Old News: (30 Aug 01) *SMACK!* One of these days I'll learn. When we came up on the DSL circuit, I @*$#ed up the FTP rules (again). Consequently, the LDP site has not been updated in about two weeks. Oops. It's fixed now.

(13 Aug 01) DSL!
We now have DSL connectivity once again. At about 1630 yesterday the last bits of the subnet configuration were fixed and our IP block moved to a 144k IDSL circuit. Let's hope this will be more stable than the last one.

(12 Aug 01) Yes, maybe was down for most of the day today. It took a while to track down the cause, but basically the motherboard is toast. We're running on a standby machine until we decide whether to repair or replace the old hardware.

(08 Aug 01) We have finally seen progress on the new DSL line. The wire is to the side of the building, and the case has been handed to Covad to finish up. We SHOULD have the connection up by the end of next week.

(10 Jul 01) Things are slowly coming around again. Some much needed updates are being made to the Tiger Pop site.
We're supposed to have definate plans for the DSL install by the end of this week. I'm not counting on it, but that's the story for now.

(08 Jul 01) The Jolly Rodger site has gone away. At the request of the site owner it was taken down this morning, and will not be back in the forseeable future.

(15 Jun 01) I really have been slipping lately. We're up and running, and have been since about 11 Apr. We're on dialup right now, and that's just awful.
With the move, and my new (real) job, nothing much has been updated here lately. I'm working on coordinating a faster connection, and will be upgrading the servers soon. (real soon now)

(09 Apr 01) Everything has been moved, but the IP block is still living on the DSL line. As soon as our ISP fixes our routes, we'll be back on line.
Hopefully...

(26 Mar 01) Moving again
We'll be moving our operations on or about the 6th of April. At that time we're expecting everything to be down for between 2 and 72 hours. We'll also be dropping back down to a 56k dialup connection until we can get DSL connected at the new location.

(16 Feb 01) Planned downtime
The main server (maybe) will be down for a short time this evening as we upgrade the kernel and swap out some hardware. Mail, news, and web services will be unavailable during this time.
It's a shame that we have to do this, as it will break a "218 days, 10:01" uptime streak.

(26 Jan 01) MBrodeur is selling his car. It's a modified 1983 AMC Eagle. Follow the link if you're interested, or just curious.
And no, there is nothing unethical about using this site to advertise it.

(21 Jan 01) I think I finally have all of my DNet clients running RC5 again. Our team was starting to slip there for a while. NextTime should start climbing back up the ranks shortly.

(16 Jan 01) Happy New Year!
I've updated the information in the Who Are We section to match what's going into the database. I'll link that up soon so I won't have to keep updating it by hand.

(19 Nov 00) I finally 'fixed' the button bar. I realize that making everything tiny is a nasty hack, but I'm too lazy to put much effort into a design that's going to be scrapped Real Soon Now.

(11 Oct 00) Before anyone asks me, or tells LinuxDoc on us, our LDP mirror WAS out of date recently. There was a misconfiguration in the filters that broke active FTP sessions. Oddly, it seems that mirror was the only program notably affected by it.
It's fixed now. I'm currently watching several weeks of updates scroll by. We should be back on out normal update schedule (2x/day) this afternoon.

(26 Sep 00) Bear with us if this page looks nasty right now. I'm playing with the font settings, and it would appear that the rendering of my selected fonts is somewhat inconsistent. In other words, it looks fine in MSIE, decent in Netscape for Windows, and hideous in Netscape for Linux/X11. I'm working on it.

(15 Sep 00) If you're sick of this page layout, take a look at the work in progress on the .org side of the house. It's about time we updated the look. Expect to see the new design fully deployed in less than a month, I hope.

(12 Sep 00) We're running on a completely new router at the moment. I tweaked the filtering rules. Let me know if you can't read this page.

(25 Aug 00) Is it just me, or is Netscape's interpretation of CSS truly broken? I'd think it was just me if I hadn't heard the same problems from several other people.
If you're viewing this page with Netscape and it looks wrong, it's probably your browser. It actually looks pretty good under MSIE. Maybe I'll grab a Gecko-based browser and see how it looks.

