Voxtalks

bugman · Post by **bugman** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 11:09 am

Its been a week plus since I've been able to get on Voxtalks. Is anyone else having trouble or is this another one of its lengthy repair/upgrades?

wj350 · Post by **wj350** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:49 pm

Just got the "Excuse we're renovating" screen when I tried.

Bill

randyz · Post by **randyz** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:35 am

I'm in the same boat. I check every day, but I get the same message.

bugman · Post by **bugman** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:35 am

still nothing---is Voxtalks working for anyone else?

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 6:34 am

I spoke to Nick last week...it is possible that his ISP has lost the entire site and its million-plus posts...they are working to try to bring it back up. Fingers crossed...

elysrand · Post by **elysrand** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 6:57 am

I most emphatically suggest Nick get a better ISP!!

Of course, far be it from me to even hint that he should switch to my ISP

He needs to get one that does regular journal backups of everything.

But he could do worse.... like, he could make the serious mistake of NOT picking my ISP as the one to whom he moves his site

johnhall · Post by **johnhall** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:06 am

He told me his ISP uses an automated backup system and his site was backed up every day. However, there was some server problem and in the midst of it, the system backed it up, overwriting everything while it was in fubar mode.

Obviously they didn't subscribe to the rotating backup school of thought so that even an older copy was available.

elysrand · Post by **elysrand** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:20 am

That explains it, although I do not know of any serious backup strategy these days that does not employ rotating separate full daily backups at least a week deep, then archiving at weekly intervals onto permanentish media.

It is too easy to get a false sense of security from incremental backups that constantly overwrite the same standalone backup.

Again, as I have told Peter in the past, we tend to host non-commercial sites such as these at no charge.....

johnhall · Post by **johnhall** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:31 am

Yeah, but then he'd be subject to U.S. law! Or he's afraid his site would as interesting as, er, well, say www.elysrand.com

atomic_punk · Post by **atomic_punk** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:46 am

LOL John!!

elysrand · Post by **elysrand** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:53 am

I dunno, John, I kinda like my email-only site

That's a pretty good-looking guy on the web mail login page!! And it is a great-looking Rick too

Umm, is there any reason why Nick would be doing anything that he would not want to be doing under US Jurisdiction?

bugman · Post by **bugman** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:15 am

Well,being non computer savy at least now I know its not the man behind the mouse

johnhall · Post by **johnhall** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:33 pm

Elys, at least until recently, Canadian law was much more forgiving to webmasters if inappropriate or defamatory material was posted by users. Essentially, the Canadian site owner was not responsible for content placed there by users. That's loosened up under U.S. law a bit recently so maybe the difference is now moot.

elysrand · Post by **elysrand** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:20 pm

True, in the US these days, as long as the web hosting company is "pass-through" and does not exert editorial oversight on the content, the hosting company is almost unconditionally free from any liability for content it hosts.

At this point, we are now comfortably able to and do regularly resist blanket Cease And Desist letters, which do occasionally come in, without exception. Very few suits ever gets the hoster named anymore, and a boilerplate affadavit, returned by inexpensive FedEx in the few cases where the hoster does get served, gets the hosted off in all but two states. In those, it takes a $300 proxy attorney to show up in person to get dismissed from the suit immediately without prejudice.

So, guessing that you are probably good friends with Nick Thiel (most folks are only sarcastic in print with other folks they like

), your recommendation alone is more than enough for us to take him on gratis if he ever needed it. Again, same with Peter....

Even RIC should have a hot spare site running in a geographically distant colo somewhere, for reliability

johnhall · Post by **johnhall** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:17 pm

Colocation can't work for us for technical reasons that I'm not going to discuss here. That doesn't mean we don't make pretty good backups! (That's why our site is slow and partially offline every day from 4:25 to 4:30PM.)