Server status: upgrade complete

ST LOUIS MISSOURI USA. 2009 MAY 9 (CINEMA MINIMA) — The upgrade to Cinema Minima’s Web server has been completed successfully. The posting of new stories will resume shortly. The most-recent stories have been put online. Older archives will be put online over the course of the coming months.

Benefits for readers

• Speed and reliability: The publication’s Web pages will be delivered rapidly to browsers, all day, every day.
• Syndicated (RSS) feeds will be delivered timely to feed readers.
• Web pages will accomodate “widescreen” movies in large size.

Benefits for Correspondents

• The online newsroom will be available all day, every day, without interruption.
• The interface is easier to use than previously.
• Changes — revisions — to drafts of stories are saved as separate versions which may be compared and retrieved by their authors as required.
• Tags are available to help readers to find stories.
• The publication of stories can be scheduled in advance.

Improvements in performance. In the interest of security, no details of the improvements will be offered here. What can be said is that speed, stability, security, and reliability are paramount. Features — such as widgets which hot-link to social-networking sites — will be evaluated in terms of their effects on performance.

Cinema Minima’s Web servers are hosted by Slicehost, which is located in St. Louis, Missouri USA. We recommend it.

Cinema Minima’s audience is international

Cinema Minima’s (CM) audience is international. English is used as lingua franca: Correspondents should write assuming that CM readers’ first language is not English.

By the same token, the adjective “international” is preferred to “foreign”.

Local measurements, such as currency references, should be rendered understandable for international readers, e. g., “US$1,000″ not, “$1,000.” It is OK to use rupee, crore, and lakh; but be sure to render equivalents in decimal units of Euros or dollars, too, e. g., “Production cost was RS 1 crore | €155,500,” etc.