Update Jul 2 2009: Well as many of you have already guessed the upgrade is taking longer than planned. In fact I've been working straight for the last 48 hours. We've run into two issues that has slowed us down. First is a multi source router (redundant 3 net feeds into our network). It tested working but has been losing routing information over time. After two days we believe we got it fixed. Second is the porting of applications to a multi-user system. It's coming along but slower and a tremendous amount of work. I want to tell everyone please pardon our construction dust and we WILL get there with a better Furtopia when the work is all done! I also want to say to all web users that we have current backups of ALL data on multiple servers so your work is safe as we upgrade.
Well it's been days since I've slept so I'm going to rest now. But come morning I will return to working to get this done ASAP. I also want to say a HUGE thank you to Quamer who has already put 50+ hours into this project working with me. He's been a life saver!
*hugs to all Furtopians* Full steam ahead! WhiteShepherd
News: The Furtopia FTP has now been taken off-line. Jun 28th 2009 and will remain off-line for 3 days to give us time to move all accounts to the new Ohio server. When we have finished moving all accounts we will reopen FTP.
Hello it's WhiteShepherd here and I wanted to give you all a heads up on some of the new things that are coming.
Here is a heads up on some of our plans and progress. From me as well as the extensive crew of mods/staff/OPs/watchers/helpers it has been a pleasure hosting and helping furries for over the last 10 years. It is a project that started as a hobby and turned into a full self run furry community service with a voting board. Over the years as time has progressed we have seen many changes on the internet. Some of them good and others bad. Do to the sport of vandalism we have decided to switch to a modern Linux server which will afford tighter controls on user accounts and security. So between June 25th and June 30th we will permanently shut down our Primary Houston Texas server for good and transfer to a group of 3 Ohio based servers to take it's place. During this massive transfer FTP will be taken offline as websites are transferred to the new servers. FTP and hosting will then begin on the new Ohio servers as we restore Furtopia services one by one until fully restored.
There are some new additions to the Furtopia services that many of you will enjoy. The Indexer (the Furtopia gallery that automatically displays your images if no web page is found in a directory) will have some display enhancements to improve the viewing experience. If you don't have time for a webpage the Furtopia Indexer is a very easy to use gallery. There will be a new "User Control Panel"! This will allow web members to add/remove their own mysql databases and domain names, change website name, and recover passwords automatically instantly without having to wait for an admin to service these requests! Webpages applications will now be "automatically" processed by the system in 48 hours. They will be displayed during the review time to admins for review/cancel. This will solve the problem of Admin backlog that can delay applications. We will also be implementing a new bandwidth management system in our new Linux servers. Larger files greater then 512k will give bandwidth priority to smaller files. This while supporting downloads of larger video/image formats will help prevent them from slowing down tipical artist sites.
Any thoughts or suggestions feel free to ask.
WhiteShepherd