We had planned for months to transition the unleash.com Web site to a new server on December 21. The plan was written out and revisited more than a few times so we could make sure the transition was as smooth as possible.

All started out well and the Web site was moved in only a couple of minutes. Subdomains took only a few minutes more. Unfortunately something went wrong with the e-mail. Anytime moves like this are made the message “it may take 24 to 48 hours for the change to kick in” is provided by those in support. So while e-mail had stopped flowing, we could only wait.

Late that afternoon we asked support about the e-mail issues and they told us to wait until morning and all should be well. That’s when an unplanned disaster hit. At 3:23am, the power to the entire town of Cave Creek went out. From what we heard there were approximately 3200 customers without power. That means no computers, no phones, no Internet and no coffee (even at the local coffee shops).

After nine hours in the dark, the power finally returned. While we have surge protector after surge protector in our office, the power supply in our NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive got fried and we couldn’t access much of our data. Our phones seemed to be working, but had no dialtone. And we still hadn’t gotten the e-mail working.

So here we sit on the afternoon of December 22 and I have to find a way to get a new power supply as soon as possible. I was able to find one that had matching specs and it could be delivered overnight, but it would require some wiring modifications to work correctly. Finally at 9pm that evening our e-mail and phones were working again. I had entered an incorrect setting for the e-mail that three support engineers overlooked. There is still no explanation for the phones starting to work again though they sure seem connected to the e-mail.

The new power supply showed up midday on Wednesday and it took me a couple of hours to do everything needed to get it installed. An hour later, the NAS drive was once again feeding data to our office. Whew, the transition is complete!

If you tried to reach us last week, it was very difficult with so many things not working. Please try again this week and hopefully the electric company will keep the juice flowing so that we can communicate with you.

More Windows 10 Update Issues

I’ve already written a few posts explaining why I have chosen to delay moving to Windows 10. If you are happy and productive with it, great! I just see too many potential problems to jump from what is working well for me. Unless you have a very good reason to upgrade, why do it now? Yes, it is free until July 2016. I’ll be glad to wait until closer to that date.

The latest update causes customizations made in Word 2013 to be wiped out. Other users have found themselves in an infinite loop of failed installs. The Windows 10 update fails to install, but since installs are mandatory it just keeps trying over and over again. The folks at InfoWorld have detailed these problems and more.