(5 Jul 00) I find it surprising that Design-Theory (http://www.design-theory.com) claims credit for "Site Design/Maintenance" of this site. It is true that a single individual who may or may not be part of Design-Theory did the graphics and layout for this site's redesign...over a year ago. Since then only the button bar and the VERY general layout has been kept. The title has been altered, the buttons rearranged/replaced, the ad bar removed, oh and most of the code has been hand edited since to meet XHTML/1.0 compliance.
This has all been done by one person who is in NO WAY involved with Design-Theory.
If you have linked here from their site, please take this information into consideration before entering into any deals with them. Unauthorized linking may be an ethical grey area, but taking credit for someone else's work is simply wrong.

(5 Jul 00) I've mirrored the Emacs Manual here. I seem to need it far too often. This is the full 1.6MB single file, so be warned before clicking.

(25 Jun 00) It's getting there. Mail delivery and web service are back. Almost all of the user files are in place. I'll be adding SSH access as soon as everyone's home directories are back. We're running off the secondary DNS right now, so that'll get fixed today, too. Remote mail will happen Real Soon Now.

(22 Jun 00) Upcoming Downtime: We'll be down (or more specifically, maybe(www, ftp, shell, ns1) will be down) for an extended indefinate period on the night of the 23rd. We're going to do a full server upgrade including all software and some hardware. Each service will only be coming back online AFTER it has been properly locked down. This time we're starting from nothing and adding what we need instead of running around disabling things we don't want available. Incoming mail and web will be back first, with remote mail, shell, and news following sometime later.

(14 Jun 00) It's done. I'm just SO excited. I'd probably feel better if it weren't five minutes into the 14th at the moment. The renumbering and rerouting seems to have taken hold, and I'm going to go pass out for a few hours.

(13 Jun 00) We're in the middle of renumbering the network. Things could get a bit weird for a few days. None of the servers are affected, but both of the routers between them and the ISP will be twiddled. Everything should be just peachy once DNS caches expire and the new info gets loaded.

(28 May 00) With a little help from Alter-Net Communications, we've got the new UPS on-line. This one is a Best 610, 2kVA. With five systems, two hubs, and the DSL router on it reports about a 31% load and 32 minutes run time. I'm pleased with that.

(26 May 00) Well, it's about time. BA FINALLY sent a tech today. The nice surprise was that they combined the Covad and BA work into one visit and the line was working when he left. I called and had Cyber Aceess switch the routing back, and we're on the air. It only took 23 days, too.
Of course, the new UPS is here, so everything will be down for (hopefully) only a few minutes whilst I move plugs around. This will be shortly after the new outlet is installed, either tonight or tomorrow.

(24 May 00) I'm not sure who's worse, Bell Atlantic or Covad. We're now projected to have a tech fix the DSL line tomorrow. That's 22 days after it went down. Cyber Access has been really good about this, but their power only extends to complaining at Covad. Covad doesn't care since I'm only a "residential" customer, and BA doesn't care because they're the phone company, they don't have to.

(20 May 00) The first UPS is in place. It's a Best Power 610, 1kVA. It's a nice unit. It's small, fairly quiet, and has plenty of juice. This one is powering until and again and reports about 25 minutes potential runtime at the current load. The 2kVA model is on its way for maybe, perhaps, moo, mort, and toast.
And no, the DSL line is STILL not back up. On Monday we shop for new providers

(16 May 00) In spite of unpredictable power and line issues, we managed to add yet another domain to our family. Bit Hose goes online today. Aren't you thrilled?

(15 May 00) Bell Atlantic bites. MOST of their technicians couldn't find their, um, posterior with both hands, much less install a phone line without destroying someone else's service. The only helpful and competent techs they have get sent out to clean up the mess long after it's too late to do it right. That leaves them powerless to fix anything in a timely fashion and makes the whole company look bad.
In case you hadn't figured it out, the DSL line is STILL down and probably will be for at least another WEEK. No-one will admit it, but it looks like the bumbling idiots that connected my neighbor's second line used MY DSL line to do it. That's right folks, the DSL line that was installed not three whole weeks earlier. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that I get my DSL from Covad and not directly from Bell Atlantic.
I'd sue if I thought I had a case. Does anyone know the law well enough to tell me?

(7 May 00) Irony is just wonderful. As I was browsing some catalogs looking for power supplies for the servers, the power went out. So we were down for a few hours while everyone rummaged for candles and flashlights. The UPS will be ordered in the next few days, so this shouldn't happen again.

