Reasons for being unable to update the Website .......

We would like to apologise to our Website visitors for being unable to update the Website during the period 10th April, 2003 to 20th April, 2003.

During this period, we have received several emails from our well-wishers. We  thank them for their concern as expressed in their messages. Most were enquiring about reasons for failing to update the Website while wondering if we had met the fate similar to that of other Websites like Al-Jazeera and others have.  Many wondered if we were faced with financial difficulties and offered to donate money. We really do appreciate their support and encouragement.

Fortunately, our Web Hosting company have proved to be a reputable and decent company with high business ethics and moral principles. They are not the type that would bow down to illegal intimidation demanding withdrawal of service to Websites so long as they are operating within the law. They understand that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press is the legal right of every human being.  They also understand that, in this age and time, it is only the Internet that most people now turn to for alternative News sources.

On the 5th April, 2003,  our Web Hosts kindly informed us that the Website traffic (hits) had increased dramatically (about 20 million hits in 9 days) and that that was causing problems on their shared Web Server. We were advised to upgrade to a dedicated server to solve the problem, otherwise they would be forced to close our Website down.

As we had no choice, although expensive, we signed on for a Dedicated Server. Our Website files were kindly moved by our Web Hosts from our existing server to the dedicated server. As a temporary solution (so that the Website was never down), they even kindly forwarded the URL from the old shared server to the new  Dedicated Server.

Although the Website was accessible from the 10th April, 2003 until now, however, we could not update it due to our server not accepting our Passwords given to us. We finally did resolve the problem with our Webs Hosts on the 18th April, 2003 and are now back to normal. 

Below is the correspondence between our Web Hosting company and us concerning the above matter (start reading from the bottom to follow the events date wise).

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003
We have completed the transfer process. We are still fine tuning the set up. Your server is getting a massive amount of traffic and using a lot of bandwidth approx 100 requests per second. I need for you to provide the contact information on the form so that we can activate and process your account as this redirect is only a temporary fix so that your site would not be offline.

Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2003

Dear Sir,

I am D...... with ........ Internet, the parent company of .........

It is my understanding that the traffic to your website has increased dramatically as of late, and you have certainly outgrown your H......... account.  Therefore, I'd like to present you with the option of a dedicated server so that you can avoid the cost of excess bandwidth fees and the risk of a shut down. Please take a look at the server configurations on this page and let me know if I should send you an order form: ............

Thanks and regards,

D......

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 go to top