10 years of cactiguide.com

[daiv]

By the way, I was unable to access the site again this morning and some others reported the same, but now it is back again.

I checked in on everything and confirmed the transfer is taking place. As soon as the domain is over to Godaddy, all these issues will go away. I hope we don't experience much more downtime in the meantime. The old registrar is just a nightmare!

Daiv

[majcka]

Congrats Daiv. 10 years is a long time or not...depends from where you look.

But I still cannot understand one thing with this godown situation. When I look at the dates ant times when you were posting things a lot happened since the thing was discowered. Here it go blank from thursday (may 3rd) till saturday evening (20 h CET) it didn't work. AT ALL. How come you have been able to post?????

[Peterthecactusguy]

Congrats Daiv. I didn't realize you had cactiguide for 10 years

I understand about the old email. I have old emails I don't check ever.

[daiv]

Yes, the e-mail was @cox.net from long before I moved.

Maja - the site was actually "up" and working the whole time. What wasn't working was the domain name. Computers use numbers, not names to do their communication. So around the world there are a relative few computers called "Domain Name Servers" or DNS. The sole purpose of these computers is to take a name like cactiguide.com and convert it to an internet protocol number or IP address.

When the domain expired, the registrar who I paid for the name changed the DNS to point to their "parked" page. Then I had to renew the domain, but it takes time for the change to propagate or spread around the different name servers. They don't all update at the same time. So some people could access the site right away, while others had to wait longer. To further the delay, sometimes your computer or your ISP will cache the DNS locally and so even though you could access it, it doesn't.

FYI - if you guys every can't e-mail me using daiv@cactiguide.com, try daiv@succulentguide.com - that is on a different host altogether.

I do WANT anyone to contact me about down time as I don't want people to just be left in the dark, but lets hope there will be NO more down time - we've had more than our fill for a long time I think.

[Peterthecactusguy]

Daiv, FYI, I tried to ping cactiguide.com and Windows wouldn't let me do it. I hate Wins XP lol

[mughal113]

Wow... time flies, doesn't it? Next month, it will be 5 years since I have joined this awesome learning place.
Thanks Daiv for the awesome work you've put in for so many years. Thank you everyone for making it such a great place.

[SnowFella]

Probably because you tried pinging cactiguide.com while the DNS link was down
Had you instead pinged the IP that the site is attached to you would of got a reply, could likely also have opened the site using that IP number.

[Sharpy]

Congrats on the 10 years Daiv

I've only been here a short time, but when the site went down I realized how much I love it. It felt like someone took away my new encyclopedia, lol.

Good luck on another 10 years!

[Robinj]

Belief me, there was almost panic and fights here because of my disorder.

[Avirosa]

Congrats on 10 years Daiv and pleased CG is back up and running! Still my go-to place for friendly, knowledgeable ID and advice! Keep up the good work.

[daiv]

could likely also have opened the site using that IP number.

I tried that and would give everyone that as an option, but because of the PHP includes, the IP address doesn't work. Otherwise, we could manually map to the IP.

[Peterthecactusguy]

I couldn't find what the IP address was either, because whois is now a comercial site for domain name registars, instead of being the nice tool it used to be.

(I was going to try and manually connect to the IP address) A ping would let me know if it was up or not. )
(FYI ping worked now on cactiguide.com, so it was likely down when I tried it)

[hoteidoc]

I thought it was The End of The World as I have come to know it! Couldn't figure out how Thread notices were still coming if domain was down -- but I don't understand any of that stuff anyway. It's only been 6 mos since I've become active, but the friends/teachers/contacts/etc. was absolutely invaluble to my Sanity. Did learn I need to take e-mail addresses so (God forbid) if some other sort of similar thing happens, I can do an "End Around" until Daiv bails us out again!
I'm so glad each & every one of us is helping make Planet Earth smaller, more hospitable, & more humane -- inspite of what world media makes it sound like! Here's to another 10 & the legacy that already exists!
Peter

[daiv]

I'm so glad each & every one of us is helping make Planet Earth smaller, more hospitable, & more humane

You said it! The group of folks is really the key here. I get more credit than I deserve on it. As mentioned already in the thread. It all sort of just happened. The forum was a whim. Early adopters like John Chipendale really made the difference. I think there is something about plant people - especially C&S folks that is just overall more friendly. Maybe because the plants are pretty low maintenance easy-going and slower taking patience. It kind of hones ones personality.

Maybe I'm going to far with that, but if we ever need to put together an infomercial...

[daiv]

Update! I got the confirmation today - the domain is now safely in the hands of GoDaddy. I was afraid of possible down time when the transfer took place, but thankfully it went off seamlessly.

There is a bigger and badder server for Cactus-Mall and Tony Mace is working on that now. Hopefully not much if any downtime on that switch. Other than that, I think we should be good! (knock on wood)