Well, I woke up today to a server alarm. Fortunately it wasn't the critical server alarm. As you can see, the website is still working. Comcast internet in my area is having some issues. Since I work from home and work is critical, I've got Comcast Business Internet, which costs a little more, but it's usually a lot more stable.

I often see people in my area on Facebook complaining that Xfinity is down (a lot), which is their residential version, but even then my Comcast internet is usually still working fine, so I know it's worth the extra couple of dollars. I had regular Xfinity internet at my last house, and I can say that it was down a lot. So business internet - for me at least - is a must-have business expense.

I also have cellular failover, so in case the primary internet goes down, I still have internet over cellular networks. I got this because during and after Hurricane Ian, I had no internet for 10 days, as some of you may remember. Not only was my Xfinity internet down at the time, but my Verizon cellular service was down too. Fortunately, my fiance was on a different network'she has T-Mobile'and I was able to get online somewhat with that.

Cellular internet is much slower than regular internet. I get like like 10 mbps instead of the 1 Gbps I usually have. Cellular is only 1 mbps upload though, so I'm not posting any videos during that time. LOL.

Anyways, to make a long story short, my primary wired internet is down right now, and for some reason, it's also affecting my ODBC connection between Microsoft Access in my office and the SQL Server on the website. Now, the website doesn't need my office PC for most normal operations; you can still log on, watch classes, post in the forums, all that stuff. But one thing my office PC does is process orders and requests for new classes (members).

A long time ago, when I first built the website, I set it up so that the data is collected on the website. My local PC does a handoff and securely grabs that information, processes the credit card, and then updates your account on the website. This all happens within a matter of a minute or two. And yes, it was much easier to program at the time, and it's been working fine for 20 years, so that's how I've left it.

Well, right now that's not working, so you can do everything you want to your heart's content except order something new right now. Until my internet comes fully back on, that's going to be the issue.

I've been meaning for a few years now to reprogram everything so that credit cards are processed directly on the website without the need to download the information locally, but it just hasn't been an issue. Normally, even with the primary internet failing, the cellular network kicks over, and my Access database is still able to connect to the SQL Server on the website. Even though it's a lot slower, it still works. But today, for some reason, whatever issue they're having, it's down.

So, I'm going to make that a priority in the near future: to make it so that the website is completely autonomous and doesn't need the local office server to work. It's nice having all the data here in my local database and then just publishing updates; it's faster for me. But progress must be made, so I know what I'll be working on this weekend.