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If you have any questions, comments or concerns, you can mail me here.
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| A new project was just added, a digital copper clock I made for my shop. Using a Cana Kit digital clock kit and a hand made copper case, I created it in the style of an old "EXIT" sign. | |
| I made some minor updates to both my car mp3 player project and my computers to bring them up to date and correct a few errors. | |
| My old soldering tutorial was looking a little lame after all these years, so it has received a full rewrite. It now covers the soldering process fully, from tinning the iron, to soldering PC boards, to soldering wire splices. All three processes are explained with pictures and video. | |
| After running a log analysis I found that there were a few old circuit URLs not being properly redirected to the new locations. These have been fixed. | |
| It's been a long time in the making, but the site has been updated. After nearly 2 years I finally completed a major update. In a way, this will be the last major update this site will see. No, I'm not going to stop updating but I will be moving to a more gradual process that will be better for everyone. More... | |
| I just completed a restore of the forum database from the backup copy made Saturday at 2AM. Only a days posts were lost, which I do apologize for. Everything should be up and running now. All users are advised to change their passwords. | |
| Something odd happened and all the forum posts were lost from the database. At this point I don't quite know what happened but am currently restoring a previous version. I'll update this space when it is back up and running. | |
| Sorry about the downtime. Apparently my router went off into space and as I was quite asleep at the time, I didn't notice until I made my daily server check at 9:30AM. A quick reset and we were back on the air. | |
| The power went out this afternoon around 2:12PM. I was at work and shut the servers down remotely a few minutes later. Power was restored around 3:00PM. Everything is back up and running. | |
| Well, it's sort of planned. London Hydro needs to shut down the power between 5 and 7 AM of Jan. 28th to perform some maintenance and repairs. I'll have about an hours worth of UPS and then I'll be shutting down the servers until the power is back on. It would be unfair to run the unmuffled generator at those hours of the morning. | |
| Over the past few weeks this website became progressively slower. After some testing it was determined that Rogers Yahoo! was throttling upstream port 80 traffic. Once one or two connections were made to port 80, traffic would slow down immensely. Getting Rogers to turn this off was unsurprisingly fruitless, and Rogers would not connect a commercial Internet service to my residential traffic. So I called up Bell and had them provision a DSL line for me, then signed up with their High Speed Business Internet Optimum service. A few hours ago I swapped my connection over and now the site is working faster then before. The slowness should now be a thing of the past as I have a faster and more reliable connection. It felt sad to leave RogersWave after 13 years, but they could no longer provide a service to fit my needs. | |
| The site is experiencing some intermittent slowness. More often then not, page loads are slowed to a crawl. I'm currently investigating a cause and solution. It's not a server issue, but a network issue just outside of what I can control. My ISP may be "shaping" (interfering with) outgoing traffic on certain ports. Hopefully it will be solved soon. Thank you for your patience. | |
| In an attempt to control the hundreds of spam posts to the circuits comments made everyday, I have added CAPTCHAs to the circuits page. A CAPTCHA is a "Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". In other words, those little semi-scrambled images of text that you need to enter when submitting a form. Such a task is easy for humans, but much harder for computers. This should at least slow down the torrent of spam I have to deal with. If you see any errors on the circuits pages or other issues relating, please contact me. |
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| Yesterday mere hours after going live with the site update, the power went out. At approximately 5:55PM, I lost power. I kept the servers running on the UPS until about 6:15PM, at which point it was clear the power would be off for a while so I shut everything down. Whatever the cause, we regained power at approximately 7:30 PM. Sorry about that. Maybe the next purchase I make for the site will be a generator? | |
| I've just made a major update to the site. 9 new circuits were added, errors in some of the older circuits corrected, and some of the older content was improved. Loads of updates were done to the information on my RX-7 including the 6 year project of modifying the car; "Project Tina". Many smaller updates were made to the rest of the site as well. Complete details can be found in this forum topic. | |
