Sooo yeah. I'm going to order the server in the next few hours.

I'm almost done with backups. Everyone who didn't tell me they do their own backups should be... backed up!

Sorry for the huge delay, but I got all sicky and that messed me up a lot. (Now I got Jon sick. Figures!) And I got all stressed out about money related things, but I think... hope! that this is resolved now. Well, I guess I will find out. :( If not, I may need to go and poke around for another money source to keep site up for a month or so until I get another source.

The problem is mainly because, due to the horrifyingly extreme delay I've had in getting any sort of identification, I don't have a local bank account. I have to depend on my parents to actually send me my ATM/credit card from the U.S... and as you all know, dealing with my parents+money in any way is unhappy times for me.

Been waiting on the OS upgrade, since I'm checking to make sure people have backed up stuff. Though I'm pretty sure I will sign up for it today.

Basically, I've been told that to upgrade, I have to order a new VPS on a new server, as the one I want is incompatible with the server I'm on right now. Apparently. So they have to go through the fun process of transferring my data and giving me a new IP and etc.

I did save backups of my sis's, Eni, Rin and Selina's directories, and MAY do it again right before I know the site will go offline, but if I REALLY wanted to be thorough, I should go on IRC and tell people myself. Meeeh don't wanna. I know Eni reads this now and then, so Rin is the only one who'd be kinda in the dark. I'm just... having a hard time nowadays being communicative with anyone. I feel like withdrawing more and more. Maybe I will still try to nudge him myself though, I really ought to. :(

Compounding my asocial behavior is the fact I had a bad situation happen with RPoL recently. I am reluctant to write about it much because I don't want to risk any messy fallout if the people involved read this. But it put me in a terrible mood for a while, and so I feel inclined to detail it. Perhaps it will be therapeutic.

When I wake up tomorrow (about 3pm Eastern), I'm going to do an ENTIRE backup of darksiren.net -- gonna basically tarball/zip the whole public_html directory, + some of the directories outside the webdata (i.e. gallery data directories for Eni and myself) and download it. I'll also be backing up ALL the databases as well. Since my computer is all iffy now, all these backups are going on Jon's HD and likely burned on DVD as well. Soooo that means, once I start the backup you'd best not be adding anything new to the site until I say it's ok!

Once backup is complete I'll order the VPS... hopefully MY computer will be up and running tomorrow *sigh* STUPID TIMING. I'm annoyed. But as far as I know, everything will still go as scheduled!

I've turned off new user registration until the transition is done, by the way. I'm starting to wonder if I should just not allow registration at all with all the spam I get. I can only hope the two I DID allow are not fake people that are going to comment spam me. =_=

Okay, I've decided on Friday July 6 for the day I'll order the upgrade to Virtual Private Server. If you happen to have an account (Drupal, FTP, wiki, etc.) on darksiren.net:

- Make SURE to backup anything of yours that you really want to save. I don't expect any data loss, but to be sure, you should save a copy on your own computer. (If you need help with this, leave me a message before Friday.)
- From the moment I place the order, which will be around 3-5 PM Eastern time on July 6, you should refrain from uploading or updating anything on darksiren.net. This is because, during the transition period, nothing added or changed to the old darksiren.net server will be mirrored on the new one. Neither I nor HostForWeb will be responsible for any data loss during the transition.
- It will take some time for the IP of the new server to propogate. I'm told the entire process (server and IP change) should not take more than 24 hours. However, to be safe, I would wait through the weekend to use darksiren.net again. (So, until Monday the 9th, or thereabouts). I will need to verify that everything is working properly, which I will likely get to Saturday night and all of Sunday.

If you have any questions or concerns, you ought to know how to reach me. I'll be online all the rest of the week on my usual haunts. :D