Hi all,

Sorry about the downtime over the last day or so. We have substantially outgrown our existing server and I'm in the process of finding ways for us to migrate to a new OS and server hardware.

I spent the last day attempting to upgrade our OS with new components only to find out that it is not supported. With the increasing level of users on the site on a given day, the constant probing of our services by hackers, the spam, firewall processes, general HTTP / database use, and nightly backups.... we have outgrown and will need to move very soon.

The server we are using is a Celeron PC with about 512MB memory and a couple hard disks. I chose this system back when our membership was around 5,000 people. Now that we are over 12,000 users it's starting to get busy around here. Our site isn't that busy on a daily basis with regards to general membership use, it's also busy with other background tasks.

None-the-less, my biggest reason for an upgrade is to fix some important security issues. The upgrades, however, need a new OS. A new OS needs a bigger CPU and more memory... on and on....

Thanks for your patience. The site is back online and I'll let you know when we decide to make the 'move' to our new server in the near future.

-- Mike

Thats a good idea. I know how much I missed the site.... So how many takers on a say $10.00 or $20.00 donation to upgrade the site. I'm in how about you. Let's see how many we can get to commit. If most of the members participate Mike will have more than enough to make the needed updates. I should probably start a thread for this. What do you think???

Jerry

I have started a thread, I think, "Site Upgrade Challenge Thanks Mike". If it does not come up soon I will try agian. I started with a $20.00 Donation using pay pal. As each member chooses to participate they can post on that thread so we can follow the challenge. "THANKS MIKE":laugh: