Some curious customs for Leap Day include the legal right of women in

pre-democatic England to propose marriage to men on this unusuaul

day. Should the man refuse, he was expected to soften the rejection

by providing a kiss, one pound currency, and a pair of gloves. There

were similar notions in France and Switzerland.

In France, there is a humorous periodical called La Bougie du Sapeur

(The Sapper's Candle) published every February 29 since 1980. The

name is a reference to the sapper Camembert. The eighth issue is due

out today.

In the galleries today, smiling faces from around town, an office you

can see from just about anywhere in the city, designs in clay and

several 'new' music videos from February concerts.

http://justFRED.ca/cmine/

In the calendar, an advanced screening of the ECMA special at 7:30 at

Rockin' Rodeo (it airs on CBC TV on Sunday)..

http://justfred.ca/justfred.forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&day=2008-2-29&c=1

Finally...March and the promise of spring. When the sun starts to

actually work again. Except for the late winter storms, of course.

Give us strength...

And if you see us out and about, please Say Cheese!!!

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

February is almost gone...and spring is officially three weeks away...

But we had to include more snow photos in the galleries today...mixed

in with some smiling faces, people on the job, and another video from

the Big Hearts show.

http://justFRED.ca/cmine/

Indian drummer Trichy Sankaran is the featured performer at UNB's

Music on the Hill series, several local organizations are looking for

volunteers, you can still catch some of the art shows around

town...and more in today's calendar listings.

http://justfred.ca/justfred.forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&day=2008-2-28&c=1

And tomorrow...a special happy birthday to those folks who only get

to celebrate their birthdays on Leap Year. It's a quirky way to try

to stay young...

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

The snow is piling up - so we've added a new game to help you wile

away the hours. In the gallery, you'll also find shots of the

mini-thaw and clear sidewalks that are but a memory this morning.

http://justFRED.ca/cmine/

The forecast is calling for 20 cm's of blowing snow...so another

round of cancellations is a strong possibility. Events were already

being postponed by late Tuesday in anticipation of another shutdown.

Here is the calendar as it stood at midnight...

http://justfred.ca/justfred.forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&day=2008-2-27&c=1

Now where did I put that snow shovel?

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

February 2008 will go down as especially long - not just because of

the extra day, but thanks to the number of snow days - and it looks

as though there's another one coming this week. So we're happy to

report that while we have more sliding photos in the gallery today,

we also have our visit to Samuel & Co. for their annual Female Grad's

Night - with thoughts of June Proms.

http://justFRED.ca/cmine/

So before the next bit of weather hits, enjoy some outdoor skating,

visit a local gallery, play bingo or hear some young author read from

their works. All that and more in today's calendar.

http://justfred.ca/justfred.forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&day=2008-2-26&c=1

And if you see us out and about today snapping some photos before the

snow begins yet again, don't forget to Say Cheese!

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

A long weekend of upgrades, but it's done...and the result is newer,

better, faster web and mail services @ justFRED.

In the galleries today you'll find day and night photos of the

Killarney Lake Pond Hockey tournament, some pics of the provincial

basketball playoffs, our weekend visit to the market, and the first

of a series on the best sliding hills in Fredericton.

http://justFRED.ca/cmine/

Lots to do in the calendar today, including an evening for female

high school grads at Samuel's in King's Place.

http://justfred.ca/justfred.forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&day=2008-2-25&c=1

Thanks for your patience during the intermittent outages in the past

few days, but hey: no pain, no gain.

By the way, we were so busy dealing with the upgrades that we forgot

to mention that we passed the 8,000,000 page mark earlier this month

- and missed an important anniversary. So it goes. For now, we're

just happy that everyting's working properly again.

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

Update: 9:51 pm Sunday

The mail server upgrade was completed about an hour and a half ago...and everything appears to be back to normal. We're waiting for the mail delayed during the transition to catch up...but that should happen overnight.

Thanks for your patience during the upgrade.

-----------------------------

Update: 9:18 am Sunday

The web server upgrade went fairly smoothly, although it did take a bit longer than expected. But since the wee hours of Sunday morning tend to be the time of the week when we get the fewest visitors, the disruption was minimal. The web site is back in full operation with the exception of services that rely on mail.

The mail server upgrade went well, but there are a lot of data to be moved from the old mail server to the new server before mail can be turned on again. (Mail has to be shut down during the transfer process or the two machines would get out of synch - with the strong possibility that some mail would be lost. Once the files are transferred from the old to the new, the new mail server will go live and service should return to normal.)

