For those of you who never look at the parent site of Lusenet, here is some information.

Greenspun.com hosts Lusenet which in turn hosts CS and BTS. Mr. Greenspun has posted these comments on the home page:

"I'm currently trying to figure out how to redesign these services so that

1.users are authenticated, e.g., before posting they have to register and respond to an email message (we won't know who they are but at least we'll know that they supplied an email address where they can receive mail)

2.a person is available to handle service inquiries

3.a programmer is available to provide enhancements based on user needs

4.the site is financially self-sustaining, i.e., either the owners of bboards or the most active posters are contributing to the costs of sysadmin, programming, hosting/bandwidth, and customer service

When these services were built in the mid-1990s it made a lot of sense. Running a database-backed Web server was an esoteric art that required expensive hardware and proprietary software. But as we enter the year 2002 there are quite a few 14-year-olds who've set up Linux, Postgres, and OpenACS in less than one day. With a $500 PC and a DSL line, they end up having all the collaboration tools that dotcoms spent $10 million to construct.

Bottom line: prepare for some changes to these services! "

Philip Greenspun, December 6, 2001

This must be where the info is coming from that things will be changing on the forums.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2002

Answers

And they are all "crying wolf" over this? I don't see this as a "bad" thing at all, sounds like a much needed improvement to me, I like the way the BBs are set up through Lusenet, much better system for answering and posting a question than the others, and I wouldn't mind paying a nominal fee to participate for an improved system.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Annie, I agree.......I have some fairly negative opinions about where Chuck is going with CS, but then I am still steaming that the Balangers would rather delete the archives than have the Countryside name on them. Did anyone besides me order a CD of the archives?? Did you get it yet??

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Diane, I haven't ordered the CD yet, not sure it would be needed, yet, but I sure have those same feelings of "vague unease" about the way CS is headed as well. If Master Chuck decides to leave the Lusenet system, I won't follow it elsewhere, I just don't care for the way those other boards work, there are plenty of other Lusenet forums for me right here.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Also agreed on all counts. I like the LUSENET forums for their ease of use and lack of pop ups and banners.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

I'm afraid that I won't be going with Countryside when/if it leaves Lusenet either; not too much of value to me over there anymore. I'm sad that the Belanger's will not be associated with it anymore, as well. Diane, I believe that Chuck said that there is no way to separate the archives from the forum; and that you can't change the name of the forum and keep everything intact. I, myself, can't blame the Belanger's for not wanting their magazine associated with the forum any longer; considering the way things have been going, it's really a negative reflection on the mag. I just hope poor Steve isn't in the dog house for starting it up to begin with! Actually, if I'm upset with the Belanger's about anything, I'm a bit miffed that they have given Chuck the right to take my words wherever he wants and do whatever he wants with them. I understand that I have posted on the internet and thus my words are not copyrighted, but I didn't write those words for someone to make a buck on; I wrote them to share with my Countryside family. Grump whine snivel - I know!

As far as back up CD's for Countryside; here's another option: (from my e-mail)

Great Polly - I'll get the CD to you as quickly as possible. Our snail-mail address is: Phillip McCoy PO Box 433 Osawatomie, KS 66064 It may take me a bit if you don't mind the wait - we're busier than a one-legged man in a rearend kicking contest around here right now. I plan to do regular backups of several forums (probably once a month) and keep them handy for folks who need information or want copies of the CDs. Any funds I receive from that will go toward buying more blank CDs and keeping the forum and website running smooth. Speaking of the website, if you have a story or some pictures (we'll even scan them for you) or "whatever" you would like to share, send it to me via email and I'll get it on the site. At the very least, come buy and visit from time to time and enjoy the company :8). Look forward to hearing from you when you get the time! Thanks! Phil in KS

Umm - which brings me to another question - do we have anyone here who can back up this forum?

Hugs,

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Polly, I can back up this forum because it is still so small (the archives). I could back up CS also but with my dialup it would take absolutely ALL hours for days. I have already e-mailed Phyl.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Question from an computer dummy:

I was able to backup CS on my hard drive using information on a post by Karen (See "How to Backup the Forum on Your Own, February 12, 2002), and have kept it on my hard drive and CD. But when LUCENET was down a couple of days ago, I noticed I wasn't able to even read these disks, even with my CD backup.

Do I take it that in order for the backups to work, LUCENET must still be working in their original form? Anyone knowledgeable feel free to explain.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

j.r. are you sure that your back up CD's worked before lucenet went down?? There is no reason why the CD's wouldn't work if they were in fact complete. Do you have cable connection?? When I tryed to back up the whole forum as Karen described, I found that very little got done in a very LONG time.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

One other thought...did your little connect to the internet thing come up when you tryed to read?? Mine does that and I have to push "work offline" before the page loads.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Another question j.r. What operating system are you using?? I run windows 98SE. It has a task scheduler and silly me, didn't pay to much attention to it. Scan Disk is one of the tasks and it will scan you hard drive (or any other disk for that matter) for "wasted" space. Off site web pages is one of the items. Mine was checked and the scheduler ran it. Quess what happened to all my hard work??? Deleted so all I had was the links. Just a thought.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2002

Thanks for the response diane . . . I'll try to give you more info.

I backupped according to the instructions, and have kept them for a day that LUCENET went down. I figured that having this backup would allow me to view CS (as of the time I had backupped).

Well, you may remember GREENSPUN going down for a day or so earlier this week. So I installed the backup CD having the backup, copied it to my favorites, and tried to view it. All I got was a "unable to read page" - type message. Grrrrr.

So what did I do wrong? My service is MSN, and a no answer to your second question, asking if I changed to work offline. Was that my mistake?

Second question. The computer I use internet is at work. I have a personal computer at home, but am not hooked up. Would NOT HAVING a cable connection at the home computer completely make it impossible to read the CD? Tried it already, got same message as above. Would changing setting to work offline do the same thing?

Hold your answers; let me mess with this awhile and see if I can do this. Thanks for the clues on getting started.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2002