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[Zolk]

A suggestion?

Until the main page is ready, perhaps it would be a good idea to put up a more useful maintenance message on neowin.net? Maybe something along the lines of:

Neowin has just transitioned to new servers and we're currently working on getting an improved version of our news system online. In the meantime, the forums are already open.

The current maintenance message is rather vague and doesn't inform anyone that the forums are at least open.

[Monkey Man]

A suggestion?

Until the main page is ready, perhaps it would be a good idea to put up a more useful maintenance message on neowin.net? Maybe something along the lines of:

The current maintenance message is rather vague and doesn't inform anyone that the forums are at least open.

i second that

[Kasandoro]

A suggestion?

Until the main page is ready, perhaps it would be a good idea to put up a more useful maintenance message on neowin.net? Maybe something along the lines of:

The current maintenance message is rather vague and doesn't inform anyone that the forums are at least open.

:yes:s:

I agree completely.

[White Malteser]

^ :yes:

I agree completely.

I agree also

[ceminess]

I understand that the front page is down, but because it is taking so long, I think that you should at least put a link to the forums :cool:

[NightmarE D]

I agree that you guys should let people know that the forums are open on the maintence page. Some people might be seeing that not knowing exactly what's going on.

But for the people who are complaining about how it's taking the coders too long have no patience at all. I see that by loading the RSS feed you still can see the news. That's what I've been doing until the frontpage is back up: http://feeds.feedburner.com/neowin-main

You people need to be patient. It's not easy switching over a site like this. You're going to hit snags no matter what. Some of you act like it's the end of the world. I mean calm down, the forums are up and running great.

[Markko]

I agree too, the message is really inaccurate.

[bluebsh]

What did you think we did? Bugs happen and were working on getting them fixed. We expected the complete transfer to occur on the 29th, however some things poped up that blocked us from releasing the main page to the public.

I can see the main page and its making good progress. It's not like its going to be down for months. :rollyes:

We are working on the issue and hope to get it resolved very soon...

you had the whole thing already running on the new servers and tested completly with test data? I'm sorry but I've been working in the web business for years now and rarely see problems like this happen when its done properly... the most you should of had to do is switch DNS entries to point to the new servers and sync changes in the database.. there are applications that do that all for you so you dont have to spend 10+ hours doing database replications too

[shockz]

you had the whole thing already running on the new servers and tested completly with test data? I'm sorry but I've been working in the web business for years now and rarely see problems like this happen when its done properly... the most you should of had to do is switch DNS entries to point to the new servers and sync changes in the database.. there are applications that do that all for you so you dont have to spend 10+ hours doing database replications too

Have a chat with the admins then... I'm sure they would love any advice you have to give them.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

you had the whole thing already running on the new servers and tested completly with test data? I'm sorry but I've been working in the web business for years now and rarely see problems like this happen when its done properly... the most you should of had to do is switch DNS entries to point to the new servers and sync changes in the database.. there are applications that do that all for you so you dont have to spend 10+ hours doing database replications too

We do not have a entire department of paid staff at our disposal. Some people forget that. This isn't a Fortune 500 company. We do what we can as best as we can. The front page will be available shortly. I'm sorry but you will just need to bear with us.

[Piggy]

Hehe most people know you guys are working hard to get things up and running again.

:happy:

[Borbus]

A suggestion?

Until the main page is ready, perhaps it would be a good idea to put up a more useful maintenance message on neowin.net? Maybe something along the lines of:

The current maintenance message is rather vague and doesn't inform anyone that the forums are at least open.

Exactly what I was thinking. At least a link to the forums should be there.

[Dazzeh]

Another vote for the change of message...should link here..

and a new posting experience for me :yes:

Great work..

Edit: Also love the quick edit!

[neufuse Veteran]

We do not have a entire department of paid staff at our disposal. Some people forget that. This isn't a Fortune 500 company. We do what we can as best as we can. The front page will be available shortly. I'm sorry but you will just need to bear with us.

yes, I understand that but next time you guys do a transisition here is something you might want to look into.

* Completely mirror the site and database at current state to the 2nd server host, test it completely by using the IP addresses only with no DNS names required

* Once that is running exactly how it should be, update anywhere an ip is specifically mentioned to the DNS domain name

* Use a nifty program when you are ready to take it live that will mirror the current live data into the old data you are testing with.. this will make an exact mirrored copy of the live server to the old server and only copy changes, not the entire database... this saves a LOT of time some examples of this are Redgate's SQL Data compare... that is for SQL server, but there are people who make freeware MySQL ones and such also so you spent a lot of time replicating before anyone ever knew you where doing it... the only time wasted maybe an hour or so merging new data from the live system and having the program remove anything that isnt on the live system. this has saved us littearly days with website transitions before with huge amounts of data (in the TB's of data) took a 2 day process down to about 3 hours of merging and mirroring

* update DNS records

* new site live with seamless transition

[Fred Derf Veteran]

I do not believe we had to enough spare bandwidth to do a live mirroring. Performance was getting pretty bad on the old server as it was and we were starting to get hit with large bandwidth charges. Our old servers would have had the strain of normal use plus the strain of live mirroring. That may have been asking too much.

But...the coders and administrators may read your message and get some ideas for next time. I was not directly involved in any of this so I cannot make a definitive or official statement.

[supernova_00]

neowin was up on the test servers for at least two weeks publicaly and we did load testing and bug triaging on there.

[KC]

Man I was like what it's been down for three days! Then I was was inspired to type in /forums who would have knowen

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

Yeah ditto.. I just discovered this too by randomly following a bookmark I had to an existing thread. Lo and behold the forums are actually here.. I never realised!

[Neil]

Yeah some of us are smart enough to do the /forum

Well done guys!!

[zachman123]

I think neobond purposely left out a link to the forums on the maintenance page as means of natural selection.

[piehouserat]

It looks really good, thanks for the great work, i was hoping that it wouldnt take so long cause i need neowin!

[greatpumpkin02]

Good point about natural selection ;-)

Cream of the Neowin crop right here, I tell ya...

[Jonathan Downin]

Then let me be known as a "natural selectee." :woot:

[BajiRav]

is the forum RSS feed working for anybody ? (N) down since main site went offline.

Edited December 1, 2005 by dhan

[MaX Velocity]

Man I was like what it's been down for three days! Then I was was inspired to type in /forums who would have knowen

Same here.

I don't think critcising how the Admins do their work will make the Main Page become Done Any faster Than they are currently doing, and there's no point rushing it so let them do their thang. :D

Edit: Woah Im slow at posting. Like the Quick Edit Though. It Rules!