New design. Please tell me if it explains our service better

[billbenson]

The 2k is on a 2002 vintage machine on its last leg. My main machine is a dual boot xp and linux. I want to build another machine before the end of the year. I like to have a hot standby machine and I don't right now. The next machine will be the latest with a lot of RAM.

Sunday night 2am and I had just about finished work and was looking forward to bed. I hit something and I couldn't switch from window to window or display what windows were open. Since Monday was a sales day, I didn't want to wake up to a machine that didn't work with the phone ringing. So I worked until 4:30 am getting it working. A hot standby computer and I could have gone to bed and had the backup machine the next day.

Does anybody know anything about NAS. Someone suggested it for storage. I gather that its kind of like hard drives shared between two computers. Just the storage is shared as I understand it, so its not a server. I haven't had time to research it yet. The intention would be to keep the two computers current by sharing the same disk? No backups to speak of. I'm just guessing as I really don't know anything about it.

[vangogh]

NAS is kind of like having a dedicated computer on your network to run as a file server. It would be more than just file storage as it would have a functional OS, though it's not meant to be used as a typical computer. I think it's usually a stripped down OS that runs on the NAS.

I've been there with those 2:00AM things. Last night as I was getting ready to go to sleep I checked in here only to discover the site wasn't up. Nor were any of the others on the server. Turned out it was a firewall issue at the host and they fixed it pretty fast. I wasn't up till 4:30, but I was up later than I wanted to be.

[prova.fm]

I'm going to have to look into that IE Tester gizmo. I've been using IE8 (which can switch to IE7 - cool. Why don't they let it switch to IE 6, 5, etc...?) I also downloaded a horrendously slow program from MS that can test in IE6 & 7. You would think there would be a huge market for a program that tests all browsers. I'd buy it.
I also use browsershots.org, but it's quite unpredictable as well.

I was *trying* to develop for IE5, because I noticed on my stats a large number of IE5 browsers visiting my page. Granted, I can only see back to IE6 with MS's super slow program, the *trying* turned into *hoping.*

billbenson, a NAS is a great device. I had one before I moved. It's in storage & can't wait to get it back, although it may be better to look into web storage services also. I might look into Amazon's Web Services. I use AWS for business, & am curious about it's practicality for home use. I just hate having that NAS on all the time & having to upgrade firmware & printer drivers. I'm always afraid I'm going to wipe something out & erase both drives.

[vangogh]

IE Tester works well. You can go back to IE 5.5 too. I'm surprised though that you're seeing IE5 traffic still. IE6 I can understand, but IE5?

[prova.fm]

I must have been crazy or something when I originally looked & saw IE 5.5 on my analytics. I remember it being one of the higher visited browsers. When I looked today, only a handful of visits have come from IE5.5. Plus I realized those probably came from browsershots.org - D'oh!

[vangogh]

Oh yeah. The browsershots would count as a visit. Funny. When I look at my stats I still occasionally see really old browsers, pre IE 5.5 even. I'm not going to spend the time making the site work perfectly for them though. There's a point where it's just not worth it. If you haven't updated your browser in the last decade what are the odds you're looking to hire someone to design and develop a website for you? And if you are looking what are the odds you'll pay to make sure your site then works in those same browsers?