| But my ISP made changes that blew me off the air for 12 hours or so in certain areas. Things should be back up now for everyone. | |
| I've just made some major changes to the circuits pages. On each page, I've added the ability to comment on that circuit and rank it according to how much you like it (or how useful or not useful it is). In addition each page now tracks the number of times it has been viewed both each day and for all time. The main circuits page has been updated to show all the circuits in a table according to category. In addition it also tracks the most popular circuits today, yesterday and for all time. Ranks and author information are available as well, and a detailed view showing the circuit description can also be enabled. Please let me know if there are any errors. | |
| Moments ago I finished converting the last bit of this website over to MySQL. Overall the conversion from Access was not really painful at all. The only complication was that MySQL expects dates and times in a slightly different format then Access (Access is very liberal with how data is stored, MySQL is very strict), and a few minor syntax changes in the SQL used. I don't expect any problems but if you notice any weird database errors, let me know. The next thing to convert will be the forum but that one is going to be complicated so it may take a while. Now that the busiest parts of the site are running a "real" database, I will be able to do some cool stuff at the next update... | |
| I've started to convert the website database to MySQL (from Access). I'm only moving a few tables at a time while I get used to any syntax changes (I have not used MySQL much before this) and to watch for any bugs. I expect the process to go smoothly but there still is the possibility of a few issues during the transition. If you see any random errors relating to database or records, then I would appreciate it if you let me know (via email or the forum). | |
| For the first time in 6 years, the server has been upgraded! Finally there will be an end to the random slowdowns and random downtime (related to the database) that plagued this site for the last few years. The new server is an IBM eServer X226 running dual 3.0GHz Zeon processors. Read all about it on the forum. | |
| It looks like the newer forum code is a bit slower then the previous version. It can take up to a minute or so for the main forum page to load, but after that things are about the same speed as previously. Sorry about this, but it won't be fixed until the server is upgraded. Just be patient when you hit that first page... | |
| Well, I finally got around to it. For the first time in 2 years, the site has been updated. And not only that, but for the first time in 10 years, new colours! There's far too many additions to cover them all here but be sure to check out several new circuits, a lot of new pictures in the misc. section, a lot of new RX-7 meet pictures, new RX-7 technical information, a new project or two, and lots of other minor changes around the site. I've also finally upgraded the forum to the newest version. Enjoy! | |
| There was about 20 minutes of downtime tonight due to the server network card being replaced. I'm trying to troubleshoot a slowness problem on the network. At this point it appears external to the server, so I might just cut my losses and replace the whole damn thing if I can't get it solved... | |
| Sometime in the next week or so, I will be taking the server down for maintenance. One of the network cards is failing and needs to be replaced. This can show up as extreme delays or dropped connections during busy periods and makes my local file access very slow. I could live with sluggish file access but the backup is also failing about 50% of the time so this needs to be sorted out. This weekend I will be swapping one of the hubs in the chance that is the cause of the trouble. If not, then I will need to pull the server down and replace the card. This may happen on the weekend, could be during the week. Basically whenever I get time. | |
| I'm having problems with the server again. The ASP service keeps randomly hanging. Sometimes I catch it within a Few minutes, sometimes it takes hours. I don't exactly know why, but it has something to do with the database. I'm Currently looking for Solutions and may just have to bite the bullet and go to MySQL instead of Access a little earlier then planned. This is coming at the worst possible time as I do not have the time/money right now to invest. | |
| Late Saturday night the database died, and I did not find out until Sunday morning. Its up and running now, although a little slowly due to high traffic. | |
| On April 23rd, I will be taking part in the Super Cities Walk For MS. The WALK is a critical part of the Society’s fundraising efforts and is a significant program in funding research towards a cure for MS. A ground-breaking $4.3 million study of MS in children and a long-term, worldwide genetic susceptibility study are both made possible through MS Society fundraising events like the WALK.
