Fed II Star - May 21, 2006 - Official News 7

STAR CHAMBER
by Freya

What I Did On My Saturday

There was no Star Chamber in last week's Fed II Star. Not because I didn't write it; I did. Not because I didn't send it in; I did. But because it was delayed and delayed and finally arrived too late.

Am I angry about the whole incident? Fuming!

Isn't this just an excuse for sending in your article late? Excuse implies that what happened was optional, that I had a choice about my actions. What this is, is a reason, an explanation.

So we rewind the Way-Way-Back-Machine to last Saturday.

Saturday morning I was awoken by a call from Bella informing me that the server where our website lives was down and it could not be brought back up remotely. I would have to call our data center in the United States and have the machine power-cycled. Bella didn't want to call the data center, he wanted me to do it. But my plans called for me to spend Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and working on Star Chamber. And to make everything even nicer, the IBgames mailserver was being wonky and shutting down. All the mail on the server needed to be deleted before it would work again.

So - write Star Chamber or phone data center? I phoned.

It takes time to call the data center, explain the problem, and wait for them to confirm carrying out the task. I then checked with Bella and the server was still not up and I'd have to call the data center again and give more complicated instructions.

So - write Star Chamber or phone data center? I phoned.

This time, the server came back up and I waited for Bella to tell me the web site was working again. But no, the server went down again and I had to phone the Data Center again.

So - write Star Chamber or phone data center? I phoned.

The data center got the server up and Bella had the website up again but Bella had to go out for a personal appointment. So I was left as the only IBgames Sr Staff person around on a Saturday. When we were having server problems. And mail was fragile again.

So - write Star Chamber or go into Fed II to keep an eye on things and reassure players in case anything went bottoms up? I went into Fed II.

Just as well I did since the server again went down and I had to (you guessed it!) call the data center again! This call was a long one as the network technician wanted to do some tests to pin-point the problem. I had to give certain commands and relay the server response to the technician. We finally had some useful and interesting, but unpleasant information about the server and I was able to get off the phone - finally.

You don't want to even think about what my phone bill for the day was going to be. And of course, Bella was still out.

So back into Fed II I went to keep an eye on things and respond to player concerns about the mysterious disappeared IBGames website.

Later that evening, Bella returned and suggested we meet for a drink at a local pub and we would discuss the server problems.

So - write Star Chamber or discuss major IBGames network problems and what to do about them? I went to the pub.

On returning home, Bella checked the server and finally determined that the hard drives were probably dead. By this point it was quite late and we were both stressed over the equipment failure. I also had some players in Fed II with important issues that needed my attention.

So - write Star Chamber or take care of player needs? I took care of the two players. I decided I'd write Star Chamber in the morning.

Sunday morning, the website server is still dead. (Dead things do generally tend to stay dead.) And to add to the joy, the mail server was throwing fits again. The emergency solution was to periodically delete all the mail on the server. Oh joy!

I got to work writing up Star Chamber, finished it and went to send it. I figured it was just in time since just as I was about to send in Star Chamber, the draft copy of WInding Down was delivered. I sent off Star Chamber and went back to checking out some solutions to our network problems.

About two hours later I received an email notifying me that Star Chamber was received too late to make it into the Fed Star.

So now you know What I Did on Saturday and Why There Was No Star Chamber last week.