Hi.

To quell any rumors, here are the facts as I've been made aware. Seems as the server that we have been overpaying for for some time with very little if ANY technical support with our damaging issues as told us that "Sorry, you have ran out of hard drive space". Was it a virus that killed it? Quite possible. But as all well know, I am no expert (at anything)

WTF? How exactly does this happen when we set up a site with unlimited HD space.

Other than that, I have no answers. Oldspower isn't dead, its just comatose. You may see it come back completely renewed with some better support. Are we selling out? No. not exactly. However, expect the unexpected. All will be welcome to return, IF we decide to run "under new management".

Anyone that had my email, change the comcast to att.net. No, I'm not asking for help, or condolances. I felt the need to make an effort to let those that did enjoy the site know that we are researching other options.

Chances are good that we will be back in some capacity. Chances are NOT good that things will be "back to normal".

Respectfully,

John

 

This may sound obvious, but I trust that you have the entire site backed up "off-site," ie: on a couple of hard drives in someone's house, in case the commercial server suddenly experiences unexpected "problems."

- Eric

 

We counted on our service provider to do that. Those files were backed up every Tues and Thurs. They have yet to release those files. Lesson learned.

John

 

Ouch...
I would have trusted someone more to back it up it in their house than rely on att or comcrap to do a job someone is paying them to do...
Hope it works out.

 

Bummer Thanks for letting us know what's going on.


John

 

That's why, even though I flatter myself into thinking that the advice segments I write up will be there for others to search out indefinitely, I know that I could log on one day and find it's all been deleted.

Computer-stored information seems eternal, but it can be erased in a heartbeat.

- Eric

 

This pertains to almost all digital data and storage. One glitch is all it takes to destroy it all. I learned long ago that data on flash memory can easily be gone in a flash so backups are critical there as well as any other digital data storage.

 

Unless it's something that you desperately want permanently erased. Then it seems you can't get rid of it.

 

Progress of Man-

Man made marks and wrote on stones- Lasted thousands of years.

Then made marks and wrote on paper- lasts hundreds of years, if in a climate controled atmosphere.

Then made marks and wrote on computer chips -10 years? 10 weeks? 10 days, who knows.

Point is the more advanced we get the more history we lose.

 

LoL... Good way to put it.
EASIER to loose and the more we lose when it happens.

Stone could only be destroyed with a BIG club.
Paper can be destroyed by fire.
Data on IC chips can be destroyed by your camera batteries dying, or a power surge, or a drop, or a shoe in the wrong place...

 

Yea, who knows what is next. We just went through a core conversion at work, talk about frustrating. That is why I like working on the Cutlass. There is something that is just straight forward that is relaxing. kinda.

 

don't know how much progress it really is, but there's a little guy shoveling his life away up there now.

 

Over 20 hours over the weekend downloading files from the old POS server, 3 hours yesterday uploading, and another two hours today going WTF...

I'm gonna need beer and another weekend.

John

 

sticking with the v-bulletin format?

 

Trying to so I don't loose everything. Problem is our license is LONG since expired, and I have zero support from them until I shell out the $$$ for the new stuff.

IF I shell out for the new stuff, I'm going to most likely lose ALL 10 years of data.

I have to get the old stuff working before I upgrade.

And I'm way way lost.

John

 

Its really unfortunate for what you went through. Literally backing up my sites as I type this. If you are looking for a reliable host, I recommend dreamhost.com. I've used them for years, $10 a month for unlimited space, bandwidth and domains hosted on accounts. That and their support is top-notch.

You mentioned you are working on getting the old stuff working first and don't want to pay vbulliten before trying. If it will help, I would be more then happy to install a fresh vbulliten on one of my sites and give you access to see if you can get your old databases and files working again. Once you get everything sorted out, you can just export the files and transfer everything back to your stuff. I'm pretty big into all this web stuff so let me know if I can help with anything.

 

Keep plugging along John. Some of us miss the place. We know you're doing your best, thanks.

 

Now THAT, Joffroi, was a gentlemanly offer.

- Eric.

 

Thank you, agreed, a gentlemanly offer.

It will be a few days before I'm in a position to spend quality time with it. Probably saturday. Since I've posted this I'm realizing there is more to setting up the server before transferring the data. I need Apache installed I guess, and I don't have remote terminal access. So I have to really dig into the VB tech manual to see what the heck I've done. I have also realized that I'm not 100% sure I pulled the vbdatabase off the server in its entierty.

John

 

Free time is like gold for me to so I can't guarantee that much. Pretty much all web servers should have apache and mysql installed so you shouldn't have to deal with that. Are you hosting everything on a personal server?

Are you still able to log into your vbullten forum admin panel and backup the threads and so for to a zip file? If you can do that, you should be in good shape. It should be just a matter of inputting that backup file to a new, fresh forum. If you can't access that, I have a feeling its going to be pretty painful.

I don't think we need to turn this thread into a good night story with technical jargon. Feel free to email me at joffroi@oldsmobilecentral.com. As I mentioned, I should be able to at least make you an admin of a test forum for you to just play around with importing files and such if that helps.

 

Agreed, I'll fire you off an email after work. I will probably take you up on that offer because its a golden opportunity to learn.

John

 

Thanks John for the update.

 

Thanks for the update, and good luck.

 

Yes, there are some us who miss the site. Thanks John, good luck.

 

DITTO


bill

 

Good luck! I didn't post much but enjoyed reading there.

 

Thanks John for the update sorry to here of your site troubles.Yes some of us miss your site.I for one realy enjoyed Olds Power.

 

If you didn't know, John and I were able to dig through some of the issues and get his site up and running again (and hopefully for a long time). Enjoy!

 

So is it still oldspower.com or a new name, address? Post a link if possible. Thanks for your help.

 

Its still the same Oldspower.com. If you want a direct link to the forum, its here: http://www.oldspower.com/vb/