If you would like to pledge your support, you can sponsor me online. |
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| Tonight around 7PM Eastern time I will be bringing the server down for much needed updates and imaging. Some may have noticed that over the past few weeks this site has become more and more unstable and unreliable. The simple fact is that some of the databases have grown much larger then they were ever intended to (especially the forum). This is causing loads of problems with the Jet driver and MDAC which results in the ASP service dying. In attempt to solve this, I will be updating both those components to the newest versions tonight. Before I do so, an image of the server is long overdue so I'll be taking care of that at the same time. Hopefully updating the databases (and moving them to Access 2000 format instead of Access 97!) will eliminate the problems. | |
| I apologize for the random downtime over the past several days. Once again the server has decided that the ASP service should randomly lock up. This basically renders all ASP pages (for example the main page, forum, the circuits page, basically anything that is dynamic) completely dead. The browser just times out waiting. All regular HTML pages and images work just fine, however. I believe that this is a database problem, so I have just rebuilt all the databases in an attempt to fix it. I don't know if this is the fix as I have been battling this problem for a while and have thus far not found a proper solution...I'm open to suggestions at this point. | |
| Due to an unexpected IP address change, I have had to update my master DNS records. It takes several days for this to reach the far corners of the Internet, so this site may have availability issues over the next few days. Of course, if you can't see the site then you can't read this message, so... | |
| Everything should be back to normal at this point. The forum is back online after I restored the database from a recent backup. This does mean that all posts from Wednesday until Friday at noon are lost. The offending cooling fans in the server have been replaced, so there should be no more lockups or reboots. | |
| Long story short, two of the server's cooling fans seized up early Thursday morning. This caused the CPU of the server to run VERY hot, resulting in random lockups and reboots over the past few days. During one of these events, the forum database got corrupted. I restored it from backup earlier today, but I guess it didn't totally work since there is an obvious problem with the forum. I am hoping I will have some time tonight or tomorrow to get it going again. It may take a few backup/restore attempts, and posts will certainly be lost in the process. Sorry. | |
| For some strange reason, the server blue-screened and locked up sometime this morning around 2 or 3 AM. I rebooted it around 8:45, and everything seems normal right now. Can't guarantee it won't happen again, but I can find no obvious problem so it may just be a random event in space/time. | |
| I'd like to thank London Hydro for fixing the low voltage problem last night. I called them at about 5:20PM, and a truck showed up outside my place at roughly 9PM. They had to cut power to the whole street for a few minutes (the neighbours will LOVE me for that one) while they moved us all to a higher tap on the transformer. I'm now seeing 112-115V at the wall. Thanks again! | |
| Sorry about the downtime today. We are once again experiencing brownouts, and the UPS can only stay on battery so long before it shuts down. I have called Ontario Hydro, but they have given me the runaround. Hopefully as soon as they get their act together and stop dropping our voltage (right now I'm getting 105V out of the wall...ridiculous) things will calm down. Hear that Ontario Hydro? FIX IT! | |
| My ISP has begun blocking outgoing port 25 for all residential and commercial customers. Therefore, this website can no longer send email. I am currently working with them to solve the problem. If they cannot unblock me, then I will set up a workaround while I look for a new ISP. Details in forum topic: Forum Email Functions Disabled | |
| Some of you may have noticed that the site was down early Saturday morning to late Sunday night. Sorry about that. The webserver basically crashed, and I was unaware that anything was wrong until late Saturday night. At the time, I was in Toronto without any internet access past what is available on my Blackberry (I couldn't even find an open WiFi network). On Sunday, I spent the day at an autocross, so again, had no access. So there was nothing I could do. First thing I did when I got home on Sunday was to restart the webserver, which came back on around 10:30 PM. | |
| Due to inbox corruption, I have lost all email sent to me regarding my website from Oct. 29th until Nov. 15th. Sorry about this, but due to the massive amount of mail (including spam and viruses) I get, sometimes this happens when a message with an invalid header comes through. You are of course free to resend any message you have sent in that period of time. | |
| My website is slowly coming back online. As DNS records are refreshed and updated, the site should be back for everyone by the end of the weekend. Thanks for your patience. | |
| On Wednesday July 14th and Thursday July 15th, the site will be down as network hardware is upgraded. The downtime may extend to Friday for some areas. Just letting people know. | |
| For the first time in 5 years, the "Universal Remote" on this site has been updated. Many thanks to obout inc., who graciously provided the server sideTreeView control that makes this possible. Let's face it, the old remote was neat, but entirely useless. The new one allows you to get to any page on this site in a few clicks, using a fraction of the time it would take to navigate there manually. Check it out by pressing the "Remote" button on any page on this site. | |
