A few words about the recent downtime at DVCNews.com.
There's an old saying in the computer business: Don't upgrade upgrade unless you have a compelling reason to do so. The reasoning is that as long as something is working well for you--your flavor of operating system, your word processing or spreadsheet software--just stick with what works rather than being tempted by upgrades.
Some "upgrades" have a way of breaking things that have been working well for months or years.
But heeding that advice can be difficult, particularly when dealing with a web server which is constantly at risk from hackers, spammers and a variety of other ne'er do wells.
No, DVCNews was not hacked. But to borrow a popular Disney attraction storyline, while trying to roll-out the largest software update in the history of the site, something went horribly wrong.
Three days later, it appears the site is stable, running on the original software. And we will keep it that way until the new platform goes through a few more rounds of bug testing.
Fortunately most of the work done over the last few days is salvagable. That fact, combined with about a hundred new lessons learned, should ultimately lead to a smooth deployment.
Note I said "should."
For the time being it's business as usual. And with a little luck, at some point in the near future you'll wake to a brand new DVCNews.com with no stalled browser sessions or server crashes.
Thanks for sticking with us.
--- Tim
