Welcome back everyone. If any of you tried to visit us late last week, you may have noticed something funny. The site didn’t exist for a few days. Thanks to a server glitch, we were down on Wednesday afternoon, all day Thursday, all day Friday, and Saturday morning (with a few flickers on Saturday evening and Sunday evening).
This was not the result of anything I had done wrong. The blame rests with my host server. For those of you who are unfamiliar with how the internet operates, a website is just a collection of files contained in a folder or a set of folders. These files are written in a code that your web browser translates and displays. In order for web browsers to access these files, the folders have to be kept on a computer that is turned on and connected 24 hours a day. These computers are called servers. It’s too expensive and inefficient for each website owner to own and operate their own server, so we rent space on a server that is owned by a hosting company.
So last week, my server crashed and needed to be rebuilt and reloaded. There is never a good time for something like this to happen, but last week was especially lousy for a couple of reasons:
1.) I’ve recently started buying advertising. Now, new readers who have only just found Lepus Studios from my new ads are going to wonder if my site is unreliable.
2.) I’ve recently started selling advertising. I had to suspend all the ads I was selling until the matter was resolved. As a result, I’ve sort of had to start over with my sponsors. My web ads are not commanding the prices they used to. Last week, I was earning 3 to 5 cents per ad each day. Now I’m back to 0 to 2 cents. It’s a sad day when you need to work your way back up to 5 cents.
3.) I was invited to draw another guest comic for the SuperFogeys. (This time, it’s for their fifth anniversary celebration. Twelve different artists are each drawing a wacky chapter summary. Here’s my contribution: http://superfogeys.webcomicsonline.com/2011/09/26/chapter-3-the-techno-shuffle-recap-by-marjorie-rishel/) When people read guest comics that they like, they often want to visit the guest artist’s site. If my site isn’t working, I could miss my chance to draw in new readers. Luckily, the site repairs were finished on time for my part of the event, but it was a close shave.
4.) Did anyone read the latest Urban Underbrush? That week’s comic brought us to a fairly important point in the story where I spelled out some fairly important character information. (I got to draw people making out). I would rather people not have missed that.
I’m not too angry at my hosts over the server crash. I understand that accidents like this are unavoidable (Murphy’s law and all that). I am a little annoyed by the way they handled it. They did not notify any of their customers about the crash and have yet to make an effort to compensate us for the time we lost (time that we paid for.) My server contract runs out in March. Unless these guys do something to really impress me in the next five months, I’m backing my bags and heading for greener pastures and bluer waters
-Marj