As some of you have noticed, I've been having problems with the web site recently. Even though the site itself works, the problem has been preventing people from logging on and viewing their courses.
The cause is somewhat my fault. I built this site back in 2002 using an Access database as a back-end for the customer data, and it has worked FANTASTICALLY for 15+ years. However (and I talk about this in my classes) once an Access database gets to a certain size, it starts to become inefficient. I've got over 600,000 records in my Order tables alone. That's pushing the limits of an Access database - especially one that's powering a web site where there could be 200+ users online at a time.
So, I'm in the process of converting the web site over to an SQL Server back-end to hold all the records. I've already finished the Blog & Forums (that was the easy part). Now I'm working on the customer database. The coding isn't an issue. It's moving all of the records over to the SQL tables. I had to write a custom routine to do this. A simple import wasn't working due to timeout issues (I live in a rural area and my Internet here at my house is junk). So it's going to take a few days to a week for all the records to upload. As soon as that's done I can start switching over.
In the mean time, the site is still running off the old Access tables. It may go up and down from time to time. I have an alarm on my cell phone which goes off if the site goes down, and all I have to do is reboot it, but there may be small pockets of time over the next week or so where you can't log on. I apologize. Just wait a few minutes and try again. Once you do get on, I recommend downloading your lessons from the My Courses link. That will allow you to watch them offline without having to use the web site.
I expect to have this completely fixed and the web site up 100% by the end of the month. Sorry. It's just the upload time that's taking forever. I know what the problem is, and I'm working on fixing it.
In the mean time, I'm way behind schedule on my Access classes. I'm working on Developer 13 right now and hope to have it released in a day or two. Since I can't work on the web site until these records are done, that's what I'll be focusing on.
Take care everyone! Talk to you soon.
Richard
P.S. If you're unable to log on and NEED your courses fast, please just email me at [email protected] and I will email you back a direct link to download your files. I don't want anyone to have to wait long for their lessons.