Sorry for this but there is only one safe way to do it and that's to turn the forums off while we do it.
We have finished configuring the temporary server and have been doing backups and restores all morning while everyone chatted here. They backups and restores have worked flawlessly and they take about 30-45 minutes each.
But with everyone posting that means that they are out of sync almost immediately. The only way not to lose anything is to go into maintenance mode and run them one last time.
When we turn the site back on we will be running on a dedicated (though temporary) server which is MUCH MUCH faster than where we are now. This will hold us over until the new server shows up and we get that one configured as well.
Sigh... Never ends.
So sometime in the next hour or less you will see the site go into maintenance mode. When it comes out it should be significantly faster and will be the last time we have to come down for a few days until the final server switch.
:-)
Thanks everyone,
Alex