Your DP Blogs will be lost

[sisko]

Sorry folks, I've done all I could, but I am unable to bring the blogs over to VBulletin.

I hope to bring a blogging system back into VB as soon as possible, but your phpBB blogs will disappear. Please take the time to back up your blog if you choose.

[cyberfluxor]

That's going to make a few people very busy for awhile to back all that up. It's all for the better though. :)

[Rogmeister]

I kind of figured this might happen...I've rarely gone back into older ones anyway. Still, I might copy my blogs and print them out (minus the few photos) to refer to for my own enjoyment. Do we know how long before the current blogs cease to exist?

[sisko]

Do we know how long before the current blogs cease to exist?

Once the conversion is completed, we will probably lock all of the topics down, so no one can post here, but leave phpBB 'up' for a little while longer so people can back their blogs up.

I do plan on shutting the board down again tonight to reattempt the conversion.

[Pantechnicon]

Thanks for the heads-up, Sisko.

/Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V, all night long... @_@

[Ed Oscuro]

Fuck, I don't have time to do this tonight. Anyway, when are they going down?

...guess this is the incentive I needed to move my blogs over to my own site O_O

LOL

[Ed Oscuro]

p.s. thanks for all the effort, though, seriously. Don't mean to sound ungrateful. I've gotten a lotta bang out of these forums especially considering they're free

Also, if there are new Blogs, will trackbacks be removed? That's all that's needed to keep spammers out (as the blogs already had a ban function).

[sisko]

Also, if there are new Blogs, will trackbacks be removed? That's all that's needed to keep spammers out (as the blogs already had a ban function).

Being that I don't have a DP blog myself, I never realized that there was an issue, let alone this was the cause.

I honestly don't know outright as I have barely had a chance to research the various blog mods for VB. I'll keep it in mind though...

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

So in other words, our blogs will be trapped on an island with no means of escape, with a mysterious hatch leading to a buried underground installation, strange and unearthly threats, a bunch of folks on the other side of the island who are up to no good, and killer ratings? :(

[sisko]

So in other words, our blogs will be trapped on an island with no means of escape, with a mysterious hatch leading to a buried underground installation, strange and unearthly threats, a bunch of folks on the other side of the island who are up to no good, and killer ratings? :(

Damned polar bears :angry:

[mezrabad]

Stay thy hand!!!

How long do I have to back mine up?

[Rogmeister]

I saw the other night where the blogs would be lost...then I began copying and printing a copy out for myself of my own blog. Then the site went down...after I'd managed to do a dozen pages. I see the site's up again and I'm hoping it'll stay available until I finish. I'm now up to 15 pages but I've still got about a year's entries to go. I think I'll run over to the local service station and get a couple of Pepsi's as this could take awhile...

[RetroYoungen]

Thanks for trying to keep them, and hopefully they'll come back in the (somewhat) near future. I really have enjoyed typing into my DP blog, I actually had people reading it (and people that I knew would input in theirs, so I could read those too).

[Ed Oscuro]

Also, if there are new Blogs, will trackbacks be removed? That's all that's needed to keep spammers out (as the blogs already had a ban function).

Being that I don't have a DP blog myself, I never realized that there was an issue, let alone this was the cause.

I honestly don't know outright as I have barely had a chance to research the various blog mods for VB. I'll keep it in mind though...
Yeah, that's basically it. Spammers would just hit the trackback and that'd leave comments the same way that regular posters could, except if you also had comments from regular users you couldn't delete all the spam. Basically it lets unregistered users post (in this case, spambots).

[mezrabad]

Out of about 145 entries I had gotten to 29 before suddenly they were no longer accessible. Suddenly it was dark and cold, and I was alone and scared.

Sisko, I really appreciate all the work you're doing to upgrade the site. I understand it takes a lot of time and because it is behind the scenes work it can go largely unappreciated. Please understand you have my appreciation. Thank you. If upgrading DP means losing the blogs as they exist here, so be it, but PLEASE give us all time to back them up.

FYI, some of my recent entries have taken me three to four hours to do when one counts all the time taken to find, pay for, prep, record, photograph, play, review and blog each obscure game. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has put careful thought, or what passes for thought, into their blog.

