Back Up the Moving Van

I was originally going to write something about Motherfucking Snakes on a Plane, but that will have to wait... (Better to see it first, then write about it. Or not, as the case may be. Keep in mind that almost no one has seen it, but everyone is writing about it.)

Nine years in Internet time is an eternity, and that's how long ReelViews has enjoyed its current home at colossus.net. As they say, all good things must come to an end, and this is one of them. There's no for sale sign, but ReelViews will be moving, and soon.

Those of you who tried accessing the site yesterday are aware that it wasn't available. It went up again around 5 am, and I got a message from Colossus, stating, in part: "...our internal problems are getting too severe... so it [won't] be safe for you to be on colossus.net anymore." "Safe" in this case refers to the integrity and reliability of the site, not a concern that pro-Michael Moore fanatics might kidnap me if I remain with Colossus.

Where to move? Based on some research I did two years ago during a prolonged (three day) Colossus outage, I narrowed my choices to one: ProNIC Solutions (which was recommended by a reader). I haven't pulled the trigger yet, so if anyone wants to offer an alternative, I'll look into it. Be quick, though - I intend to move fast on this to avoid possible future outages. I have a few requirements: (1) The host must be able to provide at least 30 GB of bandwidth per month at a relatively cheap cost (future growth could send this to 40 GB or more, but 30 GB should be enough near term); (2) fast, reliable technical support - if something goes wrong, I want it fixed immediately; (3) good traffic monitoring/reporting services/software (I used to have this with Colossus until everything went haywire); and (4) reliability (frequent outages, even if short, are disruptive and unwelcome).

When will the move happen? Hopefully, before I go to Toronto. I will run both the new site (www.reelviews.net) and the old site (movie-reviews.colossus.net) in tandem for a short while to ease the transition. I will also work with the major search engines, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb to update their links. At some point, however, all that will be left at movie-reviews.colossus.net is a single page with a link to the new site. Kind of sad, really. I have "lived" there longer than at my current house. (And I'm moving from here next year.)

If your bookmark is for www.reelviews.net, the transition should be transparent. Currently, reelviews.net is an empty pointer to the current site. It will become the actual domain name of the new site. If your bookmark is for movie-reviews.colossus.net, you'll have to change it. (The preferred bookmark is reelviews.net, since I own that. Whenever there's a serious or prolonged outage, I find a temporary space and put up limited content there. Over the years, reelviews.net has been pointed to no fewer than four sites.)

That's it for today's administrative jolt to the system. Now it's time for me to go out and get my ticket for tonight's 10 pm screening of Motherfucking Snakes on a Plane. (Someone has informed me that I might have the title slightly incorrect.)

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