Overstream Muse

Overstream Blog Moves

2008-11-01T00:45:00.000-07:00

The Overstream Blog is moving to this logical location :). Please change your bookmarks and feeds accordingly.

This blog is closing down, although it will remain here for historical purposes.

Future Plans

2008-09-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

[max] Previously, I have indicated that I be able to disengage from my day job around beginning of September, and (re)start Overstream development. However, it appears that this disengagement process (through no fault of mine, actually) is taking slightly longer than I have hoped, so I am still in the process of arranging that. I hope it won't take too much longer.

Meanwhile, we've gotten many emails from people proposing interesting new features and collaborations. It's clear that Overstream needs to expand to be able to implement the many awesome features you guys have requested and to offer more stable maintenance service. So, besides considering the technological development roadmaps, I will also be reading some business books and/or looking for a business person to join our team - with the goal being to set up a revenue stream (yes, currently there is none) which will give us the money to hire more people.

That's a lot of upcoming challenges, but I hope we will be able to conquer them all :)

Back from Vacation / YouTube Probs Fixed

2008-06-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

As many of you have noticed, Overstream had some problems playing YouTube videos for the last 3 days or so. Of course, this just had to happen when I was away :) Well, I am back now, and everything should be working again.

On Vacation Next Week

2008-03-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

I will be on vacation next week, getting some much needed rest. I have left a friend to admin Overstream and try to address any emergency issues that come up, but other than that most of your emails and comments will be answered when I get back.

The system seems to be fairly stable overall, and I certainly don't expect any problems. See you guys in a week!

Should Be Mostly Propagated

2008-03-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

The working overstream.net on the new server should be visible to most users now. If you still see "Under Maintenance", try closing the browser and opening a new one.

Everything seems to be working fine. If you notice any strange things, please tell me (e.g. by commenting here).

By the way, the previous server had a problem with sending emails (because of the broken clock a lot of its emails would get thrown out by the mail routers). If you registered within the last week but still haven't received your code, try resending it now via this link.

I am having some problems with my emails at the moment actually (e.g. contact at overstream.net), this will be the last thing to be fixed.

Transferring Site Now

2008-03-12T02:33:00.000-07:00

OK, we are down for maintenance. This should take 1-6 hrs for the DNS propagation to the new server.

Maintenance Downtime Later Today

2008-03-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

OK, it looks like everything is ready for the move to the new server. The planned maintenance downtime is 1-6 hours. Again, you will get a different amount of maintenance time depending on where you are because DNS propagation is involved. The maintenance is planned to start on March 12 around 5pm Tokyo/Japan (8 am London/England, 4am East Coast/USA, 1am West Coast/USA, find your city).

Transferring Account

2008-03-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

Our IT guy Paul is transferring the account now. Tomorrow when I wake up I will try to verify that everything works, and then bring the site down and do the actual latest database transfer (so that no data is lost) and then DNS propagation. So, the downtime (2-6 hrs) will probably be sometime tomorrow. I will post more info when it becomes available.

New Server Being Set Up

2008-03-06T20:42:00.001-08:00

The new server is being currently set up for us by MyRackspace, our new hosting. This should be finished this weekend, and we can transition over early next week.

The current server is still suffering from the "crazy clock" problem, causing times on the site to appear very strange, and registration emails getting lost. However, I have opted to not take the previous hosting up on their proposal to move the existing server to another server of theirs because I simply do not trust them anymore. At least with the current server I know exactly what the problem is (even though it's a really bad problem). Also, I wanted to keep the downtime to a minimum, and this way we will only have a single transition.

Over the last month an improbably large number of unfortunate things have happened. I am really hoping that this curse will run out once we move to the new server. The good thing is that I now have an IT friend who is helping me with the server stuff, so I feel safer about all this.

Enough is Enough

2008-03-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

OK, guys, I can't take it anymore from our current hosting. They have screwed up so majorly both with the server configuration and the fact that the clock on the current server is screwed up, and they don't even feel sorry about it or try to go out of their way to fix it. I feel that they simply do not care. That is why we will be moving to a new hosting called "MyRackspace" - they are more expensive but their quality of techsupport is known far and wide. I am currently talking to them about the server specs, etc., so I imagine it will be a couple more days before the move.

