http://techdonkey.com Wherein Elaine does your tech work for you. Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:23:31 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Our server is doing that thing that techs like to call "experiencing downtime". I'm experiencing annoyance, and passing it right along to the folks who mind the servers like as if they're little cows in a field. Watch this space. http://techdonkey.com/server-status-and-news/server-issues Our server fainted some time this morning. I became aware of it at 10am, and have been in contact with the folks who manage the hardware. They're tightening bolts, greasing cogs, and heaving wrenches around as I type. No, wait, that greasing cogs thing was a what machine techs did ... http://techdonkey.com/server-status-and-news/server-down-were-working-on-it I've just discovered the outage, and am taking steps to get it kickstarted. Watch this space. Edit, 1:41am: The rebooting is proceeding. Hold your breath! Edit, 1:44am: Hooray! We're up and running again. Edit, 1:49am: Okay, we've got HTTP and POP3 and all, but the database server is still hiccuping. Watch this ... http://techdonkey.com/server-status-and-news/server-down Please watch this space for updates, or contact me through this site if you need to! -Elaine Edit:  Dec 16, evening The hard drive on the server failed. A new drive has been installed, and backups reinstated. Everything should be up and running now -- but please let me know if anything is ... http://techdonkey.com/server-status-and-news/server-down-were-on-it The MySQL server's down for anyone on Abaris server (that's most folks). I'm on it and will keep you posted here. edit: I just found out that SMTP (mail SENDing from yourdomain.com) seems to be affected as well, which is odd as they're not in the least connected. I'll look into ... http://techdonkey.com/server-status-and-news/mysql-and-smtp-issue Right about now, the "signal" from my main hosting server is interrupted someplace between my ISP and the server farm, and it's being dropped instead of re-routing. In layman's terms, the phone line is frayed between here and there -- and sadly, it's not frayed in the place ... http://techdonkey.com/server-status-and-news/internet-routing-issue 7:59 PM. PST We're experiencing the same troubles as before. I'm communicating with the server techs again to try to straighten it out. I'm also gnawing on the ears of the folks who manage the server farm about settling the server thing once and for all. If you send using your domain's SMTP, ... http://techdonkey.com/server-status-and-news/email-issues-again Notice: this is NOT a high-security solution for database backup! Use at your own risk. Verbose instructions, including a step-by-step example, are included in the zip file. Download: techdonkeycom-database-backup.zip ---------------------------------------------- This package will enable you to set yourself up a browser-visitable simple one-button backup of your MySQL database. It was cobbled together by Elaine ... http://techdonkey.com/techy-tidbits/do-it-yourself-mysql-database-backup-upper Today, since about 3pm PST, we've all been having some email issues. Both SMTP and POP, plus mailman mailing lists: all are affected. I've been working with the on-site server tech for the last hour to resolve this. More info as it happens. If you need to reach me, elaine *at* techdonkey *dot* ... http://techdonkey.com/server-status-and-news/email-issues Hullo, O Clients... Within your CPanel is a nifty thing called Fantastico. Great name and all, but it should really be called something descriptive, like The Thingy That Installs Nifty Web Software For You (As Long As You Have An Available MySQL Database) And By The Way, It Also Monitors Whether ... http://techdonkey.com/techy-tidbits/fantastico-and-upgrades