Dear Villagers,
As many of you know, the Web site has experienced problems lately. Simply, it crashed and was offline for a few days. Solving the problem required someone besides myself to sift through more than 13 years of files accumulated on my host’s server. Some of the files were essential to the site’s operation. Some made life pleasant and familiar. Some did nothing at all. Some, apparently, did worse than that. Thanks to the efforts of others, the site returned, and I thought we at least were back to square one. I have been able to post in the usual manner, but there are bugs yet, particularly in an area near and dear to us: comments. I will continue to post most days, but for almost a week I will be unable to turn further attention to the Web site. I am asking you to persevere until then. However, I want to warn you of something more. I don’t like to air laundry online, but my current Web host, after almost two decades of reliable service and support, no longer is an option. Today, support there has become useless. I have decided that, when I do pick up work on this site again, I will start by migrating to a new hosting service. This often entails unforeseen problems, and I’m not looking forward to putting us through more of that. However, I fervently believe that when the dust settles, we’ll all be happy with the results.
As always, thank you for being here! — JJ
33 responses to “Hidey Hidey Hidey Hey!”
Don’t feel too bad about switching hosts. I had to do so a couple times for exactly the same reason.
Good luck with your search for one who responds better to your needs. I’m sure it’ll work out in the end.
even if you have trouble moving to a new host, when you get it sorted out we will be here waiting for you to get back up and running
Since you do this out of the goodness of your heart, anything that makes it easier for you in the long run is a good thing. Thank you for looking at alternative hosts instead of just closing down.
I am not quite sure if I understand what it going on. It is early enough for me lost in my work fog, but it seems to me that you have been trying to work every hard to get this website updated for the last 3-4 years (as well as complete another book, but that is a story for another day) so maybe a change in the host will make those changes easier to implement. Based on your post the other day about your previous health problems, Lord knows you don’t need any more stress in your life.
FYI, I have never been fond of the term Village. It is probably just me and I will keep my opinions to myself….
Today we now speak of computers as we once did the other sex: Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em!
Did you do something to irritate Amazon, and they are slowly canceling you?
We also had to migrate everything to a new hosting service, almost exactly a year ago. We dreaded it, but it was the best thing we ever did. Good support MATTERS. Hang in there! We’re all cheering you on, and we can survive the bumps and bangs on the way.
Thanks, Dawn. I am convinced the recent problems here could have been solved in minutes with the support network my server once had. This time, after days of frustration, I had to pay a third money to help me. Not that I wasn’t grateful!
Support is taking a nose-dive at a lot of places for some reason. Our new place is pricier than the one we used to have, but support really is 24/7 and very, very responsive. We just tell them, “Hey, we do our own web work and we don’t know how to fix this,” and they step in. If you want to know who we use now, feel free to drop me a note: dawn at tapestryinstitute.org.
I will. Thanks.
I see that the word “simply” was a typo in your original text(or I will view it as such in any case)…glad u r back servings us our daily fare. Thanks a for being here and being you JJ, a Fargone treasure in my days…
I just dropped my long held email service with the company that hosts (hosted) this site. The account advisor was barely able to speak English, had a screaming kid near by and was provided with one the poorest VOIP connections I’d ever experienced. I was supposed to have received a cancellation conformation number and my email was to be turned off on the billing anniversary date. I never got the conformation and the email was closed 5 days early.
It was once a good company, had a planet in its name.
That’s the one. There was a time my friends would ask me why I stuck with them, because so many less-expensive hosting operations were beginning to crop up. I told them the support was excellent. And it was. Most recently, I struggled to make the young man on the other end understand my problem; he was writing it down for “my team” to solve. I got the distinct impression he was just filling out a work-order. Were supposed to call back in two hours. Never did.
If it’s the one I think it is,I worked for them doing support back when they were proud of their good service. Then, after a merger, they got rid of most of their most experienced employees, including me. (I had a three digit employee number.) I stuck with them for a while, but finally moved my website away, used their email system and my domain name for email and canceled what was left of my account. Never looked back, although I regretted that they’d gotten so bad that it was my best choice. It’s been at least a decade since I stopped caring about what happens to them.
Jimmy, all the enjoyment I’ve had from participating here has more than made up for a few bumps in the road. The thing I’m most happy about is that you are obviously persevering in getting this resolved rather than, as I suspect most in your position would do, throwing up your hands and abandoning the blog.
