The company that hosts this site was the victim of a large DDoS attack tonight.  The forum was unavailable for a long time, but things should be fine now.  Sorry again for the problems.

No problemo.  thanks for all the work you do running the joint.

Thanks for the update zac, i was thinking maybe something at my end went off line.  could you describe what a DDoS attack is?  i take it,  it was a deliberate act by someone?

poki - it is definitely a planned attack.  here's a fairly simple site about it.  http://www.cert.org/homeusers/ddos.html (http://www.cert.org/homeusers/ddos.html)

basically, someone takes over a large number of computers and has them send requests to another computer all at the same time.  there are so many requests that nobody is able to get through.

It looks like somebody hit Harmony Central too! Their servers are always running slow, though. They've been down since this afternoon though! :o

Thanks for the info zac, that was an interesting read.  to think your computer can be a participant in an DDoS attack without you knowing it is pretty scary.  fortunately my computer shows none of the indicators mentioned.  it sounds similar to the old AOL IM bombs on a much greater scale. i've been hit by thoughs once too many times.

Some kind of bitter creature lurking out there...