Bewildering Stories News
The Week We Wish Weren’t
and What It Means to You
Or, perhaps more grammatically, “hadn’t been.” Grant me an alliteration and a News Bulletin that may tell you more than you may really want to know.
What does this mean to you? I think it’s important to be up front with our contributors and readers and to let you know you can count on us. Normally that isn’t necessary, but when things go wrong, it is.
I was putting the last finishing touches onto issue 164 when the home page suddenly went blooie in a cascade of disappearing colors. Jerry reported that we’d experienced a major hard disk crash and one or two other big problems. What’s going on? I don’t know, but the term “smoking hole in the ground” seems to fit. I am strongly reminded of a noise my hard disk made a year or so ago: it began rattling like an automobile engine that had thrown a rod.
What does this mean to you? We’re still on line, somehow, but by fits and starts. None of us, especially you — our contributors and readers — needs that kind of suspense. Jerry is at this writing at the other end of the continent from the Bewildering Stories machinery. I hope he can bring us up to date in this issue. Stay tuned !
We apparently lost our backup in addition to the main disk. And with it might have gone fourteen issues. Fortunately I have on disk the complete issues since number 94, which was about the time we discontinued the use of frames in our website. I was able to restore the missing issues from original files.
What does this mean to you?
If you contributed to any issue between 149 and 163 inclusive, please review your work, especially if you requested any changes after the work appeared on line. If you don’t remember the issue number, that’s where our Biographies & Bibliographies come in handy; that was one of the first things I restored.
If you notice anything that needs changing in any of your files, please report it to Ye Copy Editor. One contributor has already reported three major errors, which have been repaired.
Almost all of Jerry’s reviews and editorials have been lost, because they were written on line and posted separately. Jörn Grote has noted that some may be cached in Google. If any can be recovered, please send them to Ye Copy Editor. One reader has already sent the editorial from issue 159, and it has been restored.
The menus and footers may be missing in some back issues. Please don’t worry about that; I just need to reset the file permissions. For the technically inclined, our permissions were originally set in UNIX code 644. That’s useless for our purposes; our server-side includes require code 755. I have to reopen each issue separately. Even though I can reset all the files in a subdirectory at once, redoing them all is going to be very time-consuming.
What does this mean to you? Please let me know if you want your files brought up to date and I’ll give that issue priority.
I can’t do anything about the forum. Jerry is working on restoring it. It needed upgrading anyway, even before the accident. And the last I heard, plans are to move Bewildering Stories to an entirely new server. Meanwhile, we need a mirror site. I’m looking into it.
Copyright © 2005 by Don Webb for Bewildering Stories
