He is also running the checkpoint server.
I take it that it is not a money issue, but more like he is not providing the service anymore ?
I can run it on my server - I wonder if he would be willing to share his code for the explorer ...

Correct, he is ending all block explorer services unrelated to money.
I am fairly certain his explorer code was made open sourced upto and including his forth and latest version.
It would be nice to have everything transfer over to you're server to avoid checkpoint/server issues...
I will have to track down the server code if I can.
Consider the checkpoint server 'handled'
I will update the wallet code for the dns-seed to point to bitbar.co by the first of the year.
Should anyone have problems with connections, please add to your bitbar.conf:
addnode=65.102.140.115
or:
addnode=bitbar.co
I just checked and the wallet running there has 17 connections
Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to all of you!