Happy New Year! (and a happy new server)

2006 is gone and buried and 2007 is in full swing. From everybody here @ Bruinou.com HQ, we’d like to say welcome back and I hope that this is the year in which we make the bruin voice heard throughout South Africa and indeed the world. The time spent away from the keyboard gave me an incredible opportunity to reflect on what it is we’ve achieved thus far and what it is we still need to do in order to raise the ire of the South African public to the plight of the Bruinou.

While most people were working on their tans or recovering from hangovers over the new year period, I undertook the task of migrating the Bruinou.com website to a brand spanking new server. After planning the move down to the last detail, I was confident the move would be painless and there would be no downtime…but then that ou Murphy pulled in and started causing flops…eish!

Let’s just say this was not my proudest moment and the website move to the new server could possibly be a case study in exactly how NOT to move websites to new servers. Everything that could go wrong DID go wrong. The new hosting company decided that they wanted a signature sample; photographic proof of ID; proof of residence and a whole lot of other details which I’ve never had to supply to any other hosting company before in my life. So, they pull the plug on the server while I’m migrating files and databases, leaving me scrambling trying to meet their demands. I swear they almost asked me for a urine; faecal and even semen sample…at which point I was about to post them one of my used underpants. Thankfully it did’nt get that far and we managed to get everything sorted out.

So, we’re now running on a brand new server that will be able to accommodate 10 times the amount of traffic the previous server did which means we have so much space to grow that “growth” is the theme for 2007. We’d like to have 20 000 members by the end of the year and we need your help to get there! Unity is strength and there’s power in numbers…it’s time for us to “…use the force, Luke”. It’s gonna be an exciting year ahead as we journey together down this road less traveled. We still have a few bugs in the system, like the games won’t work for some reason (I’m working on it); the chat room however should be nice and fast though, so I encourage you to start using it again (if you are’nt already).

I really look forward to your feedback and input this year and I hope that more of our members decide to make this the year in which they make their voices heard.