Welcome Back! December 13 2001, 06:04 pm
After months of a communications blackout, RPM Freelancers is back on the net. This is a direct counter against the ISP serving RPM Freelancer due to their indiscriminatory blockage of the sacred port 80. Just because there are other systems out there whose owners are not scrupulous enough to protect their network, does not mean EVERY network operator out there is incompetent. Because of a few bad apples, everyone has been made to suffer. Well, all that's going to change. Repairs are underway to restore the entire site to where it was before the Nimda attack in September. If everyone will be gracious enough to bear with the changes, our future awaits.
Posted by: Lord Paladin

DNS Outages September 24 2001, 10:14 pm
RoadRunner is doing several upgrades to their network, as such it is affecting our DNS entires here (not to mention the aftermath of Nimda itself). So, our site will be up and down for the time being, until DNS filtering is stablized.
Posted by: Paladin

We're moving! August 26 2001, 09:31 pm
The URL for RPM Freelancers will be changing.

Instead of rpmfreelancer.dynip.com we will be residing at rpmfreelancer.no-ip.com.

The site is currently active for both addresses, and will be until Sept 3, when the DynIP address will cease to exist.

Please wibble your thingies accordingly.

Posted by: Paladin

Long Overdue R&R. . . August 20 2001, 12:12 am
Historical documents detailing Lord Paladin's long overdue vacation has finally been released. They can be found here. . .
Incursion at Denver
Posted by: Paladin

Latest addition to the fleet. . . August 8 2001, 09:26 pm
Lord Paladin, Commander of Outpost Command III, is proud to announce the closing of negotiations for the acquisition of a small one-man assault craft. Manufactured by Suzuki Motors, the SV650 will be a welcome addition as an escort/patrol vessel to the field-tested Bannockburn (battlecruiser).

"While it took us awhile to locate this beauty, I will personally oversee the proper training of personnel piloting this vessel, and ensure its smooth integration into the fleet," commented Paladin.

Best estimates of its deployment will be in a month, while Paladin personally tests out the vessel in several shakedown cruises.

Images of the vessel in action will be published when available.

Posted by: Paladin

Network Status July 24 2001, 11:20 pm
Time Warner has just redeemed themselves in my eyes.

After weeks of dismal network connection (partly due to a massive network failure on Road Runner's part), I finally got a cable technician out to OC3 for diagnostics and repairs. At 10:30PM at night. The tech was friendly, thorough, and most importantly, got the job done.

Prior to his arrival, my cable connection was intermittent, and TV signal was staticy. After his repairs, the TV picture was 10x better, and cable connection resumed its rightful place in terms of performance.

All this done in the dead of night. Not bad Road Runner, you just made me a happy customer again.

Needless to say, this means that the flaky network connection you witnessed in the past few weeks should no longer be a concern.

Posted by: Paladin

Power Outage July 24 2001, 12:30 am
The area where Outpost Command III is located suffered massive power outages throughout Monday night, lasting until Tuesday morning. This resulted in intermittent to nonexistent network connections for OC3. Even the UPS units deployed to support the network were eventually drained of all reserve power. It was pretty much a disaster.

Things are getting back to normal, more or less. I'm expecting network fluctuations until all the DNS information has rolled over. Regrettably, there's not a damn thing I can do until both the utility company and the cable company get their heads out of their rear-end and get their acts together.

Posted by: Paladin

Network outage again. . . July 7 2001, 01:09 pm
The cable company is having problems again, so until they get it fixed, network connection to CCCCC.net will be intermittent at best.
Posted by: Paladin

Network Disruption July 6 2001, 07:44 am
The ISP serving Outpost Command III suffered major network failures throughout the day yesterday (7/5/2001), resulting in poor to zero performance of the site. The issue appears to be have been resolved, and everything should be operational again. Once again, this outrage was not on Outpost Command III's end, but with the ISP, meaning there was nothing I could do about it but wait.
Posted by: Paladin

Network Operations Resumed June 8 2001, 12:14 am
After a hectic transfer, in which everthing that could go wrong, did, I am pleased to announce the resumption of network services for CCCCC.net.

