TGP: Story of Disaster and now, Part II

[Brian Scherzer]

We have had a major disaster. I just hung up from talking to the folks at our webs service provider. Flat out, ALL of the data is gone....zilch, zero! I had been trying to get a live person for a couple of days and finally got a tech, who told me that all data was lost. The backup is nowhere to be found....and they somehow "lost" the original hard drive, which we could have sent to a service to have the data extracted.

We are extremely bummed, but there is nothing we can do about this now. To say it mildly, I am not happy with the new service provider we have, but we have learned a lesson.......trust no provider and make sure that we have backups on our own computers rather than just relying on the service provider to keep us safe from this kind of crash and burn.

To cut to the chase, this means that we have to start over from ground zero. It is now planned that we will re-open TGP on May 15th (maybe sooner). Alec has to do a fresh install of the vbulletin software and then do the many tweaks that had been done before. He will also add the newest version of MySQL so that the search function works like it is supposed to. Everyone will have to register again, but the "good news", if there is ANY good news here, is that people can have the same arguments they had in the past. There will also be a revision to our recent rules.....far less rules. I'm too bummed out at the moment to write more. I'll add to this tonight when I get home from work.

[dzeitlin]

This is a real shame. Did you have any type of SLA from the provider? If so, they are responsible to either credit or re-emburse you. If not, you should get some kind of SLA going forward.

[Jon Silberman]

Well, if nothing else, the people with low post counts who felt that was why they were ignored should be happy. And for a while, at least, no one will have any reason to post, "Use the Search function."

Interesting development, though. I'm leaning towards re-registering under a different name. Something like @#$%^&* to encourage me to be more "open" with my posts.

[Big Mike]

Oh man, that sucks Brian.

:(


Well, just think. We can re-ban all those other guys...LOLOL

[sanhozay]

Thanks for the update, Brian. You always do your best for us. It's appreciated.
Hugs.

[Ducati]

Sounds like it might be a good idea to retain the help of some experienced computer people.

[tag]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Scherzer
the "good news is that people can have the same arguments they had in the past.



I am ready. :dude:

[duffyguitarman]

Wow, what a saga. I am sure it has caused a lot of un-needed stress in your life, as if managing TGP wasn't enough to begin with.

Thanks for everything.


Peace,
duffy

[DanHund]

Damn, that sucks in a bad way. I can only imagine the visions of homocide dancing through your head.

[Scott Peterson]

I'm sorting through my thoughts on this, but really just don't have anything to add at this moment. I'm entirely heartbroken right now.

This isn't just the loss of the data, it is the loss of the membership, everything. When we restart, it is from Ground Zero. I don't even have words.

[LightninBoy]

Thanks for the update - can't wait to see the new site.

[brad347]

Wow, may 15... that might be just enough time to get me out of the habit of checking the board everyday and actually get back into the habit of using that time to practice more.

[entropy]

I'm sorting through my thoughts on this, but really just don't have anything to add at this moment. I'm entirely heartbroken right now.

This isn't just the loss of the data, it is the loss of the membership, everything. When we restart, it is from Ground Zero. I don't even have words.Forgive me for asking this when I can only imagine how heartsick you, Brian and Alec etc are: Don't you still have the data from when we moved to dedicated servers?

'rh' from TGP...

[rwe333]

Thanks for the update and all the hard work, Brian.

This is indeed a shame and such a drag for all the mods who have dedicated countless hours and boundless energy to building the community.

That said, I look forward to hanging at the new TGP soon. I've forged some incredible friendships through TGP and these friends remain. So, there are many positives still.

Lotsa luv, brothers & sisters!

[VegasGreg]

That's a real drag, guys.

There was just so much great info available...luckily I saved quite a few threads that I found interesting.

I'm looking forward to the 15th........Keep up the good work, fellas!

[BlackCatBone]

Man, this is indeed a big setback everybody that took time to post back on TGP and especially Brian, Scott, and the other mods that devoted so much of their time, effort, and sanity to make TGP a cool place to hang. Let me take this moment to express my sincere gratitude, thank you.

On a brighter note, maybe this occurance will purge some of the negative behavior and give members a chance to start new, and become positive elements on the new Gear Page. Concentrate on helping others, discussing gear on a fun level, and let's take it easy on our administrators and moderators.

[Crazyquilt]

Damn.

I can only imagine how angry & hurt you guys must be. When I heard from Brian on Saturday, and he said that the data was corrupted, I'd worried that this might happen, but hoped that it might be recoverable.

I think this might be a good time for us TGP members to put aside a couple of packs of strings, heck, maybe even a pedal, and give to the TGP. I'm sure that, as much as it's always appreciated, it'd be extra appreciated now.

Whenever it comes back, we'll all be there. Now whether or not that's the most helpful thing in the world to say is another matter entirely. ;)

[Frankenstrat2]

Just a total bummer guys.
Thousands of hours of work and dedication, knowledge and comraderie lost.
I share your pain, and look forward to the new beginning.
Hang in there.
Barry

[tedm]

Thanks for the update. I'm very sorry to hear this news. TGP is one of my favorite sites on the web.

I'm shocked that neither the admins, nor the hosting company has backups of the data.

As mentioned in all of my previous emails to you, I'd be happy to help in any way I can Brian. Keep up the great work -- All of you. Thanks.

We have had a major disaster. I just hung up from talking to the folks at our webs service provider. Flat out, ALL of the data is gone....zilch, zero! I had been trying to get a live person for a couple of days and finally got a tech, who told me that all data was lost. The backup is nowhere to be found....and they somehow "lost" the original hard drive, which we could have sent to a service to have the data extracted.

We are extremely bummed, but there is nothing we can do about this now. To say it mildly, I am not happy with the new service provider we have, but we have learned a lesson.......trust no provider and make sure that we have backups on our own computers rather than just relying on the service provider to keep us safe from this kind of crash and burn.

To cut to the chase, this means that we have to start over from ground zero. It is now planned that we will re-open TGP on May 15th (maybe sooner). Alec has to do a fresh install of the vbulletin software and then do the many tweaks that had been done before. He will also add the newest version of MySQL so that the search function works like it is supposed to. Everyone will have to register again, but the "good news", if there is ANY good news here, is that people can have the same arguments they had in the past. There will also be a revision to our recent rules.....far less rules. I'm too bummed out at the moment to write more. I'll add to this tonight when I get home from work.

[Jo]

Oh man.. that really sucks. Maybe I'll sign back up as a guy this time. :)

[wsaraceni]

its all good. im sure it will get built up back to where it was before. maybe even better.

i call dibs on the first badcat thread!!!

[aleclee]

Don't you still have the data from when we moved to dedicated servers?Long story short: no. :( That's a tale of woe I'd rather not revisit at the moment.

I can assure you that that will not be an issue in the future as the DB backup process will be up, running, and tested before TGP Mk II goes live. Getting that established was very high on my TGP to do list but sadly not high enough to prevent this loss.

On the bright side, it'll be a while before there's a 30 day waiting period for new members to sell gear. :p

[Brian Scherzer]

entropy..............I was hoping that we still had the data from the move, but that was deleted once we knew that things were up and running on the new server. There was no reason to suspect that we needed that data because we thought that all was well with the new service provider and that we had backups. We are adding two people to help Alec once the site is back up. LeonC and Gerald (Jay) Cleveland are both moderators at TGP and both have lots of IT experience. We will now have a 3 person tech team......and will have multiple backups in the future.

[bluesdoc]

It's as if our home were burned to the ground and everyone had to be bussed elsewhere, far, far away. What an awful feeling. It is a bit unbelievable that there is no backup data :confused:

jon

[dougb415]

Well, there goes all the rockism - PaulEdwardWagem should be happy!

[oxtone]

Brian & Scott,

Hey, thanks for all your hard work around this! Sure is bummer that the TGP is down, but it has been a great blessing in forging new friendships.

Hang in there, guys, and many blessings to you as you work on this. :)

And thanks to the Birds and Moons folks for letting us hang here! :cool:

[George Johnson]

This really is a shame but what made The Gear Page special was
the people there and as far as I can tell they're all still around. ;)

Long live TGP!

[coreybox]

im leaving for germany (Study abroad) on the 15th....gonna be a loooong time before i see any gear page action.

[drbob1]

I've been computing now since 1983, and in that time I've lost everything twice-it really hurts, all those contacts, memories and information you've struggled for years to put together, gone! You have my profound sympathy. FWIW, the service providers could easily be sued for negligence-not having an effective backup when they assured you they did is pretty far out of line! Won't help with the data, though. Hmmm, I wonder if anyone remembers the stuff that got archived, so it can be re-entered? Also, should we consider some kind of exporting effort where the more hard information gets passed on to Wikipedia? Digital data doesn't exist unless it exists in at least two places...

[Frankenstrat2]

I suppose this has been thought of, but what about the Internet Archive Wayback Machine? Anything there?
I had an unrecoverable hard drive crash last year that cost us all the digital pictures of our son's graduation, senior prom, family events, business and personal records etc. etc.
It just sucks.

[Phil Macino]

Wow, this is really sad news. I can totally empathize withyou guys right now.

[Ariel Pozzo]

This is a real bummer...TGP has always been a huge resource center to grab knowledge regarding music-related stuff. I hope we all can build the database up again.
And now, let's look at the good part: A fresh start is always a great way of leveling many differences.
Let's hope the new version is even better yet.
:)

[FrankiePRS]

Oh man.. that really sucks. Maybe I'll sign back up as a guy this time. :)

Wait. ..... You're not a guy?

[dave_f]

Lord that blows!


Didn't you recently change hosting providers?

I wonder if the old provider might have a copy of your database squirreled away somewhere that they haven't deleted yet. Might be worth a shot to contact them.


How can a hosting company lose their backups. That's unreal. Which company is it so I can be sure to avoid using them in the future?

[FrankiePRS]

I'm bummed about TGP.... all that great info lost. :( It's a real lesson for us all about digital information. Doesn't make it any easier to swallow though. With the never-flagging efforts of the TGP team, I'm sure it will come back stronger than ever.

[cpokay]

Ouch - That's terrible news, other than the community aspects, TGP 1.0 was an awesome resource that I relied upon heavily in exploring the world of recording, amp tech bits, and stuff to spend my $$ on . . .

