> Mike Looney - ionet wrote:
> >
> > Is it just me or has the "real" (vs my mirror) of the Q&A site been DEAD
> > for the last month now?
> >
> > And yes, I know I asked this once before, but my firewall is acting odd
> > and generating bogus IP address on out bound packets that fail a reverse
> > DNS attempt so it is possible that some sites my be blocking me.
> >
> > But I don't think that is the problem with this.
> >
>
> Either it's hosed, or I've been getting blocked out as
> well. I think Allen posted something awhile back saying that
> there were problems and the tech support guys were dragging their
> feet about fixing things. Or something like that.
>
> Good thing you put up the mirror when you did...
>
> Scott Shupe
No, I don't think it is a problem with your firewall. My site has been
up now and again over the past month, but not even I have been able
to access it or a statistically significant time over that period.
It's a sad story. As most of you probably know, I'm *still* in school,
working on my doctorate. Thus my web pages have been hosted on the
school server. The problem is that our school computer system has
become antiquated, and the computer staff even more antiquated.
Rumor has it they were hired way-back-when for their knowledge of
VAX systems. Now no one uses VAX anymore, not even us, but no new
knowledge has been hired in the computer center
For a while last year everything was bliss. The server was up and running,
my pages were accessible every day, and the Emperor looked well on his
way to making a full recovery. Then, however, things began to go bad.
The server began acting funny. This behavior is probably a result of
its increasing age and the ever expanding workload the Univ. was putting
on it. Any time we would have a power failure the web-server would
refuse to restart. (Given that our power is suppled by
the Tennesse Valley Authority, a little nest of socialism right
here in America, we have power outages with annoying frequency.)
The student web-master went to the computer center (his first mistake)
and asked if there was anything they could do to fix this problem.
They said yes, and made some changes.
The result of these changes became very apparent a few months back. Now,
rather than waiting for a power outage before it goes down, the web-server
goes down whenever it feels like it. It feels like it a lot. The
student web-master then has to be informed, and then he has to go in and
restart the thing manually. I've made him do this with alarming frequency.
He hates me. He cries when he sees me coming. He has asked the computer
center to put things back the way they were before, but these CC guys
can't seem to remember exactly what they did.
Now things are worse. Weekend before last they took our entire system
down to upgrade it and replace the systme software and now we may never recover.
Half the machines can't reach a printer, several students have "lost" all
their accounts, and (obviously) we can't seem to get the student web pages
up at all.
Hopefully, they will get things fixed eventually. In the meantime,
Mike's generously donated mirror site is the best place to go if you
want to see the Q&A pages.
A few postive points:
* Yes, Mike, I was finally able to access your server. I've sent the
most recent versions of my pages there and they shoule be viewable
at your site.
* I finally got a letter from Jervis yesterday. After checking his
database, he found that he did not have a copy of the last batch
of questions. He fears it may have been lost when *he* switched
computers. I've sent him a fresh copy and we should have answers
soon.
I am very sorry for the inconvenience people have been experienceing.
I want to send a very warm vote of thanks to Mike Looney for picking
up my pages when it seemed they might vanish. Thanks Mike!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Allen (The Q&A guy)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Check out the EPIC and EPIC 40K Q&A Pages at:
http://work1.utsi.edu:8000/~amccarle/default.html
Mirrored by J. Michael Looney at:
http://www.spellbooksoftware.com/allen-mirror/default.html
---------------------------------------------------------------
q
Received on Fri Apr 03 1998 - 17:33:36 UTC