(5 May 00) We're still disconnected from DSL, and it could be a while. I brought the dial-up back up in the mean time. Hopefully it'll be fixed EARLY next week.

(4 May 00) The DSL line is down right now. No one seems to be sure why or who needs to fix it.

(20 Apr 00) Oops. Virtual hosts are working again. Why didn't somone point that out several days ago?

(16 Apr 00) Network Solutions FINALLY got around to updating the root DNS this morning. It's a good thing they did, too, since the machine that was hosting the old numbers died during the night.
I'm just having the worst luck with hardware lately.
Since the processor for Again arrived on Friday, I'll be moving the old one into Maybe. I'll probably do that this morning, along with dropping in a new SCSI controller. Woohoo! All the way up to 200MHz!

(13 Apr 00) Thanks today to CyberAccess and Covad, we've got the DSL line back. I wasn't real thrilled about finding out about the install appointment at 0815 today, but all worked out for the best.
Incidentally things are a little broken right now. When I called to have the domain routed back from the dial-up to the DSL we decided to move to a new IP block. Leaving the old block routed on the dialup and routing the new on the DSL SEEMED like a good idea. The unfortunate effect was that nothing headed for the old addresses would get routed back out properly. The temporary solution (until Network Solutions updates the root nameservers) was to make a domain-in-a-box for the old numbers, and run the real machines with the new numbers. It looks like it's working, and the top level domain DB should be updated by tomorrow morning.
Actually, if you're reading this and you're not in my house, it must be working

(12 Apr 00) Perhaps is back, in all of its glory. Again is down, awaiting a new processor. There's nothing wrong with the old one, but the MB is now configured for the new chip and I don't want to mess with it. The firewall upgrade is planned...soon. Probably this weekend at the latest. Maybe is still slated for upgrade, but seeing as that will take an entire day, don't expect it real soon.

(3 Apr 00) I figured out the problem with the RH6.2 install. There is something incredibly wonky with the NFS installer. After beating on it some more I finally switched to the FTP install and it's working fine. In another 2-3 hours it should be done.
Oh, and I've been messing with the firewall. It needs a new drive, but I forgot to print out the spec sheet BEFORE taking the system down. For now it's back up on the old drive, and I'll make sure to have the settings in hand before I take it down again.

(30 Mar 00) Well, I got three things accomplished. I put the new drive in Perhaps, I ate, and I slept. Other than that I spent most of the night TRYING to install RH6.2 on one machine. After three floppy drives, two cables, and rebooting the NFS server, I still got stuck on trying to load the SCSI module. Maybe tonight.

(29 Mar 00) Things might be a little messy tonight. I'm planning on being very ambitious and:

1. Replacing the bad drive in Perhaps
2. Upgrading Perhaps to RHLinux 6.2
3. Upgrading the firewall to RHLinux 6.2
4. Upgrading Maybe to RHLinux 6.2
5. Upgrading Until to RHLinux 6.2
6. Fixing the video drivers on Again
7. Building Mort, the MP3 player for the living room
8. Eating
9. Sleeping

(26 Mar 00) Don't EVER use Seagate Hawk 1.05GB drives. I thought the ones we had at work were just the usual bad apples. I figured that having only four out of twelve go bad in five years was pretty good.
Well, it just hurts when you end up having to replace one out of your own pocket. The system drive in our secondary server just died in the exact fashion that every other Hawk 1.05 I've seen has. At least I've got backups...I think.

(24 Mar 00) For whatever reason, Northpoint is no longer partnered with CyberAccess in providing DSL access. This left me with the choice of moving to a different ISP to keep the Northpoint line, or staying with CyberAccess and losing DSL. Well, the new ISP they offered (Net 1 Plus) would have cost about 150% of what I'm paying now. CyberAccess instead offered to get Covad to provide a DSL circuit using the equipment I just finished paying for. In the mean time they offered to reconnect the dial-up account.
So, for the next month or so we're back to 56k. Hopefully the DSL connect won't take too long since the line is already here, and the router is ready to go.

(11 Jan 2000) That server upgrade is coming, really. Just give me a few more days to get the hardware sorted out.

(31 Dec 1999) In addition to the server upgrade, expect to see a new site layout soon. This one is just wearing a little thin on me. Maybe this time I'll go with one that doesn't require a browser window of 1280x1024 just to be useable.

