freestompboxes.org is back
Posted: 28 Aug 2011, 22:16
Dear friends and enemies of freestompboxes.org --
Please re-read this silly post by an crazy solderjockey from Belgium when he still had time to solder. This was more than 4 years ago... I didn't know anything about phpbb, php, sql, tarballs, tables, sftp, ssh and linux, but by now a nicely rolled tarball moves me more than a mojo-laden germanium transistor.
Nevertheless we experience 10 days of downtime after I decided to change hosts again. The 'new' host turned out to be a fraud in every sense of the way, especially in keeping the server up and running - iwebhostu.com, I'm sorry guys. We moved to this host after 2 false DMCA complaints which, despite being false, still jeopardized our relationship with the hosting company. We still have an account at hostgator that I will be using for different purposes, because hostgator is one of the best hosters around as far as price, support and features are concerned. Hosting companies are not required to really look at the content of the DMCA and you never pay them enough to do so every week, so in fact you can take almost any website down by flooding the host with DMCA's. If you agree with the author that the raid on that criminal guitar building company Gibson was bizarre, you don't understand that it's a simple side effect of politics serving local economical interests. Laws and regulations almost always serve economic interests.
There were no court cases for freestompboxes.org. The moderators and myself will be trying our best to create more awareness about privacy protection. This is very important and it need not be a big thing. Don't use your real name or a username that will enable people to find your information on the net - this in fact goes for every online activity. Don't give out more information than strictly need. This is not Facebook and all you really need to know is maybe where a person is located (so people can get congratulated on their English instead of having to explain again that they are not native speakers) and that's really it. That you are x (real name) living in y (city) in z (country) is hardly relevant, we all meet on the basis on the interest in stompboxes. That we do not all approach this subject in the same way, is what makes freestompboxes such a dynamic community.
There were some technically difficulties - because of my sheer noobness in linux servers - but no longer. Please understand that with 15,000 attachment files (3GB) and a total of almost 6GB content, this is not your average hobby website any longer... Now in Linux however, stuff like backups can transfers can be automated and programmed. We will not have this amount of downtime again, it was my August Linux Boot Camp. Thanks for your patience.
Some very important words on the right to insult. In the beginning we had some tentative rules, but these are useless as long as they are not correctly applied. I have about had it with people who constantly feel insulted - people please grow some skin. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. Don't blame him. You all know you have really found a true friend when you can call him an asshole when he behaves like one - and he can return the favour. The right to insult should defend people from these maniacs who feel insulted by anything they see around them. Anybody who still feels they should start an argument on this --- I also feel utterly insulted as a human being when I see .
There are more important things than stompboxes - but if all the recent drama is really necessary to keep a bunch of stompbox geeks happy, maybe building your own stompbox is more important than you think.
Enjoy.
We are back
Johan
Please re-read this silly post by an crazy solderjockey from Belgium when he still had time to solder. This was more than 4 years ago... I didn't know anything about phpbb, php, sql, tarballs, tables, sftp, ssh and linux, but by now a nicely rolled tarball moves me more than a mojo-laden germanium transistor.
Nevertheless we experience 10 days of downtime after I decided to change hosts again. The 'new' host turned out to be a fraud in every sense of the way, especially in keeping the server up and running - iwebhostu.com, I'm sorry guys. We moved to this host after 2 false DMCA complaints which, despite being false, still jeopardized our relationship with the hosting company. We still have an account at hostgator that I will be using for different purposes, because hostgator is one of the best hosters around as far as price, support and features are concerned. Hosting companies are not required to really look at the content of the DMCA and you never pay them enough to do so every week, so in fact you can take almost any website down by flooding the host with DMCA's. If you agree with the author that the raid on that criminal guitar building company Gibson was bizarre, you don't understand that it's a simple side effect of politics serving local economical interests. Laws and regulations almost always serve economic interests.
There were no court cases for freestompboxes.org. The moderators and myself will be trying our best to create more awareness about privacy protection. This is very important and it need not be a big thing. Don't use your real name or a username that will enable people to find your information on the net - this in fact goes for every online activity. Don't give out more information than strictly need. This is not Facebook and all you really need to know is maybe where a person is located (so people can get congratulated on their English instead of having to explain again that they are not native speakers) and that's really it. That you are x (real name) living in y (city) in z (country) is hardly relevant, we all meet on the basis on the interest in stompboxes. That we do not all approach this subject in the same way, is what makes freestompboxes such a dynamic community.
There were some technically difficulties - because of my sheer noobness in linux servers - but no longer. Please understand that with 15,000 attachment files (3GB) and a total of almost 6GB content, this is not your average hobby website any longer... Now in Linux however, stuff like backups can transfers can be automated and programmed. We will not have this amount of downtime again, it was my August Linux Boot Camp. Thanks for your patience.
Some very important words on the right to insult. In the beginning we had some tentative rules, but these are useless as long as they are not correctly applied. I have about had it with people who constantly feel insulted - people please grow some skin. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. Don't blame him. You all know you have really found a true friend when you can call him an asshole when he behaves like one - and he can return the favour. The right to insult should defend people from these maniacs who feel insulted by anything they see around them. Anybody who still feels they should start an argument on this --- I also feel utterly insulted as a human being when I see .
There are more important things than stompboxes - but if all the recent drama is really necessary to keep a bunch of stompbox geeks happy, maybe building your own stompbox is more important than you think.
Enjoy.
We are back
Johan