The move to the new server and the closing down of the old server has finally been completed.
A big thanks to Robert Redl of Austria and Davide Villani of Italy for their great help in managing this very challenging job.
I’m looking forward to now resuming more productive activities.
Several sites have been placed in maintenance mode for now.
This week all newsletters were delivered via the new server and the new mailing list system (Free World Express).
The Free World Express™ mailing list/email newsletter service has now been converted to a modified version of PHPLIST and moved to the new server.
We were using OemPro before which offers many more features. But I found their tech support incredibly unreliable.
A bunch of PRODOS sites and systems on my Australian server – but not including the THINKER TO THINKER™ blog platform – were hacked a couple of days ago.
Files types targeted were:
iframe tags enclosing a known .cn “attack site” URL were included within these tags and injected into the files, causing sites to break.
After two days of working at it I think I’ve now repaired and restored everything and added extra security here and there.
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to identify the exact point of vulnerability which allowed the code injection into the system. That potentially leaves the sites opened to be re-hacked. Still working on it.
This repair job has delayed finalizing the move of the mailing list service to the new server, unfortunately. So, if you’ve applied for a mailing list account, it’s going to be a couple more days before I can set this up for you.
All PRODOS websites and systems will be migrating to a new server over the next few weeks.
I don’t envisage any significant disruption as I’ve become quite adept at doing this now. 
A special thanks to Robert Redl for his assistance and support.
We’ve had server problems today which took most PRODOS sites, mailing lists, and online services offline for most of the day. Things seem to be back to normal at present.
If you tried to use our contact form or to register for a project, please re-send or re-register. Thanks.
Over the next 24 hours some PRODOS sites may go offline for a few hours while the new nameservers propagate as we complete the final stage of the server migration.
UPDATE: Midnight Saturday: All sites successfully migrated and back online. Minor bug found with “prodoscope” mailing list system. Working on this at present.
Since migration of THINKER TO THINKER™ blog system to new server, “new blog” installation function stopped working.
Has now been repaired by Davide Villani.
Other notes on server migration:
Going very slowly. Several weeks behind schedule now. About half way there now. Have commissioned script specialists to handle migration of specialized systems. Pace of work has picked up. Hoping to complete migration in less than a week.
Apologies to project leaders who are still waiting to get online or have campaign sites and services configured or set up.
Progress on migrating to the new server has been very slow, unfortunately.
Apologies to project leaders for these delays.
Earlier today, about a dozen PRODOS project sites, including CelebrateCapitalism.com started displaying an error message related to the database.
The THINKER TO THINKER ™ blogs do not seem to be affected.
I’m currently investigating the matter.
This is not related to the new server mentioned earlier, as we’re still on the old server.
Update: Robert Redl of Vienna, Austria (whom I recommend highly as a coder and troubleshooter)has fixed the problem.
I’ve “xxxx”-ed out some of it, but the error message was:
user warning: Can’t create/write to file ‘/tmp/#sql_6528_0.MYD’ (Errcode: 17) query: SELECT DISTINCT(p.perm) FROM role r INNER JOIN permission p ON p.rid = r.rid WHERE r.rid IN (1) in /home/xxxxxxxxxxxx/public_html/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 121.
The solution, as explained by Robert:
MYSQL ERROR MESSAGE
in the /tmp temoprary directory a mysql file was damaged. After removing it and restarting the mysql server the mysql blocking messages are OK now.
Have been testing new server and plan to move all PRODOS sites and onlinesystems in the nexts couple of weeks.
Last time sites we migrated to a new server, we had awful problems with text/characters getting scrambled and odd/rogue/wrong characters getting mixed in with regular characters.
So, this time, key websitesand the whole THINKER TO THINKER blog system (with about 200 blogs)is being copied and “test migrated” first – to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
A few weeks ago I accidentally wiped out my hard drive, thereby losing several years of material and resources plus all the programs installed on my computer (yes, yes, I know: “Didn’t you have a back-up???!!!”)
So, since the conclusion of the Albert Park campaign I’ve been pre-occupied re-installing and re-configuring software.
Also, there seems (yet again) to be some flaw in the mail-server I use for newsletters and bulletins and I’m commissioning an expert to trouble-shoot and, hopefully, get this fixed.