Thanks to you Scott, Brian, and the TGP team for all your efforts to rebuild the site. Let us lawyer-types on the board know if you need any legal assistance or referrals for dealing with your ISprovider - I would think they are insured for errors & omissions, and this sounds like a real comedy of errors on their part. They should at a minimum be picking up the out-of-pocket costs for SW, hardware and service time to get our beloved TGP bus back on the road again. They obviously can't replace all those wonderfully timeless TAG/Bruno Cowtipper or D*mble threads, but the provider can try to do right by us all, and by you especially for placing trust and our business with them . . .

Chris

[Pete Lacis]

As a tech guy myself, I am completely apalled that the hosting company was unable to provide any backups whatsovever. In my industry, you wouldn't just get fired, you're reputation would be ruined!

Good luck guys, and thanks for all the help. If you need another set of eyes (or help with the disaster recovery portion) I'm just an email away.

For the rest of you, if you've ever suffered data loss as the result of hard drive failure, I hightly recommend this tool that even the governement uses for computer forensics: WinHex (http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/) - its free and its very powerful.

[Jon Silberman]

Not to minimize anyone's pain but having read through the posts so far, at the same time, let's also place this all in perspective. No one has died. No one is literally homeless or ill. Most of us who frequented TGP before will do so afterwards. Nothing serious has been lost that cannot be reproduced or replaced. With the right attitudes, we will enjoy doing it.

Friends, friends friends, we will always be ... :)

The only thing I'd like to add at this time is to again thank Phil and crew for hosting us in the interim. Y'all are the best.

[kevmin]

I found this on the Wayback Machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050307202843/www.thegearpage.net/board/

At least it may help as a guide to rebuild your discussion categories and groups.

I build Internet classes for colleges, and I have some real horror stories about losing data too. Try to not beat yourself up about this. **** happens....a lot.

All of the great people that contributed to that forum will be back and posting like mad as soon as you open the doors. I personally am having some serious withdrawal symptoms!

[Drunkagain]

That sucks! Sorry for all you guys that put so much work into the place. Just know it's appreciated. :)

[Michael Patrick]

That sucks. But don't let it get to you, it's just an Internet forum (didn't I read Scott say that very thing a few times in the last couple of weeks?). We'll all survive until it is back up and running.

And thanks to the Birds and Moon folks for adding the Annex!!

[Lanceaman]

Gents very sorry that you are going through some trauma.

One word concerning the hosting company; amateurs.

[trisonic]

D

I think this might be a good time for us TGP members to put aside a couple of packs of strings, heck, maybe even a pedal, and give to the TGP. I'm sure that, as much as it's always appreciated, it'd be extra appreciated now.


That's all very well (and I feel very bad for the guys directly involved) but I just gave a donation to TGP prior to this.
I don't feel inclined to give another right now.
Apart from monetary contributions I was also "abused" by some "Members" for having such a high post count - well this has certainly solved that "problem" too!


Best, Pete.

[sanhozay]

It's as if our home were burned to the ground and everyone had to be bussed elsewhere, far, far away.
I empathize and share in your sadness and frustration but, thank goodness, that’s really not the case.

[abergdahl]

Bad news indeed. I can't for my life understand haw a hard rive can fail on a SERVER at a hosting company. TO day no "server" have just one hard drive, all have some level of raid systems to ensure that it is VERY hard to loose data. Most servers today are connected to some type of storage solution, SAN, or something like that. To have a server with no REAL disc system, no working backup is unbelievable!! And to charge customers for that should be illegal. TO day servers aren't really expensive, disc is cheap. The biggest cost for this hosting company is probably all work the have to do for free when things like this happens. My brother is manager at a Swedish SP i could, they could probably host TGP and Sweden is close in cyberspace ;)

[RickC]

to paraphrase Spinal Tap "welcome to our new direction, TGP MkII!"

guys, it does suck, but then again there is something pure and invigorating about a totally clean slate. How often in life do you get a second chance? This is one of those times.

Btw, I'm long remiss in sending TGP some money; this seems like it might be a good time. How do I do that?

/rick

[Jimmyd]

Sorry for the communities loss. The TGP was always a stop on the net for me and will be again when it is rebuilt. Better days ahead!

Jim

[svilo]

Oh my god !!! :(

The Force Will Be With You

cheers

sam

[sanhozay]

The search engine harbored a wealth of information and its loss is a biggie but I’m totally pumped to have a best Tube Screamer thread. I never get sick of those babies!


Attrition is pretty invigorating when you look at the jubilant do over potential.

[Braciola]

Truly a day of mourning for myself and other long time Gear Page brothers who have contributed a wealth of invaluable information.:(

As with other disasters in life, we should have faith that that something good will come out of this. There are too many good people involved to think otherwise.

I'm thankful for what we had, and excited as to what will come.

To Brian and all who work hard at making The Gear Page the best forum on the web, thank you.

Dominick

[bluessyndicate]

What a shame, the loss of so much experience, reviews, clips, gear data, jokes, philosophy, a true loss. I really got alot of value out of searching the wealth of knowledge..and for that I am grateful..thanks for your past efforts guys. The old TGP is directly responsible for my last 2 years of incredible gear education...to think then I was using a Triaxis/2:90 rack and since then I've had Shiva's, Gemini I, Invaders and Custom Reverb Sigs....many thanks to you.

Onward and upward I suppose... Time to make lemonade with all those lemons life just gave us. A rebirth, metamorphosis, cleansing.....

Here's to the new TGP!

[Donnie B.]

Man, reading that message this morning was a real bummer. I only came across TGP recently and it was hands down (far and away) the BEST resource on the net for gear info as well as a great place to buy and sell (repeat after me: EBAY SUCKS!) top shelf stuff.

So sorry to all the guys who built that place up from the foundation and made it what it was.

[Shane S]

That is really terrible news. Well I will be there to register as soon as Mk. II opens up for business!

[908ssp]

Yea it isn't the fact of the loss that bothers me so much as the it happened. I run a raid zero system at home two drives identical so that can't happen and a company charging money for their service doesn't? :eek: :confused:

Is TGP getting any kind of compensation from these bozos?

Or are we not getting the whole story? :rolleyes:

[Bill Niersbach]

You know, this may actually be a good thing once all is said and done. Now when someone has an interesting question, instead of being told to use the search function we will actually see a very up to date honest to goodness opinion on gear related questions. For a while now I thought that the GP search function provided too many threads on topics when I searched. I mean I would have to sift through literally dozens of threads containing all sorts of varying info...well now we will be able to put the most valuable resource that the TGP had to use which is the actual membership and can start all teh insane opinions, arguments, and everything else the site had going on to good use and can get a fresh perspective on it all.

Is the database being destroyed a loss, heck yeah, but nothing compared to teh GP being gone forever. I think we will all be very surprised at how refreshing a completely new start will actually be.

[tms13pin]

I'm sorting through my thoughts on this, but really just don't have anything to add at this moment. I'm entirely heartbroken right now.

This isn't just the loss of the data, it is the loss of the membership, everything. When we restart, it is from Ground Zero. I don't even have words.
Boy Scott, double whammy... TGP *and* the Wings!

--Tom

[Ben C.]

Wow- it's like loosing a library in a fire.
I'll be ready when MkII reopens though...

-Ben

[tedm]

RAID 0 is striping, for performance, with 2 drives in RAID 0 mode, you have zero redundancy, if 1 drive fails, you are hosed.

RAID 1 is mirroring, and allows you to lose one drive and recover. Perhaps you meant you are running in RAID 1 (mirrored) mode.

Yea it isn't the fact of the loss that bothers me so much as the it happened. I run a raid zero system at home two drives identical so that can't happen and a company charging money for their service doesn't? :eek: :confused:

Is TGP getting any kind of compensation from these bozos?

Or are we not getting the whole story? :rolleyes:

[90wreck]

Boy Scott, double whammy... TGP *and* the Wings!

--Tom+1
It might be time to consider eliminating post counts.
How will we handle the "for sale" emporiums??? Oh no!
Bummer.....BTW, I had a significant amount of posts and was there for 2 years.:(
Time to start anew.

[Big Mike]

Or are we not getting the whole story? :rolleyes:
You know EVERYTHING we do right now.
Conspiracy theories do not help.

Actually I'm offended that you'd think we're putting one over on the valued membership.

[mcdyas]

I haven't read the entire thread, but...

What are the chances that your old service provider still has a backup of the database????

[Jon Silberman]

In acknowledgement of today's developments, I have redone my signature.

[tone4days]

hey there, tgp mods and admins

thanks for all you are doing to get TGP back up ... it will be new ... it will be different ... and that'd ok ... yes, it is a loss ... but in the grand scheme of things, it is really not so bad ...

don't sweat it, guys ... just do your thing - we're grateful for your time and efforts

it'll be fine

really
t4d

[Lanceaman]

Yea it isn't the fact of the loss that bothers me so much as the it happened. I run a raid zero system at home two drives identical so that can't happen and a company charging money for their service doesn't? Is TGP getting any kind of compensation from these bozos? Or are we not getting the whole story? Entire raids can go down as well as SAN's. Been there done that.

Agreed that the hosting company is beyond the pale and should be held accountable. Too many fly-by-night companies out there. There is a reason why some of these companies are inexpensive.

As far as TGP mods go, how about a little good faith & some sympathy?

[Thelonius]

Sorry for the loss. Can't wait for TGP to get back online.

[macula56]

sorry for your misfortune. starting over is a pain in the ass, but not always a bad thing. here's to the new incarnation of TGP.

[gainiac]

Gents very sorry that you are going through some trauma.

One word concerning the hosting company; amateurs.
I'll go one further, they're unF*!King professional!!!!!!

The folks involved should be fired, their is NO excuse in this day and age for data to be lost considering where IT technology is at.

TGP is a treasure trove. How can a a godamned ISP not have RAID implemented on their servers besides the daily, weekly, monthly backup scheme?

Utter, gross, incompetence.

Sue them and change ISP's.

[stevo57]

Conspiracy? Please....

The only positive for me is that thread where I said I'd never sell a certain amp that I sold 3 months later is now gone. A certain mod can't paste it in anymore, I hope.....

[jato]

Wow...

Terrible news.
This is my light month, between jobs too!
Guess I'll have to read a book, and maybe play more guitar.

Glad we have the mod squad on the case!

S.
j

[gkelm]

Sorry to hear the bad news...a loss for all mankind and our progeny. All the best in reconstruction. Looking forward to the new dawn of MKII. :)
Greg

[mprvise]

What a bunch of crap. Very bummed. Not much that can be done now except move on. Thanks to the mods and admins for all you guys do. Really, it is very much appreciated by many.

