Editorial: Pardon our dust

Some weeks, my brain hurts — and this has been one of those weeks.

With this morning’s updates to our publishing platform, we are FINALLY through with annual maintenance of our systems and software, so things should quiet down here through the holidays.

Last week I got some “interesting” calls from readers trying to figure out what was going on with the new colors, formats, layouts, content, and syndicated feeds. Unfortunately, that’s all part of upgrading features, modifying plugins, and testing for improvements. We tried to do as much as we could late at night when our traffic is lowest, but I realize some of it had to be done right in the middle of the day. Sorry.

What gave me a complete brain freeze was our firewall upgrade. We’ve gone to a three-step firewall process that now starts with a “firewall appliance” — an actual piece of hardware that does nothing but validate Internet traffic coming into, and going out of, our server. Our system was “so secure” at one point, either Tuesday or Wednesday, that I was banished to cyberia, myself! Synching the three together proved to be a bit of a challenge; I wasn’t the only one who had some connection issues. That should also be resolved as of today. Sorry.

This is an annual process that we’ve gone through for a number of years, so we were prepared and budgeted appropriately for its hard and soft costs. Believe it, or not, we have accomplished the improvements without having to raise our advertising rates, without having to start charging for subscriptions to Weekday Issue, and without having to put up a “pay wall” that will stop readers from getting access to the news — unless they pay for that access.

My view has always been that advertisers and sponsors pay us to “piggyback” on our publications, so why charge our readers? It is precisely because we have accumulated such a high quality base of readers and subscribers that sponsors are willing to pay us to deliver their messages. Bottom line, even after November 3rd, you will continue to be able to read the full content of Historic City News articles, online, and without charge.

Thank GOD it’s Friday, and what an absolutely gorgeous Friday it is — go outside for lunch today and recharge your brain.