Weblogs.com article

[R Keller]

Here's a short but interesting article about the demise of Weblogs.com:

Blogger Criticized for Pulling Service
Best of luck to all trying to recover archives. It's an invaluable resource and it would be a shame to lose it.

Rik

[Dave Nathanson]

Hi Rick,
Yeah, it's a real fiasco. I've been following it closely. It seems that Dave Winer was going to move the weblog.com sites (including the teardrop times forum) to his own server, but then discovered that his server was waaay to slow to handle the traffic. So he gave up, and turned off all 3000+ sites without any warning. Apparently (all or some) free sites had no way to back up their own stuff, so they are understandably upset about it. DW offered to export each sites archives, if they asked, but not until some time after July 1st, when he's moving. So it could be weeks or months until the archives are given back to their creators.

Just today, DW released a message saying that several people have offered 90 day free hosting and will be taking over the weblogs sites as of Monday. This is probably Really Good News. Stay Tuned!

Http://TD.roughwheelers.com/TDT/

Dave Nathanson

[Shrug53]

You know, you just have to expect this sort of thing when you depend on free hosting! I lease my own server at a very reasonable cost and host many of my own sites. However for a single site you can find advertising free hosting for less than ten bucks a month, and register your own domain for less than ten bucks a year.

I sometimes offer free hosting to car clubs in exchange for a membership etc.

I would have offered it in this case had I not been accused of trying to 'steal' from them by simply offering a free place to post photos. I mean geez, why would I even want teardrop people on my site, it is for vintage cars!

Now I only recommend this board! It is the best for trailers and related topics. Mine is for all the old cars that pull'em

Regardless all of the people who suddenly got dumped, well all I can say is you get what you pay for.

DW provided a service for a long time for free. He put his own time and money in to it, and now gets attacked for not being able to do it anymore. I did not see anyone stepping up to help him financially or otherwise. What a great lot of ungrateful $#&^&$*&#!!

I know Mike needed hosting or help of any sort keeping this board afloat, I would be the first in line to help.

[Dave Nathanson]

hi, Actually, a number of people DID quickly step up to volunteer to help & support it, and that's why it's (hopefully) going to work again, but at a new location. Some of the problems stem from DW not asking for help if or when he needed it, and people never had the opportunity to convert their free sites into paid ones. Apparently most of those sites were single author blogs, not full forums, like the TDTimes.

I have my own server too, which I run from home on my 6k DSL line. I offer free hosting to anyone in my 4x4 club, and the Mac computer club. But I can see that my DSL line would not be able to handle the load of a highly popular discussion board.

It sure would be good if it were easy & possible to upload photos along with messages. Keep it all together! But I can see that photos hog a whole lot more hd space than message text does.

This message board seems pretty cool though! I'm just leaning my way around.

Dave Nathanson

[Dave Nathanson]

Ok, the weblog/Winer crisis is over.
http://teardroptimes.buzzword.com/discuss/
is where the http://teardroptimes.weblogs.com/discuss/
board has moved to. No longer free, and it will now offer a backup ability.

Hmm, but Mike's board here sure looks modern & shiny! :idea:
I'll have to ask him how to set one of these up for my next computer club project and what the costs are. And I just wonder what the chances are of TDT migrating away from Manila are. :

Oh, hey, I'm back from vacation! We went from So Cal north to Truckee, then east into NV, and south down the 95 towards Phoenix AZ. Camped almost every night in a different place, except when we visited my brother in Truckee. 11 days in all. Check it out if you're so inclined.
http://td.roughwheelers.com/Vacation2004/

Best,
Dave Nathanson

[Shrug53]

the phpBB software Mike uses is freely available. You just need a server which supports PHP and a MySQL database. I use a variation of the same board on my site. I guess great minds think alike! :jester:

[Dave Nathanson]

That's good news. This is cool! Lots of features! I will have a MAC OS X server up sometime in the near future! Just gotta get a "Round Tuit" !!!

Dave Nathanson