FlockHosting Blog

Crazy October & Email Migrations!

More news from the wonderful world here @ FlockHosting! Crazy October is BACK! This year will mark the return of the Crazy October Specials! Going up this Friday, they will be valid for the entire month of October!

In addition this year I will be donating 10% of all accounts added (promo or otherwise) starting on Friday to go towards the Hands and Feet Project – I have worked with them in the past, and I am happy to donate 10% of earnings towards their ministry there!

Next on the docket is email, some users are getting a taste for the new enhanced email system – and now I am happy to announce free data migrations are possible! So if you are a email packrat (like myself) pick a size that works for you, and your off and running! Just open a ticket asking for a email migration after you make your order, I’ll send you a file you can open in Excel/OpenOffice/GoogleDocs and put in your current information, and your NEW information, and your off and ready to go.

So more to come with some great Crazy October Specials! Be sure to watch the Facebook & Twitter accounts for even more random deals!

Slight Delays on Support

Over the next week (Saturday the 19th thru Sunday the 27th) I will be taking a little time to visit my family up in Washington State (Wenatchee/Monitor area) – I do expect that I will be slightly delayed in responses to support tickets and emails, for this I do apologize, but I rarely take a vacation so it was a good fit to go see some relatives I have not seen in over 10 years.

I have already equipped myself with Wireless Access via my Cell – as well as a Mobile Broadband connection for on-the-go access, PLUS the flight has Wifi access – so connected thru and thru – I have also let the crews in the various DC’s know I am going to be on break and they have agreed to keep a watchful eye on the servers and helping should anything like today’s hiccups occur again.

I would like to thank all customers for being amazing – some clients know me more than just the “guy who hosts my website” and the well wishes on this break have been amazing, between all of you and my family both here in California and in Washington this should be a pretty worry free vacation! For that I say Praise the Lord!

If you have ANY issues, don’t let this stop you from opening a ticket, I stand behind my servers, my company, and if I need to take 10-15-30 minutes etc. to help with an issue, I will do what I can! I am here to serve!

Take Care & God Bless! Have a WONDERFUL Week!

Saying Goodbye to Frontpage

Over the next 2 months I will be removing Frontpage from the servers, Frontpage Extensions for Linux have not seen an update in some time, and some say the threat of a security risk is becoming more and more real – so I am working on a write up on how to move your Frontpage website to use WebDAV or FTP to manage your websites.

I realize that many utilize the tool to manage their website so I want to keep it able to function but not the “default” way that Microsoft has configured it – if you want to get a head start on things, check this article [link] to a document from Microsoft on how to change to a different way of publishing your website – it’s fairly quick, and fairly easy – but on my list of upcoming tutorials I am working on I plan to make a easy how-to for users new and old on how to connect to the server.

The target date to have all servers free of Frontpage is November 25th. If you use Frontpage and are concerned please open a ticket, between now and it’s removal we can find a solution that suits you and ensures you can manage your website continues to function properly! Any extended time it takes to reach this goal is provided by FlockHosting to get you squared away – no fees, no hourly rates, simple – easy – help.

Server Adjustments Complete

All services are back up and running, I do apologize for the brief extended blip on Business – problem was identified and dealt with quickly – though if any sites are having ANY problems, please open a ticket ASAP so I can assist you further.

This is the last set of server adjustments planned for a while, I do thank everyone for their patience thru all these moves and adjustments to servers – I will be holding off on any further major changes as long as possible! Have a WONDERFUL week!

Server Adjustments

The servers that power FlockHosting.com and one of the business servers (named as such “business”) are continuing to get some further adjustments for their stability – this weekend starting Sunday night the crew at the datacenter will be making some final adjustments to finalize the server moves we started a week ago, the two servers hit some snags in the migration process – we have a plan in place to get things moved over Sunday night and into the wee hours of Monday morning.

The downtime window is expected to be minimal, but seeing as we have had mixed results in the “minimal” department last time, I am going to set the maintenance window for at least an hour of actual downtime, without a doubt I am hoping for less and I imagine it will be much less time – most of the process can happen while servers are running, it is simply the final part which requires servers to be taken offline briefly.

Your prayers and patience are appreciated. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to open a ticket or drop me an email.

Software Notes: Upgrade WordPress

As part of what I hope to be a regular posting on ways to use various apps – this first post really covers an important thing at the moment – if you have a WordPress blog you utilize for your blog/site/etc. today is the day you upgrade.

Currently there is a worm roaming the internet which attacks specifically old WordPress installs – it checks most likely for common URL formats so for instance wp-admin, looking for a way to attack – there have been reports of modified permalinks and added administrators for future use – so today is a good day to upgrade!

