Dear Forum Readers and Participants,

Many of you have reported that the byzcath.org website server is sometimes very slow to respond and even occasionally times out and returns an error. We apologize for the slowness.

We have been looking into the issue and have found that that the slowness is caused by the software used for The Byzantine Forum. The server is pretty speedy when there are less than 60-70 individuals reading the Forum at the same time. Response time slows noticeably when there are over 70 simultaneous users and it really grinds to a halt when there are more than 120 people at the same time. Last Monday we hit an all time high of 164 simultaneous users and the server started to refuse to accept some of the incoming requests. On an average day there are over 1,100 unique computers requesting just under 7,000 pages from The Byzantine Forum alone.

Currently we have turned off the “Recent Visitors” information that is usually displayed at the bottom of the main Forum page since it uses a lot of server resources. We are investigating adding more memory to the server to make it quicker as well as moving the site to a more robust server. We’ll keep you informed as to our progress. In the meantime, please let us know whenever you encounter a problem by sending an e-mail to forum@www.byzcath.org. Make sure to include the date, time of day and the specific problem you are encountering.

Thanks!

Admin

Dearie me

And I have been blaming AOL for any problems [well they are the usual culprits ]

Thank you for the explanation - I have had a few 'timed out' messages over the last few days plus another one today that said the Forum was down for maintenance.

Anhelyna

Administrator,

Thank you for your work behind the scenes keeping things going.

Where I work computer types are known by how much popcorn they eat. How about you?

God Bless.

Paromer,

It depends. I'm usually good for a bag of the fat free popcorn in the late afternoon about 5 of 6. It's the only kind that doesn't leave your fingers greasy (and when your fingers get greasy your keyboard gets greasy). :p

Admin

Thanks for all the great work. It's amazing to me how well this forum works comapared to nearly all others out there. Mnohaja Lita, pan Administrator!

Dear Friends,

This Forum is tops and so is the Administrator - greasy fingers and all!

(Isn't he just loveable?)

Alex

Dear Administrator,

I don't know what you did, but it worked. This site has never loaded this fast on my computer at school...ever. Thanks!

Dear Qathuliqa,

Since I am among administrators here, I wanted to quote from the play, "A Man for All Seasons" where Cromwell is speaking to Sir Richard Rich to try and get him to betray Sir Thomas More:

"Cromwell: I know a man who wants to change his woman - a matter of small consequence, but in this case it is our liege lord, King Henry the 8th of that name - which is a quaint way of saying that if he wants to change his woman - he will!

And our only job, Rich, is to minimize the inconvenience that this is going to cause. A harmless occupation, you might say. But, no, we Administrators are not liked, we are not popular!"

But in this case, our Administrator has contradicted Cromwell, would you not say?

And so have you, Big Guy!

I still think of you as "Oriental Orthodox - to be in union with Rome!"

I can dream, can't I?

(Do you see how much we love you!)

Alex