announcement 4 of several: my month without bandwidth!

[chris raettig <chris@raettig.org>]

every cloud has a silver lining, or so they say. so far this year
it has seemed effortless to see the positivity in everything...

as some people will be aware, for the last year pumpernickle has been
funding a leased line internet connection to my flat. it has been
wonderful; constant connectivity, and a stable, reliable home
for my assorted servers and internet projects - right under my nose.
in addition to this, the side-effect benefits; priority routing, 
credit card fulfillment, uncontended service, fifteen physical
ip addresses, no restrictions on the type of protocol or service
i can run.. all this has been invaluable. 

now that the money has dried up pumpernickle are severing this 
(actually rather expensive) arrangement. as i was informed in 
a rather terse email from the commercial director. 

whilst i will miss having a personal leased line, and all that comes
with it, it was a bit of an anchor. it tied me to this flat, and
my noisy neighbours. so i'm looking on it as an opportunity
to move. the fact that my new flat - and the timing on mike
requiring a flatmate couldnt have been more perfect - has
adsl already installed is certainly a benefit. i also think its
better for me that my internet access, something which is quite
important in my life, isnt reliant or dependent on one company.

so from the beginning of march, a few days before my birthday, 
i will be happily installed in a new place, and will be using
adsl for my connectivity. my servers and sites meanwhile
will be moving to the warm company server (see how everything
fits nicely into place?) over in california. 

raettig.org itself i have already moved over the last week. 
propogation has been slow as i've setup a couple of new
nameservers to increase stability. it has made the move
slower, but should prevent headaches later. 

the domain is now controlled by four nameservers;
ns0.raettig.org - hosted by demon
ns1.raettig.org - hosted by warm company
ns2.raettig.org - hosted by media temple
ns0.redgecko.org - hosted by redgecko (thanks, olly!)

the propogation is now virtually complete. if you're still getting
the redirect page from the old ip address let me know, as i shall
be shutting off all services on the old ip (212.240.242.72)
within the next couple of days. 

the assorted services and mailing lists (including the fridgelist
and the bwsn) have been intermittently down whilst i have been
juggling my digital world around, for which i apologise. we're
just about back to normal again. 

my other domains and entanglements will be migrated to the
warm company server and others during the coming week. its a good
chance to make some optimisations.

 
there is one downside to all of this;

official date of leased line termination: 1st february
date at which i move flat: 1st march

can anyone else see a problem here?


i dont even have a landline at my current abode. so although my
email, projects and websites will be happily online throughout
there is no obvious and easy to arrange method of keeping myself
personally connected between the line being shut off and moving flat. 

if theres one thing a chrisr needs (excluding love) its bandwidth.
a great people who know me may be quite amused at the absurdity
of my predicament. 

i have no idea how i am going to survive for a month without
internet access. sure, i'll have access from the studio. but personal
connectivity will be completely absent. its going to be a living hell.
please be aware that i will need the support, encouragement and
comfort of everyone around me to get through february. 

at least it should make for some interesting journal postings. i will,
of course, be documenting 'my month without bandwidth'. i will be
as interested as anybody else to find out how well (or badly) i cope
when my lifeline is severed. from living online, to surviving off. 
it will be the longest period of detachment i will have faced in
several years. it will be double-plus unfun. 


ummm... i think thats all the announcements for now. did i miss anything?

its typical, isn't it... you wait ages for an update, then four
come along at once ;-)