• Maintenance Complete – July/August 2015 – That Was Interesting

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    The maintenance is now complete. I hope. I will know for sure when the old hosting account finally expires. Otherwise, I have successfully managed to move my websites to a new hosting platform. I did run into some issues and interesting bits along the way.

    For instance, I had named my original hosting account the same as my domain. At the time that was the thing to do. Unfortunately this created a problem when I started trying to move things around. I tried to move this site first as it was the site I had used to test so I thought it would be best to do that. When I did that, my other website that uses/used the same hosting account dropped off the internet. Well, not entirely. It just wouldn’t show up. It mostly had to do with the IP address for the hosting account.

    I had to take a step back and reset the hosting account IP information first and then I moved my other site over to the new hosting account. That went pretty smooth for the most part. I ran into one problem and that was with my backup software. I have a lot of pictures in the articles on that site and the content files are getting to be good size, at least for last year and this year. That caused a bandwidth problem for my site when I tried to run the backup and the compression piece. I finally found a backup software that would let me drill down to what was being backed up and that let me create a multipart backup. That sure took some work though. But since that is the site I keep up with most right now, I was glad to have it all up and reasonably stable.

    This site was not as cooperative. Once the other site was moved and everything else was uninstalled and the front page for this site moved, I tried changing the IP address again. And it seemed to go ok. And then it didn’t. The IP address would change back to an older one when I pinged it. When this happened the site wouldn’t come up. It took a few calls to tech support at GoDaddy to finally get it resolved. The problem was an A record entry for the domain that was pointing to an address that was an accelerator. Several years ago GoDaddy had this accelerator function that was meant to help the site load faster. They have discontinued that and at least one person I spoke with said they think it was discontinued before they started. I tried to edit or remove the record but I couldn’t. They finally had to get the developers involved to remove that record and things seem to have stablized finally.

    I did learn a bunch of stuff, as is usually the case, with this maintenance cycle. I still have some changes I would like to make but don’t have the bandwidth right now to test them and then implement them so they will have to wait.

    Thanks for your patience while things were a bit messed up.


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  • Upcoming Site Maintenance – July/August 2015

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    This site will be undergoing a bit of maintenance within the next week.

    As any of you have visited this site over the years might have figured out, this site tends to be the test site for anything I have to figure out or do for some other site. I thought I might be past that and yet here we are again.

    It will be moving to a new hosting platform. That requires that I move the site from one IP address to another. It also requires that I move the application and the database. All a little tricky. And so the ‘previoulsy experimental’ site once again becomes ‘an experimental’ site. Not to worry though, I have made progress since the earlier days of the site and now have a way of testing most things before messing it up for you.

    Since I have already tested the process, and found some of the pitfalls, think I can make this move happen with as little downtime as possible.

    I am hoping to get this done within the week. Certainly by sometime on August 2. I have another site I need to migrate after that and I only have to sometime in August to do it so I need to get started.

    Sometime after I’ve moved both sites there will be some additional maintenance changes take place as I will be updating the look of the site some as well. So some fun stuff to look for.


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  • Bluecoal Diaries – 03202015

    Posted on by bluecoal Comment

    I know. My report is late. Seriously, you try running this garrison and keeping up with paperwork.

    It’s been busy around here though most of it has been the garrison chores that are taking up so much time.
    No one else seems to have the initiative to pick up the various work orders aor even go out and get more
    beasts for the barn. And I still don’t understand why Lantresor can’t bring in the ore when I assign him to
    the mine. He’s not going out on missions and bringing back stuff, he really could help out whit the ore.

    Now that’s something I’m had to do. It seems that with all these followers, not enough of them have the
    right skills at times. I try to send as many of them out on missions and most of the time there is someone
    left over who didn’t qualify for a mission, or does but the mission needs another couple of people as well.
    I’ve finally started putting some of those left over back to work in the garrison.

