The night the server died

It's amazing how dependent we are on technology these days. In fact, after the Monday night ordeal we went through to put out Tuesday's DM, I'm going to say our dependence on technology is downright scary.

At the Student Media Center, we share a server with Newswatch, Rebel Radio, The Ole Miss yearbook and the advertising department. The SMC server has not been updated in about three years – and that's a very, very long time considering the amount of content we put on it everyday. As a result, from time to time the server shuts down, which throws the entire DM publishing process into turmoil. We depend on the server to retrieve pages, place content on the pages and generally prepare the paper for printing.

Last night's server shutdown was particularly severe. It was 8 p.m. before the advertising department had even finished prepping our pages for content, and it was well after 9 p.m. when our section editors got started desiging everything. We were reduced from six different working computers to a single station that we had to take turns using. By the time the paper was sufficiently laid out and copy-edited it was after 2 a.m. – and that was before Meghan Blalock, the managing editor, and myself gave our final read and approval on every column, story, photo and design element.

I left the Student Media Center around 4:30 a.m. last night along with Zachary Wilson, our Online Editor, who had to wait for all the pages to be totally read and completed before he could upload content on to TheDMonline.com. When my alarm went off at 7 a.m. to alert me to get ready for my 8 a.m. anthropology class, I thought I just might cry.

Many of our journalism professors tell us stories about the "old days" of DM publishing, when computers were barely used and pages were designed and formatted by hand. I cringe to think that we would have to cut and paste every picture and story into place the way they used to do it, but the fact that our server can malfunction and make it uncertain whether a paper will get printed at all is also unsettling.

In any case, Tuesday's DM is really and truly a labor of love from all of us on staff who gave up homework, appointments, study sessions, food and sleep to get it done. And if we're not in our 8 a.m. classes tomorrow, you all know why.