| Emergency Database Server Maintenance |
[10 Nov 2008|10:03am] |
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This Photograph Is Proof (I KN-Taking Back Sunday-Where You Want To Be |
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Please watch:
http://scribbldstatus.tumblr.com !!
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| Paid Account Changes |
[05 Nov 2008|09:46am] |
We've made some changes to the paid account structure. In order for people to purchase Extras (extra user pics) you'll need to have a paid account. We recommend that people purchase a year long paid account if you're going to get the extra user pics since they run for a year. If you were to purchase a 3 month paid account and 100 extra user pics, they would only be good for 3 months as they're only valid while you have an active paid account.
This change also means that instead of gaining 25 userpics (from the normal 75 paid to 100 total), you'll gain 100 or 200 (for upto 175 or 275 userpics).
Thanks!
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| Happy November! |
[01 Nov 2008|01:17pm] |
Hey kids!
October has come to an end, it feels like I was just posting news for August and here it is, November already!
First a bit of news about one of the system admins, ![[info]](http://www.scribbld.net/img/userinfo.gif) morgan. Last week she was in a car accident, she hit a deer. Fortunately she's okay, but her car is complete toast :( That said, our backend development is going to slow down as she's only got one useable hand to type with (she broke her wrist). I personally wish her the quickest recovery and hope all goes well. She'll be taking a break from Scribbld coding for the next month or so.
In other news, we had almost 100% uptime last month, there was about 15 minutes of downtime due to a small power outage. This month we're going to be running some software updates on our database server, but we'll post a date and time when we get closer to doing so.
We hope you're all enjoying using Scribbld and we want to thank anyone who refers their friends, family, co-workers to our little spot on the Internet! It's very much appreciated. We hope everyone had a Happy Halloween and we hope you have a wonderful November!
- Scribbld Administrators
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| Happy October! |
[06 Oct 2008|12:14pm] |
Hey everyone!
Sorry it's taken me so long to write up a new entry for this month, I just didn't feel like doing it over the weekend! I hope everyone is well, up here in Vermont it's starting to get rather cold. We no longer keep the windows open at night.
It feels like just yesterday was the start of Spring, but here we are already in mid-fall! Halloween is this month, one of my most favorite holidays! Is anyone going to dress up this Halloween, if so what as?!
Scribbld stability has seemed to have returned to normal, I don't think we were down for more then 5 minutes if that during the month of September. We're still looking to get a couple new database and web servers, but that's pretty far off from happening.
As usual, thanks to everyone who has purchased a paid account or some extra icons for their account. We really appreciate any monetary donation (or if you've got servers we love donations of those too)!
I hope everyone has a safe and fun October!
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| September 2008 News |
[10 Sep 2008|11:13am] |
Hi everyone,
It's been a crazy busy couple of weeks for us. I am sure those of you that go to school have been pretty busy too! Last month we were able to update the site to the most current codebase and in doing so we gained a couple new features. The biggest one that comes to mind is the ability to show the songs you've submitted to Last.fm in the Music box when you're updating your journals! Other fixes are mostly bug fixes and the likes.
We've also fixed the issue of having our internet connection (between our servers and our ISP) drop constantly. We went from being drop 8-10x per day to 0, which is fabulous!
I also wanted to thank everyone who is supporting the site through buying extras userpics for their account or upgrading their account to paid status! It's really very much appreciated and it definitely makes on want to build the best site for you!
I wish everyone a happy September, stay safe and have fun!
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| [DOWNTIME] |
[04 Sep 2008|06:29pm] |
This morning and into this evening we experienced some unscheduled downtime. At this time we belive some network cables went bad, and have since replaced and reboot the systems to make sure everything was running properly. We'll continue to closely monitor the network over the next few hours to make sure it's nothing else that caused the issue.
Thanks for your patience and understanding.
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| System Upgrade 98% Complete |
[17 Aug 2008|05:16pm] |
Hey kids!
We've just completed most of the upgrade, I know I promised Last.fm integration, but unfortunately, I've left one line of code on our dev machine (which I don't currently have access to at the moment) that will make it work 100%. I know exactly where the line of code is so on Monday I will insert that one line of ode, restart the server and then the Last.fm functions should work and the server will be at 100%. At this time, pretty much everything on the site should work, please use the support queue to report any issues you may be having and we'll look into it.
I am hoping that all cluster 2 users are okay, I don't see why they wouldn't be, but you never know!