I currently have the option of having the existing hosting move us to a different server (without the clock problem) - with about 3-4 hrs downtime. However, the current server works (for better or worse, with timestamps set in the future and the registration emails getting lost left and right because the time on them is totally wrong), and I simply do not trust the current hosting to configure the new server in such a way that there are no problems. So, unless forced into it I will try to avoid that move, so we can have a single period of downtime when moving to the new hosting.

On the current hosting's site it says at the top "Stop worrying about your server!". But all I've done ever since the new server was put into place was worry about how the site is running. So, I am sorry about all the problems (at least you can still create and watch overstreams!), and I sincerely hope we will be happier at the new hosting. I will post more about the move and the projected downtime when it becomes known.

Registration Emails Not Being Sent

2008-03-02T20:17:00.001-08:00

We are currenly experiencing a problem with the clock on our server being screwed up, which should be fixed by the hosting early this week.

One of the effects of this problem is that a lot of registration emails do not get through, or get put in the Spam folder - because they are sent out with a time stamp which is in the future. If you have registered, but did not get your registration email, please contact me at contact @ overstream.net, and I will gladly activate your account! Or you can just post a comment to this post requesting your account to be activated.

Server Clock Screwed Up

2008-03-01T00:51:00.000-08:00

It appears that the hosting has botched something when assembling the server, and the server clock is screwed up. What happens is that after the server is reboot, the clock is fine, but then it starts going successively faster and faster (covering 2 seconds in one, then 5 seconds in one, etc.). This screws up a lot of other things, causing me to reboot the server (which causes about 3 minutes of downtime, when none of the pages of the site load). The site generally appears to work even with the screwed up clock, but you might get some strange timestamps on your oversteams and comments until this is fixed.

I am (obviously) talking to the hosting about fixing this problem. Fixing it will result in some downtime, I will post later about how much and when it's going to happen. They also screwed up a number of other things in the server configuration as well... which overall makes me think that I made a mistake in the choice of hosting. Well, moving to another hosting means more downtime, and I am trying to avoid it, so unless the problems on the site become bad, I will try to stay with this hosting.

I feel like the curse is continuing...

Server Configuration Restored

2008-02-29T06:03:00.000-08:00

I have just noticed that an important server configuration file got erased during the move. I have just restored it. It's quite amazing that the server worked at all without it :) There were several small things that broke because of the absence of this configuration file, most noticeably you might have noticed that strange backslashes (\) started to appear whenever you would put a single quite (') or a double quote (") in your Overstream's Author comments - and maybe also in just comments, I am not sure. This should be fixed now.

Server Optimization

2008-02-27T22:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I can see at least everything is running - with some minor glitches, as reported by some users, but running! Over the next couple of weeks, I will try to figure out as much as possible how to optimize the server performance (especially with regards to the database), so I hope we can get past the glitches and the performance will be better!

Good Performance So Far

2008-02-27T15:29:00.000-08:00

So far the server has been responding pretty quickly, but of course we need to wait a couple of days and see what is happening with it. Hopefully, this whole move will be worth it ;)

Alright, I am finally going to go to sleep (8:30 am here ;)). I'll ask my friend to keep an eye on our server just in case.

Enjoy!

Liftoff!!!

2008-02-27T15:04:00.000-08:00

I think we have liftoff! At least I am seeing the site, and the videos seem to play on it :)

DNS Starting to Resolve

2008-02-27T14:35:00.001-08:00

Some users are already reporting that they are seeing the new site.

If you see "Project Damage Control", it is due to a slight misconfiguration on the part of the hosting - I am on the phone to them right now about it. This will be easy to fix.

Instructed Hosting to Switch DNS!

2008-02-27T13:13:00.001-08:00

OK, I figured there is only so much I can check without switching the DNS over. (For example, the logging into the site didn't work but I am pretty sure that was only because the domain of the site was not www.overstream.net).

