Recent Server Downtime

[Dennis Leahy]

Bob, it astounds me how someone can hurl a grenade into a crowd and laugh.

Thank you very much for all of your efforts. As a programmer myself (even though I'm a bit of a dinosaur in the modern world of computing), and have assembled maybe 100 computers, and am webmaster for The Luthier Community, I do have a clue as to what you have been doing for the past two weeks. Yuk! What an awful task! But not thankless - we do thank you sincerely for all your hard work.

If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.

Are you sending your hard drive out to a company that does disk data recovery? If yes, we need to take up a collection from the members and help pay for it. It is very expensive!

(my sad story, or how I found out the hard way)
I went back to school as an adult, to get a computer science degree, after working as a self-taught programmer for a while. My 'senior' year at college, approximately 2 weeks before the end of school and graduation, my hard drive crashed. I had not backed up in months. The companies wanted $900 to TRY to get the data back - with no guarantee that they would get ANY data back, though the price would be $900 regardless. I had two major projects to turn in, and I did not have the $900, so I did not sleep but a few hours for my final 2 weeks of college, recreating the work from scratch.

So, please let us all know if you have sent your old hard drive off to have data recovery specialists try to recover it. If so, we all need to chip in!

Dennis

[Lillian]

Post up the Paypal account info and I'm in.

Thanks guys. The cat looks like I did when I realized that it wasn't a power outage but that we had been hacked. Think its still fitting.

Allen, I love your mailbox! Did you do that yourself? If memory serves, and that's questionable, you are the keeper of a very cool cat. I, on the other hand live with Evil and the Freak. Evil is a stereotypical self-centered egotistical cat who has decided that I will be the focus of her torment. I have the scars to prove it. The Freak is scare of himself some days.

[WaddyT]

Maybe my blood pressure will go down now. I'm sure yours is better, Bob. What a mess. Sorry you had to endure such a trial. Being here is better than not, even if some stuff is missing. Congratulations on getting back this far.

[Insomnomaniac]

Wow... As the somewhat dodgy song goes - you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone...

I didn't realise just how much time I was spending on here. Glad you got it sorted out Bob! If there's somewhere we can throw a couple of bucks, let us know!

[Stephen Kinnaird]

Bob et al, you guys were sorely missed!
Many thanks for this fine place, and all the work involved in keeping it up.
Or in this case, getting it back up!

Steve

[Dave Anderson]

Yes, Good to have the ANZLF back up and running,
and way to go Bob.

[Taffy Evans]

Thanks for all your efforts Bob, I think of all the shavings you could have been making instead of computer work, Haven't checked out the new system yet but I know it will be a good one, thanks again.

[kiwinoz62]

Hello Everyone,

Thx Bob for your time and dedication to this forum.
I've missed my regular visits here as it is the only social site I'm a member of, if there is a collection of your associated costs involving this site then count me in, more than happy to contribute.

All the best. . .

Cheers Wayne. . .

[Puff]

Is there any chance that Google has any archive of "cached" snapshots. Early on in the downtime the forum index at least could still be accessed there. Great work Bob - thanks.
Internet Archive perhaps - where's the fingers crossed Smiley?
Would kind of like to put Lillian's cat look on the face of the hacker

[jeffhigh]

Now all us cranky old buggers (yes I mean you and me Kim) can get back to our natural home and stop harrassing other forums.

[charangohabsburg]

So, finally I have re-created my user account on this forum (right, I was/am a newbie here, at least as registered user)
I'm so glad to see the ANZLF back online!

Of course it would be nice if Bob and his valuable helpers could restore a more recent "version" of the forum's database. But anyway, life is going on and so we are. No one can prevent us from posting here...

I think the way to go is:

Is there any chance that Google has any archive of "cached" snapshots. [...]

...which is exactly what "we" did successfully at the spanish forum guitarra.artepulsado.com in early 2008 (at that time and until Sept. 30. 2010 is was guitarra.artelinkado.com) when that server suffered a similar attack.

Just right now I recovered five of six pages of the thread Old French Bass full Restoration, "only" page 5 (equals 25 posts) is missing.
Restoring the most valuable threads would be a lot of work for many volunteers (if needed I would be one of them) but quite rewarding too.

[Puff]

As Markus says it could be a lot of work if the likes of Web Archive or whatever that transmogrified into can't be accessed. But. Keywords and Google ie keyword+anzlf could get a heap of it back? Could we all take on a couple or dozen keywords and work on it?

[Ron Wisdom]

Thanks from Arkansas, Bob. It seemed like an eternity and when I did get on awhile ago, I thought I was in the twilight zone or something. Every post was from 2009. Anyway, I clawed my way out and it is great to have it all up and running again.

Ron

[Kim]

Now all us cranky old buggers (yes I mean you and me Kim) can get back to our natural home and stop harrassing other forums.

What ever do you mean Jeff???

[Luke]

Good to find it all up and working again thanks Bob from me too.

[ZOOTMAN]

Bob it's good to see the forum up and running.

[Alfred J]

G'day Folks

The recent Server problems were caused by someone from Eastern Europe hacking into the system and deleting all of the information on the hard drives.

Bob, you have a lot of friends - people you have never met, like me - who are very grateful to you for the time and effort you put into this forum. Odds are, the prick who hacked the place wouldn't have a friend anywhere. All the best to you, and thanks again.
Cheers,

[Puff]

Lillian is there any chance of your posting a link to the cat image - reckon it would make a superb watermark for "your account is overdue..." reminders

[Allen]

I see this is your first post with us Markus, Welcome to the forum. And it's great to see a newbie jumping in and helping make this place tick.

Cheers mate.

[Kim]

Indeed Markus, glad your registration went a little smoother this time Welcome to the ANZLF

Cheers

Kim

[charangohabsburg]

Hi Allen and Kim,

Thank you for welcoming me! Yes, my pre-crash registration was a bit bumpy, but this is a little secret between me and Kim.

I got aware that half of my posting here above is slightly off-topic, better said there already existed a better suited thread I had overseen (talking of recovering lost messages). I am continuing there.

[Lillian]

Lillian is there any chance of your posting a link to the cat image - reckon it would make a superb watermark for "your account is overdue..." reminders

The best I can do is email it to you. PM me your addy and I'll send it off to you.

[graham mcdonald]

Thanks, Bob. Your efforts are appreciated. I suspect there are quite a few of us willing kick in a few bucks to offset any costs. Just say the word

cheers

graham

[Arnt]

Hi folks, I haven't been around much lately, but I heard about the hacker episode. I'm certainly glad to see everything up and running again, keep up the good work.

[sebastiaan56]

Wot everyone else said and particularly wot Graham said, say the word Bob. Do we know who needs kneecapping? Im sure someone has friends over there....