We apologize for the recent downtime. As you may have read in the Letter from the Editor for April, we just moved to a dedicated server. Performance was smokin' for every day traffic, but we were concerned about performance on high traffic days such as those when one of our articles hits the digg.com front page.

Well the digg effect still got us. So we made some adjustments to our server settings and tried again. We were lucky enough to get another article hit digg's front page. Slightly better results but no where near acceptable.

We strongly feel that these efforts to get more exposure for both CSP Mag and EH-Net are essential (and free). So, as we intend to grow and have continued success with digg.com, del.icio.us, other marketing efforts and of course the upcoming Skillz H@ck1ng Challenges starting May 1, we decided to bite the bullet and upgrade one more time. This time we are jumping to the top of our hosting provider's offerings. Hopefully this will stem the tide.

Why use a hosting provider? Due to this being a small operation (at least for the moment ), it is best for us to try to concentrate on content and marketing and pay someone else to handle hardware maint., backups, upgrades, etc.

As we make additional changes in preparation for May 1, there will be more downtime. We will try to make this as short as possible as we are trying to make the best experience possible for our members and visitors.

Rest assured, we are not going anywhere! We are in this for the long haul.

We thank you for your patience as we try our best to handle our growing pains.

Sincerely,
Don

I was working 2359-1200 and was trying to check the site out.  It was a bummer but understand it needs done to accomodate the site's growth.  Do they monitor the site 24x7 for you, Don?

OK. We're on to the next phase. We are moved over to the faster dedicated server. Seems to blaze with normal traffic. In addition, I made some changes to the configurations, and I'm looking into other ways to optimize the site. Then it's time to try getting another article on digg.com's front page to see how it handles.

Onwards and upwards...

Thanks,
Don

PS - It never hurts to put in a plug to help support these new efforts. So be sure to vote for EH-Net using the 4 links on the bottom of the right hand column. And, of course, clicking on some Google Ads never hurt.