Has The Magic Cafe Vanished?

[Guest]

Ben, shutting down the cafe for an hour is one thing. On this occasion it has been down most of the day, so I guess it is pretty serious!

Pete, I think that would be an excellent idea. Last time Steven Steele from the Cafe Forum Staff came on here and gave an explanation. Are there no members of the Cafe Staff who are also on Genii, who could enlighten us? Maybe someone could call Steve Brooks? I would, but I don't have his number! JR

[Pete Biro]

"ODD POST OR TWO"
HAHAHAHHAAHAHAAAH

[Guest]

Originally posted by Rodney Reyes:
...
The main topics in The Dynasty

Practice your creativity whenever you can. This is a collective art.

Also the buck twins have a nifty 51 cards and one left in the dreyer idea. Worth checking out.

Thanks - lots of fun and off color creativity there. Sun Tea huh? The part about"personals" with one of the Buck twins was hysterical

[Guest]

Jolly,
Don't panic yet man! LOL
I too was under the impression they had switched servers back in Sept. as well! Oh well, it always makes for good speculation and for some of the anti Cafe folk to take pot shots and bad mouth the big green! Personally, I'll miss it the time it's down but not gonna lose sleep over it and will be back to enjoying it when it's up and running again! Till then I always enjoy Genii and some of the other fine sites available!
Mick

[Larry Barnowsky]

At least there is something you can take advantage of while The Magic Cafe is down:

http://geniimagazine.com/forum/cgi-bin/ ... 4;t=009990

[Guest]

Is it my imagination, but are there a lot more people on here today with The Cafe being down? I am noticing some names here today who are not normlly regulars, and have only made one or two posts. Hopefully they will stay a while!! This is such a great forum! JR

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jolly Roger:
Is it my imagination, but are there a lot more people on here today with The Cafe being down? I am noticing

:sleep: :sleep: :sleep: :sleep: :sleep:

[Guest]

JR,
I know I am not a regular contributor here but do check these boards daily and ALWAYS pick up something of use! Right you are, Genii is a great forum as is it's magazine!
Mick

[Guest]

WAKE UP STEVE!! :whack: :whack: :whack: :whack: :whack: :whack: :whack: :whack: JR

[Guest]

Oh--right! At first I didn't realize those snoozy guys were Steve Hook--I thought it was Senor Blaine resting up for his latest world-wide publicity fest...

(delayed rimshot)
Thank YOU!

:sleep:

[Guest]

One thing I have to give the...what do you call it?...the "Cafe"? they have WAY better nicknames over there: Mickey Painless, Danny Hustle...I want to buy you gentlemen a couple of pops!

:cool:

[Guest]

I am sorry, CD, I am from England. What is a pop? Sorry to be so ignorant on these matters! JR

[Guest]

--A "belt of hootch"...
--A "pint o' the dark stuff, guv"...

I've much enjoyed your posts this year: You name your poison, and it's on me when we cross paths!

[Guest]

Hell Dave, there is even a geographic opportunity for you to buy me that pop if you live in the SJ Valley! I'm in beautiful NW Bakersfield, the garden spot of the State! LMAO!
Cheers,
Mick

[Guest]

Visalia, amigo.

Uh-oh...I foresee some nutty activities occuring in the near future...

[Guest]

Originally posted by Steve Thomas:
They've probably finally gotten around to banning everyone except staff...you knew it would happen eventually!

Steve

Steve,
I know what you mean. I was reprimanded a few times for trying to "help" another magician find somehing. God forbid you put another website up on the Cafe.
Rennie

[Guest]

I love that town Dave! I do a lot of work around Exeter and Lindsay and quite often go through Visalia heading back to good ol 99! I hope there's more magic in V Town than in Bako!
Mick

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jonathan Townsend:

Originally posted by Rodney Reyes:
[b] ...
The main topics in The Dynasty

Practice your creativity whenever you can. This is a collective art.

Also the buck twins have a nifty 51 cards and one left in the dreyer idea. Worth checking out.

Thanks - lots of fun and off color creativity there. Sun Tea huh? The part about"personals" with one of the Buck twins was hysterical [/b]

...Ah yes, the Sun Tea. Give it a day or two to ferment.

:D

[Guest]

"I've much enjoyed your posts this year: You name your poison, and it's on me when we cross paths! "

Thank you CD! However, I do hope the meeting will occur in the land of my birth, as I really do find the American beer is pretty dreadful!! :eek:

Back to topic! The Green Place and The Busker's Forums have been down now for nearly 24 hours. Surely there is someone out there, or on here, who has an explanation as to the reason? JR

[Guest]

It smells of conspiracy if ya ask me JR! :rolleyes:

[Guest]

The sky is falling!!! The sky is falling!!!!

[Guest]

Originally posted by Nordatrax:
The good thing is, my post count no longer accurately describes how bad my social life is!

well said, Ben


kevin

[Guest]

Hope ya don't mind Bill but w/ the Cafe down I've been loitering in the Museum even MORE! Have I mentioned lately I love that place?!?!?
Mick

[Guest]

Glad to provide a place for cups and balls addicts to hang out.

Just turn the lights off when you leave.
;)

[Randwill]

With the Cafe off-line, my greatest fear is that the lunatics in the "Penny for your thoughts" section (mental magic) might wander away from their homes or padded cells and start interacting with the general population. We don't want that!

