So I've finally become aggravated with the intermittent slow loading and the fact that the current Web host was slow to mitigate against last week's denial of service attack, and I've decided to move the Fine tuned Mac forum to a new server.
The advantages of the move include:
- Greater bandwidth to allow for future expansion as we become more popular
- A local database server, to help eliminate the occasional slow database access that has been the cause of the forum slowdowns we've been plagued with on and off
- Better low-level access to the server, so I will be able to do more myself to help mitigate any future DoS attacks like the ones that were causing us grief a while ago
During this move, we will also be upgrading from UBB.threads 7.5.3, which we are currently running on, to UBB.threads 7.5.5.
The downside of the move is that the IP address of Fine Tuned Mac will change. In practical terms, this means the forum will be down for a period of anywhere between a few hours to as long as 72 hours, depending on where you are, who your ISP is, and how often your ISP updates its name servers.
Since the forum load is lowest over the weekend, the moderators and I feel that the best time to do the move is next weekend, May 22. I'll be closing the forum on Saturday afternoon Pacific time, moving the database and installing the software in its new home, then re-opening the forum Saturday evening. How soon you will be able to see the site again will depend on how often your ISP updates the DNS entries in its name servers. I've noticed that Comcast seems to be pretty quick about this, so those of you on Comcast will probably see the site down only for that afternoon; other users may see the site down for longer periods of time.
Once we're up and running on our new home, it's my belief that the intermittent forum slowdowns will be a thing of the past.
Any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them here or email me directly at tacitr (at) aol (dot) com.
Last edited by tacit; 05/17/10 08:47 AM.