So, I told the hosting to switch over the DNS! This means that once they have initiated the switch, we will just have to wait for the DNS to propagate - which could take 1-5 hrs depending on where you are. USA should be closer to 1 hr (because that's where the hosting is). In any case, keep checking the main site and at some point it should just come up.

Since you will probably see the site before I will, please post back here and tell me if something isn't working so that I am ready to fix it. Also, as I imagine there will be quite a stampede of users, this will be a real stress test for the young server ;) If anything doesn't work as expected, please tell me ASAP.

I will post when the hosting confirms that they have initiated the switch.

Thanks for sticking with me throughout this ordeal, and I hope we are almost there!

Currently Configuring Server...

2008-02-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

Well I was hoping things would just magically start working, but it's not quite so easy - I have to make sure that the web server, the PHP and the database are configured in the same way as on the old server. Currently trying to figure out the necessary server options... this is a first for me :)

Got the Configuration Email!

2008-02-27T10:35:00.001-08:00

Finally, I got the Welcome/Configuration email! In fact, I got it 35 minutes ago but it was stuck in my gmail Spam folder!

OK, now to figure out the status of the site. Once I verify that everything is working, I will instruct the hosting to switch over the DNS, and then we'll be in home stretch!

Files being copied RIGHT NOW

2008-02-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

After about 1.5 hrs on hold, I finally got through to the hosting. They are copying the files over right now from the old shared account. To copy the files they had to shut down the account, which explained a "Page Not Found" you might have briefly seen on the site there. In any case, the tech claimed that the actual copying process will not take more than an hour. We are getting closer!

Account Still Being Transferred!

2008-02-26T17:32:00.001-08:00

Eeek! Just got off the phone with the hosting techs, they said the account is STILL being transferred. Now I really don't see what should be taking so long to transfer the account, especially since I explained our situation previously and they agreed that they will try to do it as fast as possible.

In any case, the tech said that they were currently still working on moving the data over and promised that the account will definitely be transfered at most in the next 12 hours (which is really kind of a lot I think!). Well I am hoping their message about the transfer will come earlier than that. Guess it's a good thing I didn't stay up to wait for it to be transfered :)

Server Set Up, Account Being Transferred

2008-02-26T08:27:00.001-08:00

Just got this from the hosting: "Your server has been setup and your account is in the process of being moved." So it shouldn't be long before I can start verifying whether things are working or not!

By the way, I got a server with a RAID (that's the thing that makes sure that your server keeps going even if its hard-drive fails - it just switches over to another one), and also with Managed Data Backups - this is when the hosting backs up all the data on the server to a safe location in case something drastic happens to the server, like a tsunami, earthquake, or a terrorist/hacker attack. :) I know some of you will be happy about this last option :)

Dedicated Server Installation

2008-02-25T23:37:00.001-08:00

I have just called the dedicated hosting techs, and they told me that they got all the parts and the server will most likely be installed first thing in the morning (that's USA East Coast morning), so I should be getting the email with the info about it in around 6-8 hours. I also once again begged them to do anything possible to expedite the process, but apparently they don't do the actual installations during the night ;)

Once the server is installed, and the account transfered, I can start going through it to make sure that everything still works in the new place. I am hoping that this part will not take long, but as always we have to account for unforeseen difficulties. After I make sure that everything appears to work, I will give them the go-ahead to switch over the DNS, and after that it should only be 1-5 hrs for it to propagate (it was pretty fast last time, only took <2 hrs to propagate to Japan). So, things are moving right along.

Overstream Down For Maintenance

2008-02-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

The hosting techs have noticed that we were bringing the server down again, but this time they gave me a chance to put my own maintenance page up. I linked from it to this blog.

The techs have promised to expedite the process of the dedicated server installation as much as possible. As soon as any ETA (that's Estimated Time to Arrival :)) will be known, I will post it. Originally I was told that "Typical installation times are 24-36 hours, but in your case we can do it significantly faster". Let us hope so.

Oh, and in case you are wondering how come none of my questions about the dedicated hosting were answered for 3 days straight (before today), the explanation is: "I apologize for the delay. Your ticket was mistakenly flagged to the wrong department." It's a curse, I am telling you... :)