    I put Mokuja to work in the barn sine he has skinning experience and he’s been doing great. I’m not sure
    why some of these others can’t be as content and productive as he has been. However, the barn foreman has
    informed me that he needs more beasts to work with. I guess I will be going hunting again soon. I may head
    over to Nagrand again. That worked out really well. Fewer of the Talbuk died before they got to the cage so
    there was less waste.

    The loot from some of the missions has included some really interesting artifacts that the Steamwheedle
    Preservation Society would really be interested in. Though I question how much preserving of artifacts and
    society run by Goblins actually does. They will wheel and deal you and sell their own mother. So I suspect
    things are going to the highest bidder as opposed to actually being used for research or even just to look
    at in a museum.

    At any rate, I have been collecting these artifacts and they were starting to pile up in the office so I
    figured it was time to go looking for these people. Really, it should have been easy to find them. But no,
    I took a wrong turn and ended up with quite the grand tour of Nagrand. Then someone tells me that they are
    pretty much in the middle of everything. So I try again. And sure enough there they were at the Ruins of
    Na’gwa, in the middle of everything. They are buying up stuff right and left, and the prices, well, they
    undercut some but since I’m not doing the heavy lifting, I’m not going to complain. At least it gets the
    stuff out of my garrison. A little like a junk dealer, or taking the garage sale to the customer. I’m ok
    with that.

    I’ve picked up a few new followers. Mokuja was one. He’s pretty cool. Of course Trolls have this pleasent
    laid back whay about them that can be a nice change from being an Orc and working with Orcs. It can get a
    little annoy at times when they don’t seem to get the urgency. But like with Shadow Hunter Ukambe, they are
    pretty good about letting you know something and then not forcing the issue.

    Another follower who joined me is Aeda Brightdawn. She’s been accompanying me on quests and adventures
    around Draenor. I do have a tendency to wonder into areas that she’s not yet equipped to handle and she has
    to head back to the garrison for some repairs and recovery. Still she’s coming a long and has been very
    helpful in bringing down some hard to handle creatures. I must remember to take her with me more often.

    I found something interesting in the loot of one of the missions recently. It seems they came back with a
    S.E.L.F.I.E. camera. Really, this sounds like a gnomish invention. It had not instructions. So I pushed the
    button. Do not laugh.

    WoWScrnShot_031115_212700WoWScrnShot_031115_212650

    A couple of days ago, they came back with a speacial lense for that camera. I haven’t had time to see what
    it does. It would be really useful if it seared a hole in some enemy but I imagine it just puts little
    halos or stars around those silly pictures.

    I managed to upgrade the garden in the garrison. There are more plots for the herbs. The scribe’s tent has
    been upgraded as well and are able to greate more warpaints. I will need to upgrade the salvage yard soon.
    It’s starting reach capacity. And the mine. Maybe if I upgrade that it will make Lantresor happy and give
    him more to do.

    It’s time to get back to work. There is always more to do.


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  • Bluecoal Diaries — 02272015

    Posted on by bluecoal Comment

    So many chores to do around the garrison. This place would fall apart if I weren’t keeping up with things. There are work orders to pick up it seems like constantly. And then there are the things that need gathering like the ore in the mine and the herbs in the herb garden.

    And there are all the missions that keep coming up. I have to assign the right people to those. And occasionally  someone gets fussy about it.

    The good news is in the middle of all this up keep I’ve managed to do a few more interesting things.

    The guy in the guild was working on a raid group for killing off Tarina the Ageless in Gorgrond. So I went over there an helped with that. That was quite a fight. Once we quit dieing and got a method down we were able to take that thing down. I can’t say that I got much more out of it than some gold and a high repair bill. And of course some experience killing off that thing. I’ve heard there is another big guy in Gorgrond to hunt down but I haven’t followed up on it.