[onemind]

Don't know how many layers deep it goes but the wayback machine has archives from 2005 and before...

http://web.archive.org/web/20050319034246/http://www.thegearpage.net/board/

[MikeyG]

In the next couple weeks, I say everyone go out and learn something new on the guitar.

Once we're up again, we can start a thread sharing what we've learned ....

Good time to play the gear, instead of chase it, right?

[entropy]

Don't know how many layers deep it goes but the wayback machine has archives from 2005 and before...

http://web.archive.org/web/20050319034246/http://www.thegearpage.net/board/Already tried it. :) Any attempt to open a forum, got me the "We're down" page.

I didn't try them all, of course...

[tedm]

back weeks ago before the dedicated server, TGP was on a shared managed server right?

Check with all the other sites that are/were on that server to see if anyone has a tarball image of the whole partition that may contain TGP stuff if you haven't already.

[Big Mike]

Conspiracy? Please....

The only positive for me is that thread where I said I'd never sell a certain amp that I sold 3 months later is now gone. A certain mod can't paste it in anymore, I hope.....Damn!

[Jimmydeez]

In acknowledgement of today's developments, I have redone my signature.
I'm with Jon on this one:

"my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields (hard drives and backups), when the age of men (Age of TGP) comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you "stand, Men of the West!"

[entropy]

RAID 0 is striping, for performance, with 2 drives in RAID 0 mode, you have zero redundancy, if 1 drive fails, you are hosed.

RAID 1 is mirroring, and allows you to lose one drive and recover. Perhaps you meant you are running in RAID 1 (mirrored) mode.TedM! Alright bro!

[Scumbag]

Personally, kicking the ass of the current hosting company seems like the right thing. Tossing out, losing, misplacing, etc. a malfunctioning hard drive is one thing. But not offering the drive to the sole client that server hosted is just plain stupid. While it wouldn't have been cheap to send it out for recovery (anywhere from $1000-$4000 depending on the drive size) at Drive Savers, or some similar service, it would have preserved the most recent data, if recoverable, which Drive Savers is pretty good at (I've used them before for my digital video clients when I couldn't save the data).

Here's where I think it should head now...
1) A fundraising drive to sponsor a move to a new, better service & server. I nominate ipowerweb.com, as I've used them for three years now, and you can get all of these services from them that A plus did (My SQL, and all that good stuff).
2) Get an offsite hard disk hooked to a machine for independent backups. 200 gb hard drives are reasonable money, around $150 for an external Firewire type (at least for my Mac on OS X, which is UNIX in disguise). Get two or three, and alternate the backups, which typically should happen at least once a week, and in the case of the TGP, possibly more often.
3) Get a mirrored site, which doesn't have to have a dedicated server, just space to alternate to if there's a problem, and your backup is right there.
4) Remember that all hard drives fail eventually, which is why you have multiples of them with the same data to cover your buttushka.

I can't wait to re-type, re-enter, and edit all of those tolex, cloth, piping and tweed tutorials I did. :eek:

Here's hoping the TGP gets back on it's feet, and up and running asap. Brian, Scott, et al... I think the donations buttons should be posted here (if that's OK with BAM) to fund the ideas I've outlined above.

If all of the membership threw in $10 (at 11,000 plus members) each, there'd be plenty of $$$ for a new service, backups, and to pay someone to backup the site.

Just thinking out loud on how to prevent this from happening in the future.

[bobbymack]

Bad deal all the way around, for the mods and the community as a whole.

I'd be absolutely sideways at the new outfit that was seemingly so totally irresponsible. Oh well...

Have all of the old server, server-sharer backup options been fully investigated?

If so, we'll just have to pick up, dust off, and go to work...

[Bulldog]

That's awful news.

On the other hand, it should be fun to start over. =)

good luck brian with the redevelopment. Can't wait to participate!

[splattercell]

sheesh, wotta drag --- for us, of course, and for what resources were in place, but:
scott, brian, alec, etc:
so sorry this has occurred.

i, too, have a very hard time believing that a copy of the data isn't *somewhere*, but:
man, your new server-folk oughta be called waaay up on the carpet, for sure.

dt / spltrcl


couldn't get in here as "splatt", for some strange reason, so here i is otherwise.....

[pm81]

This approach may have already been posted.

I've been able to google cache and have gone into some of the archives as well. Some are showing well and some take a bit more digging. There's a limit of what can be done but I'm able to save pictures down and the like.

Perhaps we can rebuild some with the tech threads from the archives, for example. I'll be glad to help. I dropped Alec an email on this and wanted to share here, as I imagine he's pretty busy as well.

Examples I've found are the tolex tutorial from Scumbag and tube equivalents from Doug R.

Tutorial:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:5XrveQ1kgm8J:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611+marshall+4x12+slant+ca b+recover+101&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=f irefox-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:SL4nXCPXjFwJ:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611%26page%3D2+marshall+4x 12+slant+cab+recover+101&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo x-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Xqbs00pRUrwJ:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611%26page%3D4+scumbag+tol ex+the+gear+page&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo x-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo%20x-a)

Tube Thread:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...=firefox-aived (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:gTEci3DiEwoJ:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D47151+favorite+6v6+the+gear+p age&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-aived).


Paul

[bluesdoc]

I can't wait to re-type, re-enter, and edit all of those tolex, cloth, piping and tweed tutorials I did. :eek:



I intend to re-post my ~5K posts as soon as I can remember what I wrote.....
:eek:

Something about a priest, rabbi, and a duck walk into a bar........... :D

Admin/mods - are you guys getting legal opinions or is this even relevant?? (I can imagine all sorts of 'harm done' scenarios.....)

jon

[bluesdoc]

]

Tube Thread:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...=firefox-aived (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:gTEci3DiEwoJ:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D47151+favorite+6v6+the+gear+p age&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-aived).


Paul

Wow!!!!!!!!!

jon

[joncourage]

Intense. My sympathies (and continued gratitude) to Brian, Alec, Scott et al.

All the important bases have been covered above already.

The most pertinent imo - TGP was comprised of 3 components, 1) it's information, 2) it's structure, 3) most important, it's membership. In the end TGP is a community and I believe that community will reconstitute itself quickly and the vitality will return. A fresh start indeed. Recreating the structure is just blood sweat and tears but should be straightfoward. The loss of historic data is clearly the biggest bummer.

It is indeed unconscionable that the hosting provider fouled up this badly; it just doesn't add up.

There is a silver lining in this somewhere; it will manifest itself in time.

I re-offer my experience, hard-earned wisdom, and assistance should you be interested. I was CIO of a very large service provider (ASP/ISP/Hosting/Outsourcing) for a long time and now run my own ASP/tech business, and as you know I've got some familiarity with the vBulletin software, so maybe I have something you can make use of. Just let me know. (certainly feel free to steal back all the forum rules, etc, I recently stole from you! :).
If members have copies of threads, perhaps they can be collected and re-used in some way. Even if they're Word docs, they can be attached to a Thread in TGP vII for archival purposes. Someone with decent SQL skills should be able to parse them into a format that can be re-integrated into the new db (LOTS of testing in an offline db first before trying that one).

Good luck and Godspeed!

[Dan Desy]

It's too bad about all the percious data that was lost, but you know what? I'll live. We all will.

Brian & mods, please try to get a little RnR between now and the 15th.

I'm sure TGP Mk II will be just as great as the old one in no time flat.

[wilder]

That does suck. That's a lot of valuable gear and playing knowledge lost to new members. However, being in IT I have seen the same thing happen before with a company's financial data or email system. If you compare it to that the loss is acceptable, but annoying. I'd be glad to help in any way I can.

One thing to keep in mind is that the membership as a whole is so much more knowledgeable as a result of the info and fellowship enjoyed on TGP it won't take nearly as long to build back up the same level of data. I'm sure many of us are qualified (as a result of our own searches) to answer the kinds of questions that often result in referals to the search function.

Chris

[homerayvaughan]

Wow, may 15... that might be just enough time to get me out of the habit of checking the board everyday and actually get back into the habit of using that time to practice more.+100000000

[Drunkagain]

With how slow discussion had been over there lately, maybe now would be a good time to intergrate a political/religion forum?

:D :p :D :p

Just kidding.

[craigbaker]

Is there no chance that you could obtain some of the data from Google or other web indexes? I'm certain that Google has cached a version of the entire website. Maybe you could send an email to their tech support to enquire about this. Just a thought. (I just noticed others have posted this already)

For future reference, you can use a tool like Dream Weaver to copy the entire site to your local drive. Their might be some free tools that will do this to.

The best of luck in your efforts. If you need some in advice in the future let me know. I've been working in IT for about 10 years now. If I don't have the answer to your question I can probably find someone who does.

One final thing to consider. Is there any way possible this could have been done with malicious intent? ID theft, marketing data, competitors of some type?

Sorry to hear about the situation.

[trisonic]

If all of the membership threw in $10 (at 11,000 plus members) each, there'd be plenty of $$$ for a new service, backups, and to pay someone to backup the site.

Just thinking out loud on how to prevent this from happening in the future.

Good idea Jim, except there was a recent drive for donations after the upgrade. I didn't chip in much just $40 - but I still don't feel inclined to chip in anymore until I see what TGP MarkII looks like.

Frankly I would pay $100 per annum for an informative, less angst ridden site. :eek:

Best, Pete.

[zekmoe]

When you transfered to that host, how was it done? Did you just zip up the files and send them to them? If so, could they be either on the original host or on the new hosts FTP site?
Let's give a cheer for OpenSource software, low cost hardware and untrained personel.

[ChazMania]

Ouch, this hurts......

how about we just all keep crashing this party and BAM becomes the new TGP:D

Seriously tho, I would have no problems with "paid membership" mentioned in another post. I know there are good reasons not to do that, but if managing this thing becomes a financial burden, then paid members should help carry that weight.

If there is enough cash in the GP account to cover any required costs, i suppose it's a non issue, but if there is a need, it could be helpful to let users know "hey we need 3k to get the new site up"....(or whatever the cost is).

Much Peace to you my bro's for dealing with all this.

[Scott Peterson]

We are pursuing the old service provider for any backup we can find/get our hands on in order to start from somewhere other than "zero". We are pursuing anything and everything we can at this point.

There is no legal recourse based on our contract with the provider (I believe same one as BAM by the way); and this isn't about pointing fingers or finding a scapegoat.

The real issue isn't blame, it is in how we recover and react now given the circumstances. It is how we change and grow to ensure this *never* happens again.

We are reaching out to the old ISP for anything they still have there we can build from.

