Prizes and stuff.

[gstark]

First Prize for Challenge 7

I'm please to be able to announce that the first prize for the current challenge will be a new D70S body, courtesy of Mr Poon from HK Supplies. Poon, as always, we are indebted to you for your kindness and generousity, and we thank you for your support.

Everybody needs to note that the prizes for the challenge are only available to our Australian based members.

But wait, there's more!

Stay tuned for some more exciting announcements.

And if you've not yet booked your seats for our Christmas dinner (December 9) now would be a great time to take care of this. Please review this thread and make your bookings before we're all filled up.

Hosting issues

The site was down through most of the weekend due to hosting issues. Here's a bit of the diatribe I received from GoDaddy ...

The issue with your MySQL database was resolved this morning at
approximately 9:30 am Mountain Standard Time. We note
that you are already aware of this as you have posted to your site at
3:12 am and we spoke at 1:30am your time.

The issue was caused by a deployment and was rolled back, but there
was an issue remaining on the server your database resides on. This has
since been corrected with the information we provided to our development
team.

The problem is that we were down for well over 36 hours due to their incompetence, and they failed to take, in my opinion, reasonable steps, within a reasonable timeframe, to resolve the issue. Other sites were also affected by this problem, but their complete and utter failure to provide even the remotest attempt at customer service has led me to move the site to another hosting service.

We're now on DreamHost, at MHD's recommendation, so we know who to blame if we start to see issues here.

In all seriousness, the tools there appear to be most comprenhensive, so all systems go again.

If you posted anything to the old site this morning, you will need to repost it here; as I said in my news item on that site, the backups had already been done, and any new messages were not being carried over.

Likewise, if you joined this morning at the old site, despite my message that you do not join, then tough; you need to sign up again. I make no apologies for this; the message was posted loudly and clearly.

Search function

The search engine indexes have been rebuilt, and the search functions should now be fully operational again.

Thanx all for your notes and offers of support; they're truly appreciated.

Enjoy.

[Glen]

Thanks Gary and Leigh for all the heartache you must have endured over the weekend.

Thanks Poon for such a tremendous first prize

[Alpha_7]

Yeah thanks for your tireless efforts...
Hopefully this new server will be a more happy hosting ground..

[birddog114]

Gary and Gary and Leigh and Leigh!!!!!

I have to double call You guys have done a marvellous jobs for all of us once again!
I have a bottle of Domain Chandon Brut Vintage 2001 waiting at my office for both of you in recognition and appreciation of all your efforts to bring the lives of many souls back to the reality, and hope it can be used as a fire extinguisher to cool down all the heats which you have got!

[darb]

if theres any non essential hosting i can provide, let me know ... darb sits ona fast link ... but it is my hobby box so carries no continuity gaurantees. (that said, its beena lot more stable than this site to date!!)

[radar]

First, thanks to Poon for the great first prize, I'm sure that will spur even more competition for the challenge.

Gary and Leigh, big thanks for getting the forums back up and moved to what hopefully will be a more stable service.

Well done,

radar

[sirhc55]

Gary and Leigh - words cannot express the efforts that you guys put into this forum - all I can say is a simple thank you

[stubbsy]

Thanks to Gary & leigh for their work on remedying the site outage as quickly as they could. Having seen some of Gary's "dealings" with GoDaddy first hand I know how stressful this fiasco must have been for him.

Thanks also to Poon for such a great first prize for the comp. It amazes me that for a forum with no fees and no money raising we get such great prizes for our competitions. The amazing generosity of those who donate these prizes is a great reminder to me of why I love being part of this community.

[Marvin]

Wow, once again amazing and fantastic! Thanks to Mr Poon and other prize donators for their generosity and to Gary and Leigh for all of their tireless work!

[moggy]

Great work guys, without your selfless endeavours the rest of us would be trying to get a life without this amazing forum!


Bob.

[ozczecho]

Have to echo the sentiments of the above posters - thank you admins for working through the issues. Its a great place to be and when it dissapeared over the w/end you learn to appreciate it a lot more...

[pippin88]

Thanks to Poon and everyone else for the great prizes.

I run my site on Dreamhost, and just recently put my parents new business with them. Not had any real problems.

[the foto fanatic]

I'm adding my thanks to Mr Poon for donating such a terrific prize to the forum members via this competition.

It's also great to see you posting on the site, Poon.

[joet]

Thank you, Gary and Leigh. The pain you went through on the weekend was obvious to all of us that saw you at the mini-meet, Gary.

Words are insufficient to express the gratitude you deserve and hopefully this move will eliminate any future aggravation (and expense).

Thanks to Poon and all other contributors for the competition prizes.

All Forum members should recognise the outstanding efforts of the people that keep us going as a community. (and never forgetting Birddog and family .... as if anyone could )

[MHD]

Especially Tran's cooking!
The seafood salad last time was VERY good!

(and yes Thanks guys.. I feel like the junky thats just been given back his hit)

[Nnnnsic]

(and yes Thanks guys.. I feel like the junky thats just been given back his hit)

Didn't I see you at the older version of this shooting gallery last night with the rest of us junkies?

[MHD]

yep...
But I am already at home here

[Matt. K]

Well done Gary and Leigh......you have soldiered on like real troopers and we salute you for your efforts! If there is a positive spin on the outage then it is that we all appreciate what it is that we are missing when the site is down. (I think that was english?). And Birdie, you are a fireman!! Brut extinguisher?

Fabulous prize from Poon. Thank you so much for your support to the forum. I wonder if you are aware of what a hero you are to the members? When they speak your name everybody nods his head in acknowledgement. All is well with the world.

[owen]

I am noticing that the pages seem to be loading a lot faster, perhaps this is a result of the new host or perhaps me just being too optimistic. Whatever, I like it

[bago100]

Great to see the forum up and running again!

Mind you, instead of reading posts I actually got some work done during the nogodaddy crisis.

This is a great opportunity also to express a sincere thanks to Gary, Leigh, Birdie, Poon and MHD and all of those involved with the club!

So "thank you" to all of you

Cheers as always

Graham

[Alex]

Great effort guys, thanks for brinning the forum back.

Alex

[Poon]

Thanks Gary, Leigh, Thanh, Matt, Glen and every body.
Glad to know your great guys in the forum.
----------------
Regards
Poon

[Geoff]

I can only but echo the thanks primarily to Gary and Leigh, but also to the forum members who have supported the admins with their kind words and encouragement through these trying times. What a fantastic group of people we have here. I too had severe withdrawal when the forum was down. Cheers guys.