Update, September 1, 12:08 a.m.: I've given up on getting the images imported. I'll have to do it all manually (and will do some long-neglected cleanup while I'm at it). I'll get all the comments restored AND we actually have new content tonight! What a concept!
I've changed the temporary theme to a new temporary theme because we received some comments that the other one was a little hard to read. Hope this is better. Like the other one, it is TEMPORARY. I'm probably going to do something completely different. I've been meaning to rebrand for a while. Those of you who have issues with change, Dorothy has a vinaigrette and a nice pot of hot vanilla rooibos all ready.
Oh, and comments are open again, once I go through and open up all the old posts.
Update, August 27, 11 p.m.: I'm closing down comments TEMPORARILY so that the WordPress folks can import images. This import will wipe everything out that we've added since the "old" blog went down. FEAR NOT. I will save it all and repost it. But I don't know when it will happen and anything between now and then will be lost, unless I close comments. Everything should be back to normal SOON. Thanks for your patience as we get this under control. Every step brings us closer to the new AustenBlog.
Update, 2:11 a.m.: In the middle of a hectic workday (yes, I have a day job), I heard from my webhost again complaining that AustenBlog was overloading the server. We really don't get a lot of visitors as those things go–lots for a blog but not compared to the really popular sites–and we weren't slashdotted or boing-boinged or anything, so no idea what was causing the problem (we suspect it was ninja). We have decided to move to WordPress's hosted service and let them worry about it. 😉 Expect updates to style, etc. over the next few days or weeks.
Incidentally, if you have a WordPress account you can log in to comment, or you can sign up for one if you don't have one.
In a perhaps uninteresting bit of trivia, the current theme was the original AustenBlog theme, for about three days, when we launched back in July 2004. I picked it as our temporary theme out of nostalgia.
PS: I hope to see the new design and improvements.
Slashdots and boing-boings and ninjas … OH MY!!!
Haven't clue what these are. I suspected it was those pesky TERRORISTS up to their evil-doings again.
Good to see you back in action now. If you need help getting your theme back together, let me know!
So glad to see you back, and that the ninjas didn't win.
I realize the images are missing (they weren't last night, oddly) but I found out that I can get them imported, so hopefully that will work out!
Also there are a lot of double comments in older posts. I'll go through and fix them. I had to do three or four imports to get all the posts and I think some things doubled up.
Deb, Slashdot and Boing-Boing are very popular sites, and when someone places a link in those sites, the huge amount of visitors clicking on that link can overload a site so that it shuts down. It's called being Slashdotted, and now that B-B is so big, sites can be boing-boinged as well.
You should know what ninja are. But you will never see them coming.
FYI, Mags and I use the same web hosting company. This morning I got the exact same message about overloading the server, and Solitary Elegance has been shut down, too. SE gets nowhere near the amount of traffic AustenBlog does, so something weird is going on. If anybody is trying to visit Solitary Elegance, I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope we can get everything back up and running soon.
With two sites getting the same non-helpful message, maybe a new host is needed instead of switching to WordPress.com. Swing the Cluebat of Good-bye at them. 😉 Just a thought. I've just started figuring out using WordPress.org on my blog and need to find out why some features are not working.
Good luck getting back into full action soon. This is such a "nice" template. I miss the familiar one.
Can anyone give me the log-in and password for the Regency Encylopedia again?
there used to be guidance here on the Austenblog, but I can't find it any more.
never mind…I just remembered the password.
Austenblog/ LumpofSnark… how could I have forgtten?
Mags – considering your computer largess, I am shacking in my boots if this ever happens to me. Thanks for all your efforts to fix the mess.