Yes, it’s back up! While I had planned to continue work on my rear spring pads tonight (I’m completely redoing the angles on my spring pads — but I’ll save that update for the future), the site had to take priority.
THE PROBLEM:
It turns out that when a website uses more than its alotted CPU % (which differs from bandwidth and server space), my webhost (anhosting) will simply take down everything related to the offending URL (in my case, anything with ewillys.com attached to it). Super Freaking Inconvenient!!!!
I believe the offending issues included 1) a highly problematic spammer out of China 2) a problem with the translation plugin, which was causing all kinds of slow downs and 3) possibly issues with talk backs, which are almost entirely used by spammers. So, I have dealt with each of these issues. I also optimized and reduced the size of the database. I believe I am noticing noticeably faster downloads based on my experience tonight.
ALSO:
I’ve upgraded the wordpress software to 3.0 and completely rebuilt the menus within the new auto-menu schematic (which you probably won’t notice, but it makes it easier for me to rearrange the main menu and add other menus anywhere in the site).
I haven’t yet got the mapping working yet, so I still need to do that (not sure what’s going on there). So, on Tuesday the site might be down for a little while as I update stuff a little more.
If you use a rss reader, I might have taken that down temporarily.
Wow that sounds complicated Dave. In our language you just “pulled the transmission and transfer-case out and replaced the replace the clutch in E Willys, by yourself in the gravel at night with a pair of vice grips and screw driver.
Way to go. Probably did not get as dirt though but probably just as mad.
Later.
Wow that sounds complicated Dave. In our language you just “pulled the transmission and transfer-case out and replaced the replace the clutch’ in E Willys, by yourself in the gravel at night with a pair of vice grips and screw driver.
Way to go. Probably did not get as dirt though but probably just as mad.
Later.
Don’t forget it was raining, too … 🙂
Glad to see ewillys up and running. Great job!
At least I can decipher lawyer talk. What you said was out there. Somewhere anyway. LOL
I’m in the Graphic Design field, so I know too well what you’re talking about. LOL! Good to know you’re up and runnin’ again.
After reading your explanation of the necessary work involved in getting ewillys up and running again I realized how much easier it is to bend and weld stainless steel than put up with internet nonsense. Glad you’re doing the web site magic and I’ll stick with metal, thankyou.
Good to have ya back!
Willys expert, computer wiz and a heck of a great guy. It’s a triple threat!
Thanks all .. just to provide clarification as to the main problem & solution.
Say you are married and you have volunteered to barbecue some food for your wife and your inlaws, who are visiting. You heat up the grille, you prepare some specially purchased, grass fed T-bone steaks that everyone is drooling over in anticipation of eating. You are about to throw them on the grille, when someone rings your doorbell. With your wife entertaining her family, you decide to go get the door before starting the steaks.
Well, it turns out this guy doesn’t really want anything in particular, he’s just some guy of chinese descent (lets name him Chinese-bot) that stares at you. You politely tell him you are busy, you shut the door, and assumes he goes away. You head back to your bbq, but before you get back there, your door bell rings again. You head back and open the door to find this same a**hole staring at you. You tell him to go away and shut the door again in a not-so-politely manner.
This scenario happens over and over. You can’t serve any food, which is what everyone wants, because Chinese-bot keeps knocking at your door keeping you busy. Meanwhile, your wife, who is playing host (read webhost) is getting mad at you because you are spending more than your alotted time dealing with the Chinese-bot, rather than serving up the meat to your guests.
You finally realize that in order to be able to serve the food (webpages) to your guests (web visitors) you must build a wall around your house (block ip address of chinese-bot) so that he will eventually go away. Now that the wall is built, you can cook your meat in peace — your wife is happy & your guests are happy. Maybe you’ll even get lucky tonight .. though not sure how that figures into my analogy — but it’s a good thought none-the-less 🙂
– Dave
you consider throwing a few wildcards into the last few digits or his ip on the ban (or substitute server/isp/etc) so that the spammer can’t get back with a simple router/ip change… (i.e. chinese-bot knocks on your door again, only this time he’s wearing a mustache and claims his name is fred.)
After reading about the bot, I believe it will change its IP address entirely in the future, based on its passed behavior (do a search on sosou.com and you’ll see it used to be soso.com). So, I’ll just do an occasional sweep of the logs so I can keep an eye out for “Fred”.