Website Outage

[Garawa]

Apologies for the website down time. I renewed for another year but the company failed to update the domain registration. This meant it was down Saturday and Sunday and so I contacted the registrars on Monday morning who gave the company 3 days to respond. After failing to do so they claimed it back and I transferred the files to the new (more expensive) hosting company! This happened to the Gills a few years back so I'm not alone!

I was able to access the offline version of the site while it was down and email everyone on the board to inform them of what was happening. If you didn't receive one, may I ask you to take a minute to update the email address you use in your account to one you check regularly. I have only ever sent 2 mass emails (both this week) and an email address that is actually reachable can prove vital.

Apologies for the inconvenience, I hope all is now OK. This has taught me to I need to back up the database more because if I couldn't access the old host, we'd have posts from a year or two only on there! Phew!

[lidbid46]

Did this cost you Gary? If so, let us know and I'm sure we would all chip in.

[Garawa]

It's not enough to worry about. I used to pay £25 a year to a company that supplied me from the company we are with now who wanted £97 to keep what we had! Their basic £32 service (what we are on) contained none of the features that allows this website to work! I managed to get them to throw in the critical databases into the basic package because without it you can't have any users or anyone posting - you will all just look at a blank template!!!! Let's face it, this website is tiny and would be the equivalent of a leaflet in a library compared to most so the extra cost wasn't justified - just as long as next year I don't get a nasty shock!

I just find it hard to believe that the middle man can sell the same service and with more features but for £70 less than what the provider themselves will charge! Still in a lot of cases these "middle men" are just single blokes at home but look like big companies. At least being with a big company there should be less problems if it comes to it and someone at the other end to sort it out quickly (fingers crossed)! I'm pleased I bluffed my way through putting all the files back and getting it right!

It could have been nasty though. I hadn't backed up for a while and had the old company gone entirely, I'd have no way of accessing the latest files meaning either starting again or having a site that has been wound back a year or two with loads of users missing and hundreds if not thousands of posts gone! Taking the hosting for granted nearly made the site next to useless!

[Garawa]

I will be planning to upgrade the board soon as well to a more recent version of the software. This will allow for mobile phone optimisation to make mobile use better. I was tempted to install that first and then migrate everything over but wasn't brave enough in case it meant a few more days down! At least doing it after allows the programme to keep existing files in place. IF I get time (hmmmm) I may look at that again.

[lidbid46]

We could just write each other letters; but I suppose Gillsfan would always be about two months behind. Do they even have post out there?

[Garawa]

Ha ha ha

[bunburygills]

It all sounds pretty clever stuff Garawa, I'll never believe what Chicago says about you ever again. Thanks for all your efforts.

[Garawa]

Did you ever? Lol. Thankfully it proved simpler than it sounded, don't for one minute assume I knew what I was doing! I fully expected to keep getting a not found error so when it worked, I even contacted the new company to get them to confirm I was accessing it from them just in case!

[gillsfan1066]

After three days of banging around like an idiot , kicking the cat, swearing, cursing, arguing with the poor woman over the price of a loaf of bread at Sainsburys , Computer Boy garawa finally broke down and asked his four year old daughter to help him when she came home from play school, and low and behold the site was up and running fifteen minutes after she sat down at the apple boxes he calls a desk.
Mr Lidbit, before you start offering MY hard earned money to garawa I would in future appreciate it if you dam well asked me first, "we will all chip in garwa", butt kisser.
NO I dam well won't, I paid 5 quid a week to play in the Noircat competition, and yes I won it the first year I started making the payments , then up goes the price to 10 quid a week, and when I forgot ONE ROTTEN PAYMENT what happened, I GOT DAM RELEGATED.
So where did my money go, just think about it, how do you think he could afford that week in a caravan at Leysdown -on-Sea last month, you've got it, say no more , nods as good as a wink to a blind bat.
Anyway, it's nice to see the site up and running again, shame the radio signal from the tower on your roof is still strong enough to reach " down under ", maybe you could save some money by buying a cheaper strength signal that like runs out somewhere over the Indian Ocean, just a thought ??
Anyway I guess I should mutter well done garwa , and of course his kid ,the real hero in all of this, try and keep a few shillings on the side board in future so you can put it in the meter before it runs out of money next time.

[Garawa]

Ha ha ha, love it.

By the way it was Minster not Leysdown. We will go to Leysdown next now we have found the location of the nudist beach!

[gillsfan1066]

Nudist Beach, there always fun, and if you want a real laugh invite ole Lidbit down for the day to share your soup and sarnies, he will give everyone on the beach a laugh if it's true what that wonderful sweet Mrs.L was telling me last night in our weekly secret e mail exchange.

[lidbid46]

That sounds chilly Gary! Mrs Lidbid would be fine though; who needs clothes when you have your own hair coat? Come over Gillsfan; an English Kentish coast nudist camp sounds right up your scene!

[fan_of_mulligan]

Gary, are you going to do an automatic back up for the database ???

[bunburygills]

I was enjoying the banter until you mentioned the nudist beach. Imagining you laying on the beach showing your short comings made my red wine suddenly taste corked.

[Garawa]

Ha ha

Fom, not sure an automatic back up can be done. Just need to make sure I remember to do one regularly to my PC in case it all goes. At least I will be in possession of everyone's accounts and posts etc rather than started again from a blank sheet!!!