Site interruption

We would like to apologise for any interruption in FAD’s normal smiling service which has been experienced in the past few days. We undertook some badly needed database maintenance and we fear that some comments may have been lost while all that was going on. The bad news is that if your comment has not appeared on the post where you left it, it has been lost.

The good news

The good news is that the database has had all its accumulated rubbish deleted and been backed-up in several places to help ensure that the site will survive any disaster. Catastrophic computer glitches were however, not the only thing threatening FAD’s future because the costs of hosting it on the Internet over the years were using up money I thought might be better spent on holidays back in Africa.

We have probably had a total of close to a million visitors over the years but only a handful of responses were ever received to my plea for donations and I more than once toyed with the idea of shutting up shop. This changed recently when Les Juby of Webpro suggested that the site was getting more than enough visitors each month to make it possible to sell advertising to cover costs and maybe even make a little bit on the side.

We will therefore be introducing advertising to the site in the coming months. If it works and begins to pay to pay then we will certainly be motivated to tackle the backlog of information and stories which are waiting to be put online. Advertising is not the preferred option but it is going to be the difference between closing down and being the meeting place for the diaspora and repository  for all our cherished Durban memories into the future.