nScale.net News

The smart people are done looking at the server. Their diagnosis is to upgrade the OS and add two more megabytes of ram. The good news is that to accomplish this feat, we need to move to a new server. Why is that good you ask? It is good because our server is less expensive now, and the only way to pay the current market value is to move to another physical box. Of course there is a catch, if we add the suggested amount of ram, then we will be paying 40 dollars more than our current bill. We are barely making it on advertising revenue so we still might have a performance issue even after moving to new hardware (without adding the increased ram).

Another issue is that I really am not in any shape to take care of this site anymore. I really haven't been much help for quite some time. So with that in mind, 5 days after our 5th anniversary, I am offering the site up for sale. I have not spoken to any of my moderaters or Bryan about this yet. They get first right of refusal on taking over the site. If none of them want to take on the financial responsibility, then the offer for sale will be open to the public.

 If you, or someone you know, would be capable of handling the responsiblity this site requires, please contact me at: todd (dot) vaules (at) hotmail (dot) com. 

 Thanks to everyone that has had the patience to put up the the techincal issues this site has endured over the past months. This is a great community and my hopes are that this site will continue for at least another five years while maintaining the excellence that it's members have endowed upon it.

The move to the new server will happen as early as this evening. Please pardon our mess during the move.

My Warmest Regards and Thanks,

Todd Vaules

The site might be down at times today.  I am having the server worked on by some very smart people. Sorry for any inconvenience you may encounter.

 

Todd

As usual the members of this site have risen to the occasion when nScale.net needs help. We beat our goal!

Thanks to everyone for making this such a successful site. And thank you to the donors for keeping me and my family in the black. I could not afford to keep this site without the donations and advertising revenue.

You are all a great bunch! Keep up the great work.

Our Ad revenues have taken quite a dip the past few months and we are about to go into the red with our web server account. I am only shooting for 100 dollars this time just to cover the difference for a few months. I appreaciate everyone's help in the past. The membership makes this site one of the best on the Net. I am really impressed with the blogging/articles. I just can't say thank you enough.

Got this from our server team (Cari.net):

"Date & Time (PDT): Sunday, Jan 27 2008, 11:13 - 13:00 (This issue has been resolved)

A network related issue affected a number of Cari.net customers this afternoon. We have provided a brief update below. Further information will be provided as soon as it is available.

Details:
At approximately 11:30am today, one of Cari.net core routers began operating in a degraded mode, resulting in HSRP issues within specific corporate VLANS. Some customer experienced caching DNS issues, intermittent control panel access, and other minor issues with internal resources such as bandwidth graphing servers were reported. After the router was reset, the Cari.net customer network was restored to full functionality.

The routing advertisements caused by the router reset uncovered a routing issue in the Cox subscriber network. This was immediately escalated to the Cox engineering team and when they could not resolve the issue, the Complex Drive network operations team made the decision to close down the Cox transit connection. This action resolved all Cox subscriber access issues.

At this time the network is fully operational, with the Cox circuit disconnected until the connectivity issue is resolved. A window will be scheduled with notice to customers in order to bring the Cox connection back online.

We will provide further information regarding this incident as soon as it is available. Any customers who have questions or concerns should contact our customer service department to open a work order. You may also reply to this message with non-emergency information.

We apologize for any inconvenience."

Hey everybody I'm back. I don't know if you remember me but I had stopped coming here for a while because I had to get my priorities straight. But now I have more time to spend for Model Rail Roading. Some of you may remember me as "lovetrain" back in 2005. So anyways I'm back now and I will try to get back in here more offten now.