(31 Dec 1999) And now for our Y2K statement: "I didn't expect that to happen." Yes, here at NextTime we've spent the last two years diligently ignoring the possiblity of Y2K problems. So, come midnight things might get interesting. I'm not really worried, but it's more than just coincidence that I'll be upgrading the last server to RedHat 6.1 this weekend. In other words, if the servers are down, it's a planned upgrade, really.

(25 Dec 1999) Happy Whatever You're Having. If anything breaks in the next day or two, it can wait to get fixed.

(23 Dec 1999) The DSL line is finally up. Now it's time to suck up all of the available bandwidth downloading useless crap for a few days.

(17 Dec 1999) I've got the line to the house and the router sitting in a box. On Monday the tech comes to put it all together. After that we'll actually have access speeds worth getting a little excited about. Of course, that also means the connection will be down Monday afternoon while I switch over. We'll also be down for a little while this weekend as I add another NIC to the firewall to accomodate the DSL box.

(19 Nov 1999) I went ahead and did it. We now have an order in for a 144k IDSL link from Cyber Access. That may not sound impressive, but considering that right now we have, at best, a 49k/37k connection, it sounds really nice to me.

(17 Nov 1999) NextTime is currently competing in the CSC through Distributed.Net. I don't care if you care or not, I'm telling you anyway.

(21 Oct 1999) Oh God why? Now we're actually helping someone create LibbyDance. What is this world coming to?

(7 Sep 99) Okay, so I neglected to tell anyone beforehand, but we're in our new location now. It's so much nicer to have a table to have all of the consoles on. Oh, and we're back with Bell Atlantic for the phone lines. It MAY have taken their techs over a week to get all of the lines up and running, but that's much better than RCN's month or more to do the same job.

(25 Jul 99) NextTime will again be relocating its hardware sometime in the near future. At some point between the middle and end of August expect an extended downtime of at least a day or so. I'll do my best, but in the end it will depend on Bell Atlantic and RCN more than anyone else.

(25 Apr 99) Yay! We finally have a faster than 28.8k link. At approximately 1745 this afternoon we went online at 56k (v.90). The faster connection supplied by Cyber Access, and as usual is being paid for by mbrodeur.

(10 Mar 1999) I'm working on a new section for our front page. Right now it's called Who Are We and it describes our history, our hardware, and our mission. Great reading for anyone who has a morbid fascination with the inner workings of the internet.

(24 Feb 99) The recent downtime and strangeness has been a result of physically relocating all of our hardware. Everything should be back to normal now. On a side note, RCN is just about the worst choice one can make in telephone service. E-mail me if you want the details.

(13 Jan 1999) The New and Improved ICD 'Cats Pages are finally up. So there.

(12 Jan 1999) Just strike everything I've said about the paintball pages. The ICDOG link now takes you to the "real" ICDOG, and I don't have a definate location for the 'Cats stuff yet. It'll be fixed Real Soon Now.

(5 Jan 1999) Red Hat 5.2--It's a big deal, really. If all works well, no one will notice any difference 'cept those of us who run the place.

(20 Dec 98) Been a while, eh? I'm probably converting the Alley Cat page to some sort of ICD owners group page. The URL will change to http://www.NextTime.com/ICDOG/, but the old address will still work, at least until I update all the links.

(12 Sep 98) Right now I'm working on a page of information about the Indian Creek Alley Cat paintball marker. It's in its early stages, but I wouldn't mind input on what you'd like to see there. If you own an Alley Cat, or any Indian Creek gun, or are in the market for a new paintgun, take a look. It's at http://www.nexttime.com/AlleyCat.

(11 Sep 98) Donations are still being accpeted. Actually, It would be nice to get any donations at all. Right now we could really use a good UPS. Maybe Best Power or APC would like to make a donation in exchange for free advertising?

(27 Aug 98) We've finally got our own line! I still make no promises of stability, but it should be a lot better.

(26 Aug 98) NextTime now hosts a mirror of the Linux Documentation Project. Frustrated Linux sysadmins are encouraged to pay a visit. Just remember, I don't write it, I just host it.

(30 Jul 98) NextTime is now connected with RCN, but the ISP is still Cyber Access. Maybe someday we can get DSL.