The network shutdown and moveover itself was fairly straight forward, except the people who were supposed to be here helping me move disappeared when the time came. So it boiled down to me, myself, and I having to move every single item I ever owned with only one van. That was why the network outage lasted far longer I wanted.

Nonetheless, Outpost Command II was officially shut down on Thursday, June 7, 2001, at approximately 18:02. Meanwhile, Outpost Command III was open and ready for move in at Wedensday, June 6, 2001, at around 15:32.

All in all, it went better than expected, given the sudden and abrupt change in circumstances. I'm sure all of you needed to know the nitty gritty details of the move, but I'll keep the bitterness down.

At this time there are no further major outages forseeable, other than a couple of quick ones needed to replace a dying UPS. Those will be carried out in the wee hours of a morning, so chances are you won't notice it.

Enjoy.

Posted by: Paladin

Network Shutdown Countdown June 5 2001, 06:20 pm
Just a quick reminder to everyone that CCCCC.net will be shutting down in less than 24 hours in preparation for the move. At the moment, packing for the rest of OC2 is nearing completion, with only 25% left to pack or box. However, the network nerve center is still untouched, and thus is slated for break down by tomorrow afternoon (2PMish CST).

As stated before, I am hoping to have the network back up and running by Friday at the latest, Thursday afternoon at the earliest (48 hours at the longest, 24 hours at the shortest).

Posted by: Paladin

Extended Outage May 29 2001, 06:48 pm
Well, unforseen events occured.

As of the beginning of Memorial Weekend, the cable service linking CCCCC.net and the rest of the WWW began failing rapidly. This was finally traced to a dying cable modem.

Unfortunately, since this occured during a holiday/weekend, nothing could be done until the work week resumed. Resulting in today's arrival of a service technician carrying a replacement cable modem. The replacement job only took 5 minutes, but has lead to full restoration of network connections to CCCCC.net.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvinience this has caused.

On a separate note, please be advised that CCCCC.net will be completely offline for the scheduled relocation of the entire Outpost Command II to Outpost Command III. This downtime is expected to last no more than three (3) days. Steps have already been taken to began the smooth transfer of network services.

Posted by: Paladin

Service Outage May 25 2001, 02:36 pm
Due to a severe thunderstorm last night, the cable connection the network was hooked up to failed miserably. After an extended outage from late last night (5/24/2001) to late afternoon today (5/25/2001), everything is slowly rolling back into service.

I'm giving the connection another 12 hours to stablize before trading in the cable modem as the tech support suggested. If all else fails, be prepared for a few hours outage as I replace the cable modem.

Posted by: Paladin

Doomsday! May 8 2001, 12:26 am
Not really.

But Outpost Command II, where CCCCC.net is currently residing (amongst other things) will be closing soon. On June 7th, everything will be relocated to Outpost Command III.

Because of this relocation, CCCCC.net and all its connected networks will be down. Expected downtime will be approximately 3 days (shorter, hopefully).

This is because I need time to pack up, move, and unpack before everything is returned to semi-working order.

As the date approaches I will announce a few more details regarding that.

Posted by: Paladin

Service Resumed March 31 2001, 01:48 am
The planned service outage is now over.

Most of the tasks planned to be done during this window have been taken care of. There are still a few minor issues pertaining to specific systems that requires a further maintenance schedule, but nothing that will affect all of CCCCC.net like this one did.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Posted by: Paladin

Server Outage March 29 2001, 11:36 pm
There will be a planned server outage Saturday morning, around 1AM CST. Downtime is expected to be around 30 minutes, no more than 45 minutes.

This outage is occuring because of a planned power grid expansion. The CCCCC.net is growing steadily, and is running out of power couplings.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Posted by: Paladin

bleem! Refugees! March 19 2001, 11:49 pm
Due to popular request, RPM Freelancers have deployed an expeditionary force to assist in the incoming of refugees from bleem!'s failing message board. The new bleem! Refugee Board was set up on March 16, but wasn't fully stabilized until today.

