that will require careful attention when migrating to the new database.

In the perl script I gave Gud to do database migration, I took care of that. The current database is an ad-hoc mix of cp-1252 and utf-8. When you migrate, you have to check every text record: first, try to decode it as utf-8 and check for errors, and if it fails, then try to decode it as cp-1252.

That sounds like a very sensible approach.

(Peering over my teacup rim and smiling at the nice men talking in a foreign language, feeling unalarmed and in good hands, whether I know what they're saying or not.)

I might screenshot this page for my computer science class. "See? People really do have to know this encoding stuff!"

Thanks for all your hard work Gud et al!

Thanks.

Expect the beta site to have spotty availability for awhile as things move over to the a new server.

I provisioned a $18 a month VM for the new board and database. If that's not enough, we can increase the specs. This one is 2GB of RAM, 2 CPUs, and 60 GB of storage with automatic backup.

To have access to the server, I'll need a public SSH key to install it. (This can be done via the DO account as well if you are a member). I created a buffista user account and I can share the password through LastPass sharing, or using GPG, or private upload location, whatever secure method works.

Here's my ssh key (also on my DigitalOcean profile):

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIPes6FWa/koiXeAv1eOJyooZifSu8m2EXAaPmPOPOEyj

I'm in. Thanks!

Got DNS, firewall (via DO settings), nginx, ruby, puma, and SSL configured for (www.)buffistas.me on the new server. More importantly, I updated the README for how to do all of it so it can be done quickly for (www.)buffistas.org when the time comes. Well, we should just have to update the certs and nginx configuration for that.

Anyhow, the new test site will be www.buffistas.me

Right now it's just the nginx test page. I still need to set up the rails site, migrate data, and configure the reverse proxy.