We are also reassessing the "rules" structure once we reopen the doors; the goal will be to streamline and simplify for everyone.

We are instituting a team approach to the tech side that will add redundency and take pressure off of just one guy trying to do it all.

We'll continue be straight forward and honest with the true owner's of the site - the members. We are nothing with out you; and we know that.

[BJF]

Hi,

It's sad to learn this. It's a huge resource gone and an encyclopedia out the window.
I really,really hoped it was just a technical failiure
Still, when the page is up again many members may remember typical topics and might be able to start discussions as if the page never was down.
Somehow the best parts were never lost as those are also what lingers in memory and maybe it'll mean
sharp focus on the best parts, well at least for a while ;)

Personally I put something like 300 tedious posts that I can only remember fragments of, though some I archived before posting, yes it is an investment gone, yet it means little, as maybe I can give better answers,yikes and double yikes but hey......

TGP is still inhabitated, and that by some people that are witty enough to write 10000 posts with their pinky toe while playing. I would not begin to wonder what loss they made, but I trust they can do it again.

The best of fortune to the moderator team that'll get this working again and a sincere thanks to the BAM people for the hardy welcome and hosting- it makes me wonder why I never visited before?

Thanks
BJ

[dougb415]

Personally I put something like 300 tedious posts that I can only remember fragments of,
Thankfully, my 600+ posts were mostly garbage. Only a minimal loss of true knowledge :dude:

[Guitarman_1]

My hats off to Brian, Scott, Alec and the gang. I pray we find a way to recover some info, as this was the most informative and well organized site of its kind.
The TPG brothers and sisters are a class act. Im not much for typing, but the site was and is a regular part of my day. Its going to be hard to get my post count back, as it took me a few years to hit the 300+ mark, and I felt happy about getting there.
Thanks to the moderators for the hard work, and goodluck getting us back up and running.

Orlando

[aleclee]

Wow, this is really sad news. I can totally empathize withyou guys right now.Empathize? I still remember the BAM data loss of '04. :(

[Jon Silberman]

"my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields (hard drives and backups), when the age of men (Age of TGP) comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you "stand, Men of the West!"
YES!!! :D

[subversivepinko]

http://nathancarnes.com/tgp.png

Thanks for all of the great work by the mods.

[shadco]

I guess there's a positive side to this.


I won't have to take back all the crud I've spewed.

[Play By Tone]

Well obviously this sucks, and I am truly sorry.

But please let me know - did we really buy a new dedicated server without ANY redundancy? No off-site backups? No RAID? (Again, No RAID?????). I think its funny that some of these data farms/NOCs will even sell pre-config'd servers without some kind of RAID array. I mean, if you want to save a little money even an ATA/SATA RAID would be better than nothing (if SCSI was hard to swallow). Since the server spec's were never posted anywhere, I figured there was a competent IT professional guiding the purchasing along...I guess this wasn't exactly the case??

I'm not flaming anyone, because the lesson has been learned. But seriously, lets hope some simple Server101 rules have been engraved in The Gear Page by-laws...

Would you guys mind declassifying the purchases the contributions go towards from now on?

And if anyone wants someone else's two cents worth on competent hosting/NOC just send me a PM ;)

[MattB]

Awful news guys. I can't even imagine how pissed you must have been.

[Play By Tone]

And just like someone else mentioned, hopefully your old provider will be willing to dig up an old tape or something that would have your old backup. I'm sure they will want some money, but I think it would be worth it.

[aleclee]

I can't wait to re-type, re-enter, and edit all of those tolex, cloth, piping and tweed tutorials I did. :eek: Cut & paste 'em while they're hot:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:5XrveQ1kgm8J:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611+marshall+4x12+slant+ca b+recover+101&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=f irefox-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:SL4nXCPXjFwJ:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611%26page%3D2+marshall+4x 12+slant+cab+recover+101&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo x-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Xqbs00pRUrwJ:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611%26page%3D4+scumbag+tol ex+the+gear+page&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo x-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo+x-a)

[gerry3]

It's John Meyer's fault.


Although I suspect George Benson is also involved.

[Blueser]

This is absolutely terrible!!! I am so sorry about this guys!!! Thousands of hours of compiled information tossed to the wind!!!

Well.....We will have to start again, and make TGP an even better place than it was before! I for one don't care about my number of posts. I miss TGP very much, and have come to appreciate our community more now than ever before! We CAN and WILL bounce back from this!

If there is any help that is needed in this effort, please post to this thread, so that we can round up the troops! I will do whatever I can if need be!

[Scumbag]

Cut & paste 'em while they're hot:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:5XrveQ1kgm8J:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611+marshall+4x12+slant+ca b+recover+101&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=f irefox-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:SL4nXCPXjFwJ:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611%26page%3D2+marshall+4x 12+slant+cab+recover+101&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo x-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Xqbs00pRUrwJ:www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Ft%3D120611%26page%3D4+scumbag+tol ex+the+gear+page&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo x-a (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...nt=firefo+x-a)
Way ahead of you, Alec. :D
That was alot of explaining, and picture captioning I didn't want to have to do over. I've already called my webmaster and told him to get ready to have a Tutorial page, and a User Comments/Reviews page. I'm sure alot of TGP snippets will be in there...if I can recover them from various sources on the net.

I'm still serious about recommending ipowerweb.com as a hosting service, if another solution can't be found. They're right here in Santa Monica, and not that far from LeonC and I...

[jaimo]

Hey! Just want to thank all of the mods for hanging tough and seeing this thing through. Sure, I don't miss the bitching on the GP, but I hate that the technical info is gone. What a history!

Chins up, lads and lassies! Time to write a new history. Ya dig?

[Lerxt]

I'm with Jon on this one:

"my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields (hard drives and backups), when the age of men (Age of TGP) comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you "stand, Men of the West!"

http://www.lordoftherings.net/legend/gallery/images/aragorn/image4.jpg

[Troubleman]

This really does suck. Brian should be reimbursed for everything; there was supposed to be a back-up. Who are these hacks anyway? I'd like to warn anybody considering using their services...:mad:

Peace,

jb

[aleclee]

But please let me know - did we really buy a new dedicated server without ANY redundancy? No off-site backups? No RAID? (Again, No RAID?????).We went cheap and got bit. Our current provider was not chosen without references. It has hosted this site quite well for the past two years.

We had off-site FTP backup space but we hadn't gotten around to setting up a cron job to do that backup. Since manually backing up the DB involves taking the board offline, I was reluctant to do that because, frankly, I didn't need to deal with more bitching about downtime.

We went without RAID because it was a big upcharge. In an attempt to be responsible with our donors' money, we balanced the cost of RAID with the need for uninterrupted availability in the event of a drive failure. The fact is that if we had our backup process in place, TGP would be back up now and we wouldn't be having this discussion. That mistake will not be repeated: the new site will not go live without implementing and testing an automated backup and (manual) restore.

Finally, I'd appreciate it if some folks would tone down the rhetoric and conspiracy theories. We went cheap and got bit before our risk mitigation stragegy was in place. We've learned our lesson and will act accordingly. As an extra special bonus, I get to pay penance by setting up the new site. Okay, I get it. I don't want to go through this crap again. You might feel inconvenienced but I assure you that a lot more is coming out of my hide than yours.

If TGP is important to you and you're not one of the 600 or so folks who ever contributed (out of 3000 daily visitors), I'd suggest that you show your appreciation in a more tangible way than an attaboy post. Even cutting corners on features like RAID, TGP's coffers were pretty well exhausted by the deal for the dedicated server. We don't like asking folks for money but the fact is that money makes the hard drive platters go round.

If you don't take TGP (or its staff) for granted, please act accordingly. We're not looking for a TGP endowment but on the other hand it would be nice if we didn't have to pester folks because we're running out of cash. When it comes to your interactions with the staff (including posts in this thread), try showing some appreciation by not flogging them too badly.

[908ssp]

RAID 0 is striping, for performance, with 2 drives in RAID 0 mode, you have zero redundancy, if 1 drive fails, you are hosed.

RAID 1 is mirroring, and allows you to lose one drive and recover. Perhaps you meant you are running in RAID 1 (mirrored) mode.


Thanks Ted I never can keep that straight. From now on I call it mirrored I can remember that. :o

[procos]

I'm sorting through my thoughts on this, but really just don't have anything to add at this moment. I'm entirely heartbroken right now.

This isn't just the loss of the data, it is the loss of the membership, everything. When we restart, it is from Ground Zero. I don't even have words.Scott,
Try and look at it as the glass is half full. With all the BS that was flying around maybe a fresh start is what Gear Page needed. Starting from scratch will not be a bad thing just a new beginning.

Chuck

[hemlock]

The most important thing to remember is, of course, that the word data is plural and verbs should agree accordingly. :dude: :p

Thanks to the good folks at BAM for setting up our digs for us. Big thanks to all the fearless TGP leaders for doing all you do.

How does one make a donation to TGP with the 'make a donation' button gone?

[908ssp]

I have copies of Roccaforte tube, all Jim's Celestion identification posts, on my hard drive.

I never meant to imply any nefarious doings by the mods. I am utterly dumbfounded by the web forum's host's total incompetence. :mad:


Nobody is going to hurt more then the Mods and they have my sympathies for sure. :(

[tag]

I just realized, I lost 14,000 posts or something like that. :mad: Good thing I saved them all! Ill post them as soon as the gear page is up again for all to enjoy! :p

[Tonedrip]

My heart goes out to the Mods ....you are more appreciated than you know.

Everything I want to say sounds so corny..but...I do think this is an opportunity for cleansing so to speak. This site is gonna be better than ever before long .

[dougb415]

But.... what about TRIODEROB????


(see, it feels more like home already)

[dougb415]

If TGP is important to you and you're not one of the 600 or so folks who ever contributed (out of 3000 daily visitors), I'd suggest that you show your appreciation in a more tangible way than an attaboy post. I'd like to contribute... is there any way to do it now, or do we wait until TGP v2.0 is up?

[duffyguitarman]

I just realized, I lost 14,000 posts or something like that. :mad: Good thing I saved them all! Ill post them as soon as the gear page is up again for all to enjoy! :p

LMAOOL!!

[JPerryRocks]

As others have said, maybe this could be a blessing in disguise for TGP.


A fresh start for everybody, and we're all on ground zero again. Although post count and long time reps were quite handy when you're into buying stuff fom fellow gear pagers. TGP has grown a lot over the last few years, and so many new people have come onboard.

