We refer to the splash screen that some readers have experienced when visiting our site, with the message “Sorry, we are closed for business till 2016″.
We wish to explain that this was the result of an “honest mistake” on the part of our in-house tech who was “trying to be funny” and had originally wanted to upload the splash screen to our “old” dedicated server that was being deactivated (part of our latest upgrading excercise), but instead accidentally uploaded it to the new server. He has since been severely “slapped on the wrist” by our editors.
“What happened was bad”, but it has been rectified and we would like to urge our readers to “move on”, with our assurance that we will be more careful in the future. We are sorry for the “shock and inconvenience” caused and will do everything we can to keep the “business” alive for as long as we possibly can.
With that out of the way, we wish to inform our readers that we have done everything within our capability to upgrade our existing hardware to cope with the increase in traffic, short of our planned clustering. All our servers are now on a new network with better throughput and accessibility to our site has improved, although it can still lag during peak hours.
There are also resolving issues with our website going missing-in-action in cyberspace, but that’s something beyond our control due to the relocation of our website to a new Data Centre, inevitably causing propogation issue (a need for our new IP to propogate). The propogation issue should normally be resolved within 72 hours.
Having said that, we wish to refer to our previous announcement titled “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” dated 27th April.
In that announcement, we said that our existing lease with our dedicated server provider will expire come June 2012 and we are in the process of approaching individuals privately for funding.
Approach we did, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to find enough people with deep pockets. To date, we have only managed to secure commitment of about US$10,000 from well-wishers and our own editors, out of the approximated US$50,000 needed to proceed with our planned clustering of servers, payment of lease for another 12 months and ad hoc upgrading.
Although we had originally planned to source for funding privately as aforesaid, we have apparently failed to achieve our targeted amount of US$50,000. As such, as much as we would prefer not to (knowing that it is no longer easy to make a living in Singapore), we are now forced to openly appeal to our readers for funding (donations).
The team @ TR Emeritus is currently seeking funding (donations) in the amount of US$50,000 to keep the website going for another year. Should the collections from this donation drive falls short of the targeted amount, the team @ TR Emeritus will top-up the balance, if it is within our means.
If the stats on our sidebar is anything to go by, we would like to appeal to our readers (who are reading this) to please consider donating a few dollars each, if you believe in our cause. All donations received will be credited towards the lease of our dedicated servers for another year, including the planned clustering.
Readers willing to make a donation may do so with a credit/debit card via PayPal by clicking on the heart to the left. If you are more comfortable with cash or is intending to make a donation in excess of US$5000, please contact our Richard Wan via
[email protected].
The donation drive will stop after the targeted amount of US$50,000 has been achieved or by 15th June 2012, whichever is earlier.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
.
Team @ TR Emeritus
:oIo:
