I’ve been away too long.

The downloads don’t work. The news hasn’t been updated in over a month. And don’t even get me started about Lost Sosaria. I’ve been away from Ultima too long, and Aiera has suffered for it.

So here’s the deal, the changes that will be made.

First, the template. It’s time to strike a more…classical…tone, so I’ve changed the site template. This being Wordpress, everything else should still function more or less the same. If something does suddenly come up broken, let me know. This site is useless if I do nothing. It is almost as useless if the community does nothing.

Second, the downloads. These need to be restored, and they also need to be updated. Dead projects need to be pruned. Living projects need to be highlighted. And the way in which such things are displayed — which has served me well since the days of Aiera’s inception — could use a bit of an overhaul, if for no other reason than that it’d be nice if the CSS was…you know…modern. So, starting next week, and going (ideally) week by week from there, I’m going to work to get yet another section of downloads re-established.

Third, the news. This will resume — mark my words.

And fourthly, Lost Sosaria. I’d be kidding myself if I said that Lost Sosaria, in its current form, was still alive. But by the same token, I’d be lying if I said the project was dead. I have a couple of ideas that I’m toying with for what to do with everything that has been developed thus far, and I hope to have something to show for all my ruminations by the summer.

But more on that later. For now, the template has been changed, and will see some further revision in the near future. Downloads and news will resume presently.

Sorry for my absence.

Tags: Aiera, CSS, Lost Sosaria, Ultima, Wordpress

…there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people;

for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!”

For those readers who are traveling during this Christmastime, please travel in safety and under the watchful care of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And do mind the roads, especially if it has been snowing.

And for all my readers, may this be for you a holy and blessed Christmas season, full of the love of God and the joy of family and friends.

Aiera will resume its coverage of Ultima news in 2009, so Happy New Year as well!

Tags: Aiera, Christ, Christmas, God, Jesus, Ultima

Okay, the site has been restored to working order, at least as far as posting news and whatnot is concerned. However, because things at this end have proven busier than expected (new fathers and those who are still fathers, but no longer “new” fathers, will hopefully be able to sympathize), I have yet to restore the downloads to the web.

Also, the gallery also remains offline for the moment, although I should have that ready to go in short order. The gallery works again. It was just a matter of a quick database configuration change.

Anyhow, yes…downloads. Downloads are broken, and will remain broken for a bit still, because I not only have to re-upload about 6.3 GB of files, but I also have to then go through and check each project and utility entry to make sure that a) the correct downloads are linked to each entry, and b) that each entry has the most current downloads available for…y’know, whatever it is the entry is concerned with.

Which could take a while.

If someone wants to step in and help out, that’d be great; I can provide a tutorial on what to do and how to do it. I should have everything here back up and running within two weeks, but an extra set of hands might make it easier to cut that time down a bit.

As to what happened: I was hosted through Canaca.com for years, and they were pretty good to me for the first little while. In the past few months, however, I’ve had a lot more traffic coming to my various websites, and their server just couldn’t handle the load.

Which is kind of sad, given that the load in question wasn’t that extreme — a few thousand visits per month.

But three times it happened: my sites caused the server to overload whilst attempting to serve up multiple simultaneous PHP scripts. And after the third strike, they punted me. They did graciously grant me port 21 access for a few days, and I evacuated most of the files (the rest, I have backups for) from the account. I then set up a new hosting plan with MediaTemple’s “(gs) Grid Service,” which (if I understand it correctly) mirrors my site over a handful of servers, and then uses load-balancing to manage traffic spikes.

Yeah, it costs a bit more…but hopefully it means “no more outages.”

Anyhow, it’s good to be back. I’ll keep working on the site, and things should be back to normal in a bit here.

Tags: Aiera, Canaca.com, Mediatemple

You totally didn’t read it here first, but there it is: Ultima series creator Richard Garriott has parted ways with Tabula Rasa (also his creation) publisher NCSoft in order to pursue new interests.

Apparently, his recent trip into space (a “lifelong dream” of his) has prompted him to look for a change:

“Well, that unforgettable experience has sparked some new interests that I would like to devote my time and resources to. As such, I am leaving NCsoft to pursue those interests.”

Well, here at Aiera, we wish Lord — now General — British all the best in whatever new venture he strikes out toward, whether those interests exist within, or outside of, the gaming industry.

Interesting factoid I did not know previously: Lord British is apparently the son of an astronaut.

(thanks to Reader mageguru for the link to this article)

Tags: Aiera, Lord British, NCSoft, Richard Garriott, Tabula Rasa, Ultima

…and if you feel so inclined, good Reader, please to put the penny in the Dragon’s hat!

No, I’m not asking for donations. But it occurs to me that the good Reader is probably quite computer savvy, and may in fact be doing some of his (or her!) Christmas shopping online, perhaps even through Amazon.com.

If this describes you, good Reader, then might I make a request? Aiera is an Amazon “Affiliate,” which means that Amazon will give me a small commission on any sales revenue generated through links to Amazon on the site here.

So if, good Reader, you had planned to do a bit of your Christmas shopping through this online medium, might I encourage you to begin your search for gifts here?

If even your initial searches of Amazon originate from here, anything you end up purchasing might just see a few pennies land in my proverbial hat. And that way, we both benefit: you get the gifts you want, at Amazon’s typically competitive prices…and simultaneously, you support the ongoing efforts of this site, in a way that doesn’t require you to donate directly.

I call that “win/win,” myself.

Tags: Aiera, Amazon.com, Christmas

The bleeding-edge version of Exult — the Ultima 7 engine for more operating systems and platforms than one cares to list — has been updated as of October 9th. Exult Tools and Exult Studio have similarly been updated, and all can be downloaded from the project website.

Or from the project entry here at Aiera.

Tags: Aiera, Exult, Exult Studio, Exult Tools, Ultima 7

I’ve swapped out one plugin for another on the site here, in order that you — the good Reader — should have a bit more variety in terms of spreading interesting news from Aiera into the great, wide Internet.

Below each post, just above the tag listing, are two rows of icons, corresponding to a variety of social and news-sharing services on the ‘Web. Digg is on there, as are Slashdot and Facebook, as well as a host of others (including a few regional services, as I note that I tend to get a lot of traffic from Germany and the United States.

Basically, good Reader, this puts a measure of power in your hands. If you see something on Aiera that you think could stand to be shared with others, or posted as news to another site or service, feel free to make use of this new site feature. I can publicize Aiera only so much; I depend on my readers to get the news out to parts of the Internet that haven’t necessarily occurred to me, if in fact there is news here worth spreading out that far.

Tags: Aiera, Germany, Internet, United States