06/07/2023
Behind the scenes:
(a tale hopefully with a happy ending).
Anyone that's attempted to browse our (gymratz co uk) website this week might have been hit with an "It's broken, we're fixing it" message or e-mail bounce etc and here's why.
In 2010 we were forced to move our site across the pond to Florida because our UK hosts had become extremely unstable and the shared server kept crashing so we moved it to a company called FutureQuest. And that was that as good fairy-tails start off; but all was not as it seemed, and 5 days after we'd paid for another 12 months hosting we were hit with the attached "RUN AWAY ASAP" e-mail stating very shot notice of closure of their data centre, and all for customers to seek an alternative solution immediately!
Well, given that our site was custom coded back in 2008 (I still remember the first order in it's pre-production state (Mark)); and it has quite unique requirements it wasn't a matter of simply dump, download and upload to a new host like today's sites, it's quite a finicky beast; like taking your elderly and slightly senile parent/grand parent out for a meal. (that's a different story though). "Do I like that?"
Fortunately we still had ongoing hosting with our original UK company with a number of other vintage static-page sites knocked up last millenium by my fair hands so logic suggested if it'd been there before, 15 years of hardware upgrades should have made the server far more stable place for the site to live out it's final years.
A quick message to the legend that created the site, who always appears like BatMan in times of server catastrophe, and the move was on.
E-mails came back to life thismorning on the new server and at time of writing the site is back up and seems to be zipping along like it's risen from the grave. 99.5% there, just some final environment tweaks to make and we're back!
No, it's still not mobile friendly so Google has buried it in the depths of "no pay, no play" manipulative commercialism like they do but you can still pinch&squeeze for a taste of the golden times.
I can now start updating stock and everything else that's been scuppered by the last 3 years of global corruption... so if you want something specific just ask. And no, we don't hold everything in shop stock, that ship sailed in 2020 through to 2022. Though we still have some 20Kg Olympic bumper plates in the warehouse that we hoarded away for local customers. :)
And now I will close with a final glimpse of keeping up with the times...
We do have a website that IS in the right decade and running on a fully loaded Bertie-big-balls enterprise-class server that was the dogs danglies 10 or so years ago! but the site is still in development (it's been an "interesting" learning curve for myself and BatMan), so no payment gateways or e-mail set-up and only been set-up with the majority of WaterRower and NOHrD products. Feel free to take a look, let me know if you like it (so-far as an in-development site) and of course, if you would like anything seen I'm sure we can make it worth your while taking the time to contact us.
I'll not put a direct link as the Zuckerburger empire will want it's 3 stone ("what's a stone?" all the non Brits shout) of flesh... but you might find it at (gymrats uk) don't forget the dot .
Thankyou for spending 3 minutes to read my ramblings if you made it this far. And don't forget to comment expressing your love for the retro site and the streamlined efficiency of the new one if you can find either.
Pete (and Deb of course)
