to have this database'.
'OK', says I, 'to hell with the expense, upgrade me to a linux package so I can have the MySQL'.
'OK Mr Cosgrave, we can do that, and as a special offer, it won't cost you a bean more. It will take 24 hours to do the changeover'.
Sigh of contentment. End of work for the day, crack open a bottle of ale and watch the telly.

More than 24 hours later (yesterday), call designer and tell him I will have everything sorted and will contact him again when I have the info.
Go online and look for the new package information. Find new FTP info. Can't find anything on the database.
Call ISP. 'Where is the MySQL setup icon'
'You don't have that sir'
'I know that, thats why I'm calling'
'No sir, you don't understand, you don't have the database, it's not part of this package'
Silence, while I try and take this in.
Then I explain what happened yesterday.
'No problem Sir, we can upgrade you to include the MySQL. Special offer, we won't charge you any extra. It will be available to you to use in 30 days'
'Que?'
'Company policy, sir. Only one upgrade allowed in any one month'
'But thats not my fault'
'Company policy, sir. Sorry'
Ring off.
Coffee.
Paper.

Call back, to a different person in the call centre.
'So what your saying to me is..... I can't use the database I'm paying for.. for a month. What sort of madness is this? Let me speak to your supervisor please....'
'Hang on Sir, let me check and see what we can do'
Classical music I don't recognise, distorted, for what seems like an eternity, but couldn't have been more that ten minutes.
'Hello, are you still there?' Says the callcentre man.
'Why, did you want me to ring off?'
Silence for a few seconds.....
'I have negotiated a solution. You can use your database in 5 days'
Silence for a few seconds.....
'If I was a brand new customer, and I called you right now, and bought a package that had MySQL, when could I start using it?'
'Once it was set up, within 24 hours'
'Pretend I'm a new customer'
'I can't, because you're not'
'O.......................K. I want to buy a completely new package, in addition to the one I have already, can you do that'
'Oh yes sir, that's not a problem'
'Any special offers?'
'As a matter of fact, yes. We can double your webspace, double your bandwidth and provide you with 100 email addresses for one pound less per month than you pay now'
'And I want to transfer the domains currently associated with the old package to the new package, can you do that?'
'Yep, not a problem, transfer will take 24 hours'
'And I would like to cancel the old package forthwith, right now. Can you do that?'
'Yep, not a problem, we can do that'
................................
Give me strength!
So the site didn't get published today. Hopefully it will get published tomorrow. Hopefully.