An (Autobiographical) Note On The Change Of Web-Site Location

from www.slip.net/~neilrm to imaginenine.com



For the past several weeks, from mid-December, 2001, to the present, mid-January, 2002, the slip.net web servers which have hosted this site for the past seven years, have been operating in an intermittent manner, which has precipitated an abrupt and unexpected change of site location and site name.

In fear that the site may have seemed "disappeared" to some persons, since indeed the slip.net servers have been "off" about seventy percent of the time over the past two or three weeks, I thought that I'd give a little explanation regarding what has happened.


Interruption of Service

This world-wide-web site, formally named "The Paradigm from California Web Site" and composed, written, and maintained solely by me, Neil Robert Miller, has been located at the http://www.slip.net/~neilm address since it opened in mid-September, 1995.

In early December of 2001, I was informed by the Internet Service Provider for slip.net, that they were physically moving their servers from one location to another, during which time there would be a two week interruption in my ability to update files ("FTP access") and to read the logs of traffic to my site.

I was told not to worry, that there would be no interruption in web access to my site, that when FTP access was restored, the logs would all be there (they were not), and that service would be better than ever.

However, the interruption extended past the time promised, and by the end of December, problems also developed with e-mail being cut off for several days, and more - which they said was a momentary problem with their servers - and they insisted that all mail was being saved and would be forwarded forthwith (it was not).

By the beginning of January, I became aware that the site itself was being intermittently cut off to the world, something that had happened briefly before, but never this bad for weeks on end, which I found most upsetting.


Incommunicado

And, then, the ISP went incommunicado, unreachable for days on end by phone or e-mail. On the rare occasion that an actual person answered their phone, it was clear that they were in no position to (or not inclined to) speak realistically about the circumstances.

I really don't know what happened with the slip.net ISP company. Putting together what little I know, apparently, the large corporation which had previously held the slip.net platform, had sold their "tilde" (~) accounts, including mine, to a start-up firm in Colorado, who, in turn, had, I must presume, taken on more than they could handle. At least that's my most charitable, and least paranoid explanation, but I really don't know; there might be more to it, but as far as what I know, I have to leave it at that.


Superstition

Actually, this has not been the first time that there has been an interruption of one slip.net ISP service or another over the years; there were interruptions of some sort in the days preceeding the '96, '98, and 2000 elections, as well as a three week on/off difficulty in the month prior to the September 11th attacks last year, which the ISP reported as being due to the "red worm virus" destroying some of their crucial equipment. But, this most recent set of interruptions is by far the worst it's gotten.

Actually, I've come to, superstitiously I suppose, associate an interruption of my ISP service as some sort of "omen" of a national play by the right-wing of one sort or another shortly thereafter, but again, I presume that that's just silly superstition.

As far as accurate intuition goes, I'm really not very good with that; 'not my department', as they say; it's logical, conscious calculations over time that are my strong suit.


New Site

Anyway, in early January, about ten days ago, I learned that I could get a "mirror" site with a very large, established, and well known ISP, including a new domain name, for just $20, with all initial fees waived, apparently a promotional package they were offering.

I had no idea that such was possible for a 100 megabyte site such as mine, including a domain name.

I knew that computers were escalating rapidly in storage capacity per cost, but I didn't know that web-sites were as well. The dollar amount, as it turned out, was something that I was able to scrape together at that moment, barely, penny jars and the like, so I took it, and copied all of the files of my web-site onto the new ISP's server, at the new domain name "imaginenine.com".

It actually took me about a week or two to realize that I'm actually changing the location and name of the site entirely after all these years (I am, as mentioned elsewhere at this site, a kind of slow-witted type of person), and to figure out how to arrange the pointers and the links at the now two different sites.

I've decided to hold onto the slip.net site, basically indefinitely, if I can economically, and if the ISP continues to maintain it, so that those who have cards, papers, manuscripts, letters, and bookmarks at the slip.net address will still to be able to find the site; but it is the imaginenine.com site which will become the official "Paradigm from California" web-site.

It will also take me a while to change all the site adresses in the hundred or so Acrobat *.pdf files, many of which were made on outdated programs, and will have to be reconstructed from scratch.

I'm actually thrilled at the change of site-name, as imaginenine is a name I've had in mind for a long time. I just wish I had the resources to handle the move in a smooth and seamless manner, which I don't.

Actually, generally speaking, I'm a rather staid person, having lived at the same location for more than twenty years now, and having had only two or three residences in the fifteen years before that. For better or worse, presumably for worse, change has not been a hallmark of my life. I tend to stick with things, I think most people would say, to a fault. Oh well, 'there's one in every crowd', I suppose.


Please Reset Links and Bookmarks

So anyway, I would like to ask that if anyone knows of links anywhere, that currently read "http://www.slip.net/~neilrm", it would be great if they could encourage that those links be changed to http://imaginenine.com

I have prepared a Change of URL Address" form, which sort of doubles as an advertisment for the site, which I'm preparing to send out shortly, hopefully en masse. The reader is welcome to paste it into an e-mail to any relevant webmasters or other persons, since I myself really don't know where the links are out there on the web.

Alternatively, a simple change of address notice, just the first few lines of the notice, might work as well, or even better in some cases.

And, well, onward . . .



________________________
neil
Neil Robert Miller
neil@imaginenine.com
http://imaginenine.com
(415) 978-4015 (pager)

January 18th, 2002
________________________