Inducks websites down

[Thomas Pryds Lauritsen]

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As you might have noticed, the Inducks websites (including the search
engine "COA") has been down for a day or two. This is caused by a
misunderstanding between us, the Inducks team, and the Internet Service
Provider where the Inducks server is physically located.

The problem affects all Inducks related websites including:
http://inducks.org/ - Main Inducks website
http://coa.inducks.org/ - COA search engine
http://bolderbast.inducks.org/ - Bolderbast background info website

Unfortunately, the problem will most likely not be fixed until next week
some time. In the meantime you can actually access the Inducks websites
anyway, but that requires a slight technical skill from your side (but
not too much) and it requires that you can access and edit system files
on your computer. I will explain this below.

Making it work on your local machine is a matter of adding two lines of
text to a system file (the "HOSTS" file) on your computer. Where this
file is located depends on your operating system:

- - Windows 95/98/ME: C:\windows\hosts
- - Windows NT/2000/XP Pro: C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
- - Windows XP Home: C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
- - Linux: /etc/hosts (usually)
- - Mac: In System Folder:Preferences or in the System Folder itself
should be a file named "Hosts".

If you don't have such a file, make sure that hidden files are shown in
your operating system, and if still not, you can create the file. Note:
The file should *not* have an extension, so the file name should *not*
be "hosts.txt" or similar. Just "hosts", nothing else. Make sure your
operating system doesn't hide these file extensions for you (Windows has
a habit of doing this).

Edit (or create) the file using a plain text editor (not Word or
similar) such as Notepad in Windows. Add the following two lines to the
file:

62.61.159.55	inducks.org coa.inducks.org
62.107.104.7	irc.inducks.org

If you need to use any other Inducks websites (such as
bolderbast.inducks.org or de.inducks.org) you can add them to the first
line separated by spaces. After the file is saved, the Inducks websites
you have specified there should work again. Remember to remove the lines
again, when the Inducks works normally again. I will announce that here
when it happens.

Notice, even though you have done this, you still cannot send mail to
people with inducks.org-adresses.


We, the Inducks team, are very sorry for any inconvenience this may
cause, but believe me, we're working hard on solving the problem.

On behalf of the Inducks team,
Thomas Pryds Lauritsen (system maintainer)

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