Disaster Recovery Plan: PLEASE READ

[digitalpress]

Hi folks,
sorry about yesterday's outage. I'm just checking in so it's possibly that Larry has already explained what happened - the bottom line is that we had a piece of hardware break down sometime around 1am PDT, it was replaced around 8pm PDT. That's a LONG time away, especially if you have deals going with people here or just need that "fix" of classic gaming chatter with community members.

There are two steps you can take that will help you stay in the loop and in touch should anything like this ever happen again.

Step 1: if you're not already on our mailing list, get on it! Don't worry, this list is never distributed to anyone, nor do I use it as often as I probably should (over the past 2 years I've sent a total of 18 messages through it):
http://www.digitpress.com/mailform.htm

I used this yesterday to re-direct people to Step 2...

Step 2: connect to the Yahoo group "classicvideogames":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/classicvideogames/

I'm not a big fan of Yahoo groups but they're functional and allow posting messages, sharing files, even JAVA chat. Should this site ever crash, this will be where news is posted.

Again, sorry for the inconvenience yesterday. Part of the downside of "doing it all yourself" is that you'll encounter these unexpected problems, but I'd gladly take a day like yesterday over weeks of trouble like I've had with various ISP's and web providers over the years.

Game ON. AGAIN.

[Delgrace]

Ah right.

I thought my ISP had shit itself. XD Thanks for the heads-up.

[Ed Oscuro]

Just one thing? It went down in the morning, was actually up long enough for me to get a new PM, and went down again until late last night. Glad to hear it's fixed, but then again, I'm posting :P

[Darth Vader]

Joe:

When stuff like this happens, who pays for it?? I mean you don't make any profit off this site at all. Right?? Is there any way we can help out so when things like this happen you have a reserve to pay for the expenses, or at least help defer some of it?? I log enough time here like many others and would hate for something like this to keep you down for long.

It was a tough day when you were down like that.

Any thoughts everyone else, think this might be a good idea??

Danny

[digitalpress]

Just a reminder, for those of you who may have missed this before.

[rbudrick]

Hmmm...Dp Donations? That's interesting. I would gather most people would at least want a keychain or something, ala PBS.

Mmmmm, DP keychains.

-Rob

[tynstar]

did having the record setting 99 people on at once kill the server? I would donate some$$$ keychain or not. Or I could at least help with the site in some way to free up someones time.

[kainemaxwell]

Glad to see us alive again!

[digitalpress]

did having the record setting 99 people on at once kill the server? I would donate some$$$ keychain or not. Or I could at least help with the site in some way to free up someones time.

I thought the "99" might be a problem too, but the actual incident was completely unrelated to the record-breaking moment. Turns out, Larry's pet alpaca kicked the power cord out of the wall. When Larry got back from grocery shopping he plugged us back in.

It's *that* home-made, folks. We ARE working out a plan for FASTER service, however. That's the greater concern at the moment. We'll deal with the alpaca later.

To be continued!

[maxlords]

aren't alpacas REALLY big? Like the size of llamas? Seems an odd thing to keep in the same room as your server! :eek 2:

[Darth Vader]

Time for Larry to get a cat instead! LOL

Danny

[scooterb23]

We'll deal with the alpaca later.

Hello new rug ;)

[Flack]

As an unofficial response, you can always drop by the #vbender room on IRC as well. I went there yesterday and enjoyed, as Simon and Garfunkel coined, "the sounds of silence."

[portnoyd]

As an unofficial response, you can always drop by the #vbender room on IRC as well. I went there yesterday and enjoyed, as Simon and Garfunkel coined, "the sounds of silence."

Well, we need more cowbell.

And a good windows bot program. Suggestions?

dave

[tynstar]

Well at least it was an easy fix. Kinda funny :o Also at least it wasn't like the big outage of 2002 (or was it 2003).

[nesuser2]

As an unofficial response, you can always drop by the #vbender room on IRC as well. I went there yesterday and enjoyed, as Simon and Garfunkel coined, "the sounds of silence."

Well, we need more cowbell.

And a good windows bot program. Suggestions?

dave

I'm curious as to what I missed about the bot program....?