If you feel the need to see what the fuss is about, hop over to http://rpmfreelancer.dynip.com/bleem/ and find out for yourself. But be nice to the refugees. . . they've gone through enough as it is. . .

Posted by: Paladin

Transfer Complete! February 25 2001, 08:08 pm
The process of transferring control of the website from Quincy IV to Quincy Pro is now complete. All aspects of the website has been tested and seems to be functional. Extra observation will be conducted over the next few days to determine stability.

The official ceremony celebrating this grand event was filled fanfare and "yeaaa. . . "s. Of course, Mitsou, who contributed significantly to this project, spoke on this subject. "I think Paladin spends too much time working with computers. And my brain hurts. . . owwww. . . "

Paladin, who refused to respond in kind, simply smiled and walked away.

Posted by: Paladin

New Server Status February 24 2001, 03:35 pm
After some fiddling around, the new WWW/FTP server is running, and the WWW/FTP switchover will be done later tonight. More specs and details will be available when everything's completed. Stay tuned. . .
Posted by: Paladin

New Server Coming Soon!!! February 15 2001, 03:12 pm
Mitsou, my ever trusty sidekick, managed to get her hands on a slightly aged Pentium Pro machine. The only problem is it is missing the CPU (kinda required) and the hard drive (also kinda required). When the parts do arrive, and if everything is still working, RPM Freelancer will be moving to the relatively newer, and definitely more powerful, server. I'll post more as it happens.
Posted by: Paladin

Time time time. . . January 16 2001, 09:47 pm
School is now officially back in session. Which means less time for me to work on the site. Work on this I will, just won't be as prompt in updates.
Posted by: Paladin

Server Maintenance Complete January 15 2001, 07:40 pm
After some more adjustments, CCCCC-MKIV which has been running this site for over a year now is once again fully operational. The following changes have been made and added, with only a few very minor changes needed for 100% efficiency.

-Server OS upgraded from NT Workstation to NT Server.

-HTTP service changed from Savant Web Server to IIS 4.0, with Savant acting as backup server.

-Repaired CGI scripts for it to work with the new server settings.

-Installed a uninterrupteable power supply for the server in event of power failure to prevent irreversible data loss.

-Found out that CD drives for CCCCC-MKIV are no longer functional. Replacement units planned.

-ActivePerl 6.0.2 installed, instead of relying on the Perl distribution that came with Savant.

All of the above took place in the span of about two weeks. So far everything seems to be holding, so here's hoping nothing breaks.

Posted by: Paladin

Server Maintenance (cont) January 14 2001, 03:23 am
Just upgraded the server operating system. Currently replacing the web server, so there will be downtimes.
Posted by: Paladin

Website changes January 11 2001, 08:24 pm
Doing some minute changes to the site layout while I take a break from trying to repair the server. There shouldn't be any significant downtime while this is done.
Posted by: Paladin

Server Maintenance Update January 7 2001, 03:27 pm
The power reconfiguration of the network has just been completed. Cable management is still a mess, and will continue to be until I get a bigger place to work with. Now all that is left is the restoration of NTXF message board, which is taking longer than expected.
Posted by: Paladin

Server Maintenance January 3 2001, 08:31 pm
The RPM Freelancer Web Server is up for another series of maintenance. This time, the two most important items are the restoration of the message board for NTXF and the installation of a new battery backup system due to recent power fluctuations in Outpost Command II. As such, the website may be experiencing intermittent service outages until these tasks are complete. I will post another note when the time comes.
Posted by: Paladin

Holidays galore! December 21 2000, 12:50 am
I will be out of town for the next several days, and thus will not be updating this site. Starting on the 29th I will be at a LAN party with NTXF, and won't be available until after New Years. Therefore, happy holidays to all, and hope everyone have a pleasant New Year.
Posted by: Paladin

News Post System December 18 2000, 09:35 pm
After some searching and twiddling, I finally found a automated news administration system that I liked. Its light, simple, and effective. Granted it doesn't contain any spectacular effects or humongous shock value, but it works. Quite well. So, here's yet another addition to the site, and there's a whole line of them waiting to be implemented. :)
Posted by: Paladin