    I finally knocked down the Lumber Mill. I haven’t been getting much use out of it. Most of the time it sits idle. So I decided that it was time to replace it with a more functional building. I had Gazlowe put up a Tavern. They call it Frostwall Tavern. There were visitors in there right quick trying to get me to go get things for them from one dungeon or another. This is not sitting well with Warmaster Zog. He’s not keen on my ability to take care of myself in a dungeon. I really think this is just him being over protective. But maybe he’s right. I guess I need to put a little more time in over at the Barrack’s training dummies.

    After we upgraded the Tavern a bit this Troll named Akanja showed up calling herself a Headhunter. I thought she meant to she actually hunts heads. You know Trolls. She quickly put me straight. She’s like a employment broker. She tells me that she will go out and scout for people to come work at my garrison, I just have to tell her what skills I’m looking for. So I took her up on the offer to find a new recruit and she brought me a choice of three. I ended up with a Holy Paladin named Auriel Birdsong. She seems capable enough, though she’s going to require some training up. She also can work over in the Herb Garden when there aren’t missions for her. That’s good. Get her a little experience there, then maybe find her some missions to head out on.

    As I mentioned Warmaster Zog is not really happy with my performance in group situations like dungeons and raids. It’s making it a little tense in the Town Hall. This week High Overlord Saurfang showed up and is standing not even ten spans from Warmaster Zog. This would be ok if Saurfang weren’t trying to convince me to go take care of something in Black Rock Spire.

    It’s looking like I may need to take some training from Zog. I think that’s the only way he’s going to ease up on me and let me see more action. Not that I have that much time for it with all the garrison up keep there is. Still a little change of pace would be good.


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  • Bluecoal’s Diaries – 02152015

    Posted on by bluecoal Comment

    That was a nice trinket they brought back from the mission. It goes well with the robes.

    I think Bony Xuk might be trying to flirt with me. Today he tells me I have lovely bone structure. I do.
    And it’s a good thing he’s already a spririt or I might hurt him.

    Lantresor whined about my putting too many ‘s’ in his name. Sheesh. So I sent him out without that new
    gear.

    Fine. Not really. Everyone was so hot to get to the action they were off and gone before I remembered I had
    some new enhancements to hand out.

    I was able to help out over at Mar’gok’s Overwatch in Nagrand. At least I finally got out of the garrison
    for a bit.

    Rak’jin at the fishing shack keeps going on about Nat Pagel. He’s a fisherman back in Pandaria. I’ve run
    into him and he’s no big deal. But Rak’jin is all about him.

    That should keep the guys at the barn good and busy, at least for a while. I went out and trapped a whole
    wagon full of beasts for them.

    I finally got around to the skills test Commander Zog was wanting me to take. I’ve finished what he calls
    bronze level but he’s concerned for my safety and wants me to at least get through silver before he
    recommends me for certain events. Something about not trusting others and making sure I can take care of
    myself if someone else screws up.

    I quizzed Rak’jin a bit further about this Nat Pagel guy. Seems Rak’jin thinks if I can get in good with
    him then he will come to Draenor and help out at the garrison. So I’ve been making regular visits back to
    Pandaria to do some fishing for this Nat Pagel guy. We’ll see how this goes. So far, it’s been a bit slow.
    But at least that should get Rak’jin to chill for a while.

    Finally got to taking out Banthor and Tall Buck over in Nagrand. Really think they were just trophy
    hunting but it’s done. Now Thrall wants to send me off to a couple other areas of Nagrand to help out.

    And I was sent off to help free some of the Outcasts in Arak.

    I had some extra time and materials so I made a couple of items that I thought someone might need and put
    them up for sale. Turns out, someone did need them and I made a nice little profit off of them. That’s
    always nice. I guess the Goblins are starting to rub off on me.

    It’s been a busy week and the travel back and forth to Pandaria is getting a bit old. Probably more of the
    same next week but we’ll see. The guild is holding try outs for some tournament stuff and some special
    assignments. It would be great to get those assignments but I think those try outs conflict with a meeting.
    I will have to check the calendar. Meetings. I’m not bureaucrat. I hate meetings. Why can’t we just torch
    things and bust some skulls? It really is much easier.


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