Actually, as promised, the servers were back in Austin and re-racked by Saturday evening/Sunday morning.
Some of us were back online Sunday morning with no issues. Some were up, then went down again. There is a slight chance that others have still not made it back, yet!
Our guy, Gus explains (for those who care)...
Apologies if you already know some of the stuff I type in this email. I'm going to give a quick overview of how the internet works and what is causing the splash page to appear for you.
All websites on the internet have an IP address associated with them. In the case of longhornnation, when it was in Sacramento it was 66.81.80.178, and now that it is in Austin that address changed to 216.110.75.102. IP addresses are great for computers and all but it is hard for people to remember that when they want to go to longhornnation they have to type in a long string of numbers. To solve this problem, there are servers on the internet called DNS servers. DNS servers basically take a name you type in (like longhornnation.com) and then translate it to the IP address of the server you are trying to access. So, during the drive from Sacramento to Austin I updated DNS and instructed it to direct people to 216.110.75.99 while I was driving, and that is where I put the splash page Scott sent me. When I got back to Austin and racked up the servers I updated DNS and told it to send people to 216.110.75.102.
So far so good right? Well, here is where a slight problem occurs.
When you update DNS sometimes some service providers don't get your changes immediately. I configured our DNS to inform other DNS servers about changes every hour. Some ISPs however have their DNS set up in a way where they used cached information for up to 3 days. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about this so you just have to wait for the correct and latest DNS information to get to everybody on the internet. I just checked and longhornnation has 35 users online, so it seems like the updated info is getting out there to most people. Unfortunately Scott you may have to wait a little longer to get updated info.
During our time off, I had some time to ponder things. For example...
Who Brought The NearSighted kid to the pool?
Anyway, productivity was way too high, yesterday - get crackin'.
[June 18 - 12:10pm]Get your posting in, now. Everyone. Flash bang!
________________
The Nation will be going offline Thursday morning (June 19) and coming back online Saturday evening (June 21), while we move our servers to their new, permenant racks, here in Austin.
[+5m]Reminder to please link your MDW activities In Here, for the gallery.
________________
For all you folks that have been avoiding because you despise PayPal, you now have another option*.
When inside the "Upgrade" module (button below), simply select:
"Don't have a PayPal account? Use your credit card or bank account (where available)."
Accept:
*(Although, with this option, we're pretty sure you don't have the Auto-renew feature, which *is* why we use PayPal)
Give it a shot.
________________
Support Longhorn Nation: Become a sponsor!
Why sponsor?
The first is for our support. A benevolent donation on your part. Quite frankly, sites like these are not cheap to keep up - and as you can see, this is better than most anything out there, so it's a little more expensive than most. And for the price of a Starbuck's Venti - 2 splenda - non-fat milk - extra shot Caramel Machiatto ($5/mo.) you could help LonghornNation live a long and happy life. Only if you think you will be a regular visitor/user and get enjoyment from sites like this (we're not looking for handouts).
The second is for your enjoyment. You must be a sponsor in order to fully benefit from all of the site features and functions. Here's what your sponsorship gets you, and realize that this list will continue to grow!
Sponsor Benefits
15 picture gallery, instead of just 3
Ability to 'watch' 64 other users, instead of just 32
No advertisements appear on your screen
Add a custom title, to appear under your avatar/name (in ?edit profile? section)
View your log, to see all of your activity
View other users logs, to monitor all of their activity
See statistics about your account and place within the community
(post count, who likes you, who?s watching you, etc) <-- Private to only you
Edit posts after submission (for errors, updates)
Ability to use smilies in your posts.
Eligible to enter contests/giveaways
Cool star next to your name showing your support
Becoming a sponsor is easy! Just select an option below.
[6/3/08 - 9:28am]We know the dates: Morning of the 19th thru evening of the 21st. Plan accordingly.
In case the move, in the next month, takes us by surprise (which it shouldn't), and I don't have the opportunity to put up another News item (which I should), I wanted to give early warning so the bulk of the community knew what was going on. (and, so my email / txt / voicemail, don't blow up)
This means the site will be down for 2-3 days!! (more details as we know them)
Don't worry, this time we will be handling the packages ourselves! From tear down, to packaging, to shipping, to re-racking, they will never be out of our sight:
Like how we waited for baseball to be over? Me too.
This holiday means a lot of different things to many different people. For most it means a 3-day weekend - an opportunity to see old friends and, perhaps make some new ones. It is usually a weekend for over indulgence - with both food and drink. For others it may mean an extra day to work on a house project or getting to the store for that 'big sale' they've been waiting on. But, we all need to take a moment to remember the true meaning of this day:
Please, remember to take the time to thank our site sponsors / partners. Easiest way is to make use of the goods & services that are provided to our members at a discount.
Either click the "Site Partners" link from the left menu or simply the Banner (shown below) that periodically flashes by, in the top margin:
Also, by simply clicking on our Google Ads and Partner links, you are helping to fill the Nation coffers, so that we may recoup maintenance expenses (thank you).
[June 18 - 12:10pm]
Get your posting in, now. Everyone. Flash bang!
