Let me first apologize.

For about a year now, we’ve been using IX Web Hosting as an inexpensive solution to our very simple web hosting needs — three domains powered by WordPress. After all, we don’t have any key sponsors, and I fund Blast with my own money when it isn’t making its own cash.

It’s been a disaster. We are no longer using IX Web Hosting.

One of the last straws came when one of their technical support agents reminded me how little we were paying for their services.

Yes, you do get what you pay for.

This week, we upgraded to a private server and a different SQL server. We will be on a virtual private SQL server in a few days, and there will be virtually no downtime while our new hosting provider plugs everything in.

IX Web Hosting subjected us to a SQL server was was down due to abuse nearly every day and that — as you all know — was extremely slow and often unresponsive, even when it wasn’t being abused.

Then we found out that some of the RSS feeds on BlastMagazineBlogs.com had been hacked — spam code and links inserted.

The unreliability, poor service, poor servers and poor security of IX Web Hosting forced me to decide to allocate much more money for a new server. Whatever. We’re producing a great product here, and I want it to succeed. This is a move we should have made on January 1, 2007, when we launched.

Though, if you want to sponsor us, that might make me feel better.