Elftown moving

Elftown will be down for about an hour, some time during Friday (2008-04-04) afternoon (Elftown time). It has to be moved due to yet another power shut-down. If you have added Elftown in your /etc/hosts file, then remove that entry as Elftown will get a new IP!

Also note that http:// elftown.lysator.liu.se/ will no longer work! Update your links to point to http://www.elftown.com/ !

For normal people who haven't edited their /etc/hosts file or haven't written the old (wrong) link; Everything should work just fine, but it may take some time (30 minutes to 2-4 hours) before your DNS-server has updated Elftown's address to the new one.

Update 2008-04-04 19:15
[Elftron] is now moved! It might take some time before everyone can access it again, but they should be able to access at least tomorrow.

Update 2008-04-04 0:06
A disk broke down on poor [Elftron], but luckily it started to work again now. We can only hope it stays that way. I removed an old broken disk, and that seems to do the trick. It's as if the disk was hurt by a fall inside the computer, and got itself up and running again after some rest and spinning...

Then I had some very strange problems with the network, and they didn't go away until I removed some magic files.

Somehow there still seems to be some sort of problem.

Update 2008-04-04 01:06
I changed the IP-address and now the network seems to be working fine. Elftown will be down for a while when I move it to the computer hall though.

Update 2008-04-04 01:45
Elftown moved to the (new) computer hall. The network seems to be working only every other time I start it, so I'm very uncertain if the network will continue to be up.

Update 2008-04-05 16:04
Elftown's root-disk finally gave up and there was no use to try and use it, even if it works to copy stuff from. So I had to reinstall the system on a new disk. Now it's eventually back in the computer hall, but with less space for backups. By the way: There is still no power where [Elftron] used to be.

Update 2008-04-07
The old address is made to work now, but please still change the links to point to www.elftown.com just to be sure!

Notifications:

Make sure to put 'Competitions' on watch so that you don't miss these new contests:

- ECM Fairy/Fae - 1st May 2008
- Medieval Smileys Contest - 15th of May, 2008
- Elftown Creature Marathon Contest List

P.S. Yes, the previous piece of news - <news:Mass Unbanning in a Week!> - wasn't real, just as the date suggests. The Guards don't mind quiet times, but participation and good comments are always appreciated :)

News440-translations

Date: 2008-04-03 14:14:30
News #: 440
Reporter: Hedda

Elftown's Means of Transportation contest Winners!

The council is happy to announce to you the winner Elftown's Means of Transportation contest! The poll was a close call since the beginning but eventually the duckie in its aeropond ended up first!

Aeropond By [Triola]

Fairy Carriage by [Thistlewood] was the crew's favourite!

Congratulations to the winner for the beautiful piece and thanks to everyone who entered.

Notifications:

Make sure to put 'Competitions' on watch so that you don't miss these new contests:

- ECM Fairy/Fae - EXTENDED to June 1, 2008
- Medieval Smileys Contest - 15th of May, 2008
- Elftown Creature Marathon Contest List

News441-translations

Date: 2008-04-30 19:01:26
News #: 441
Reporter: Jitterbug Perfume

Elftown's Means of Transportation Voting

Our previous poll was not up for very long. We apologize to everyone who did not get a chance to vote. We also apologize to the entrants whose entries were the incorrect versions.

A brand spanking new poll has been put up with the correct entries to be fair to everyone who voted before all the fixes were made. Feel free to put the blame on [Jitter] for all the messing up :P (Yes, Jitter added this part herself)

Notifications:

Make sure to put 'Competitions' on watch so that you don't miss these new contests:

- ECM Fairy/Fae - EXTENDED to June 1, 2008
- Medieval Smileys Contest - 15th of May, 2008
- Elftown Creature Marathon Contest List

News441-translations

Date: 2008-05-04 06:46:30
News #: 442
Reporter: Calico Tiger

ECM Phoenix & Magic Competition!

We’ve got two new contests up and running that cater to a variety of styles – the ECM Phoenix has a text, poetry and art session for you to submit your pictures, poems and information about the mythical creature known as the phoenix.

The Magic Competition is a new contest with a very broad theme – ‘magic’ There are categories for artists, writers and photographers, but we’re trying something a bit new for this contest – there are two different tiers of entry. If you’ve won an official ET contest before then you can enter the veteran contest for that category, if not, then you can enter the ‘newbie’ section.

So whether you be writer, artist or photographer, you’ve no excuse not to enter, so get busy!

Notifications:

Make sure to put 'Competitions' on watch so that you don't miss these new contests:

- ECM Fairy/Fae - EXTENDED to June 1, 2008
- Medieval Smileys Contest (Voting in progress on the wiki-page)
- Elftown Creature Marathon Contest List

News443-translations

Date: 2008-05-26 22:15:33
News #: 443
Reporter: SilverFire

Elftown's Means of Transportation contest Winners!

The council is happy to announce to you the winner Elftown's Means of Transportation contest!

By [Kahri]

Fairy Carriage by [Thistlewood] was the crew's favourite!