So yeah, enjoy and definitely let us know of issues!
Update: We're now at 100% - all clusters are updated, online and running, we've updated the last bit of code that allows Last.fm integration! Test it out, test it all out, let us know how it all works for you! Submit any issues you have to the support section of the website!
Thanks everyone!
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| Systems UPgrade Part I Complete! |
[15 Aug 2008|02:19pm] |
Hey everyone,
Sorry for the unannounced outtage. We just had the techs from our ISP come and check out the disconnection issues between us and them. Everything looks to be running a lot smoother now.
Remember, tomorrow starting at 8AM EST Scribbld will be offline along with all of our services. We'll be upgrding our codebase and moving our main web server to the Quad-Core box.
We thank you for your patience and understanding!
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| Cluster 2 Moved and Scheduled Downtime |
[12 Aug 2008|08:01am] |
I've moved Cluster 2 to 'palomino' so now at least it sits on a server capable of restarting itself after a power failure. Eventually in time it'll either merge with cluster 1 or we'll find a standalone server for it. At this point it's fine as-is though :)
This weekend starting on Saturday 8AM EST we'll be taking everything down in order to update the code base to something a lot more recent. The code we're running on currently is a bit older then a year which is pretty old! We hope to have it completed within 24 hours but as with all things technology-related...you never know!
Thanks!
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| Main Database Server Issues |
[09 Aug 2008|11:51pm] |
Greetings Users,
This evening our master database system had some issues with the boot drive RAID setup. After reviewing the issue we found out no data should have been lost and the RAID system has been rebuilt. Fortunately the drives contained within the RAID set were relatively small (80GB) so the rebuilt didn't take much time. We'll be watching the RAID set closely to make sure it's not a hardware failure, although at this point it doesn't look like one which is good.
We apologize for the downtime and thank you for your patience.
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| Some more system news! |
[08 Aug 2008|09:14pm] |
morgan and jimmy have been working hard on getting the latest LJ codebase ready for Scribbld. We're pretty much done with it, and it went a lot easier then I thought it would, there's ovbiously going to be some bugs and issues even after we upgrade but we'll eventually squash them all.
We're planning to roll out the new code next weekend so mark your calendars. We'll actually not only be rolling out the new code, but we'll be re-doing the servers so they'll be fresh and void of unused software that's clogging them up.
We'll be turning that wonderful quad-core box into the main Scribbld web server and we'll be moving cluster 2 onto the main database server. The actual cluster 2 hardware will be reused for another project.
If you've not noticed, we've turned the chat server back online. We also updated the Java applet code so instead of logging in with a username of scribbld-user, you'll actually be logged on with your Scribbld username! The only time this won't happen is if you're not logged into Scribbld and you visit the chat page while logged out.
In other news, we've been in talks with our ISPs support team and they're going to send crews out to physically check the phone cables and such. We've been getting disconnected from them about 8-10 times a day if not more. It looks like it's their equipment and not ours, but the cable testing will let us know about that, hopefully it's not us, because we'll either have to get a new router (which we don't have money for) OR we'll have to get a new modem, which shouldn't cost anything. Or it could be another piece of hardware...either way, hopefully they get it all taken care of, and we must apologize if you're trying to access any of the Scribbld services during those disconnections!
Thanks everyone!
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| Web Chat Now Available! |
[04 Aug 2008|06:55pm] |
We've setup our very own chat server and now have a special chatroom just for Scribbld! Just go to the Chat page and start chatting! We suggest using your Scribbld username as your chat nickname! Directions on how to change your nickname are listed on that chat page!
You can even create your own chatroom! If you've got any questions on how to use that chat, please post questions here or in the Support Queue under the General category!
Thanks and enjoy!
UPDATE: The chat server still needs more testing, we'll bring it back up when we're done :)
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| Happy August Everyone! |
[03 Aug 2008|02:31pm] |
Hey everyone!
First off I must apologize for the downtimes we've been having as of late. It seems to be a bit of a combination between my ISP and the power outages/storms. I've been trying to get the systems up as fast as I can, power permitting.
That said, some of you might have noticed that I've been trying out a couple chat/ chatroom options. I am not sure how I am going to do it, I might just setup a chat server and have a web page that links to it. That way we can have a main chatroom, but others can create their own chat room.
I'm also looking into moving cluster 2 on to the same server as cluster 1 for the time being and then I'll get at least one other server to host the web sites that are also on the server where cluster 2 sits.
