Directx4vb
messixHey guys, Been away for a little while and just went off to look at the vb gaming community websites and noticed that Directx4vb isn't loading. Is this just a temp thing or has Jack removed his site?? Thanks for any info.
Eric ColemanUpdate: Oct 23, 2004, use http://directx4vb.vbgamer.com/ as an alternative to get to the website instead of the IP address. the current address is http://216.5.163.53/DirectX4Vb/index.asp You can tell by the "Permission denied" at the bottom of the page that something isn't working properly. About a month ago I noticed that the domain www.directx4vb.com wasn't working anymore. It sucks that no one cares enough to fix the problem.
messixThanks for the info Eric!
JHoxleyHello, Long time no see to people... For those who aren't aware, I run (ran?) www.DirectX4VB.com - seeing's as it's lost it's URL I thought it best to explain what's going on... The permission denied error that Eric noted is just the counter script that was part of the index.asp page, not a major problem... webadmin changed the persmissions on some of the files, and I didn't get around to changing it and/or requesting that the permissions be changed. The loss of the domain name was an unfortunate issue with the redirection company I was with (the files are actually hosted on one of the PSC servers). They claimed that the billing details were out of date / incorrect (whatever!) and locked my account until I update them. Before I could get around to doing that I got a letter from nominet saying I had to pay £80 to continue the registration of the domain (the company that locked my account paid registrations before, and I just paid monthly "rent"). Quite simply I don't have £80 to pay up such a bill... Also, recently I've started a new job and moved house - both of which had to take higher precedence than the internet [;)]. Also, due to my current career path, I've been using Java/C++ for the last 2 and a bit years, with little time to do much more than simple GUI-based tools in VB6 (don't like VB7). Bottom line is, I don't think I'll be updating the website in the near future (lack of VB6-based coding, and lack of time to write up articles) and the charges from respective companies is kinda like the nail-in-the-coffin. I've been hoping for sometime now that the site would act as a resource / legacy thing. Judging from the 100's of emails I got it seems that there is more than enough interest in VB6/DX8 programming to justify it staying alive. Hopefully people will still be able to find the site via existing links and/or google (the files still appear in the top-10 on google). If anyone fancies emailing me, use the one associated with this account, for obvious reasons the alias @DirectX4VB.com address is no longer working. Best regards Jack
VBBRI was wondering... since the website won't be updated anytime soon, there is the problem about the domain name, and VBGamer is one of the biggest VB Gaming Sites out there, why not put the content of DX4VB here, in a special section or something? Just a thought.
Eric ColemanIt's like a Zombie movie around here. All these people that were either presumed dead or abducted by aliens are showing up. We should have a party or something. Where did I put that disco ball... Do you have a backup of all the files and tutorials on the website? I'd hate to see something like that just disappear. Ian Ippolito (or however you spell it) only has advertisements on your website, and given all the files that people download from it, I'm sure it takes up quite a bit of bandwidth. My point is that web advertisements don't make as much money these days as they used to, so if that website ever becomes a burden or expense, then what assurances do we have that it won't be shut down with no notice? If you have a CD burner, then would you consider burning a couple of CD copies and distributing them to other people in the event that something should go wrong?
Eric ColemanAlso, I forgot to mention, you still own the domain name directx4vb.com, you can easily change the DNS provider. It's farily simple to add a website to a host table, the only thing is that you need someone to be the name server for you. You could ask Ian since he's already hosting the website, or I could contact my system adimistrator and see if there is something we could do. The only issue that that you'll have to change the name server, which are currently ns17.schlund.de and ns18.schlund.de according to the WHOIS database from www.networksolutions.com. Since you are the registrant contact, you should be able to change the technical contacts without any problem.
JHoxley>> It's like a Zombie movie around here. All these people that were either presumed dead or abducted by aliens are showing up. The aliens brought me back again. Obviously got bored of my wonderful personality [8D] >>Do you have a backup of all the files and tutorials on the website? Got plenty of backups. Zipped up I think the site is only 30-something-mb, so I could send it to people via MSN. I have a nice fast 100mbit line courtesy of work. >> what assurances do we have that it won't be shut down with no notice? Unfortunately none! I did have lots of requests to package everything as PDF's in one huge zip file... I suppose I could work on that and let people distribute it. A bit like I did for the more recent D3D9 article. The last time I had statistics available to me, the site was generating 8.1gb of bandwidth per month, but that's likely to be halved now as it's not quite as popular [;)] >>you can easily change the DNS provider. I'll take your word for it, I'm not the best person around when it comes to web servers/DNS servers and all that sort of stuff. Ian did offer to host the DNS a long time ago, so I could check into it. However, because nominet are chasing me about the registration (think its a 3-yearly cycle), surely if I don't pay them they'll free the domain up for someone/anyone to buy. Hence no ownership by me = no way to re-route/re-serve it...? Jack
Eric ColemanGo to http://www.godaddy.com/ and see how much it will cost to transfer your registration to them. The prices are in U.S. Dollars, but I'm pretty sure $7.95 USD is a lot less than £80. After you transfer your domain, you can then log in to their site and change the DNS server to whatever you want.
PeterYeah, I use godaddy, it costs me $20 a year, thats not shabby at all =) I resent the zombie term, I'm only half-zombified ;)
VBBRLet me see... judging from the fact that I'm kinda new here (compared to you), does that mean I'm the one that will suffer the entire film and then I will kill you all in the end? [:p] (I think I'm starting to talk like Spodi...) (edit: Woohoo! It looks like I'm the first person to ever get to 400 posts!)
sdwConsidering that you're fairly new here, is 400 posts anything to be proud of? lol...
Eric ColemanThat just means you have a big mouth. [:D][:0][:p]
sdwIt means he enjoys typing. What does the size of his mouth got to do with sending 400+ posts :P
VBBRWell actually it means I have nothing else to do... [:p]
sdwI don't think the VB Adventure Maker is finished yet, is it?
VBBRlol, no it isn't, but I'm working on it... I'm having some problems with the scripting engine right now... (this thing is starting to go completely off-topic)
sdwThe question about DirectX4vb has already been answered, so who cares... Does anyone else visit here often just to waste time or avoid doing other more important things?