[Guest]

I would think that the advertisers over on the green might be quite hard hit by all this. Many of them are small time magic dealers, working out of their homes, whose only source of advertising is a banner ad on the green, which costs them $100 a month. I know that was the case when I was an advertiser. This is also, for many of them, their busiest time of year as they ask their better halves to look through the ads for possible Christmas presents! JR

[Larry Barnowsky]

Jolly Roger is right. My busiest time for sales is right about now. Fortunately, I'm running a 1/4 page color ad in MAGIC (I did Genii last year) so I'm still advertising. By the way the full banner ads are $200 a month at the Cafe. The Cafe also went down in September just when my new book and DVD was being released. Talk about bad timing. :genii:

Larry

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jolly Roger:
The Green Place and The Busker's Forums have been down now for nearly 24 hours. Surely there is someone out there, or on here, who has an explanation as to the reason? JR

You repeatedly make negative comments about The Magic Cafe, then you keep posting about [harrumph] [grumble] how indignant you are that no one has posted why the site is down.

If you hate the place so much, why do you subversively harp on its downtime?!

As to the cause: Dude......it's a computer problem, don't ya think?

[Guest]

Originally posted by Bill Palmer:
Glad to provide a place for cups and balls addicts to hang out.

Just turn the lights off when you leave.
;)

ooo i forgot about the C&B museum forum.

I have to find my login now.

[Guest]

Thats interesting about ads wearing out so quickly - in what passes for real life I research ads, and it seems that most magazine ads tend to wear out after 3/4 exposures - it would make sense if the same was true for these banner ads.

[Larry Barnowsky]

Randy,

The experience you relate about Cafe advertising may not be universal. Advertising has different effects depending on the product and the public's awareness of it. I advertise my book/dvd with banners on the Cafe and I noticed a big drop off of hits to my website when the Cafe went down this time and back in September. The number of hits to my website has been a good predictor of orders that day or for the following week. Also in my case, there are review threads which have helped sales of the book thanks to Cafe members who bought the book and took the time to write a review. Anyway, it hurts my business when the Cafe is off line.

Addendum: Randy's post seems to have disappeared.

Larry

[Guest]

Larry.

Yes I know others mileage can vary.

I asked that My post be removed as after I posted I decided that I should not have said what I did. I tried to delet it Myself but kept getting an error page so I asked that My post be removed.

Randy

[Guest]

"If you hate the place so much, why do you subversively harp on its downtime?!"

What an extraordinary and innaccurate statement to make, Steve!!! Where have I ever said I hate The Magic Cafe? I think it is a great resource for many of us, and there is a wealth of good information on there. Do I like their editing policies, and the fact that they are constantly banning good contributors for ridiculous reasons? No I don't.......nor do many others. But PLEASE do not falsely accuse me of hating the place. I sincerely hope you will apologise to me for that outrageous statement. I hate nothing and nobody on this planet. The word "Hate" is not even in my vocabulary! JR

[Steve Brooks]

Greetings one and all - yes obviously The Magic Caf is currently off-line. I deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused for our loyal members and wonderful sponsors.

Given the server crash we experieced a few months back I can certainly understand the frustration being felt by those who depend on the Caf for one reason or another. Believe me when I say that the feeling is mutual. :rolleyes:

During the last 24 hours we have been working steady to restore the site and have everything back up and running again in the shortest amount of time possible. However, we do want to be sure we have things sorted out properly before going live again.

We have implemented a few changes. For starters we have replaced our hardrives with brand new units and have updated all our server software as well. :)

That said, we are now in the process of restoring all our data, which includes member profiles, postings made, etc. Because of circumstances beyond my control, we did lose a few days worth of information. The bright side is that in theory we should have everything restored up until December 8th - not too bad considering the seriousness of the current system failure.

Having said all that, I do want you to know that both the previous system crash and the recent shutdown had nothing to do with our hosting company GMB Webworks, but rather the server farm we lease the equipment from - we are making changes that hopefully will insure this sort of thing does not happen again. However, as with all technology - nothing is guaranteed.

Finally, please realize that we are a small operation, yet cater to a large group of people. We do not have the resources of big firms (e.g, Amazon.com, Google, etc) and can only do our best. Yet I take comfort in knowing that even the big boys have had their share of system failures, crashes and the like.

I want to thank Richard and company for giving me the opportunity to let you all know we are working hard to being The Magic Caf back online. I also want to thank those who frequent the Caf on a daily basis for all your kind emails and phone calls - yooz da best. :)

Best wishes always - Steve Brooks

[Guest]

Thanks for the update Steve! Look forward to getting back on line!
Mick

[Guest]

thanks steve, but im getting withdrawl symptoms =)

[Guest]

Thank you Steve Brooks for the update! I really appreciate it. I regularly visit "The Little Darlings" to see what is going on over there. Hopefully, one day, you will allow me to post on there again..........as I have been told that many there enjoyed my contributions!! Good luck, and a Very Merry Christmas to you and your family! Roger

[Guest]

Me too Josh! With it down I've had to occupy my time practicing! GAWD FORBID! LOL

[Guest]

Thanks Steve!

[Guest]

Aw man, the Buskers Cafe American is down also, now that IS a bummer!