Topic starter
10/11/2010 7:13 am
We do suffer from some technical issues on the webserver and it has to be replaced by our hosting provider. The first attempt to do so failed tonight, so they'll try again this night (i.e. late afternoon/evening US time zones). Please be prepared for some more outage for tonight.
I apologize for the inconvenience.
Once this issues are being solved (hopefully by tomorrow), we'll have a new, faster and reliable webserver again 🙂
Franz
10/11/2010 11:56 am
*RE: Server outage/Copier Ink Jets*
Hi, Franz:
I'm just catching up reading postings on the chat room threads and read the above. Thanks for the keen-eyed attention you give in providing this forum. Recently several of us over here have seen 'Virus Warnings' when we click in to open Steamboats.org. Nothing happened on my end due to the various blocks, filters etc. Yet, it gave me pause. Keep up the fine work. Always enjoyable reading the news and events even though many don't post for long periods of time. Thanks to you and David Tschiggfrie for answering my off-line questions RE: pros/cons of taking empty ink jet containers to local stores for refilling. I learned plenty and was saved potential of gumming up my copiers/scanners here. Do many of our .org audience have their empty ink jets refilled? Not pure steamboats but...
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
10/11/2010 2:21 pm
Franz,
For what you offer us here, a few outages are not a problem at all! I think a number of us take this site for granted and don't realize the work you put into it. It has to be a labour of love. We are ALL thankful for what you provide us here. Thank you!
Dale,
From a fiscal standpoint the refills seem like a good thing. In reality, the end result is not that at all. These days and times few people repair equipment. They end up replacing it. The cost to have a printhead cleaned is actually more than most printers cost. I would preserve the appliance you have now and not refill the cartridges. They can gum up the print head, compromise print quality, and cause damage to several small parts (most of which require the replacement of the printhead...again causing most people to replace the machine).
If you are contemplating a need for large print jobs (100 or more copies of a document at a time) I would consider a laser printer. They generally can handle those jobs well, and have toner cartridges (although more expensive, they last almost 50% - 150% longer than ink jet cartridges and give a much better quality presentation).
Stick with the name brand cartridge and keep a spare set on hand. That is my professional opinion (remember my singular educational achievement is a PC Support Associates Degree...so this is something I might know a thing or two about! He, he, he!).
Meanwhile back on the river...we used laser printers on the DQSCo. boats and I highly recommend them.
Travis
11/11/2010 5:24 am
Franz: Viele dank dir. And for all you have done .. 🙂
Topic starter
11/11/2010 6:22 am
It looks like everything is not back online and working very well. And I've recognized a tremendous increase in speed of the website, resulting from the new, much faster web-server hardware 🙂
As of the "virus" warning Dale mentioned: We had some issues with hacker attacks over the last couple of weeks, but eventually I've identified the issue and eliminated the cause for the problem. Be assured that there was nothing harmful going on, so no reason to worry. I'd just recommend to delete all browser cookies (or specifically the steamboats.org related ones) if you know how to do this in your browser (the option usually can be found in the privacy settings of the browser). If you don't know how to do it, don't worry, it's not crucial at all.
Background: Hackers are becoming more agressively and are even attacking harmless, private websites. Their goal (usually, though not in this case) is to illegally making money with their attacks. I don't want to bother you with the details how this works - just be assured, it works very well for them. This is big business, hackers are professional specialists in these days, billions of dollars of revenue, so it becomes increasingly difficult to fight these evil people's attacks. I just hope steamboats.org will continue to fly under the radar of te worst of them so we'll stay unharmed in the future. If you recognize anything unusual or get a "virus" alert from your virus scanner, please let me know immediately by e-mail so I can look into it. I the actual case, the two virus scanners on my PCs didn't detect anything at all, so i just learned about the issue from steamboats.org members' e-mails.
Thanks!
Franz