I’ve also been busy putting together a new project which will be part of the Celebrate Capitalism ™ campaign. To be announced soonish.
One of the PRODOS servers has been down for the last 9 hours. This means mailing lists, chat room, and some campaign websites are currently not connecting.
Update -3.40 PM (Cincinnati time): Server is connecting again. Websites and chatroom connecting again. However, one campaign website is bringing up an older version, rather than the version I uploaded to it a few days ago. Bad news so far regarding mailing lists: They’re still not connecting. I’ve written again to the server technicians.
Update – 11.30 PM (Cincinnati time): Mailing lists seem to be working again. I just tested them.
We’ve completed stage one of building the new Celebrate Capitalism websystem and are now working on stage two.
Reporting that I have now commissioned a coder/programer to testthe new system I have in mind for the campaign’s websites.
The first step is to check whether the new server has the ability to run such a system.
When all domains and web systems were recently moved to the new server (actually, it’s two servers)themailing lists located at prodoscope.com were not included.
At last the new PRODOS serverappears to beworking.
Straight after the mail systemwithin the server was fixed, we found a problem in its control panel – a java memory leak – that was causing it to crash, sometimes 3 times per day.
The new server (actually, I’m running two servers now) have more than twice the space and twice the bandwidth of what was available before. That means it’ll be possible to archive a couple of hundred SOLID VOX podcast shows (each show uses about 1 MB per minute) and offer some more free web services and tools for Celebrate Capitalism supporters.
After several days of trying to fathom why the new server won’t send emails, I’ve discovered that the problem was coming from the provider – not from my end.
The provider looks like they’ve now fixed their side of things. Now we need to make a couple of adjustments from this end and then test the system.
Hopefully, everything will be resolved by tomorrow. Here’s hoping!
I’m running behind on my correspondence at the moment. Apologies if you’ve written to me and are still waiting for a reply. I may be another day or two.
The reason for this delay is that I need to configure a new Virtual Dedicated Server so that the prodoscope.com lists will work.
The new hosting system I set up recently – to whichnearly all PRODOS websites and web systems (including the THINKER TO THINKER blogs) were migrated-can’t handle mailing lists, unfortunately.
Currently, a colleague is hosting theprodoscope.com bulletins and mailing lists on his server. But this is just temporary.
Also, the new Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS)runs cron jobs, which the other hosting service doesn’t offer.
The new VDS will be run in addition to the main hosting system. i.e. We definitelywon’t be migrating all the websites and systems to the VDS.
The PRODOSVDS should also run the new free mailing list/newsletter service that I want to offer to supporters of Capitalist Ideals.
Configuring the VDS has also delayed finalisation of the Snewp.com system.
The bad news: Unfortunately, the new hosting service that all the sites and web systems have been moved to can’t handle the mailman script which ran the prodoscope.com mailing lists.
My colleague, Davide, is temporarily hosting all those lists on his own server, but they’re going to have to be discontinued soon.
The good news: I’ve been testing and comparing some new mailing list management scripts and plan, in the next week, to create a new free newsletter/mailing list service for Celebrate Capitalism project leaders, Thinker TO Thinker bloggers, and other supporters.
This will allow registered users to create their own, quite snappy email newsletters and run their own newsletter service.
More news about this over the next week! 
All websites and systems have now been migrated and the old server has been unplugged. There are still a few bugs showing up across the new system but generally it seems to be working fine.
The main drawback with the new system is that it doesn’t allow subdomains to use “www.”.
For instance: http://Science.prodos.org works
But: www.Science.prodos.org does not work.
We’ve been trying to find a way around this, but no luck yet.
The newhostingservicehas abouttwice the space and about twice the bandwidth of the old one. This is a big plus when it comes to projects such as SolidVox.com which use a LOT of space and bandwidth.
However, unlike the old server, we no longer have unlimited databases.
The other loss with the new system is that it cannot run the mailman lists at prodoscope.com so I’m looking around for some alternatives.
Unfortunately, running a dedicated server over the last few years has been a great pain. The dedicated server was subjected to constant attacks, hacks, and crashes, and meant that several times per year I had to fork out a lot of money to hire a Linux expert to restore and secure the server.
The new system is not a dedicated server and so I’ll have none of these problems- which cost a lot of time and lots of money – anymore, thank goodness!
Onwards!