Are you just trying to avoid it looking "bad" for visitors, or do you actually require your site to be up that long?
If the former, one hack is just make the downtime for users more fun - I added a chat interface so that anyone waiting doesn't get too bored and can interact with other members.
If the former, one hack is just make the downtime for users more fun - I added a chat interface so that anyone waiting doesn't get too bored and can interact with other members.
Screenshot: http://lamby.uwcs.co.uk/b/playfire_maintenance.png
Architecturally, it doesn't touch our database or "main" site at all so we are free to break everything during an upgrade.