Welcome to issue two of the FictCo Monthly Newsletter. This month, we celebrate our new server, suggest that Movable Type Users upgrade to the latest version, give a couple of tips on how to keep spam away and disk space under quota, and highlight more of the clients who have been with us for a while.
SEPTEMBER 2005 NEWSLETTER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. THE BIG NEWS: NEW SERVER
2. MOVABLE TYPE UPGRADE AVAILABLE
3. TIPS & TRICKS: CATCHALL & QUOTA EATERS
4. CLIENT PROFILES
1. THE BIG NEWS: NEW SERVER
The server transfer seems to have gone off swimmingly. The old server was taken offline at 9:00pm last Thursday, and the new server went online an hour and fifteen minutes later. The transfer caused some minor glitches for the subdomains of clients with active virtual pointers, but Jesse was able to fix those easily.
The new server: better, faster, stronger. And, from what we can see, much more reliable. For those of you that were having problems with webmail, the server switch looks to have taken care of that. If you find any problems, let support know.
2. MOVABLE TYPE UPGRADE AVAILABLE
The nice folks at SixApart have released Movable Type 3.2, a free upgrade. Among other things, the new version offers unlimited blogs for the free version, a new search-based interface, and (this is the big one) much improved community management features for handling comments and trackbacks. We recommend this upgrade.
More info here | Download here | Upgrade instructions here
We also recommend that Movable Type users who are still using BerkeleyDB databases for their blogs switch over to MySQL for their data storage. In order to encourage this, we have added a MySQL database to all hosting plans. Upgrade instructions can be found on Movable Type's site - click on "Converting your Berkeley DB database to a SQL database."
3. TIPS & TRICKS: CATCHALL & QUOTA EATERS
** CATCHALL: Still getting Spam? To email addresses you haven't even set up? That's because your site has a Catchall, which is set up to forward anything@yourdomain.com to the main address. Spammers will often send to random email addresses in hopes of finding a real person, and if your Catchall is active, you will receive those emails. So, if you want to reduce the amount of spam you could potentially receive, deactivate the Catchall.
HOW TO:
1. Log into your admin panel (yourdomain.com/admin)
2. Under "Email", click on "Default Address"
3. You'll see "All unrouted mail will be sent to:" and the address to which unrouted mail is sent. Click on "Set Default Address".
4. Enter ":fail: no such address here" (no quotation marks) in the dialogue box and click "Change". All email that is not addressed to an account or a forwarder will now be discarded.
** QUOTA EATERS: One of the main ways in which our clients use up their disk space is by storing email on the server. This is a problem, because if your disk space fills up completely, your email will start bouncing. If you are storing your email on a server indefinitely, we highly recommend that you start downloading it to a mail program. But you might be doing so without even knowing it. Your login account (the username and password with which you FTP and access your admin panel) is also you default email address. The address receives all of the catchall emails mentioned above, and fills up rapidly if not checked.
So, if you want to keep your disk space clear, be sure to check your main account regularly. You can do this through a mail program (POP settings info here) or through webmail (info here).
4. CLIENT PROFILES
Each newsletter, we'll plug a different client or group of clients. (If you'd prefer not to be profiled, drop us a line and let us know.) This month, we're profiling two more clients who have been with us since FictCo's earlier days; magazine publisher C&G PUBLICATIONS, and puppet theater troupe TINY NINJA THEATER.
C&G PUBLICATIONS started in 2002 with Hamptons Cottages & Gardens, a regional shelter magazine for the Hamptons. Since then, C&G has expanded to Palm Beach and Connecticut, "informing and inspiring readers with original area-based journalism" (in their own words).
Since 2000, TINY NINJA THEATER has presented Shakespeare's classics performed by inch-high plastic ninjas and other dime-store figures on a briefcase-sized stage. Why? In the words of founder and director Dov Weinstein, "I had noticed that there were these tiny plastic ninjas in vending machines all across New York City, but no one was using them to perform classical theater. Something had to be done." The company has toured the US and the world (currently in Israel), and garnered rave reviews across the globe.
Posted by JVG at 09.26.2005The server migration took about an hour, and services were restored around 10:15 PM EST. Some Perl modules were missing, preventing Movable Type installations from working properly, but this has been fixed. There may still be some problems, and if you encounter something that doesn't seem to be working right, please email support and we'll get right on fixing it!
Posted by jcn at 09.22.2005The server migration is currently underway. As a reminder, during the migration, you will be unable to receive email and your website will not be reachable. The bulk of the transfer happened a couple of weeks ago, so the data center is currently synching the old server and the new server. Hopefully this should not take too long (we have been told it will take a couple of hours) but we will post here with any updates.
Posted by jcn at 09.22.2005