[coreybox]

one of the 600 or so folks who ever contributed

I'm shocked that it is that low of a number

[sundaypunch]

I just realized, I lost 14,000 posts or something like that. :mad: Good thing I saved them all! Ill post them as soon as the gear page is up again for all to enjoy! :pJust trying to picture a site with 14,500 or so posts and 14,000 of them by tag :eek:

Kind of like a Dumble or Hayseed thread actually :)

[aleclee]

I'd like to contribute... is there any way to do it now, or do we wait until TGP v2.0 is up?Shoot Brian Scherzer an email. He'll hook you up with details.

[Onyx_77]

Fortunately or not, my real job is in IT servers. I've seen this happen in a "business meltdown" sense. As bad as the TGP issue was, it can be worse. Imagine a comapny losing all of their CAD designs. It has happened. I work with a lot of banks, insurance companies, and medical applications. All business critical data. And today there is an incredible amount of data stored on SAN with five 9"s availability (99.999 % uptime).

I have a test server in my home office with RAID 1 Mirroring and I back up data to an older 35/70 DLT drive because they are cheap these days.

In any case I look forward to the day when TGP comes back online. There will be some catching up to do.

-no sig as of yet

[BrianBaker]

Lemonade: I was gassing for a guitar listed in the emporium. Looks like I save a couple of bucks. Temporarily.

[reverber8]

What a disappointment to say the least!

I'm relatively new to the TGP with finding out about this place only last December. I found TGP to be a welcome and refreshing change from some of the other guitar based forums online. I learned a great many things from a seemingly endless wealth of information.

I agree that the largest percentage of what the TPG was, is and shall be, comes expressly from the community. It can be rebuilt over time and althou it will never be exactly the same, it will become what we make of it.

So much for my waxing philosophically. I look forward to TGP V2.0 and being one small part of the rebuilding of a great online community.

VIVA le TGP!!!

[drbob1]

I just realized, I lost 14,000 posts or something like that. :mad: Good thing I saved them all! Ill post them as soon as the gear page is up again for all to enjoy! :p
Actually, as I read it, it was just one post repeated 14,000 times ;) I kid! You did contribute a lot and hopefully will continue...

[pjwill]

All the best to the mods for their hard work in getting TGP back up and running. I, for one, would like to make a monetary contribution. :dude:

[entropy]

Shoot Brian Scherzer an email. He'll hook you up with details.Is there another way to get this info other than by burying Brian in email? (Friendly suggestion: Post it here?)

[Play By Tone]

We went cheap and got bit. Our current provider was not chosen without references. It has hosted this site quite well for the past two years.

We had off-site FTP backup space but we hadn't gotten around to setting up a cron job to do that backup. Since manually backing up the DB involves taking the board offline, I was reluctant to do that because, frankly, I didn't need to deal with more bitching about downtime.

We went without RAID because it was a big upcharge. In an attempt to be responsible with our donors' money, we balanced the cost of RAID with the need for uninterrupted availability in the event of a drive failure. The fact is that if we had our backup process in place, TGP would be back up now and we wouldn't be having this discussion. That mistake will not be repeated: the new site will not go live without implementing and testing an automated backup and (manual) restore.

Finally, I'd appreciate it if some folks would tone down the rhetoric and conspiracy theories. We went cheap and got bit before our risk mitigation stragegy was in place. We've learned our lesson and will act accordingly. As an extra special bonus, I get to pay penance by setting up the new site. Okay, I get it. I don't want to go through this crap again. You might feel inconvenienced but I assure you that a lot more is coming out of my hide than yours.

If TGP is important to you and you're not one of the 600 or so folks who ever contributed (out of 3000 daily visitors), I'd suggest that you show your appreciation in a more tangible way than an attaboy post. Even cutting corners on features like RAID, TGP's coffers were pretty well exhausted by the deal for the dedicated server. We don't like asking folks for money but the fact is that money makes the hard drive platters go round.

If you don't take TGP (or its staff) for granted, please act accordingly. We're not looking for a TGP endowment but on the other hand it would be nice if we didn't have to pester folks because we're running out of cash. When it comes to your interactions with the staff (including posts in this thread), try showing some appreciation by not flogging them too badly.

I'm not sure if the "you" in the last was directed at me, if it was then you can rest easier tonight knowing that I was in fact a contributing member. If I wasn't I probably wouldn't have written the post the way I did; "We" help keep the board going, I think "we" can question the poor data integrity at hand.

I just know that there are good deals and good ways to build an excellent system without compromising. Maybe if the process had been opened up a little more, we would have found a way to maximize the funds. And if we could have seen the difference in cost between having a new server and having a new server with appropriate data integrity, I'm sure some of us would have pitched in to cover the costs. I had no idea. Do we have another donation link set up? I bet a lot of us would like to contribute more.

Alec, I'm thanking you publicly and personally for the time and effort you put into running the board. I didn't have a high post count (maybe 800 in the last two years) but I really enjoyed TGP over the other boards. Hopefully we can pick back up where we left off.

The point I'd like to drive home is that I hope we can use the resources available to prevent disasters like this in the future. There are a lot of Lawyers and IT professionals that volunteer their services all the time. I'd like to be able to think that at least the Gear Page will never get sued or lose their website (ha!)

Cheers to everyone. May TGP live on. I have no chip on my shoulder.

No grudges.




I love you.

[aleclee]

My comments were directed at everyone in general and nobody in particular. If they apply, please at least consider my suggestions. If not, they probably apply to someone else.
I love you.Thanks. You're still not getting my Bud Light. :p

[Play By Tone]

My comments were directed at everyone in general and nobody in particular. If they apply, please at least consider my suggestions. If not, they probably apply to someone else.
Thanks. You're still not getting my Bud Light. :p

I just hope that maybe you consider some of my suggestions as well.

And btw, you'll never get anywhere trying to lure me with a beer :p

[Brewer]

You know, the loss is unfortunate but should be kept in perspective. I view forums as a place to talk. Reviewing what was said in the past has some utility, but it's not the main attraction of a forum for me.

If this is truly a heart-breaking event to you, it might be time to grab your acoustic and a blanket and go the park for a while. Deep cleansing breaths. No one died or got hurt. The rest can rise like a phoenix again. And again if need be. Heck, if the data got tossed every six months on purpose, how could it really hurt anyone?

Peace.

[Mastervolume]

awwww crap it is going to take me forever to get back to 50 posts....

[coreybox]

Is there another way to get this info other than by burying Brian in email? (Friendly suggestion: Post it here?)

Using the donate link just sent a paypal payment to b.scherzer@comcast.net


So just use paypal and send it to that address.

[bluesdoc]

Using the donate link just sent a paypal payment to b.scherzer@comcast.net


So just use paypal and send it to that address.

Done! Thanks. Now, where's my 'I Voted' sticker
;)

jon

[Gary Ladd]

Sounds like a real bummer for the mods & admins, I'm sure it will all get worked-out soon though :cool:

In the meantime my G*A*S has significantly subsided & I've got around to hooking-up my studio and working on some new chops...

Moreover, it sounds like even though some data has been lost, in the long run TGP v.2 wil be vastly improved & some of the more important info (e.g. Scumbag stuff, not Tag's spam :D) will be restored.

Cheers fellow TGPers, we will survive & be drooling over gear before you know it! :dude:

P.S. Thanks Scott, Brian, Alec & all for the outstanding job, mistakes & all ;)

[bluessyndicate]

I just realized, I lost 14,000 posts or something like that. :mad: Good thing I saved them all! Ill post them as soon as the gear page is up again for all to enjoy! :pDude...you can bring that down by 50% with one thread that says

"Bruno makes the best amps"

and another that says

"The Two Rock lo gain Emerald Pro is the best amp I have ever played"

That'll save you some time....;)

carry on....

[gkoelling]

My comments were directed at everyone in general and nobody in particular. If they apply, please at least consider my suggestions. If not, they probably apply to someone else.
Thanks. You're still not getting my Bud Light. :pYou know, I hadn't visited TGP for about 6-7 weeks so all of this was new to me. I stayed away because I received a slap on the wrist from LeonC and it was deserved. I just figured a little time out was in order. I referred to someone as a jerk in the cat thread. While jerk may seem mild, I had to agree it would only exacerbate the situation and Leon was a complete gentleman about the whole situation. Prior to that I had considered a contribution.

Now that I know what the numbers really were, I'll definitely throw some coin in the pot when things are back up-and-running. Your comments were obviously warranted, Alec.

You can have the Bud Lite. I'll take a George Dickel and water, thank you.

[aleclee]

I just know that there are good deals and good ways to build an excellent system without compromising. Maybe if the process had been opened up a little more, we would have found a way to maximize the funds. And if we could have seen the difference in cost between having a new server and having a new server with appropriate data integrity, I'm sure some of us would have pitched in to cover the costs. I had no idea. Do we have another donation link set up? I bet a lot of us would like to contribute more.Good idea in theory but putting everything out there for discussion would definitely lead to analysis paralysis. It's hard for me to believe that "What hosting service should we use?" would be much less of a cacaphony than "What overdrive pedal should I get?".

As for the issue of "appropriate data integrity", I'll stand by the decision we made. If we had a significantly higher budget, we might've gone with a costlier system but the fact is that we didn't want to ask for more money so we could avoid losing a day's worth of posts (which would've been our max exposure after getting automated backups in place). For every person who's chastised us for going too cheap, there is at least one who would gripe about us wasting money if we'd done the sorts of service upgrades suggested in this thread.

Given our needs and budget, I still think we made the right choice when it comes to RAID. If we had put the backup scheme in place in a timely manner, we'd be arguing about rockism right now instead of dissecting the value proposition of different hosting options.

I hope y'all will excuse me if I don't reply to too many more of these sorts of queries. As soon as the server is available, I'll be more interested in rebuilding TGP than debating the merits of different server configurations and would prefer not to spend my limited surfing time rehashing the issues that led to the limiting of my surfing time. :)

[Brian Scherzer]

I'll try to address the many questions and issues that have been raised. I am currently at work and I rarely check in from there, but had a feeling that today would be the day I would do it......glad I did! Here goes:

1. Our service provider is the same one that BaM is located with.

2. When we made the move from our old service provider to this one, we had $3543 (I'm quoting this from memory) in the coffers. I paid about $2900 to the new provider for a year in advance on what APlus considers their "premium server package", plus a couple of add-ons....an extra gig of RAM and an FTP backup package. WE were responsible for the backing up on that package, not the service provider. We did not have sufficient funds to get even more add-ons like a RAID 1 configuration. If I could have, I would have purchased a package that would have cost us $399 a month. We just didn't have the funds for that.

