Site Connectivity Issues (Resolved?)

Posted July 21, 2008, 1:00 a.m.

So, the issues affecting access to the site yesterday seem to be fixed (I think). I’m still not sure what happened. I have access to three networks for testing connectivity to the site: my home network (Verizon Avenue DSL), my work network (PaeTec Communications), and my wireless phone network (AT&T 3G). The site stopped working on my home network some time yesterday and wasn’t working again until this morning.

What’s strange is that the site, the whole time, worked just fine from the work network (I logged in through the VPN) and my phone. Most of the rest of the Internet was working from home, so it was something about the unique combination of Verizon Avenue DSL and my web site.

My first inclination was that there was a problem with the Verizon DNS servers routing my connections to the wrong place. But I confirmed that all my connections were hitting the correct IP address. Just to be extra sure, I switched my home network to point to several non-Verizon public DNS servers and had the same problem with each, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a DNS problem.

All I can figure is that, for some reason, Dotster (my hosting provider) was actively blocking Verizon Avenue DSL connections, or Verizon Avenue DSL was actively blocking connections to Dotster. I’m not sure why either would do that, and neither tech support office has responded to my inquiries. Weird.

Let me know if you have any idea what might have been going on, or if you had any problem accessing the site (and what ISP you use to connect to the Internet). Thanks!

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

Platonists, Gnostics[,] and Hindus all believe that the soul is better without the body than with it. They are wrong. A human soul without a body is not a complete self . . .

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, [intelligence] is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

At any rate, while I am in public life, however short a time it may be, I am in honor bound to act up to my beliefs and convictions.

Every man of power by the very fact of that power, is capable of doing damage to his neighbors; but we cannot afford to discourage the development of such men merely because it is possible they may use their power for wrong ends.

The most durable monument of human labor is that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.

Don’t let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with the light of your faith and of your love.

Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

Every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.

Evil can be eradicated from the world at large only when it is eradicated from the hearts and lives of individual human beings. Only when there is virtue in souls can there be peace and happiness in society.

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

I am dumbfounded at how little philosophical and metaphysical importance the human mind has attached to the vital subject of excrement.

Murder is sometimes punished, free speech always.

I have seizures of momentary sanity.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

From an economic standpoint, some education has great value, some has no value and some can even have a negative value.

I think there is always a need in any struggle for sensationalists. They get the headlines, they get the ear of the public, they take the race horse chances.

Human opinion can give only conflicting, contrary, and contradictory answers.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.