SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS
NOVEMBER 11, 2003 -
EMAIL AND MESSAGE BOARD PROBLEMS*
As you can see on our status page as of this date,
local e-mail relay and message board services are down. The network card in that server has failed (its impending failure is most likely the cause of the former "bugs" in that system).
I was not able to get in and replace the card yesterday, and will not have a chance until 5PM Eastern today. No messages have been lost, and mail relay will resume as soon as possible.
Thank you for your patience!
*Update 6:00 PM Eastern -- all mail
and message board services are working normally!
***
OCTOBER
1, 2003 -
ISP UPDATE
Our
Internet Service Provider (Comcast) has confirmed that any slowdowns or intermittent
access that now occurs is due to maintenance being done on their network
infrastructure. Supposedly this work will eventually lead to an increase
in bandwidth for all of their customers. Please note that because of the
specific work being done, any access issues can be tied to a specific time
frame, in a window between 6:00PM Eastern and 11:00PM Eastern. Access
outside of that time frame is "normal", regular network traffic
notwithstanding.
***
SEPTEMBER 23, 2003 - BANDWIDTH/ISP PROBLEMS
This past week, we were experiencing network problems (slow access or total loss of connectivity) which
were stemming from our ISP (for once, it wasn't an internal problem or "goof-up" on my part, which I confirmed
with a few phone calls to Comcast!). For one thing, our modem had been up and operating on the same
configuration longer than it should have, and had not received a "push" or "acknowledgement" from the head
end in a long while. I reset things last night, with the help of a Comcast tech, and the problem appears to be
corrected as of this writing, but I will continue to monitor the servers closely during the rest of September.
Please e-mail me if you experience any slowdowns or other access problems; rest assured that your e-mail will
still reach me even if the servers are slow or down.* Also note that a MAJOR Shoutcast playlist update is
coming! Stay tuned, and always, thanks for the support!
* UPDATE 9/24/03: Please note that our recent slowdown may
have had something to do with the current "Swen" virus/worm now propagating
the Internet. Please see this
link for more details!
***
SEPTEMBER 14, 2003 - SERVICES UPDATE
I've still been working with that older server, and have now moved the message
board and e-mail services to that machine. These e-mail
services are NOT related to our main e-mail address, so your e-mails will still
reach me as long as my ISP stays up. There may still be some
downtime on that older server during the next week, due to service pack updates
and required reboots [gotta love Windows!], but now you'll KNOW at first glance
what's going on! Our main/entry page has a new status indicator - if you
can see the green light, the message board and mail services are working fine.
If the light is not showing, or you see a red X, that means the server is most
likely restarting, and you can try again in about 5 minutes. Of course, if
you cannot even GET to our entry page, then it's most likely an ISP problem or
major upgrade, and BOTH servers are off-line. Thank you in advance for
your understanding.
***
SEPTEMBER 5, 2003 - SHOUTCAST SERVER ISSUES
A while back, I moved our Shoutcast "player" duties to an older server, and let
our main server only handle the actual listener connections; Things had
been running well until the end of August, when there were some minor problems,
which I "side-stepped." Well tonight, there was a major problem, as the
player decided to ignore the first 3/4 of our playlist, so we STARTED with
something that only the real "night owls" would hear. Anyhow, at around
11:30PM Eastern, I peeked in from home and reset things... now our main server
is handling everything, and will be from now on (as it was doing back when my
broadcasts first started!)
***
AUGUST 15, 2003 - AFFECTED BY NATIONWIDE POWER OUTAGE
Yesterday, our server room suffered a small brown-out, causing a reboot of our
systems. Web site and message board downtime was limited to a few minutes.
However, our MAIL SERVICES which route through a data center in the Northeast
United States, were down for a longer period. I am being assured that all
e-mail sent to ruggiero@4email.net is
currently being queued, and will be delivered properly, albeit late.
Shoutcast will run as usual tonight.
***
JULY 17, 2003 - ACCIDENTALLY OFFLINE FOR A FEW HOURS
Never send a friend to do a techie's job. I was home, planning to come into the office anyway, but found I HAD TO come in, when I found my server was down. Seems a friend, who we'll call "Lenny", decided to mount a new shelf next to the modem. Well, he "accidentally" pulled the modem plug, forcing a reset and the modem stayed in STANDBY until I could get to it. I took the opportunity to update our main server with Windows 2000 SP4, so it wasn't a total loss, but my apologies to all of my friends and customers.
***
JULY 5, 2003 - MUSIC ICON BARRY WHITE DIES
Legendary soul singer,
songwriter, and producer
Barry White died Friday (July 4) at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, White’s longtime manager Ned
Shankman confirmed in a statement.
