[TPIN] ADMIN- SERVER ISSUES

[Michael Anderson]

The server was down most of the day today.

The university is moving the server room and is going through all sorts of
upgrades.

The server we are using is quite old and a bit unstable. Thanks to long-time
list member and Unix guru, Joe Meador and the campus technology guys here we
have kept it up and running most of the time.

The university is going to a bank of servers that are all rack mounted and
in specially cooled racks that will keep everything running smoothly and
well coordinated.

In order to keep the TPIN server as a part of the University system a
dedicated rack-mounted server has to be purchased. Now, I can keep the
current server running, but it will have to be installed elsewhere and will
no longer be supported by the University. This concerns me greatly for a
couple of reasons.. 1. I don't have the expertise to manage the server
myself and 2. When I am not around, gone traveling, the server may go down
and not be able to be rebooted for several days and maybe even weeks.

SO - to make a long story longer, I am looking to purchase a low-end rack
mounted server that can go into our stable of servers and still be
maintained by our guys. The thing will be much more stable than what we have
now and will server us better than anything we've had in the past 12 years
of the TPIN's existence.

TPIN has always been free to the users and always will be as long as I'm
running it. However, we have raised money for special reasons in the past
... I think 3 times in 12 years. I don't take this lightly and wouldn't even
consider it if I didn't think it would be a really positive thing for us to
do.

I would like to know what the members think of think of this idea. If you
feel like you could contribute to this fund raising effort and would make a
pledge to me, please send me a private email. I will collect no money until
I'm sure it will work and that we can raise the money without burdening any
individual too much. I am donating $200 and the ITG will contribute a bit
more than that because the TPIN server provides email forwarding to the ITG.
So, we are already part way there.

Please let me know what you think.

MA