Server Downtime, etc.
 

I have some operational news for everyone--

1) First, I want to thank everyone who contributed in the recent support reminder (here). Unfortunately, contributions received thus far have been far and few between.

2) This brings me to the second announcement that this is a heads-up that I'm planning to move the server to a new hosting company as soon as I can manage it. The main reason for the move is that the current company has become just too expensive for me to finance (especially, if we're going to keep keeping everything as we've been doing on the Able Muse/Eratosphere since the beginning days, while keeping the infrastructure up-to-date!); albeit, the company that's become too expensive and that I'm now forced to leave is one of the best in the business, especially so with a recent acquisition by IBM. But, something had to give to leave the lights on down the road while maintaining the level of system resource and performance we're used to having here on the Sphere, and this is it. Hopefully, the new company will be reasonably/sufficiently competent and reliable: they've been shaky on my initial tests and research, but between their skills and mine, we should be fine ... hopefully! Still, one bit of good news for the new company, is that I'm able to rent a lot more server storage, memory, and bandwidth for slightly less, and this should translate to better system performance in the long run.

3) And this brings me to the third notice to let you know of a forthcoming server downtime, needed to migrate the server, along with all the system and user data (yes, yours included!) to the new hosting company. Of course, I'll try to back everything up before the move, and try to complete the transfer with any data loss. However, since there's no 100% guarantee with computers and networks (or hosting companies for that matter), I'm letting you know so that if there's any post that is critical for you, that you somehow save it now somewhere safe ... just in case.

Once I have more news especially when the server will go offline (along with Able Muse/Eratosphere) to enable the transfer, and an estimate of how long the blackout will last, I'll let everyone know.

Cheers,
...Alex

Thanks for the heads up, Alex.

Doing this tech stuff is a thankless task, and we appreciate your efforts.

Yes, we do.

Thanks, Janice and Douglas!

Now for an update on the migration to the new server. Last time we moved server I did all on my own, and it was an onerous task. This time, I decided to pay a professional service that tells me they can do it successfully. The good news is that they've just informed me that they've completed the migration. The bad news is that I'm not sure how well they did the job and if everything that needed to be transferred to have everyone's data in place and working properly was transferred. That will take some time to determine! For now, though, note the we're still on the old server. In other words, I'll soon be severing the link of the ablemuse.com domain from the old server and point it to the new server. Once that's done, I'll, err, cross my fingers and hope for the best ... and hopefully, we'll just pick up where we left off on the old server without a hitch.

Meanwhile, here are a few warnings now that the transition will soon occur--
1) Everything that was posted from late last night until the final switchover will probably be lost in the switch-over. That's because it was entered in the old server, after everything at hand was moved over. So, if there's something important you don't want to lose during that time span, be sure to save it!
2) After the aforementioned switch over, there might be some potential system glitches. Be sure to report anything unusual you experience in this thread.

Cheers,
...Alex

Let's see if this works.

For those who wish to manually save their private messages, try clicking this link:

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/private.php?folderid=0

With luck, that will take you to a list of received private messages. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see a link that says

Download all Private Messages as:
XML | CSV | Text

Then choose your poison. XML is webpage readable. CSV opens them in a spreadsheet. Txt is just text.

You'll need to perform a similar action for sent messages...

Just a little personal insurance against data loss...

Thank you Bill. I've done that and there they all are. I'm chuffed to beans.

I hope it all goes well. But have they backed-up my memory?

I've been looking into the migration work this company did, and verifying their work before making the jump and switching things over. And I have bad news--this company did a horrible job!!! Going by the size of the Able Muse/Eratosphere database they supposedly migrated, it looks like it's only 15% of what it should be!

So, it looks like I've just wasted money on this company's so-called migration service! And there won't be any switch over anytime soon until either they do it right, or I'm forced to roll my sleeves and go in and get it done myself. This might be where the saying is applicable that goes along the lines, "if you want something done right, ..."!

So, for now, post away until I have more news about the next attempt at migration. And BTW this bad news report means that all the data that was entered from late last night until now ... until the next migration attempt should be included in the next switch-over attempt. In other words, my warning of data loss from last night until now was premature ... until the next attempt. And I hope I'm not confusing everyone!

Cheers,
...Alex

Use text and save as a parsimonious text file. Such files should be quite readable.

Thank you, Alex, for everything.