Please appreciate that some of the blogs are non-trivial efforts and to have them taken off-line forever without the chance to back them up beforehand will understandably make a lot of us unhappy in a very complex and long-term way.

[Ed Oscuro]

Also, this has been the first time I've been able to get on DP since my last post in the thread. Ow.

[Lady Jaye]

Wow, just finished transferring my DP blogs to my Livejournal account.

To me, it was weird to quickly skim through old posts from the past 14 months -- how much my life has changed, they might as well be dated back 5 years ago or what not. Then again, different job, different guy (well, kinda), different home... might as well say different life compared to July 2005, when the DP blogs started.

BTW, if you're transferring your blog to Livejournal, be careful of entering the right date/year... or else put an Aug. 2005 post into Aug. 2006 (or something like that)... ;)

[dreams]

Once the conversion is completed, we will probably lock all of the topics down, so no one can post here, but leave phpBB 'up' for a little while longer so people can back their blogs up.

The blogs will most likely be available for some undefined (at this point) amount of time after the conversion, although it probably isn't a bad idea to back them up prior to conversion if possible.

[le geek]

"Green Elf, all your powers will be lost!"

[Kitsune Sniper]

Jeez, guys, don't get all worried. They already said the blogs would remain up for a little bit after the forum transfer. :P

Saving all that stuff right now may make the forum slow again.

[mezrabad]

Jeez, guys, don't get all worried. They already said the blogs would remain up for a little bit after the forum transfer. :P

Saving all that stuff right now may make the forum slow again.

I see that now, but when I read it Tuesday night at 11:30 I read it in a bit of a rush while backing up the blog and thought I understood it to mean: DP Blogs will be lost after the conversion which will happen later tonight. So, actually "all worried" is a really good description of what I was. :)

Anyway, mine's backed up. I'm a happy camper again. Again, Sisko, thanks for your hard work.

[segarocks30]

Hey, don't worry about it Sisko, you tried.

[Steven]

Yeah thanks I appreciate the hard work you guys are doing. Luckily for me I only have 3 blogs to C&P :P

(sorry if I missed this, but when is the move set to officially take place? This weekend? Mid week of next week?)

[christhegamer]

meh, no one really cared about that crap anyways. good work :)

[MegaDrive20XX]

oh well, it was a nice run....

[Lady Jaye]

meh, no one really cared about that crap anyways. good work :)

Again with the constructive comments... :roll:

You know, feel free to go back to gamefaqs where kiddies like you are welcome. And don't let the door hit you along the way.

[DigitalSpace]

Thanks for giving us the heads up! Even though I had pretty much abandoned my blog after three entries, I went back and decided to save a few things.

[ubikuberalles]

If you read the DP blogs and want to know where the DP bloggers are going to continue blogging, I created this thread (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=92196) listing the alternate blog locations.

[Rogmeister]

I've been copying my DP blog to a word processor program and printing them out. I just did my entries through the end of last year and it comes (so far) to 42 printed pages. I still have all of this year to do but I'll take a break and try to do that tomorrow. Interestingly, my last entry of last year said I'd try to go to a new low in game-buying this year and I succeeded beyond my imagination. I originally planned to limit my game purchases in 2006 to 20 games...and so far I've bought 2.

[Flack]

You can change the amount of blog entries displayed per page in your blog settings. If you need a quick way to back them up (just the text, no html code) you can set that number as high as possible, then view your page and just hit ctrl-a (to select all text) and then open notepad and paste them. I understand this won't get all your html picture links and stuff, but as a quick and dirty method to capture all your text it's really quick and works well.

[Flack]

meh, no one really cared about that crap anyways. good work :)
Listen, we need positive thoughts right now, not your shit. You have officially joined Kamino in the "guess your new password" club.

[MegaDrive20XX]

Thank you for the help Flack, but for some reason, my crtl+ A keeps trying to save the pics too..is there a way to get around that?

[MegaDrive20XX]

n/m I figured it out :) Thanks Flack! Sorry to see this go...was pretty nice to have

[Pantechnicon]

I backed up the whole of the Apocrypha - pics and all - to Word and wound up with a 275-page doc file @_@ . I suppose if I cut out the spambots that invaded the comment fields I'll whittle that down somewhat.