3. Please remember that people were complaining about how slow the other server was. We were paying $139+ per month for that on what was called a "Virtual Private Server" (meaning that there were only a small number of websites on the server). Based on the complaints, I felt compelled to move to a dedicated server before we had the financial resources to get the kind of package I would have preferred. I believed that this would be adequate for our traffic and the thought of a crash wasn't a top priority. I am not a computer tech guy!

4. The only things I am upset with the current provider for are the fact that I asked them on Thursday of last week to save the failed hard drive when they told me that it was the problem for the server crashing. I was told that their policy was to hold onto failed drives for 7 days. I do feel let down that now they say they can't find it. I made the request to them to try to pull the data from that drive on Friday morning and paid $450 (which they will now refund). The other thing that I am unhappy about is that their main support line (a toll free number) appears to lead to another country, based on everyone who answers having a deep accent. They are not on the premises and I can't ever get an answer other than "we'll get back to you as soon as we can". If I call the dedicated support number (not toll free and obviously on the premises), I usually end up hanging up after 15 or so minutes while waiting to speak to a live person. IN MY OPINION, THE SERVICE PROVIDER IS NOT AT FAULT EXCEPT FOR THESE TWO SITUATIONS!

5. I have to admit that I was not going to put Alec's butt on the line for the backup issue, and wouldn't be writing this if Alec hadn't mentioned it on this thread. I see myself as the "CEO" of The Gear Page and feel that anything that goes wrong is ultimately my fault. Yes, I wish that a backup had been made, but I am not going to crucify or "out" a person who has donated so much time and effort to keeping TGP running. My apologies for not being more straight-forward on this part until now, but I wasn't going to say anything unless Alec said something.

6. Scott, Alec, and myself have all learned a lot over the past month. Unless we're really dense, lessons have been absorbed. We will now have several people, including LeonC and Gerald Cleveland (both have lots of IT experience) helping with the tech side of things. There will be multiple backups on different computers.

7. Scott and I have had some very good discussions about the rules on TGP and we both agree that there are too many rules. You can expect some changes once TGP is back up and running. We will do better, in my opinion, strongly enforcing a few rules than weakly enforcing many rules.

8. I did call our old web service provider a few hours ago to check into any possibility that there is a backup of our data somewhere. I was told that there was a chance that the data may still be available, either on the part of the server we had been using, or on a backup somewhere. I was told that they would call me (the company, Data393, is located not far from where I live) today. That may mean tomorrow in "tech talk". I'll keep my fingers crossed!

9. As a "just in case" I kept the old website for an extra week after TGP was up and running on the new site, and paid an extra $139 for the month of March. I told them about 2 weeks ago to delete the site because we had moved......thinking that we were now safe.

10. Last, but not least, please do not make any donations right now. My primary effort needs to be getting TGP back online, not doing accounting chores. There is plenty of time to donate later. By the way, I DO give an annual accounting of what we receive and what we spent after our donation drive each year in late August or early September. It is always made as an announcement and a "sticky" and is left up for several weeks so that our membership is aware of exactly how much was raised and what it was spent on. Nobody has EVER asked for the specs of the server before, so it never dawned on me that anyone would want to know.

Thanks for hanging in there folks. I'll update this as soon as I know more.

[HaasSauce]

thanks to the mods for their hard work. i'll miss all the technical support (ie, john philips posts), lots of great info from amp & pedal builders, and some great lines from various members. i won't miss all the dumble implosions, but i'm sure they'll be back ;)

[bobbymack]

10. Last, but not least, please do not make any donations right now. My primary effort needs to be getting TGP back online, not doing accounting chores. There is plenty of time to donate later. By the way, I DO give an annual accounting of what we receive and what we spent after our donation drive each year in late August or early September. It is always made as an announcement and a "sticky" and is left up for several weeks so that our membership is aware of exactly how much was raised and what it was spent on. Nobody has EVER asked for the specs of the server before, so it never dawned on me that anyone would want to know.

Thanks for hanging in there folks. I'll update this as soon as I know more.Arghhh, I just started a new "Belly Up" thread...

Guess I'll delete it.

[Mastervolume]

7. Scott and I have had some very good discussions about the rules on TGP and we both agree that there are too many rules. You can expect some changes once TGP is back up and running. We will do better, in my opinion, strongly enforcing a few rules than weakly enforcing many rules.


Good!!!!!!!

Except that I thought the dress code really added class to the site. I for one hope it stays!

[Layne]

Thanks Brian, Scott, and the entire moderators team for doing a kick butt job amidst the crisis! I'm looking forward to the new Gear Page "Mk II" and new discussions. Thanks again!

[pgurlea]

It took me over 2 years to break 100 posts. :) I'm standing by to start again. TGP is a great community and the best equipment resource on the Web. I tip my guitar to Brain and the Mods for their dedication in the face of adversity.
Paul

[bluesdoc]

10. Last, but not least, please do not make any donations right now.

Ooops....... I guess I jumped the gun. Sorry 'bout that. Just trying to push the river, I guess.....

jon

[cr8z4life]

Hmmmmm......sort of like altzheimers.......every thread discussion will be like its happening for the first time! Does that mean we're going to have to go out and buy all that gear we got gasss for when the threads start again!!


:eek:

[Jon Silberman]

As far as I'm concerned, there's really only one absolutely indispensable rule: "No politics or religion."

[Gary Ladd]

As far as I'm concerned, there's really only one absolutely indispensable rule: "No politics or religion."+1 :cool:

[trisonic]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Brian.

I can't remember anything of my posts on TGP except for the very first one which was about recording Clapton at very high volumes.

I put this down to incipient Alzheimers, as I can remember Miller Anderson's facial expressions as he recorded "Me and My Woman" (Battle of NW6) but cannot for the life of me remember why I came into my office - and it was not to post this!

Getting old sucks (as Keef said as he fell clutching a Coconut).

Best, Pete.

PS Something is up with this Forum too as it's 50/50 as to whether I can actually post a reply - anyone else noticed?

[Brian Scherzer]

PS Something is up with this Forum too as it's 50/50 as to whether I can actually post a reply - anyone else noticed?
Pete...........My best guess is that there are a lot of TGP folks coming over here and that the traffic increase is straining the BaM server. Of course, I'm not a computer techie guy and don't even play one on TV!

[Brian Scherzer]

P.S..........When I got home, I noticed an email from our old service provider. It was to note that they put in a "support ticket", in response to my phone call today, to the techs asking them to see if the old data (from right before we moved) is still available. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but there IS a chance that we can recover all data, excluding anything posted or registrations of new members since our move, that existed prior to about one month ago. Again, I don't know that they have the data. I just know that they are trying to help and that IF the data is still on their servers, we'll be able to grab it. I'll let everyone know as soon as I know.

[MaxBoogie]

Wow, already 16 pages on this thread!
I'll add my condolences to the rest on the loss of the board. And an advance appreciation of all the hard work you guys are about to embark on to recreate TGP!
Now, could you please hurry up and get it up! ;)

[BlueJakester]

What a tremendous loss to start from scratch. I was able to do a lot of research by searching TGP forums, as opposed to asking a question that had been asked a dozen times before.

It would certainly be nice if a backup or the disk could be found; even if it meant restoring a backup from a few months ago. :(

[Robert1950]

As Tommy Chong would say "BUMMER MAN!"

And I really mean it. That wealth of information, not mention dissing Gibson, '79 Strats and Ed Roman. :(

[bluesdoc]

Now, could you please hurry up and get it up! ;)

Mmm, why does that sound familiar??
:D

jon

[Chase]

I have to say I am continually blown away with the amount of effort, dedication, and heart that is put into this project by the 'administration'. I hope it all goes as planned from here on out, and a huge sincere thank you from me for all the work you guys put into this.

[Mastervolume]

Pete...........My best guess is that there are a lot of TGP folks coming over here and that the traffic increase is straining the BaM server. Of course, I'm not a computer techie guy and don't even play one on TV!
Crashing the B&M server the utimate thank you

[Hamertoe]

Sorry to hear about this. It's a serious loss. As others have said I certainly appreciate all the effort and time that has gone in to TGP and will continue to be invested in TGP. The future can be brighter than anything attained in the past as a saying goes so I'm optimistic that TGP will not only be as good as before, but better than ever as well. we're all on the road to something new here, buckle up!

[Dabluzeguy]

If there is anything we can do from our end, please don't hesitate to ask. RCG really loves TGP.

[Brian Scherzer]

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up at this juncture, but I have some more reasons than I had a couple of hours ago to believe that the data on our old service provider still exists. I will not say anything more about this until I know for sure. What I would ask for now is just that people be patient and wait until I have more complete information to share. My reason for asking everyone to wait is because I need more confirmation than I currently have AND, if confirmed, I want to see it on our current website (which will be closed for public view) prior to making an official announcement.

[forestryguy]

I don't know if it is useful, but I have a few CD-R's of old threads that were of interest to me (saved in ie web archive format, I think). Nothing comprehensive, but a good smattering of hit/miss, especially in effects and amp forums. On occasion, I have emailed to other members when threads were deleted, and most reported they could open them, at least. Glad to help if I can.

[mprvise]

Thanks very much for the updates Brian. It is appreciated. I'm now less bummed than I was earlier. :)

[Scott Peterson]

I am a lot less bummed than I was.

We are guardedly optimistic that we have the database from the server changeover. That isn't 100% yet, but it is a glimmer of hope.

There is a lot of work to be done to make sure, but it is something.

[christo7]

<mod edit>

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

just read all 17 pages.
i never realised that so much time, effort and $$$ went into running a forum.
scott, et.al., glad to hear that the shock is subsiding and that U have hope.
OSXa had a little banner for contributors under where their avatar would go. perhaps something like that would draw attention to the general membership that contributions are a GOOD thing, as martha would say.
thanx for the frank update.

I just realized, I lost 14,000 posts or something like that. :mad: Good thing I saved them all! Ill post them as soon as the gear page is up again for all to enjoy! :p

what????
even the post where U admit U're a troll?
damn, i never use sigs, but THAT would have been a great one.
peace, out.

[coreybox]

OSXa had a little banner for contributors under where their avatar would go. perhaps something like that would draw attention to the general membership that contributions are a GOOD thing, as martha would say.


