A Rat Race Apology

The Rat Race apologises profusely for the backward step in the functionality of this website. Although I think it looks a trifle better, it is missing several of the bits that were on the previous website.

Unfortunately, this is almost entirely the fault of my web host, 1&1 Internet.

Here's the tale.

My Internet host company (1&1 Internet), has, in their infinite wisdom, forced me to "migrate" to their "new" Website Builder. As soon as I tried to access this to see how it works and perhaps to move across to it, they binned my old website with a "Coming Soon" splash page, without asking me.

Their idea of a "migration" is that you manually build a new website from scratch. I'm not impressed.

At the moment I have no idea whether I'll be able to include things like the list of beers that are on and coming next. I'm really not impressed.

I'm currently trying to phone them to ask how I can have a beer list like I used to. Fourth attempt, been on hold over 10 minutes... REALLY not impressed.

I HAVE JUST SPENT HALF AN HOUR GETTING ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE WITH 1&1 INTERNET. MY "CURRENT BEERS" LIST, BUILT UP OVER THE LAST SIX-AND-A-HALF YEARS HAS BEEN DELETED AND I CANNOT RETRIEVE IT. I CAN'T EVEN ADD A FORUM TO THE WEBSITE TO ALLOW ME TO HAVE A BEER LIST THAT WORKS IN A SIMILAR WAY, STARTING FROM NOW.

THE WEBSITE BUILDER SOFTWARE THAT THEY HAVE FORCED ME ON TO DOESN'T EVEN ALLOW YOU TO CHANGE THE SIZE OF A FONT OF THE TEXT ON A PAGE!!! I HAVE TO TYPE IT INTO MICROSOFT WORD, GET IT TO THE SIZE I WANT, THEN COPY-AND-PASTE IT INTO THE WEBSITE!!!

AFTER 25 YEARS IN I.T. IN MY PREVIOUS LIFE, THIS "WEBSITE BUILDER" IS THE WORST SOFTWARE I'VE EVER SEEN!

I have put this version of the website up as a temporary measure, simply to let people know what is happening.

I will rebuild the website as quickly as I can but as I type this I don't even know how I publish it online with this new software. I am flying by the seat of my pants, so I have no idea how long the rebuild will take.

Apologies for the inconvenience and I strongly recommend that if you are looking for an Internet host, you don't make the same mistake I did.

Cheers,

Pete