Site Down

My apologies for Citation Machine being down over the last couple of days. I have moved the pages over to my new dedicated server, and there was a glitch in moving the domain name. Dreamhost released it, but there was a problem in my configuration that prevented Rackspace from catching it. Cleared up now, over a phone call from my breakfast table in Asheville yesterday. I love phone support.

There's obviously a lull in citation machine usage right now and I'll be spending part of this time featuring Son of Citation Machine out. I think you'll be pleased.

SOCM 2.1

I have been reading all of the suggestions. Many have been kind and constructive suggestions, and others expressions of frustration with Son of Citation Machine. I understand completely. People use Citation Machine to alleviate the frustration of navigating complex style manuals, and to have to figure out how to navigate a new CM... -- well I understand.

I also understand the frustration among educators about the presence of paper mills in the Google Ads. Brenda has been blocking those companies as we run across them, and the list is surprisingly long. I wrote about this (It Doesn’t Solve the Problem) in 2¢ Worth the other day, and I suggest your reading.

We have also been working on another strategy to diversify the Google Ads. I have installed three RSS aggregators in SOCM 2.1, that will display news feeds from three sources:

• BBC World News


• Internet Movie Database (IMDB) Studio News (movie reviews)


• iTunes top selling songs

Again, I know that folks do not come to citation Machine for casual reading. But the main purpose of the feeds is to provide more varied content for the Google Adsense spiders to find and to issue more varied ads on the site. Our test site already indicates much more diversity in the ads.

We hope to have 2.1 up by the end of the week.

Dedicated Server & More Editing

It seems that citation machine has settled for the time being. I have written an ad hoc load sharing program that sends everyother person to two citation machine sites. That said, we are now looking for a dedicated server. Going through this each semester, and putting you through this each semester is not fair to any of us. Plus, I have other web tools that need better performance. So we're listening to sales pitches now, and will likely be selecting a service in the next couple of days.

Also, I have continued to add some multiple author templates, mostly in the APA format. I'll catch up with the APA format later today and tomorrow.

Have a great summer!