When you donated on TGP it said 'contributing member' under your name. IS that like what your talking about, or did i complete misunderstand?

peace
corey

[Scumbag]

I am a lot less bummed than I was.

We are guardedly optimistic that we have the database from the server changeover. That isn't 100% yet, but it is a glimmer of hope.

There is a lot of work to be done to make sure, but it is something.
I'm crossing my fingers for you guys....and us! :D

I still think a donation drive for whatever else is needed is a good idea. I've donated to other forums that I frequent, since I learn and benefit from them, and the TGP is no different. I wish everyone would. What with Internet access costs, gas, movies and other expenses, it seems a small price to pay for keeping such a great forum going, and a real pittance for some of the entertainment it's provided!

[splattercell]

frankly, i'm always a little surprised when i discover that some quite regular tgp'ers who clearly can afford to contribute monies do not do so.
by the same token, i feel kinda strange that i do not give more than i do, myself, given my semi-regular involvement..... and the fact that tgp has replaced my tired old guitar magazine addiction w/something much more socially rewarding and actually interactive.
otoh:
brian has made it VERY clear that he does not want any more contributions, for now, as he couldn't currently handle the additional accounting chores, so:
for all y'all who are gonna plan to do so, it seems he's strongly suggesting to wait until tgp is up, again, or on his request.

did i get that right?
i think so.

dt / spltrcl

[Scott_F]

I remember a few years back when I singlehandedly killed off the Seymour Duncan Forum. I can feel your collective pain. The good news is that those that really matter will be re-registered in a few days and good data will once again fill the bandwidth.

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

When you donated on TGP it said 'contributing member' under your name. IS that like what your talking about, or did i complete misunderstand?

peace
corey

geez, i dunno. maybe.
because of the, uh, medicine i have to take, i suffer w/ chronic (cough, cough) short term memory loss.
i fully intend to make TGP my first forum that i contribute $$$ to. that's if i can remember this moment when TGP goes online again.

[KRosser]

Thanks mods, again, for all you do...

[ChazMania]

When you donated on TGP it said 'contributing member' under your name. IS that like what your talking about, or did i complete misunderstand?

peace
corey
Hmm, Corey, me think no.....being as i 'contributed' a few times and my lower moniker never changed.

Be as it may, it seems to me that some of the trolling could be alleviated by member dues. The other thread here that began slamming harshly on S.P seems reason alone (imho) to thwart off non meaningful contributions.

So, can someone please buy these guitars I have for sale??:D

[NuSkoolTone]

Wow man, I was actually in DENIAL AND MOURNING for awhile as I read through this whole thread (I registered just to post some love!)

This without question IS my favorite place on the net, it's got information, humor, drama, politics, and it's all about stuff I love. I'm glad there is a glimmer of hope for the old data. My fingers are crossed for sure. While it's good to be optimistic I did view it as a tragic loss of some of the most elite and unique info for our community.

Call me delerious, but a part of me felt since we are a "community" there would be some legal way to bring a "Class action suit" against the provider! Of course this is just silly, but it crosseed my mind for a fleeting moment. I wonder what large coproations do when they lose data that's not backed up and the fault of a host? How do they determine damages? Scary stuff....


Here's wishing the best, and a thanks to the guys trying to pull it together!

[coreybox]

Hmm, Corey, me think no.....being as i 'contributed' a few times and my lower moniker never changed.

Be as it may, it seems to me that some of the trolling could be alleviated by member dues. The other thread here that began slamming harshly on S.P seems reason alone (imho) to thwart off non meaningful contributions.

So, can someone please buy these guitars I have for sale??:D

My post was informative...as in it does (should) change. Mine most definitely did..... i don't know why yours would not have.

I was just wondering if that was the kind of thing µ¿ z3®ø™ was referring too.

EDIT: this google cache (http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:wps75WzfoqIJ:thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Fp%3D1346744+contributing+member+s ite:thegearpage.net&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7&client=safari) shows what i mean.

[Jim Fisher]

My heart goes out to the Mods ....you are more appreciated than you know.

Everything I want to say sounds so corny..but...I do think this is an opportunity for cleansing so to speak. This site is gonna be better than ever before long .
+1,000.000.000

Hang in there guys and just know you've got a whole lotta folks who appreciate ALL your efforts and passion.

Jim

[hw2nw]

wow I miss my TGP fix. Thanks to all the mods/tech team for their help, I can't wait to get back in there with a fresh account and get addicted to new gear again! :D

[Derek Minnich]

This really sucks.....there goes my 2000+ posts and membership since 2002 (which didn't show I was a member with PRS Forum). Oh well....it happens! Clean Slate, fresh start!

[fatback]

...and so it goes.

http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/images/phoenix.gif

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

EDIT: this google cache (http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:wps75WzfoqIJ:thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php%3Fp%3D1346744+contributing+member+s ite:thegearpage.net&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7&client=safari) shows what i mean.

sob, sniffle.
i tried to log in.
didn't work.

actually, for a while, if U had so many posts U could give Urself a 'description'. mine was 'dismember'
so did 'contributing member' actually mean that U had coughed up $$$.
if it does, that's what i mean.
maybe we could have something like 'freeloader' for those that don't contribute on a pecuniary level and ones that do can have whatever their little heart desires.

[Curly]

all I can add is a sincere word of thanks for a great resource, and all the wonderful, informative contributions of the members

Peace

[coreybox]

maybe we could have something like 'freeloader' for those that don't contribute on a pecuniary level and ones that do can have whatever their little heart desires.

Ha, that is a pretty good idea.....

I think people would be much more willing to pay and get rid of some bad stigma than to get 'contributing member' added.

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

Ha, that is a pretty good idea.....

I think people would be much more willing to pay and get rid of some bad stigma than to get 'contributing member' added.

indeed.
besides, 'contributing member' has significant connotations for my fornication partner and myself.

[tag]

maybe we could have something like 'freeloader' for those that don't contribute on a pecuniary level and ones that do can have whatever their little heart desires.

Great idea!!! Embarrass the folks who cant afford it!

[- X -]

Can't wait until TGP is back up! :cool:

I'm a long-time lurker that signed up in February and in that short time made a few killer deals on the emporiums.

BTW, I'm down with the "contribute and get avatar option" as a sure fire way to get more money in the pipeline ;)

[The_Whale]

I'll go one further, they're unF*!King professional!!!!!!

Utter, gross, incompetence.
I tend to agree. Their story seems a little fishy to me (lost the HD?).


As for the issue of "appropriate data integrity", I'll stand by the decision we made. :)Alec, Please don't feel like you need to justify the decision to us. Your job is hard enough. (and would be much harder if you needed to accomodate a thousand opinions every time you tried to administer every techincal detail involved in TGP).

Thanks for everything.

(And thanks to BAM for letting us vent here)

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

Great idea!!! Embarrass the folks who cant afford it!

maybe there could be a sliding scale.
no $$$ = freeloader
$5 pa = cheapskate
$10 pa = yes, i'm a scottish
$20 pa = hey, U try and buy a PRS working at burger king
$30 pa = i stole the money from my mom's purse
$40 pa = it was either this or a bag of skunk weed
etc.

[Jerrod]

To those who are heartbroken about the loss... there are worse things. Thanks for all the effort to the mods. And I can't wait to see if carlygtr gets a membership! <on the edge of my seat>

[Play By Tone]

Brian, thanks for the reply. Its nice to hear that maybe there is a backup on the old server.

I'm sure the lesson has been learned so I won't comment anymore on that.

I do think it would be nice to know a little more about our "home" (the server and provider). Just an "about" page with that info on it and maybe how contributing helps the place out.

I also think the integrity of the service provider should be in question now, for the time your lease contract expires. Please consider finding someone else to do your business with. There are so many options out there with good people behind it. I can think of a few off the top of my head...also you might want to look into your contact and see if you have a way out now that they have dropped the ball a couple times...

[Merrick]

2000 registration to TGP - $0

2001 McCarty - $1,900

Scott Peterson picture photoshopped playing a banjo with missing teeth.........and all that TGP knowledge - priceless.

Hope you can recover something. See ya there.

Merrick

[Cheebatone]

I'm a silver-lining kind of guy.

The advantages afforded to Brian and the Mods for a totally re-designed TGP will far outweigh the loss of data from the old one. Besides which, most of the old info will be back on there ASAP as some of us are such regular posters. (Me = 2000+)

Too regular, perhaps. :o

[digisequencer]

just read all 17 pages.
i never realised that so much time, effort and $$$ went into running a forum..´

I with yushi on this (hope you don´t mind that I translate your membername into something speakable :p )

Just read this whole thread - what a bummer.... Most is already said, so I won´t repeat.
I know all about deciding over priorities - and hey, they made the mistake of having "backup" with a low priority. So what ? They suffer now. That´s punishment enough, don´t give them a hard time - they pump in loads of hard work, especially now, and I can imagine how many sleepless nights they will have...

BTW if BAM is on the same sledge, question to our mods: how are our backups going ?

[WCR]

Man, what a drag about the crash. It must have pinched a lot of people there pretty hard. My e-mails and such have dropped way off, and it is clear to me where most of MY business comes from.lol
I hope the best for all.
Also, Scumbag's idea about goint to iPower is a good one. I have used that service myself for awhile now. ClassA act, always right there in person for support, and very reasonable as well.
Be sure you let us know when and where we can toss money to you guys, I am sure everyone here wants to help.I think getting a different, much more reliable server is the first act to jump on. I am amazed at no backup, throwing away the server, etc. Mind boggling to say the least!
Fingers are crossed on the old server still having most of that stuff. :dude:

[Uncle GroOve]

A big virtual hug to all you guys out there, working your arse off only to provide for a nice playground for the rest of us jaded, whiny, complicated, ball-busting bozos ;)
When time comes I'll be handing in my cheque too... you only deserve it.

A little digression... this incident actually shows us how fragile and vulnerable we've become. Outsourcing everything may add more $$$ to the bottom line - but personally I'd rather be slightly less well off, employ some local workforce and be in control of my destiny.
BTW this isn't by any means a nationalist or racist rant'n'rave - I'm just craving for some Reality to find it's way back into our everyday lives, that's all.

Peace & Music to you all,

Paul
aka JingleJungle
aka Uncle GroOve

[sundaypunch]

Man, what a drag about the crash. It must have pinched a lot of people there pretty hard. My e-mails and such have dropped way off, and it is clear to me where most of MY business comes from.lol
This was actually one of my first thoughts when I saw that everything was gone. There are a bunch of boutique guitar, amp, hardware, etc. mfg's that are going to be taking a substantial hit here. Not only from the lack of the daily word of mouth but from the loss of hundreds / thousands of posts discussing their products. I would guess that some people will see a drop in business for some time.