 

Thanks- Danny Evans 

Have a great holiday season. I hope everyone is enjoying the site in spite of my total absence. I assure you that I am not ignoring the site, I just have been very busy with my health. Please enjoy the following animation using the heads of my wife, son, myself (twice), and my Mom

The Great Lehigh valley Train meet held at Merchants Square.Now 2 Rooms.2 Days 2 Different shows. Come enjoy over 13,000 Square feet of Toy and Model Trains, Diecast, Photos, Paper, Repair Parts, Railroadania, Plus more. Always expanding with over 350 tables of different items over a 2 day period. Our Saturday show is dedicated to Ho,N,ON30,Z Brass and all scale items.With everything for the Scale modeler and Collector.Dcc classes and more. Sunday is Dedicated to S,o-27, O, Standard and G gauge.Come find Lionel,American Flyer , Repair parts new and vintage trains.

Today has been an incredible day here in South Florida! A high of about 79 degree, lots of sun and about zero humidity! We are now over our worst time of the year (weather wise) and entering the "good" time. (Although Hurricane Season does not end until November 30th).

In case you are not aware, South Florida (from about Lake Okeechobee south) is in the sub-tropics and really only has two seasons: Wet and hot (summer) and dry and cooler (the rest of the year).

This article has been updated as of January 10, 2008 with information regarding image sizes. See below.

Introductory note: Some of what follows is based on experimentation. If anyone finds issues please advise me so the content can be updated as quickly as possible. Thank you!

You asked for it, you got it. We now have online status indicator for instant messaging. You can now go to a users profile and see if they are online with most of the popular instant messaging clients.

All you have to do is go to your profile and fill in the information for any of the instant messaging clients you use (and want others to know about). When others view your profile page they will then be able to see whether you are online and accepting chats. You can use the privacy and blocking features of your chat client to minimize interruptions if necessary.

I apologize for being away for so long. I went on a week vacation that turned into a two week odyssey that is still manifesting itself. Regardless, I am back, at least part-time, and have some great news for everyone.

I just authorized our system technicians to upgrade the server to a dual core processor. That is a huge step up from our previous processor and I believe it will solve the recent service slowdowns and outages. Preliminary data is already showing an improvement in resources and processing in the 20 to 40 percent range. That is a significant impact that should give us quite a bit of room to breathe (and grow).

I apologize for all the problems in the past couple of weeks. I hope that you all find the site a much more enjoyable place to visit.

Regards,

Todd Vaules, Administrator
nScale.net

Woot!

Yay!  I am an official Ncale.net dweeb!

There is a new feature that allows you to rate or vote on all content for this site. I encourage you to use this feature as much as possible, even looking for some of your favorite posts from the past would be great.

So why do we have the 'Chip-In' block? Because quite frankly, I can't afford to keep the site running now that we are on a dedicated server. The good news is that many of you understand this and have been extremely generous. I am going to put a chip-in block up for each month we need assistance. Once the goal is met, I will put another one out for the next month. As other forms of revenue become stable, I will adjust the chip-in to reflect only the difference we need to make up between ad revenue and Amazon revenue.

So we had a bit of an outage tonight. Sorry about that! I figure it was around 60 to 90 minutes, if anyone knows better, please let me know. Anyway, does anyone have any idea how many members and guests were online when the server went down?

This is the new dedicated server. Welcome and enjoy. The gallery still needs some work but that should be but a day or two. So take a look around, kick the tires, and know that we are working hard to get this thing right! (oh and the spell check works now!!!!!!!)

In spite of our best efforts, and the advice given by some trustworthy sources, the new hosting account is not going to meet our needs. This is not a bad thing, it just presents a new opportunity for nScale.net. We will now be moving to a full dedicated server. This is the ultimate available solution and will allow us almost unlimited opportunities to grow and expand the features we offer. Remember that we are a free non-profit site with the ambition to be the best starting point on the web for promoting n scale railroading.

I have been working on as many of the bugs as I can track down. The move to the new server appears to have had only one major casualty, you can't upload to the gallery. This is only temporary and I will fix that as soon as possible. Until then, jyou'll just have to enjoy the contents of the gallery. The loss of the picture blocks on the left side of the front page is most probably a result of my attempts to fix the uplooad problem. But the link to the gallery from the toolbar still functions.

I am sure there are some other minor issues, those will be fixed as I have time.

 Thanks Very Much,

Todd