Well that WinHTTrack worked like a dream - I downloaded the whole caboodle onto my hard drive (a good few MB...) and now I have the whole archive on there that just opens up with IE.
tim
Well that WinHTTrack worked like a dream - I downloaded the whole caboodle onto my hard drive (a good few MB...) and now I have the whole archive on there that just opens up with IE.
tim
You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn
www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog
To: Q-Tuan Long
I must agree with Josh W. about a PHP/MySql solution. I have got the embryo of one working at my machine as well. In saying that I do volounteer to help with the coding of the missing functions, i.e. cooperate with Josh if he needs the help. I am a programmer by profession and I have vast experience with PHP and MySql.
So, from a programmers view, what are the advantages with a PHP/MySql solution? First, it is easy to maintain, as most/all of the HTML is clearly visible to anyone who has access to the source-code. PHP as such is also relatively easy to maintain. Anyone who is decently versed into any form of programming could update the pages if anything needs to be fixed/added. Second, it is a well proven technology, being used on lots of sites. (Finding a webhosting service which will provide the servers and services is very easy, as it is built upon the most common platform out there.) In terms of "stability", it is one of the most stable solutions that you can find, IMHO. I'm not blaiming anyone, but the the up-and-down of LUSENET may be because of the platform choosen isn't as stable as it could be.
There are lots of good suggestions and also offererings in the other replies. I take it that we are all very grateful for the lack of advertising and the simplicity of the forum(s). These things are very valuable in times of ad banners flying by faster than a Nikon F5 at top speed. I'm quite sure that Robert White, Badger Graphic, HP Marketing, SK Grimes et al. agree upon the fact that this forum gives them quite a lot of business opportunities. Why not approach them and possibly give them a separate sponsors page if they decide to help this (these) forums out a bit.
So, if some help is needed with the forum I do volonteer. While the simplicity of the forum is of utmost importance, I can think of some small details that could improve the useability of the forum even further. Such as a good search function... Besides, I wouldn't mind having a look at the admin pages either. (A static version, or a "print screen" would do nicely.)
Without trying to rain on Photo.net's parade - their generosity is appreciated - could someone actually detail what is needed from a hardware/server/isp requirement? Many have volunteered excellent software/programming support, but I'm at a loss trying to determine what hard resources are required. Finding a physical home might not be so complicated if there is a better understanding of what is required.
There's currently a posting in the photo.net Moderated Forum (from Services Photo.net) that says ten of the LUSENET active forums, including this one, will be moved (including archives) starting at midnight (EDT) tonight.
First of all, during most of my visits to photo.net I have found that site quite slow and overloaded with traffic. (Whenever that kind of fact is to be "proven", the site if of course very fast, but anyhow.) That is the main reason for my input in this discussion. About the hardware/ISP requirement of a PHP/MySql solution. What is needed is really an ISP who can provide the database space, as the forum doesn't have that much load on it. The PHP pages will probably be some 20-50 Kb in total. (Yes, there shouldn't need to be more code than that.) What is needed is database space, and judging from the downloaded pages that I got on my machine the database would need some 100 Mb of space, which would give the forum(s) a bit of space to grow over the next year or so. There is also the question about server load. It is possible that the admin could provide some user statistics, but my personal guess is that there are no more than say 15 persons active at the forum at any given time. I don't think that during "rush hours" there would be more than a few hits per second on the database, with a more typical 1 hit per 5 seconds, still during rush hours. Translating these figures into normal english means that there is quite a low load on the system and we are considering the very opposite of photo.net. A typical ISP (here in Sweden that is) would normally give you 10- 50Mb of webpage space and 10Mb of database space. The traffic would be limited to 0.5 to 10Gb per month, with more traffic adding to the cost. So what is the cost for such an account? Well, it is in the region of 100-200$ per year. To suit the need of the LF forum (and possibly the other brothers and sisters that is supposes to move from LUSENET) the cost would probably be about 300-500$ per year. My personal guess is that an american ISP would cost less. It's rather a matter of finding a good ISP that delivers good and steady bandwidth. I havn't mentioned hardware, as most ISPs should have ample hardware to deal with the requirements of this forum. Ordinary sub $1000 boxes running Linux provides more than enough power, and most ISP have lots of that kind of servers which are bundled to make the combined solution fail-proof and powerful. So, where to find that money, which isn't much? I and others have given suggestions on this thread before.
Bjorn, I agree with your estimates. The hosting fee is not a problem at all if a php/mysql solution is available. Otherwise, an OpenACS system would need a dedicated server, which would cost x10 more. However, the main resource is the time needed to write (?), install the software, transfer the old data, and maintain the system.
This and other LUSENET forums now appear at the bottom of the photo.net Unified Forum View. They've already attracted postings by people not previously heard from (that I can recall) on LUSENET. I think that being on photo.net will increase hit rates significantly. Staying relatively obscure here or at another domain would probably keep them low.
Please, lets stay obscure. If every thread has 80 answers this forum will get way too tiring to follow. I dont want to deny anyone LF info, but the fact is this forum is sooo nice the size it is now, and bigger wont be better IMO
Seeing as I am unemployed for the moment, I will start working now to implement categories and admin features. It shouldn't be too hard.
As before, the biggest problem is importing the archives... if someone else could work at converting all that data into some database-friendly tables (questions, answers, categories, etc), I can migrate it all into my database schema.
Would it be helpful to set up a sourceforge project to manage the development?
Also, I should mention that the best advantages of PHP/MySQL in my mind is that they are available on nearly every Linux/Apache server in existence, which makes it very portable across different hosting companies.
Although www.joshwand.com isn't particularly linux/mozilla friendly . . .
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