Ivan M. Granger August 16th, 2008
The Poetry Chaikhana web site — including the forum and blog — were down for much of Friday, Aug. 15.
What happened is that, in the middle of the night, the poetry-chaikhana.com domain name “deactivated.” I just found out that Network Solutions, the agency that regulates that, didn’t automatically renew the domain name, as they were supposed to. No domain name = no web site.
One person suggested to me that Network Solutions should be careful not to mess with “thousands of vicious pen-wielding poets in Quonset tea houses… ready to write them into eternal oblivion.” I guess they got the message. With the help of my very helpful Internet service provider, we got them to fix the problem within a few hours. (And it only took wielding a phone and email, not a barbed pen.)
So — the Poetry Chaikhana is back!
Ivan M. Granger July 28th, 2008
I periodically get asked where I find the photos that accompany the poems on the blog and in the poem emails. Did I take them all myself? (No, I’m not that talented behind the lens.) Did I pay to access a stock photography catalog? (Nope.)
Actually, I find almost all of the photos on Flickr, through their Creative Commons section. These are basically photos people post and make available for free, as long as you attribute them.
You’ll notice that beneath each photo I use, I include a reference to the photographer’s name with a link that leads to their Flickr pages.
Once I’ve selected the poem for the day, I imagine visual images that might compliment the words well, and then start searching through Flickr. Some real treasures in there, even though most photos are by amateurs. Often I end up selecting a photo that has little to do with my original idea. I’m just as curious as you to discover which image will ultimately accompany the selected poem…
Ivan M. Granger May 23rd, 2008
If you tried to visit this blog, or any part of the Poetry Chaikhana website Wednesday evening or Thursday morning — everything was down. My internet service provider, the folks who host the website, were hit by a Denial of Service attack. Basically, that means a hacker sent an automated stream of data to their servers, overwhelming them, and shutting their systems down.
Well, we’re back up, with new security in place that should minimize the possibility of that in the future…
Subscribe (