-------------------------

justFRED.ca will go dark for about an hour around midnight Saturday as we begin the upgrade to new servers. The outage could be longer - or shorter - depending on the time it takes to transfer files and get the new system into operation.

The mail server upgrade, however, is expected to take about 18 hours (again - it could be more or less depending on a number of factors) so we will be unable to send or receive email during that period. This will also have an impact on mail-related web services, such as online purchases, our contact form and so on.

Our blog system is on an entirely different network and, in the event there is anything new to report, we should be able to post updates once the web site is back in service.

Thanks for your patience. The objective, as always, is to make justFRED faster and more reliable for our steadily growing number of regular and intermittent visitors.

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

Update 10:00 pm

A faulty network card was the cause of the mail server problem early Friday morning. Once the card was replaced, the old mail server was put back into operation and will continue running - we hope - until the planned upgrade on Saturday night.

The migration to the new system will take place overnight and we expect to be back to normal by sometime on Sunday. (Yes, we can hear the Internet gods laughing...let's hope it's only laughter they inflict on us.) But we won't know the extent of the service interruption - which may or may not include the web site - until it's all over.

Wish us luck...

--------------------------

UPDATE: 9:34 a.m.

The switch to the new mail server required a temporary shutdown of several other servers on the network. That delayed our usual overnight home page update and temporarily halted the ad server and the database server. What fun. Apologies again for the disruptions.

The end result should be an overall improvement in performance...but there's likely to be a bit more pain before we get to the gain part.

----------------------

NOTICE: 6:00 a.m.

A system upgrade planned for this weekend is now underway due to a failure of the main mail server overnight.

We will resume full service as soon as possible.

Apologies for the disruption.

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

The world of the Internet is rife with change, and change often comes

with disruption. We're in the middle of a major change now - some

planned and some forced on us - that is bound to lead to some

disruption in service.

There is a major server upgrade planned for this weekend that we

planned to announce today. Part of the upgrade is a move to a new

mail server (the old one has been increasingly flakey). But the old

server, perhaps sensing its pending demise, went into a sulk and is

refusing to work at all. So the migration to the new system is taking

place now. That means we may not be able to send or receive mail for

the next day or two. (So how did we sent this message? We use a

completely separate system to send out the Daily Fred...and it's

'send only'...)

We're also moving to a new web server, a switch that's scheduled for

Saturday night / Sunday morning. If things go as planned (can you

hear the Internet gods laughing?), we should be back to normal by

Monday morning.

So...apologies if we're not availalbe over the next little while and

thanks for your patience while we suffer through some pain in order

to gain a faster, more reliable version of justFRED...

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

In the middle of writing the justFRED-O-GRAM for the day, the power

went out last night. So we took one last look at the moon, and

crawled into bed to stay warm during a very frosty night.

Mark White, a regular contributor to justFRED, stayed up and took

some gorgeous shots of the lunar eclipse...well post them this

morning.

You can also find our photos from the Shairi Bari memorial that's

part of the Silent Witness programme, helping bring attention to the

victims of family violence, in the photo galleries.

http://justFRED.ca/cmine/

If you have school aged children, you know that school is out today.

Might be a good time to warn them about the potential danger of the

extreme cold, particularly in any sort of wind.

In the calendar, the CNIB auction and dinner is tonight, among a lot

of other local events.

http://justfred.ca/justfred.forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&day=2008-2-21&c=1

Now please excuse me while I return to resetting all of the clocks

that are flashing 12:00:00

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

Invalid Request

That's all it said when I logged into the software we use to send out

the justFRED-O-GRAM in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. It was too

early to yell, too late to call anyone. So I just stepped away from

the keyboard, said a few bad words, and headed into the kitchen to

rustle up some breakfast, thinking "Why did I bother getting up at 6?

Computers. Grumble grumble."

Stephen - our IT guy - set up a new version of the list software and

here we are again. (The old version is still broken - who knows why -

and it can stay that way for all I care.)

Galleries

You'll find postings from Monday - a Rocking Argentos video, the 2nd

of 3 albums from Winterfest (#3 is up now), and a bunch of photos of

the splashing big puddles all over town - and from Tuesday.

http://justFRED.ca/cmine/

Calendar

A red wooden silhouette - commemorating the murder of Shaila Bari -

will be dedicated tonight at UNB as part of the Silent Witness

Programm. Bari was killed by her estranged husband.

http://justfred.ca/justfred.forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&c=1&day=2008-2-20

Now let's see if the justFRED-O-GRAM is working again...

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca