I had problem accessing F4F site for a while yesterday. Now that I got to it, it looks different. So, I am not sure if it is my computer or the Internet provider or the F4F look has changed?

Ahaa!
So that what it was.
Me too, was wondering why the server was down for so long...

Ottawan the front page seems the same .

I had the same problem

Dieseler
When I typed in the following and tried to post, the F4F site went blank so I could not post the following :
"I guess I was wrong about the new look (which seemed congested). I can now see the set-up as before but slow, and there may be some work going on on the F4f site. Things are very slow though"

Ottawan
yes it was slow this afternoon when i also typed my message .
But now later as i type this and after a nice aftternoon nap forum seems to be zipping again as usual .
Singing in my head
"Happy days are here again"

FYI, looks like last night around 10pm, http://www.websitetoolbox.com, which is the forum hosting service the F4F forum uses, went down.  DNS translation was happening, but for whatever reason, either one of the routers/firewalls that acts as a gateway to the server was down/not working correctly, or the actual webserver that hosts the forums (or this forum) was down.

I looked into it pretty heavily myself, and tried to trace the exact problem, but all of my attempts to get to the webserver with the F4F forum on it failed.  Looks like it went down around 9-10pm from what I remember.  Not sure when it came back up, but it was here in the morning.

Two observations:
1. During my access attempts, there was time when I could access the varietal and other parts of the "Figs $ Fun"  site but not the Forum part.
2. The signatures are not showing!

figs4fun's main website with all the varietal info, basics, etc. is hosted through 1&1 Internet services (http://www.1and1.com)

the figs4fun forum is hosted through WebsiteToolbox (http://www.websitetoolbox.com)

In layman terms, the server you go to for the main webpages is totally different from the server you go to for this forum.  Because of this, the forum can be down while the website is up, and vice-versa.  

Hope this makes sense.

Clearly, WebsiteToolbox is still having problems, I'm still having spotty/slow access to the forums, sometimes the CSS style sheets don't load, so the formatting of the forum is all jacked up, and generally...just flaky. 

I suspect they had a major problem because their own site (Websitetoolbox)was also down. Whatever they did to their customers, they also did to themselves, it appeared.

Seems OK now.

How do i put this.
I have seen forum down before not too many times, usually for a very short time during maintanence.
This time for a day or less not due to maintanence
I can tell though by posts, most here miss it when its down and i also feel the same way as each day i go here to read at least once and most times more during my time online reading, selling on ebay along with looking at model trains another passion of mine but always glance at this forum thats for sure as i enjoy like most of you folks looking at others fig plant pictures and reading the post .
I can only imagine down the road in a few years if still around new members posting along with current members pictures of the figs and plants its such a joy to see them.

Jon thanks once again for a wonderful site.
Best Health

Thanks Jason for the insight on the working of the website (and its provider).
I am just happy that it is not at my end only (thinking that I was left out of all the FIGS4FUN).

I am glad that there are others who shared in my disappointment when going to my favorites, clicking F4F forum, and getting "page cannot be displayed".  Addiction is much more fun with company.... ;)

The new look of F4F forum (table form) looks neat to me. I just noticed it now.

They said they were doing an system upgrade, but nothing should be different in the display. Guess they lied.

The quick reply message box looks cutoff on bottom of page. nice line borders, so far it looks nice.
I just looked at my profile and it has nice line borders that i think are nice as well.
Seems like a nice clean look to things.