And if it takes some time, that is the time it will take. Good luck. I’ll be here, as I have since 2008. (Holy carp! Can that be right?)
My problems pale compared to yours! How’s that plumbing thing going. (And holy catfish! I’m not about to give up the blog, Batman!)
The plumber arrived this morning. His opinion is the break is at the faucet itself and if so, I’m gonna have him do a “quick and dirty” repair by capping the line until spring. Of course, he needs access to the inside of the wall through which the pipe passes, and that’s in a storage room where Jackie’s former so-called help piled everything that they didn’t want to bother with arranging. And piled the heavy stuff almost to the ceiling in the corner to which we need access. So I spent about three three hours clearing a path and workspace for him, and he will be back for the repair ASAP (perhaps this afternoon, but I suspect tomorrow morning). At least we have electricity and natural gas heat, which I fear many in the rural areas around here may not, being in wooded areas and having propane tanks that are or about to be empty with no way to get them refilled for awhile. So it could definitely be worse. Now watch it get worse. 🙂
“His opinion is the break is at the faucet itself” Ghost, he is a plumber, isn’t he?! Wait till I get through with a few commitments in the next few weeks, and I’ll come out there and fix your plumbing.
We have a propane tank here, but at least we’re inside the city limits and the streets get plowed, so we don’t have to worry about running out.
The day dawned bright and clear this morning in Eufaula…and still covered with frickin’ snow. Some settling and evaporation has taken place (Thanks Gravity and Sublimation!) but not really enough to help reduce the snow cover. With the high not predicted to reach the freezing point until mid-morning Saturday (and lows predicted to go well below freezing at nights until Sunday, I’m not particularly sanguine about things getting back to what we laughingly refer to as normal around here before sometime next week.
“Gravity & Sublimation” will be the name of my next rock band.
Yeah, I was appreciating the rhythm of that when I read it, rolling it around in my mind. Gravity & Sublimation. Awesome!
Re the 2-18-21 real-time cartoon: I’ve been feeling sort of old lately, too. Who knew the remedy was an ice cream sundae? 😀
Re the 2-18-21 retro cartoon: I loved the cartoon with Janis’s secret room! Likely because when I was young, I always wished I had a secret room to which to retire. (Yeah, I was an introverted kid…but I got over that. 🙂 ) Not surprisingly, I sometimes dream of houses in which I’ve lived that I discover have unknown rooms…which of course means they were larger on the inside than the outside. (What’s that you say, “That’s impossible”? Yeah, like I’m the only one who has ever had impossible dreams. With apologies to Frank Sinatra.) Anyway, I loved the cartoon.
I absolutely love today’s retro comic! Brilliant! Did I say, I love this comic?!?
I’ve been out shoveling snow. Or at least the portion of the sidewalk, driveway, stone bridge and stone ramps that are Jackie’s wheelchair route to the street and Bullet when I load her for our trips to Tulsa next week, so that they will have a head start clearing when melting and thawing begins. I hope I am correct that’s the way it will work. “Shoveling” and “snow” are seldom in the same sentence composed by those of from the Deep South.
I inspected the street surface while I was out. Obviously there has been minimal vehicular traffic, but what there has been has compressed the snow into tracks of solid ice. I’d have to give the streets in this area a “Not Safe” rating as of now.
Dude, I can not imagine…Symply hope you get some respite…regards to you both…
Hang in there, Jimmy!
My kids in Houston had water and gas, so cooking, food and baths. Many in Texas had nothing apparently. Same here in Oklahoma.
I sent tip about using clean clay flower pots on gas stove burners to create a heater. She said they were getting some to add to their supplies for “the next time.”
Texans are expecting disasters and preparing self rescue now?
Clean clay flower pots. That’s a boat thing, isn’t it, Jackie? Seriously, we really should be aware of what is happening in Texas. It is a terrible situation.
They’ve upped the forecasted highs here to 38F tomorrow, 46F, Saturday, and 49F Sunday. So, yay! We may make it to Tulsa after all.
And who would believe 67F for next Wednesday? From parka weather to shirtsleeve weather in a week…and based on pervious performance, I’ll almost certainly see some Oklahomans out and about in shorts and t-shirts.
Interesting factoid: Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the alcohol and mercury thermometers, and developed the Fahrenheit temperature scale, all still used today, back in the early 1700s.
We are with you, JJ!
In case you read of the OK-KS earthquake that occurred a little over an hour ago, that’s the only way I knew of it in Eufaula….reading about it.
Cue the locusts.