I use Microsoft as my home page on the net.

Twice today, as I was logging on, (last at 7:05 pm CST), I have received the following message when I tried to go to my home page.

"Sorry, due to heavy traffic on the network, the page you're trying to reach is temporarily unavailable.

You can: Wait a few minutes and try again. Click your browser's Refresh button now to try reconnecting. Click your browser's Back button to return to the previous page."

So I just logged to here - big deal and no problem.

So, my question is: If Microsoft's server is overloaded (?) when do you think this one will go belly up?

Can you imagine such a thing?

Just curious about such things, and I know diddly so K.I.S.S.

Anyone of you 'puter types care to hazard a SWAG?

Thanks

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (La) (buffgun@hotmail.com), November 21, 1998

Answers

What's your best guess on this one?

-- sweetolebob (La) (buffgun@hotmail.com), November 21, 1998.

Why go to the MSN homepage at all? You don't need it. As for the heavy traffic info, I wouldn't read too much into that just yet.

-- R. D..Herring (drherr@erols.com), November 21, 1998.

I've already had trouble with this forum, Bob. If I hit it at peak time it can be hard to get through.

...another couple of months we may have to wait until oooh dark hundred to log on.

look a the increased number of threads. we're getting more in a day now than we used to get in 2 weeks.

-- rocky (rknolls@hotmail.com), November 21, 1998.

Copy that Rocky.

Thank you both for the input.

R.D. herring; you're right - it really never entered my mind about MSN until you said it. Thanks.

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (La) (buffgun@hotmail.com), November 21, 1998.

Jon (he of the CA-expert-in-html-languages) would have a better solution; but I changed the "start-in" point of the icon to light off Explorer to begin in "Recent Answers". No intermediate waits.

Single click on the icon, then right click, -> "properties" -> "Navigation" screen -> set the Start page =

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-new-answers.tcl?topic=TimeBomb%202000%20%28Y2000%29

I'm Win NT4.0, your gas milage may vary.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 22, 1998.

R.A.C. (P.E.)

I just cheated a little. I highlighted the address that you so kindly provided, then used your ctrl+c trick. Tagged the address bar and used ctrl+v to paste it in. Then used view, internet options, to open the properties box, and set the current address as default, then tagged apply.

So I now have it on auto pilot.

Thank you for both of the tips. You even make it sound easy too.

Now, if only I could do something about the one finger typing part.

Now, if you could conjure up a spell checker for this hog...

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (La) (buffgun@hotmail.com), November 22, 1998.

S.O.B., funny you should mention that you had a problem yesterday. I was in the middle of posting on here when I got knocked off by my ISP. When I tried to re-log on, I kept getting a voice message through my modem "sorry, all circuits are busy now, please try your call again later". I tried and tried for almost 1/2 hour then finally gave up. I've noticed my ISP getting busier lately with busy signals, but this was the first time in 3 years that I use it that I got "all circuit busy" voice message. Saturday nights must be a more popular night for the occasional users and/or net newbies?

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), November 22, 1998.

Chris;

Maybe the 'word of mouth program' is working better than anyone expected (or feared depending on your viewpoint) and the word is reaching enough folks to make an impact. At this rate we all may be locked out of the net by people trying to get onto the net.

My ISP was ditto yours for awhile a few times that day, but I also got an extra bonus. My TELCO put a tape on the circuits so now if you reach a busy number you receive a recorded message offering to keep trying for you for 30 minutes for $.75. It really is getting bad out there.

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (La) (buffgun@hotmail.com), November 23, 1998.

I'm on Mindspring's Atlanta node -- 3 or 4 times in the past 10 days I've had to redial many times just to log in. Peak usage times seem to be the noon hour and 4-6 PM. Never had any trouble getting on here, though.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 28, 1998.