| Finally, I was able to update the site. Major changes almost everywhere. Two new projects and updates to previous projects, major additions to the RX-7 section, additions to the misc section, and even a new circuit (try and spot it). There may be a few minor issues and errors over the next few days, but everything should basically work. Feel free to post any problems or concerns to the forum. | |
| Due to the shear size of my website email box, and the amount of spam and viruses floating around, the mailbox became corrupted sometime in the last few months. Therefore, I may have lost your message as I was only able to receive about 50% of what was there. You are of course free to resend it if you wish. | |
| Last night I installed a brand new Netopia R910 router to replace the overstressed LinkSys BEFSR11 I have been using. Compared to the LinkSys, the Netopia is a "real" router. Unfortunately, this results in about 2 days of downtime due to DNS updates that have to propegate accross the entire Internet. The site should be back up to full operation by Friday. Note that I cannot guarantee there won't be future outages, since I am a little unsure about the Netopia. It doesn't appear to be working 100% reliably yet. Please be patient. | |
| Due to routing issues, there was downtime last night/this morning. It should be solved, but there may be lingering periods of unavailability. | |
| Due to major DNS changes, the site may appear to be up and down the next few days as the changes make their way through the Internet. Of course, those who can't get to the site will never see this message, so.... It's been the summer of downtime, and I apologize. | |
| As some of you may be aware, there was a major power outage that began at approximately 4:10pm on Thurs, Aug. 14. This effected New York state, all of Ontario (where I live and consequently where this server is), Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Power has just been restored here after being out for 28 hours. The biggest UPS in the world won't help when your ISP is knocked off the planet. The site should be officially back up, but I can't promise it will be totally stable as there will be rolling blackouts and my UPS tteries are exhausted. | |
| There will be some downtime tonight sometime after 8PM EST while the server is imaged and patches verified. Thank you for your patience. Expected length is about an hour. | |
| Everything should be back to normal now. The Real Media Server has been reloaded, and loose ends have been tied up. | |
| I apologize for the downtime most of yesterday and the wee-early hours of today. I applied some Microsoft "critical security updates" to the server, which promptly broke everything. I had to reload and configure the entire server from scratch. Good thing I had reliable backups. Real Media (ie. go-kart videos, RX-7 videos) will be down until I have the time to reload the Real Server. But it's like 2AM now, and I am going to SLEEP. | |
| Endless free electricity is possible! At least, that's what "jim" says on my forum in the Power Supply section. And he can't be convinced otherwise. Check it out: enless free electricity (sic). | |
| There is random downtime today due to routing issues. Not sure when it will be solved, but it is temporary and things should be back to normal soon. | |
| There was a coding error in the guestbook jerk-filtering that actually prevented anyone from signing for the past two weeks or so. It has been fixed. Sorry. | |
| Just to let any AOL users know, AOL appears to be blocking mail from me for no apparent reason. I am not on their spam or open relay list, yet any mail I send to an @AOL.COM address gets rejected without explanation. My advice is to get a real ISP instead of AOL. As we all know, AOL is crap. Sorry about this, but if you want it fixed, complain to AOL. | |
| I updated the About Myself page with a more recent picture. The 3 year old picture previously shown did not accurately represent what I looked like. | |
| It seems that due to a corrupt mailbox, I have lost all the email from my webpage since Nov. 2/2002. I apologize to those who have tried to email me since then, but this kind of thing happens once and a while with all the viruses and spam that are floating around these days. You are of course free to resend your message if you wish. | |
| Due to server upgrades, the website was up and down today between about 1:45 PM and 6:45PM. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I simply ran out of hard drive space. A new array made up of 3 Seagate Baraccuda UltraWide SCSI drives was installed, which not only doubles the capacity of the server, but should provide a significant speed boost during peak useage. | |
| To make things more consistant, I updated all the tables across the site to use the same layout and style. Also, I removed the irritating black background from forms and replaced it with a more readable colour. The site search engine has also been upgraded to provide two different searching methods: fast and slow. | |
| This site was down during that time period due to a power outage. Looks like a breaker tripped at the substation, and when they reset it, a transformer on my street blew up. Took them 3 hours to swap it. On a related note, it appears that I need a new UPS battery. Sorry about the downtime. | |
| I have just fixed an error on the Forum. If email notification was selected when a topic was posted and a user replied, the forum would error out and the reply might be lost. This was due to anti-spam features I have on my mailserver (prevents it from being hijacked and used to send spam). I have modified the forum to fix the error. | |
| There were some script errors on the "Email Me" or "Contact Me" page that made it impossible to send me an email. I have just fixed these errors. Sorry for the inconvenience. | |
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Last Update: Sept. 20/2009