You may have noticed some new stuff around here… I’ll have more to say about that soon, once the dust has all settled.
I want to let you all know that there will be some downtime next THIS week for maintenance. I’ve been working like crazy to optimize the system and streamline as much as possible. But with the tremendous growth we’ve seen lately, especially in the past couple weeks, it’s time to upgrade our hosting.
This is a multi-step process that does require some downtime. However, because the first step involves backing up of existing data, there will be some time when the system is up but not writable.
What does this mean? As soon as the upgrade process begins, everybody’s widgets WILL be available. However, they will NOT be able to accept new links during the backup. Once the system has been backed up, they will shut us down briefly while the data is all restored on the larger system. Once that has completed, the widgets will be available once again. And as soon as I make sure everything is working correctly, the widgets will accept links again and everything will be back to normal.
When will this happen? I’m currently thinking I’ll start the upgrade at about 11:30 P.M. Eastern U.S. time on Wednesday, February 23rd. This is WAY past my bedtime, but I want to do this at a time that will impact most users as little as possible. How long it will take, I’m not really certain. I do know, however, that by keeping the widgets read-only during the backup, we will be back up and running a lot sooner.
So thank you in advance for your patience with this upgrade. It’s not much fun for anybody, but it’s something we’ll all be glad we did.