Congratulations to the winner for the beautiful piece, thanks to everyone who entered and our sincere apologies again for the earliest mix up with this contest!

Notifications:

Make sure to put 'Competitions' on watch so that you don't miss these new contests:

- ECM Phoenix - September 1st, 2008
- Magic Competition - July 31st, 2008
- Medieval Smileys Contest (Voting in progress on the wiki-page)
- Elftown Creature Marathon Contest List

News444-translations

Date: 2008-06-02 09:04:25
News #: 444
Reporter: Jitterbug Perfume

Big bad crash

While Elftown was making backups from the old image-disk that is getting very tired, it brought the entire system down. That's bad, but worse is that there was an error in the backup-scripts so the forum-postings, the diary and guestbook messages and the wiki-comments that are newer than one month are lost (Everything after 2008-06-12 14:51 UTC).

The messages, the wiki-pages themselves and all the images are secure and nothing lost there.

The member-database was lost too, but there is a backup from 24 hours back, so only the changes from yesterday are lost.

On the more positive side: Look at all the new features on Updates 2008-07-04!

News445-translations

Date: 2008-07-05 16:15:34
News #: 445
Reporter: Hedda

Crafty Fairytales

The Elftown Council and Assembly presents competition for those who usually don't draw or write but like to craft things! Time to show the world how good you're with your hands!

No drawings, writing or random photography will be accepted!

Deadline: October 1st 2008

Notifications:

- ECM Phoenix - 1 September 2008
- Magic Competition - 31 July 2008
- Medieval Smileys Contest (Voting in progress on the wiki-page)
- Elftown Creature Marathon Contest List

Other Stuff

Look at all the new features on Updates 2008-07-04!

The crash 2008-07-12 03:12

[Elftron] decided yet again to go dead. Hopefully it's the broken disk that caused the problem, because in that case the issue is solved as the disk is now totally removed. Otherwise we're in trouble.

Of course the crash occured an hour before backups, so postings, house-updates, wiki-comments and diary-notes for 23 hours are gone again. Those are now backuped every hour, so this shouldn't happen again, and there will be an even better backup-routine as soon as possible.

At least you're having preview buttons on your edit-boxes now, so it's a little easier to catch up...

Date: 2008-07-09 18:13:26
News #: 446
Reporter: Jitter

Elftown Museum Temporary Exposition

The Elftown Museum has opened a new wing in the Art Section: the Elftown Museum Temporary Exposition! It is dedicated to the expositions that you, dear Elftowner, can assemble as an Elftown Museum Guest Curator. That's right. This is the opportunity to point your fellow Elftowners to the great works that can be found in Elftown, to assemble the work from different artists around a theme and give those works the exposure you think they deserve!

And while you're visiting the museum, don't forget the Elftown Museum Permanent Exposition, where Elftowners - yes, that's you too! - can put their very best work - art, writing, sculpture, whatever - on display.

Notifications

- Crafty Fairytales - 1 October 2008
- ECM Phoenix - 1 September 2008
- Magic Competition - 31 July 2008
- Medieval Smileys Contest (Voting in progress on the wiki-page)
- Elftown Creature Marathon Contest List

Other Stuff
Look at all the new features on Updates 2008-07-04!

News447-translations

Date: 2008-07-16 18:05:16
News #: 447
Reporter: Yncke

New crash... Solved

Elftown crashed yet again this Saturday morning (That is Friday evening for the Americans). 57 minutes of postings (Seems like no one wrote a posting though, at least not a comment) and guestbook-messages where lost, which isn't that bad even if 57 minutes is as bad as it can get with backups every hour.

After some investigations I think I've solved it. Seem like smartd (smarttools), which is a program that should check the disks and estimate how long they will live, did a long self-test a little before every crash, so I'm 99% sure that it's what's causing the problems. I've removed smarttools now, so we shouldn't get a crash next week.

Update: Wikicomments seems to have taken a harder hit for some reason. It failed to back up correctly the last time, but the backup from one hour earlier was OK. I can't imagine why a copying would fail though. Might be that the new backup-disk is a piece of shit.

Note: <news:[Elftown Museum Temporary Exposition@wiki]>

News448-translations

Date: 2008-07-19 10:53:16
News #: 448
Reporter: Hedda

Elftown Gardens Competition

Wishing for more contests to pop up? Well, here's one...
You ever think about, were Elftown an actual city, what its gardens would be like? That's what we've now set to find out with the Elftown Gardens Competition. Don't be shy, come share your vision! Be it a pond taken over by ducks or a lovely little park with fragrant rose bushes, we want to see what you do when you think of the Elftown gardens.

Although we often prefer new art, the pieces submitted to this competition don't have to be specifically made for it. Older images are welcome, too! (But we won't accept images that have already been entered into an official contest before).

Deadline: September 18, 2008

Notifications

Don't forget the Elftown Museum Temporary Exposition!
<news:[Elftown Museum Temporary Exposition@wiki]>

News449-translations

Date: 2008-07-21 06:14:53
News #: 449
Reporter: Linderel