The error notices and undeliverable email were not my fault. And, no, the dogs did not commandeer the blog, nor did the cat decide to tweak the website programming.

In what should have been a theatrical moment the servers disappeared, the website, webmail and blog went down and poof! the webhosting company vanished into thin air! Following weeks of dealing with the good (fully backed up website files), the bad (corrupted, unusable blog database backup) and the ugly (a failing, scene-stealing laptop that attempted to add tension to the plot) the odds of an upbeat ending have improved:
– joancolbert.com is back online
– the arthound has embarked on a new beginning (oh, no, who wrote that?!) and
– the laptop has decided to cooperate now that there’s a new notebook vying for affection.

The artHound looks unchanged, but it’s really a new version of wordpress dressed the same as its predecessor. It’s also missing five years of posts, but sometimes you just have to tell yourself to get over it. C’est la vie!

Naming names: according to WebHostingTalk, Nexpoint Technologies was purchased by XibiGroup, after which all basic functions and communications ceased, effectively negating any memory of the preceding eight years of trouble free service. Techs at Hostgator, the new hosting company, actually answer their phones – really!