Born September 12, 1944 in Galveston, Texas, White was 58 years old.
Read more of the
article at Launch.com
***
JUNE 2, 2003 - PLANNED
MAINTENANCE*
A
planned expansion upgrade of
our servers will be performed on SATURDAY, JUNE 14th, beginning
around 2:00PM Eastern time, and lasting until about 4:00PM Eastern.
Hopefully everything will go smoothly! An "off-line" message
will be posted, but may not actually take effect in time. We will be back online as soon as we can.
*MESSAGE EDITED 6/4/2003
***
MAY 1, 2003 - NEW
MESSAGE BOARD
Not
sure if anyone will actually use it, but there IS a message board now available
on this site - http://www.ruggieroav.com/forums
- the link is also on the main/entry page. Anything goes; you can post
requests, comments, complaints, etc., but realize that I have the right to
remove flames or other posts which I feel are offensive to myself or
others. If you have any questions about the board, feel free to e-mail
me.
***
APRIL 12, 2003 - TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES LAST NIGHT
Our
Shoutcast broadcast got off to a late start last night; more ISP problems and a
crash of the Winamp server software that sends the stream meant that the
broadcast began at 10:30 PM Eastern. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I did notice a LOT of listeners last night - THANKS! Oh, and
congratulations to "AprilBaby" who was finally able to
connect! Now DUMP AOL! ;-)
***
MARCH 17, 2003
- WEEKEND UPDATE
And no, this is NOT a SNL
sketch! We had quite a weekend here! Besides some minor problems
with the server configuration, our ISP (Comcast) went out for almost 3 hours on
Friday night. This was RIGHT BEFORE our Shoutcast broadcast, so although
the stream started on time, no one could actually connect until late into the
broadcast. Not to worry... the next broadcast will be an exact repeat.
REMINDER! Please get into the habit of using
http://www.ruggieroav.com for our entry
page. The DNS2GO address still works, but may stop working at any time,
with no re-direct.
***
MARCH 12, 2003
-
SERVER MOVE COMPLETED!
Once again, thank you ALL for
hanging in with us as we moved our server. Keep listening for a new mix
this weekend, and new content coming up on this site! You can reach us via
"snail mail" at:
RUGGIERO A/V SERVICES
9 WEST WESTFIELD AVENUE
ROSELLE PARK, NJ 07204
***
FEBRUARY 18, 2003 - AFTERMATH OF THE STORM
I have no doubt that during the
"Blizzard of 2003", the Internet (and thus, our network) suffered a slowdown.
However, things continue to operate normally here. If you'd like to take a
look at some of the "highlights" of this winter blizzard, click
here.
***
FEBRUARY 17, 2003 - QUESTION ANSWERED
I had someone e-mail me asking
why they hear the end of the Shoutcast broadcast interspersed with our "off-air"
announcement. I believe it is because the Shoutcast servers "cache" about
a minute of audio, so that momentary drops do not affect the stream (sort of
like a CD player's anti-shock). There is nothing I can do to prevent this,
as long as the off-air message is "playing" on the site.
***
JANUARY 30, 2003 - SLOW ACCESS CONTINUES
The
impact of the "SQL Slammer" worm is still being felt on Internet
servers world-wide. Access to this site, as well as others on the
Internet, will continue to be slow and intermittent. Our Shoutcast
broadcasts may be affected later this week, but will run as scheduled.
Please send an e-mail
if you have any problems connecting to the stream. Since our server now
runs a short 10-second "off the air" stream, in a continuous loop, you
can test your player and Internet connection by tuning in at ANY time, even if
we are not actively streaming music. If you hear the 10-second "our usual
broadcast time...." message, then your connection should be fine. If
you get the ICY401 Service Unavailable error from Winamp, that is
still a good sign; it means you connected to our servers but the off-air stream
is busy.
***
JANUARY 27, 2003 - BACK ONLINE AFTER SLIGHT OUTAGE
During the weekend of January 24th, our server experienced a slowdown due to an
Internet-wide attack by malicious users targeting certain Microsoft servers.
While we do not utilize the Microsoft Server software in question, we were
nonetheless affected due to the sheer volume of the attack; most people were
unable to connect to our servers after our Shoutcast stream ended. We seem
to have this rectified now, and apologize for the inconvenience. For more
info on the attack, click here.
***
JANUARY
3, 2003
Our SHOUTCAST broadcast now begins at
10:00PM
on Friday nights, and ends 10:00AM on Saturday mornings.
***
Keep watching this page
for other site news. Thanks for visiting!
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