NorthCountryNow.com was offline for about four hours today while Slic Network Solutions of Nicholville, which hosts the site, worked to resolve DNS issues.

“It Works!” was all that appeared on the screen when viewers logged in to NorthCountryNow.com for much of the time between approximately 9:30 a.m. and 1:45 p.m.

A number of viewers contacted NorthCountryNow.com, concerned their computer or the website had been hacked or infected with a virus.

However, that was not the case – Slic personnel had posted “It Works!” while attempting to resolve the DNS problems.

Today’s outage was the latest of several that have occurred in recent weeks due to server-related issues.

NorthCountryNow.com is currently undergoing a complete underlying software upgrade from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7. The upgrade is expected to be complete and go online within the next couple of weeks. Despite the major software upgrade, viewers should experience little difference.

When the transition to Drupal 7 takes place, NorthCountryNow.com will transfer from Slic to Amazon Web Hosting, in part because Amazon provides significant redundancy, reducing the odds of the website going offline unexpectedly.

In recent years, hundreds of thousands of businesses and government agencies, including the Pentagon, have started using Amazon Web Hosting.

The upgrade to Drupal 7 will also allow NorthCountryNow.com to transition to a “responsive design” that will allow for different versions to appear on mobile phones and tablets to make for easier reading and navigation. Those improvements are expected to go into effect late this spring.