Skip to content
Thoughtful, detailed coverage of everything Apple for 33 years
and the TidBITS Content Network for Apple professionals

The TidBITS Server Move

We moved our main Internet server on 25-Jan-96. It had been at our old house, connected to the Internet through the 56K frame relay line that we’d set up while we were living there. Even though we moved four months ago, US West has been incapable of providing us with a dedicated Internet connection via ISDN or frame relay, or even a second analog voice line. Among US West’s many problems are a combination of utter incompetence, horrible customer service, and a legitimate lack of facilities.

We didn’t want to move the server twice (once to a temporary location and then to our new house) because of the disruption in service, but after four months we decided we’d been strung along long enough. We’ll figure out our setup again when US West finally gets us a dedicated Internet connection, but – for the moment – our server is sitting happily at the office of Point of Presence, a Web-presence company run by our good friend Glenn Fleishman.

http://www.popco.com/

There are several advantages to siting the server at Glenn’s offices. Glenn has a T-1 connection to the Internet, and T-1’s 1.544 Mbps speed is much faster than our 56 Kbps connection was. The speed will be nice, and an important side-effect is that we’ve finally been able to recover the www.tidbits.com name for the server. Long before we had the dedicated connection and our own server, we set up that name to point to a machine called oneworld.wa.com, which served files related to the second editions of Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh and Internet Starter Kit for Windows. I wasn’t sure our 56K line could handle the load, even after setting up files to redirect folks to Hayden’s Web site (which didn’t exist when we first set up this scheme). But, now that our Apple Internet Server 6150 is behind Glenn’s T-1 line, we’re confident it can take the traffic. So, from now on, use the URL below to get to our Web site:

http://www.tidbits.com/

The new IP number of the machine is 205.199.66.6, but it’s conceivable your local domain name server hasn’t yet realized this. If you do a domain name lookup with Peter Lewis’s MacTCP Watcher on king.tidbits.com and get the old number (204.57.157.13), you won’t be able to connect to our machine and email to us may not work. There are two possible solutions. First, if you’re using a Mac and had connected to king.tidbits.com before last Thursday but haven’t rebooted, MacTCP will have cached the IP number. Rebooting should clear the cache, but throwing out MacTCP DNR from the System Folder (it will be rebuilt on reboot) and rebooting should be the definitive method of clearing the cache. Second, if the problem lies with your provider’s domain name servers, ask your provider to do a name daemon restart, which clears the cache of recently visited sites on your host machine. To judge from the traffic we’re seeing, most people aren’t having trouble, but this advice may be generically useful as well.

We’ve been working on a mirroring project to increase access to TidBITS via the Web and to avoid problems when a site cannot update issues (as happened with Dartmouth Web site at the end of last year). Basically, we’ve set up a directory containing HTML versions of our issues (since TidBITS-274 currently, but they’ll all be converted eventually) along with graphics and a navigation page. That directory is available for anyone to mirror as long as the Web site in question is free for public use. If you’re interested mirroring TidBITS issues, send me email at <[email protected]>.

Subscribe today so you don’t miss any TidBITS articles!

Every week you’ll get tech tips, in-depth reviews, and insightful news analysis for discerning Apple users. For over 33 years, we’ve published professional, member-supported tech journalism that makes you smarter.

Registration confirmation will be emailed to you.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA. The Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.