I feel much better about all this now that the backup is complete. So I'll keep blogging here and mirroring to MySpace until Sisko pulls the plug for good.

[Rogmeister]

I just posted my final entry and I have printed out my blog entries...I didn't keep every single one (I didn't print out those with photos) and I didn't keep the comments...that would've taken forever the way I was doing it. I also left out entries I just figured no one (including me) would ever care to read again. I still came out with 65 printed pages.

First entry: July 18, 2005 at 5:44 pm
Final entry: September 9, 2006 at 11:09 am
Total number of entries: 198
Total number of comments: 355

Somehow, the boards won't be the same without the blogs...and meseta...are we losing anything else? Are we (shudder) just going to be a message board again? @_@

[ubikuberalles]

Wow, I am surprised at all the different ways people are saving their blogs. Kinda of cool to see those different methods.

I saved my blog in yet a different way. Back in April I archived all my blog entries by simply viewing the entry and then using the "Save Page As..." command in my Mozilla browser. Using that command allowed me to save the original look and feel of the blog posts. This also allowed me to save any comments that were posted on each entry. I consider those comments just as valueable as the original blog entries.

Yesterday I saved all the entries I made since April. When that was done I decided to save the entries a second way: I edited each entry and copied and saved the BBCode. This will make it much easier in the future if and when I repost it in the new blog when DP moves to VBulletin (assuming, of course VBulletin uses BBCode).

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention two additional ways to save blog entries. It's all good as long as it works for you.

[mezrabad]

I had the entirety of my blogs tattooed onto the backs of my two youngest children in micro-fineprint.

I'm beginning to think that Altairboy's methods will be more useful for future use so I'm going to copy the code into text files.

Before the tatooing, I had done the "save page as" method as a way of capturing the photos, too. Almost 20 megs worth of entries.

[MegaDrive20XX]

Somehow, the boards won't be the same without the blogs...and meseta...are we losing anything else? Are we (shudder) just going to be a message board again? @_@

Wait, did you just say no meseta?! I saved up all this for nothing? :( I was so close to getting a user name change too!

[meancode]

I host over 30 blogs. I could host yours if you are interested.

Because Njiska said I should, I would like to point out that I host a number of blogs and commercial sites. My "personal" package goes like this:

$7.50 a month. Either PayPal reoccurring monthly payment (no commitment) or pay by check my 6 or 12 month commitment.

150 MB space (negotiable)
I do not meter bandwidth, just keep an eye on it.
POP3 and web based email
PHP
FrontPage Extensions
cPanel Pro with large library of pre-installed scripts/apps, including GUI for: subdomains, MySQL, FTP, Backup Agent, Password Protected Directories, Error Pages, Redirects, Web Stats, CRON.
My DNS (meancode.com) hosted on tier 1 NOC (Level3 I believe)

Free tech support by me (yes I can install Movable Type for you)

You purchase your own domain. That way I do not have to transfer it to you down the road if you want to move. I recommend GoDaddy. I have all my domains, and my DNS server registered through them.

I just recently added a couple more clients, so I went from 30 to 50 GB of bandwidth, so I can add many more sites. The more clients I add, the more sites I can host.

I have been hosting sites since 2002 and host around 40 now. The servers I am on are up about 95% of the time in my experience with them, and they get back to me very quickly if there is a problem.

I'll give you a "DP special" of two months free if you pay for a year.

Let me know if you are interested, and please don't flame me. I just wanted to make the offer if anyone wants a blog host.

[Captain Wrong]

Or people could just go to blogspot like I did ages ago if you just need a blog on the quick and dirty.

[Daniel Thomas]

Well, I'm glad that I found out about this, belatedly at least, before the blogs were shut down forever. Fortunately, I had some sort of preminition, so I set up a blog page at 1UP. It took my a day or so to convert everything over, but it was successful.

My thanks to everyone for doing their part to inform everyone of the changes. I hope that the new forum software will include blogs, so that I could return again. I'm sure you're doing your best, and I'm looking forward to the new software and no more crashing.