Potential Down Time

Due to the location of my parents' farm, 12km outside a small country town, unfortunately we can't get a broadband Internet connection. But, we can get a fresh install of outdated technology - ISDN. Luckily there is a sub-exchange just across the road from us. Unfortunately, we are the first of the properties nearby to get ISDN installed, and that little sub-exchange was wired all wrong. So, yesterday and until lunchtime today we were without phones and therefore dial-in Internet while the tech guy was trying to work out the problem. He never did, and had to order new parts just so he can determine where the problem lies.

However, during that time I was able to finalise the way that the PosgreSQL (yes, it works, forget MySql with its nasty commercial licence and go install PostgreSQL v8.1.3) database will be created and populated. I won't bore you with details - I could have decided upon an incremental upgrade approach, where the user (you), to upgrade from v1.0 to v2.0 would have to download and install upgrade scripts v1.0 to v1.5, and v1.5 to v2.0, in that order. But, luckily, I thought of a way to make everything very easy for everyone. You download the Thinking Stuff exe, and it takes you through the creation, and upgrade (if necessary) of the (PostgreSQL) database it needs to function with a click of a single button.

With that done, there's pretty much nothing left to do. It's the installation of the SSL certificate that is now holding us back. Mine was made a couple of days ago, and the support crew of my new webhost told me to forward it on to a particular email address. I did that. 2 days later (today) I ask their live support about the status. Oh, I was supposed to send that to a different email address to the one I was told about earlier. Ok. So that's installed now, but I have to change my name servers over to them (the new webhost), in order for it to work. That can take a couple of days. And that's why there's a possibility of down time. And that's all we are waiting on for Thinking Stuff to go beta.

I don't even have a job and I need a holiday.