If your on a newer version of WordPress and just need an upgrade – use the internal “Upgrade” button that appears, it works great, brings your files up to date, and gets you blog off and running very quickly – if your on a version before the addition of the built-in upgrade process  – then you will need to upgrade via Fantastico if you used it to install -or- you can do a manual upgrade by downloading the latest version at WordPress.org – the process for a manual install is pretty simple – if you have a custom template use leave the wp-content folder as-is, that will save your themes and plugins – then all WordPress files – EXCEPT wp-config.php and wp-content from your FTP folder.

This will give you a folder with maybe some files you uploaded but primarly wp-admin/wp-includes will be gone – now unzip the file you downloaded from WordPress.org and upload those new files in – once uploaded you can login, it will make a note you need to upgrade, this process upgrades your database format to the latest version it’s usually fairly quick and painless, next after your logged in goto your Plugins section and if any plugins need an upgrade, be sure they are upgraded as well.

Now if you get stuck, or need assistance in upgrading – open a ticket, I am more than happy to help as it’s easier to upgrade that help in repairing damage – so please don’t hesitate to open a ticket – the assistance is free (tips are welcomed) but this help comes with no required cost, I may get a small backlog, but I’ll do what I can to assist and help get you up-to-date.

So go forth, update!

The Bits and Bytes: Server Tweaks

There are many things in the works for FlockHosting, of which first and foremost has been the stability and safety of my client’s data and the uptime of the servers, and to that end the migration of servers last night was a “good idea” however with the best laid plans – things can go sadly quite wrong, the amount of data took longer than expected, and thus what was to be an hour kept growing and growing – but thru the storm of outages this morning, FlockHosting is working to become more and more stable thru these upgrades and migrations, new servers migrated and active, and things are firming up.

To say sorry to all customers an offer of 50% off all of the new email services, even if the primary server for your website is offline, this email is a separate system and your email will continue to work even if the lights go off on your website – and it’s not all I want to do to make up for things, so more is to come!

If your a current customer and want more information on the email hosting or want to get it ordered for your self, use the coupon code: SOSORRY to get a 50% off the listed prices – and this is for the lifetime of the account, not just a one shot saving 50% then back to full price – 50% off for the lifetime of your account.

And as always, remember FlockHosting is here to meet your needs if I can, my virtual door is always open, drop me a tweet, email, IM, FB Message, etc. and let me know what you need and I will do my best to help you achieve what you need.

Last jump tonight, keep an eye on FB/Twitter for updates!

FINAL UPDATE: Migration Completes!

My apologies on the drawn out nature of this migration at the moment the Shepherd is getting wrapped up with it’s move, and faith will most likely follow suit within an hour after that – it will mean a brief window, just the amount of data took much longer than expected – the final migration of data does one last “update” sync to make sure all data is current before things are cut over, after that there will be an outage as the final cut is made.

I do apologize for the outage happening in the middle of your morning, but this move should help keep things running very smoothly! I will post an update here with more as things wrap up.

Update: Shepherd has come back online, Faith is still doing a catch-up sync which is a lot quicker than the initial transfer of data, basically grabs the bits that were added (emails, files, etc.) after the initial grab – so it’s rolling along now. Trying to get a rough time line from the DC on a time-frame should know more soon. Thanks for your prayers and patience.

Update #2: Faith is now back online – the “FastSync” which catches up things 1 final time took longer than expected, it was a busy morning for email and websites, so it had quite a bit to catch up on, it is back now and I GREATLY appreciate your patience in all of this!

Final Bit: This is all being done to improve overall services, cut down on massive outages like we had a month ago where a majority of servers had issues, I’ll post more on what this accomplished and a “Thank You” to all of you with a coupon code for some savings on the new enhanced email as my thank you for your patience and understanding thru all of this!

Server Work!

As mentioned in the last post, in an effort to keep things running smooth, reduce groups of server outages, some things are being re-located within one of the primary data centers I utilize for FH’s servers. Thursday and Friday there will be some outages lasting at least an hour, hopefully less, and hopefully not too much longer – I wish I could give specifics, but each will take a little bit different amount of time.

The plan though is as follows:

Thursday 12:30AM : Shepherd and Faith
Friday 12:30AM: Business and FlockHosting.com

Again, the goal is for as little downtime as possible, but to also avoid prime-time hours with web browsing the late hour has been selected. If you have any questions please open a ticket, or drop me any email, also be sure to watch our Facebook and Twitter Pages for updates as it happens.

Snow Leopard Users: Still Compatible!

As new operating systems get released this year for Apple and Microsoft computers FlockHosting is making an effort to be sure our services remain functional – to that end for starters I have purchased the Snow Leopard Upgrade – so far most of the FTP clients are working without issue, some upgrades are required (do your Software Update or check for updates in the application) but so far smooth sailing.

As Windows 7 comes up my copy is already ordered, and application testing will begin again – if at anytime you find a program you can’t get to work, please contact me via trouble ticket for assistance, currently support operating systems which I can personally support are OSX (10.3->10.6), Windows (3.1->Win7), Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Redhat) – so feel free to ask questions if you have them, and I’ll do my best to answer them!