For the second time in two months, the server hosting our site crashed. Our Web host, Midphase, took four days to get the site back online (again). Unfortunately, recent data has been corrupted, so we lost everything from the past two months. I have backups of all of the posts and the comments and will be working to get everything online as soon as possible. As a result of all of this fun, show #158 is going to be delayed by a few days. Once I have everything working, I’ll be switching Web hosts in hopes this doesn’t happen again. Thanks for your patience.
At least this time no hackers were involved. Best of luck in a trouble-free switchover.
Welcome back! Looking forward to the next show. I’ll be in the promised land in less than two weeks!
i reccommend amhosting.com. Reliable cheap and friendly. I’ve used them extensively for over 7 years.
Thanks Mark. I’ve had extra space on Dreamhost for a couple years, which I’ve used once in a while as needed because of bandwidth limitations. I just need to go through the effort of moving the whole site from Midphase to Dreamhost.
Of course the site goes down when I’m eager to listen to the post important podcast of the year, the one right before I go to Vegas!
Glad to see you all back up. Thanks for all of your efforts with this podcast and site.
Sorry to hear you have been going through web server hassles. I had my share last fall of multiple hard drive failures at my job and having to restore systems and a crash course in the feared Apache mod_rewrite vulnerabilities.
A huge amount of time spent just getting back what you had before the problem started.
John
Tim,
Glad to see you back.
Just an fyi – the other podcasts, like The Strip & VegasRy, etc. are good – you & Michelle are the best.
Keep up the great work.
Jim
Tim-
Thanks for reading my e-mail on the air! That was neat. And sorry about the server issues.
I have a question (either for the show, other commentators, or just for you). I’m planning on organizing a trip for 5-7 high school friends to Vegas in mid August. I’ve heard that because of the heat, the dead of summer is a great time for Vegas deals, but right now on Orbitz it looks like hotels are as expensive as any other time I’ve been to Vegas. Do you have any tips for finding good deals in the summer? We’d like to find two rooms in one of the nicer hotels, I’ve been thinking possibly the Venetian, MGM, or Caesars. Thanks in advance!
Tim- Welcome back, long time listener and first time poster.
Ben-
I would not book now, it is still early for summer hotel promotion to kick through, they are still running their spring promotion. I would give it around two months before the actual trip to start looking at hotels, around May in your case. Do a search for promo codes or promotion, there are numerous vegas blogs and forum threads dedicated to this.
If you want to book now or you find a great deal, I would try to book with through the hotel first, only because you can usually cancel without penalty at least a day in advance. So if a promo pops up or another hotel advertise a better rate, you can always switch which is usually the case. Hope that helps.
That helps a ton HL! But could you name some of those blogs/forums with promo codes? I know using Orbitz is pretty basic… but the only Vegas resource I check regularly is this podcast!
Ben,
Amongst others Travelzoo is worth checking out for promo codes – not just for hotels but shows as well. smartervegas.com also has a list of existing promotions by hotel.
Of course if you have a couple of hotels in particular you are interested in it may be worthwhile signing up for email newsletter on their own web page as well to get any promo offers.
Speaking of promotions I see a Circus Circus current one is free gas. Is that anything to do with having to eat there ( excluding the steak house ) ?
I usually use this sub-forum (link below) at the vegas message board if I don’t get offers from hotel. It has numerous threads on several hotels offers. You might have to sign up, it not a big deal. There are also other sub-forum specifically the discussing strip hotels. You will probably encounter threads like MGM vs Venetian, which strip location, south or central. Let me know if you need more sites. I am sure others will come along with suggestion.
http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=13
Tim- Looking forward to the next podcast
Takes more research and time.
You can try the hotwire or priceline option for potentially better deals.
I usually do my research before I try either hotwire or priceline from these sites below. Though either sites do not disclose what hotels you are bidding on or purchasing, you so of get an idea from peoples experience discussed in the threads and specifically to priceline the likely bid price.
http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?showforum=32&
and
http://p198.ezboard.com/fpricelineandexpediabiddinglasvegas
I thought the crash was malicious. I figured “Airplay” at the Trop was seeking revenge for not being named a *must see* free show on the strip.
Here’s one with several offer codes on it:
http://www.las-vegas-hotel-discounts.info/
Be sure to sign up on the hotel websites and they’ll email them to you.
I am not a taxi driver, but I know some, and have been told that on Monday 31 March 2008 from 6:00 pm to 6:45 pm, unhappy Las Vegas taxi drivers will stage some kind of event at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fashion Show (by the old Frontier site).
I have just made brief posts about this on both of my sites.
http://royvegas.blogspot.com/2008/03/las-vegas-taxi-event-drivers-unhappy.html
and my new idiot site
http://lasvegasidiot.com/?p=79
Pretty much all of the content and comments have been restored (finally). We plan to record show #158 tomorrow night. I also finally posted a bunch of photos from last month’s Las Vegas trip to our Flickr page.
Tim -
Glad the web site is back up so I can keep catching up on past shows!
Bummer the site/your provider was on the fritz last week!
Bill in Washington, DC
The science behind the monkey poker dome:
http://tinyurl.com/3646gs
And yes, I know that chimps are apes, not monkeys.