Anyways, I think vbender should be pushed. Mirc is an awesome program and I for one know an awful lot of people that use it. Much more so than any IM programs. If you've got a group of people, it's probably the best route.

And, how's come nobody has registered Vbender? Any particular reason?

Anywho, I checked into Vbender during the small downtime that I saw and it didn't help much. I talked to perkar a bit but that's about it. People being there on a regular basis is the key....

[punkoffgirl]

Well at least it was an easy fix. Kinda funny :o Also at least it wasn't like the big outage of 2002 (or was it 2003).

Maybe we'll get lucky and that WILL be the "big outage of 2004", eh? :)

[suppafly]

I`d be willing to donate some money too!

[k8track]

Turns out, Larry's pet alpaca kicked the power cord out of the wall.
He keeps his server in the barn??

I'd be willing to donate some cash as well, but only if you earmark 10% of it for the alpaca fund. (Are you sure it's not a vicuña?)

[suppafly]

What the heck is an alpaca anyways??? :eek 2:

Edit: ok, i just found out...it looks like a llama to me...

http://escondidoalpacas.com/images/alpaca-cria-lydia.jpg

[Sanriostar]

What the heck is an alpaca anyways??? :eek 2:

Edit: ok, i just found out...it looks like a llama to me...

http://escondidoalpacas.com/images/alpaca-cria-lydia.jpg

KAWAII!! :love:

[Sanriostar]

It's *that* home-made, folks. We ARE working out a plan for FASTER service, however. That's the greater concern at the moment. We'll deal with the alpaca later.
To be continued!

home-made servers kicked by an alpaca. god, I love this site. 8-)

[bensenvill]

How bout I donate a invisible fence and shock collar, just set it up around the server.

just out of curiousity, how much bandwidth does DP pull a month??

~Tj

[Classicgamesdepot]

Hey Joe, Adam (buyatari) and I were talking about the donations for this site, I think there are a ton of members here that would have no problem donating a small amount of money for a better server, a dp related freebie would be a nice insentive (no matter how cheap) I think you'd round up quite the funds fairly quickly if people knew where their funds were going, I know I would definitly donate (not because of the freebie of course). Just some thoughts..

[nesuser2]

I think a freebie would kind of be a waste. I mean, I like DP type stuff, But that's all purchasable. I would rather it go to the greater cause of equipment and whatnot. If you want DP related goodies...donate more :P

[tynstar]

I think a freebie would kind of be a waste. I mean, I like DP type stuff, But that's all purchasable. I would rather it go to the greater cause of equipment and whatnot. If you want DP related goodies...donate more :P


I agree. Plus savesl time and money to ship every thing.

[jonjandran]

I'd be willing to donate to a New Server also.

I don't know if that is what it is or not, But the last 2 weeks have been Hell for me on this site.

I have a 3 M Cable connection and I am getting 2800 baud load times. Seriously I have to wait 45-60 seconds sometimes for a page to load. Or I have to click like 4 or 5 times for it to go through.

Is this because of the 70-90 people who are always surfing the site ?

Anyway let's start a Server Fund if that is the problem.... @_@

[punkoffgirl]

Apparently, it's more a bandwidth issue than a server issue.

[nesuser2]

I will agree with POG on this one. And I will agree with the load times, sometimes I get on and it snaps right up and goes right at it but throughout the day it has funny load times, which would point to bandwidth...I'm all for a money drive here though :D

[punkoffgirl]

I will agree with POG on this one. And I will agree with the load times, sometimes I get on and it snaps right up and goes right at it but throughout the day it has funny load times, which would point to bandwidth...I'm all for a money drive here though :D

It's too bad it wasn't the server, tho. That's a lot cheaper than a T1 line.

[nesuser2]

i almost elaborated on that. Would it be cheaper to pay to have it hosted....?

[digitalpress]

i almost elaborated on that. Would it be cheaper to pay to have it hosted....?

It couldn't be any cheaper than it is now... FREE.

But we're working on some alternatives. I can't have this crazy lag time go on for much longer, I can tell you that!