Anyways, hit up ![[info]](http://www.scribbld.net/img/community.gif) scribbld_top5 and nominate your friends & communities!!
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| Stormy June Is Over |
[01 Jul 2008|03:51pm] |
Wow, what a crazy June, quite a lot of storms and of course we had to get hit pretty hard. We're getting close to the half-way point for obtaining a new database server. Any amount really helps whether you get a Paid Account or just donate some money!
Not sure about you all, but I've definitely been enjoying this nice weather, I hope you're all getting out and having a wonderful summer.
I've been working on a development server this past month so I can test out and hopefully implement new features into Scribbld. I hope you all enjoy whatever comes along (if anything)! One thing that I really hope to get working is captcha's to cut down on the spam accounts being created, but we'll see how that plays out.
I hope everyone has a lovely July!!
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| [RESOLVED] OD & MySQL Issues |
[28 Jun 2008|10:35am] |
Some how the Open Directory server had issues, this is also the box where the main database cluster sits on so unfortunately we had to take it offline. It looks like all the issues have been resolved though so everything is back up and running as normal.
Thanks for your patience and understanding!
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| [UPDATES] New Code, New Moodthemes! |
[12 Jun 2008|11:34am] |
Well today I apologixe for the downtime this morning, we were working on some behind the scenes code which allows uses to take advantage of the Navigation strip. You can find that in the Customize, I'm personally using it myself, I think it's pretty neat!
We also added 3 new moodthemes! Kaobunnies, whitekao and goth_girl. Expect more to come soon!!
Enjoy the day!
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| [DOWNTIME] Cluster 2 Down |
[10 Jun 2008|09:16pm] |
I'm really starting to get annoyed with the box that Cluster 2 lives on, so in the near future I hope purchase 2 more Mac minis (one for database and one for the websites that also live on the box). Of course that'll run about $1000 so we better start selling those Paid Accounts!
Either way, Cluster 2 is down and I have no ETA for when it'll be back online if at all tonight. You can find out which cluster you're on by visiting this page.
Sorry about this!
Update: We've got cluster 2 back online, but with a bit of bad news. The hard drive that's in the machine along with possibly some other hardware is going bad. Basically we need to purchase 2 new machines, 2 Apple Mac minis (one database machine and one web machine). It'll run us about $1300 which we don't have. So hit up our donate page if you want to help out. In the mean time, I honestly cannot guarantee the quality of service for cluster 2 people, we'll continue to backup the database daily, but there's no telling of when the machine might die, even with backups we have no machine to drop it on to...sorry.
Update #2: We're getting another storm -- please remember to go to http://scribbldstatus.tumblr.com for up to the minute information on Scribbld's status! I have a feeling the servers will be up and down over the next hour or so.
Please remain seated while the poor Scribbld servers take a lightning beating. We thank you!
Update 3: Cluster 2 is back online believe it or not! Hopefully the storm is done with.
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| [DOWNTIME] Storms |
[10 Jun 2008|04:38pm] |
Hey all, before I could post about the possibility of downtime the storm hit and it hit really hard! It's definitely a lot cooler now, so hopefully I won't be complaining about it being so damn hot! Anyways, I apologize, we had about 30 minutes of downtime there, after loosing power once, I just cut the power to the servers. Mostly to minimize corrupt software (I mean, who wants a corrupted database, there goes all your data!). Finally around 4PM EST the storm passed and I got everything back up and running.
All servers and services are now resuming normal service.
Thanks for your patience and understanding!
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| Paid Accounts Page Updated |
[10 Jun 2008|12:19pm] |
I've updated the Paid Accounts page which I've been wanting to do for a while. It now takes advantage of drop down menus and I've made sure there's a notes section so you can leave your username right there, hopefully that'll cut down on the emails I get!
Thanks.
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| User Capabilities Updated & SVN |
[10 Jun 2008|09:30am] |
We've updated the user capabilities today, mostly refined them. You can view this FAQ. We've given more userpics to free users, and have added some special and neat features to Paid, Permanent, Early Adopter and Special Early Adopter accounts, for example, those people can mass edit the privacy on their journals which is really nice, and definitely saves time. Also they're the only accounts that can make their own moodthemes.
Paid accounts can now use up to 75 icons instead of 50. Just view the FAQ to see what features your account has access too!
I've also setup a SVN repository so that I can track code changes that I make or to revert to previous version because we all know how many coding screw ups I make :)
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