FYI, I moved MilesCity.com from its dedicated server to the Azure cloud. There are a bunch of technical reasons why this is a good thing.

I still need to optimize some pages that previously assumed everything would be on one box w/ inconsequential roundtrip times between layers. The architecture of the site is now split between an Azure VM, Azure SQL, and an SMTP service in completely different locations. If something is slower than before, it's probably due to excessive trips between them and will have to be addressed in the future.

The new SMTP service should eliminate lost mail messages (e.g. activation messages, private messages between users, etc.) - which were sometimes being falsely identified as spam in transit, and then disappearing because of it - so that will be one improvement.

I'm a bit concerned as to how much Azure will actually cost vs. the previous dedicated server, but there's really no easy way to figure that out without giving it a go - which is what we're doing now.

If it all goes well, then I hope to eventually recode the site to the latest HTML5/CSS3 standards and add a responsive layout and such.

I don't know if I will bring the previous "dev" site back online or not. I will probably put it in Azure as another option for using the site, but I'm not going to continue developing it - since its architecture is already outdated and it would be easier to upgrade this rather than it.

Contact me if you have any problems with the site. We've been in the cloud since about 4PM PDT / 5PM MDT.

Regards, Larry
MilesCity.com Webmaster

I had wondered what was going on when I couldn't get the site to open a few hours ago. Thank you for the update, Larry.

This is quite a hobby you have here Larry.

Hmm. Apparently, I need to do something about the time zone. - Nevermind. There are no time zones in the cloud, only UTC. Which brings about the lovely task of adjusting to local time via classic ASP. UTC until then.

And refresh the GeoIP database. - Fixed/updated.

I think your date is off, today is the first. Thanks for all you do!

Working on it.

Adjusting time through code is not fun. For example, 1AM to 2AM happens TWICE on Sunday. Computers don't like the fact an exact date and time (e.g. 11/3/2013 1:17 AM [or whatever]) happens not only once but twice at two very different moments of time.

The solution is UTC, which is for the machines - so they don't get confused. That's what was displaying. Local time is for humans.

I'm having to write some code to force UTC to local time, since this particular platform ("Classic ASP") has no API built in to do it. Will be fixed and back to a prettier format soon.

Until then, all the real timestamps and such are actually saved correct. Just not displaying properly until I finish coding and update all the little nooks and crannies - some of which still need to be found.

Okay. Everything has been moved to Azure and the old dedicated server has been put out to pasture. A new HTML5 front end for the site will be coming soon. Stay tuned!

Larry,when you die,you aren`t going to Heaven or Hell are you.You are going to The Cloud.

A new HTML5 front end for the site will be coming soon. Stay tuned!

COOL!