[Vaughnc]

Scott Peterson picture photoshopped playing a banjo with missing teeth.........and all that TGP knowledge - priceless.

Hope you can recover something. See ya there.

MerrickThat's my silly creation....here's a replay ;):
http://www.wpa.net/%7Evaughn/guitars/scotban2.jpg

And lets not forget when Bluesdoc & Brian made the cover of Guitar Player magazine:
http://www.wpa.net/%7Evaughn/guitars/brianjon.jpg

[Dave Orban]

Hats off to Brian, Scott, and all the mods, for all they do...!








And remember, it's only a website. ;)

[Vaughnc]

Fast foreward to the year 2046....here's Paul Reed Smith at age 95 testing Private Stock #2969 before it leaves the factory ;):
http://www.wpa.net/%7Evaughn/guitars/paul90.jpg

Private Stock #2969 specs:
Body: Artist grade teflon finish stainless steel for maximum resonance (nice top).
Neck: aromic, broken-in, flamed oak from a well used 1910 Michigan outhouse seat.
Fretboard: NOS, last piece of Brazilian rosewood available on the planet earth.
Base price: $29,999.00
Optional accessories: official PRS Artist grade shirt, tie, strap (as shown), & burlap gig bag with hemp handle.

[Cheebatone]

http://www.wpa.net/%7Evaughn/guitars/scotban2.jpg
This HAS to be the Homepage for TGP2!

[digisequencer]

Fast foreward to the year 2046....here's Paul Reed Smith at age 95 testing Private Stock #2969 before it leaves the factory:
http://www.wpa.net/%7Evaughn/guitars/paul90.jpg
ROFLMAO!!!!! THATs just TOOO hilarious !!!! Thanks !

[aleclee]

I do think it would be nice to know a little more about our "home" (the server and provider). Just an "about" page with that info on it and maybe how contributing helps the place out.

I also think the integrity of the service provider should be in question now, for the time your lease contract expires. Please consider finding someone else to do your business with. There are so many options out there with good people behind it. I can think of a few off the top of my head...also you might want to look into your contact and see if you have a way out now that they have dropped the ball a couple times...Here's the 411 on our hosting package (http://servers.aplus.net/premium.html). We've upgraded with additional RAM (to 2GB total) and 10GB of FTP backup space.

To those who've offered their disk space and bandwidth for backups, thanks for the offer but between our hosted backup space and some other places to stash backup copies, we have things pretty well covered. We just need to get the cron job set up to ensure that we're never left without handy access to backups of our code and data.

Have I mentioned that we've learned our lesson on backups?

When our agreement is up with APlus, I can assure you that they are not a shoo-in for renewal.

we have that pretty well covered.

[gkelm]

Vaughn...that's some funnny stuff. Thanks for the smile...I needed it after reading another thread here. :)

[Pete Faragher]

I'm sorting through my thoughts on this, but really just don't have anything to add at this moment. I'm entirely heartbroken right now.

This isn't just the loss of the data, it is the loss of the membership, everything. When we restart, it is from Ground Zero. I don't even have words.


I can't imagine the disapointment you must have. All that work and time spent. Chin up Scott.

and add to that.......the Red Wings are playing golf.....how did that happen?? Great team, Great orginisation....great short game?

Pete

[Scumbag]

Here'sWhen our agreement is up with APlus, I can assure you that they are not a shoo-in for renewal.

we have that pretty well covered.
Alec, since I started my own business specializing in Mac DV consulting in LA 12 years ago, I can identify with your backup woes. I keep alot of extra hard drives around and backup my own installer/design/data files once a week to two different hard drives.

As simple as it seems, I have to STRONGLY ADVISE my clients to get a backup drive to cover their butts. Most do it, but then they don't backup, even though it's a simple drag & drop. They always figure I can save their butts/data if necessary, which is true most of the time (but expensive). However, the one time I couldn't save a client's butt for the new HBO animation files, he sent it to Drive Savers, and it was $3200 to recover a mostly full 80 gb drive, plus the new 120 gb drive ($200 for the drive two years ago) to copy the data to. So, paying for not doing backups can be incredibly expensive...but as you've said, the TGP has learned it's lesson. Enough said, and I commend you for stepping up to rectify this. You couldn't have possibly known that the hard drive would die while you were out of town, and you also couldn't possibly have known that the hosting company would throw it out.

The loss of the damaged hard disk is inexcusable on the hosting company's part, IMO. That just left no options to recover the data, and that's just the "coup de gras" of "estupido server management" from the hosting company.

While the TGP data didn't represent the dollar value of a motion picture, MTV video, animation or high dollar 30 second commercial (the typical data I work with, save, etc.) I work with, it did represent a whole bunch of good information that will be lost until the original posters can find the time to re-input or retype it all, which represents countless hours of their time.

This whole thing has been a real bummer...just realize that LeonC & I are out here ready to help if and when the move to a new hosting company, and transfer is needed.

And good luck on the rebuilding of the TGP... one thing though...can you restore all of TAG's 14,000 post count with out the arguments? I couldn't possibly read all of that good "point - counterpoint" between TAG and Dave Orban again...


:D

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

the Red Wings are playing golf.....how did that happen??

PARTICULARLY as they looked so in control of the game in the first two periods of the final game. that third period was one of the most exciting i've seen in quite a while.
the calgary-anaheim game 2nite should be a scorcher too.
um, OK so i'm hijacking.

Hats off to Brian, Scott, and all the mods, for all they do...!

amen, brutha man.

[Brian Kahanek]

Sending good vibes your way fellas - not to metion a thanks for all your efforts.

BK

[tiltrite]

+1 on the good vibes and many thanks

[shallbe]

As Bob Marley said:


"Everything's gonna be allright!"

[joncourage]

I think he said "Every little thing is gonna be alright".

Me, I'm not so sure about the big stuff. :-)

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

As Bob Marley said:


"Everything's gonna be allright!"

al green sang "Everything's gonna be allright!".

[joncourage]

Brian - suggestion, maybe it will trigger a useful idea:

You have probably the largest virtual volunteer IT staff in the forum world. A ton of people have volunteered time, hardware, etc, and many of them/us seem to have credentials.

Collect resumes, see who has experience that sounds real and is applicable to some aspect of maintaining TGP v2.

Divide the labor of maintaining the site into small, discreet functions. Maintaining the technology of a site this large is more than one person can handle effectively imo. Not much different than having multiple mods for content.

Assign each function to two or three people on a rotation (let them make up the rotation schedule and email it to you, so you don't get bogged down in administration). For any given period, one of the people will be primary on his particular function, one will be secondary/auditor (making sure the function is completed with the expected results), and the third person will be "off".

Db backup could be one function, forum maintenance could be another, system health/performance monitoring could be another, and so on. Each function would probably be narrowly defined enough that the burden would become almost insignificant.

You said it yourself, you're CEO of TGP. This is the way CEOs approach business operations. If there are other CEO's/CIO's/COO's/Ops execs or senior-level military officers on TGP, maybe they can add their perspective to the above idea.

[Dabluzeguy]

Delegation of responsibilities is a great way to get things done, but it is much tougher to enforce in a volunteer organization. I was a Cubmaster for several years, and getting volunteers to act independently was almost more work than simply doing every job myself... The kids were great, the parents were the problem...

[Brian Scherzer]

We have just tripled our IT staff from 1 person to 3 people. The other two people are moderators with IT experience. I appreciate all of the offers, but I think that we'll be fine now.

[Dave Orban]

al green sang "Everything's gonna be allright!".Little Walter FIRST sang Everything's Gonna Be Alright"... ;)

[shallbe]

I think he said "Every little thing is gonna be alright".

Me, I'm not so sure about the big stuff. :-)
You are correct sir---I was singing it to myself, and as I usually do, flubbed the words. Nothing wrong with Al Green though---a quotable and positive force in music and the world.

[DanR]

Well, I'm here :dude:


What did I miss?

Is there a policy here where you get one free drink for joining?:D

[Reeek]

I'm in withdrawals :D

It happens even in today's world. The beauty is that it will never happen again. I let it happen to my PC once loaded with recordings, photos, songs, you name it. Never again, at home or with TGP. We're all smart enough to learn our lesson . . . except when it comes to G.A.S. :)

Get back up and we'll be back, but now I have a second place to call home too.

Thanks Birds and Moons!

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

Little Walter FIRST sang Everything's Gonna Be Alright"... ;)

i'd forgotten about that.
the al green song i was referring to is a different song. it's all about jesus.

http://www.bestvideocodes.com/bvc/algreen-everythingsgonnabealright.php?play=1

Nothing wrong with Al Green though---a quotable and positive force in music and the world.

to say the least. i love that particular track. it makes me wanna get up and raise my hands and pretend i'm black even if PEW thinks it would make me look like a homo anti-rockist.

[jeffhef]

That's all very well (and I feel very bad for the guys directly involved) but I just gave a donation to TGP prior to this.
I don't feel inclined to give another right now.
Apart from monetary contributions I was also "abused" by some "Members" for having such a high post count - well this has certainly solved that "problem" too!


Best, Pete.On the other hand...I'd just made my second donation and now I'm inclined to offer more. Please let us know how to contribute to the cause.

This is the ONLY forum worth reading.

As for the provider...you need to shout their name loud and long to warn others off them. I've been in IT for 20+ years. I can tell you this...which I'm sure you already know...losing EVERYTHING is unacceptable. Whoever the provider is needs to LOSE EVERYTHING to understand the pain they've caused a valued customer.

I'll definitely be there for the grand reopenning.

Thanks for all the hard work you guys are putting in on this.

jeffhef

[trisonic]

On the other hand...I'd just made my second donation and now I'm inclined to offer more. Please let us know how to contribute to the cause.

This is the ONLY forum worth reading.

As for the provider...you need to shout their name loud and long to warn others off them. I've been in IT for 20+ years. I can tell you this...which I'm sure you already know...losing EVERYTHING is unacceptable. Whoever the provider is needs to LOSE EVERYTHING to understand the pain they've caused a valued customer.

I'll definitely be there for the grand reopenning.

Thanks for all the hard work you guys are putting in on this.

jeffhef

I know that you probably didn't intend to but you have taken an early comment of mine in this thread and highlighted it completely out of context.
Brian answered a lot of my misgivings later on in the thread...........

Thank you, Best, Pete.