Are we fed up yet?

Cpanel is pretty easy to use.. but if you have a choice on the control panel offered, I'd go with DirectAdmin. Cpanel has a lot of resource and server load/crash issues. Although it might be reasonable for one or two sites.

My provider has their racks equipped with DA and it's the easiest and most reliable server backend I've ever used.

http://www.directadmin.com/ has info about this particular control panel.
 
CPanel is free, DAdmin isn't. As well, there would be problems installing it, and I'm pretty sure the piggy bank wouldn't have enough money to pay for that and a server and the other license charges. Hell, if I had the money, it would be plesk 7, but that would be overkill.

CPanel is pretty good now, and considering that I am stuck on ensim at the moment, anything would be a lot better.
 
Yeah. ensim is awful. CPanel must be free from the folks that you're looking to get it from.. because it does cost. It's probably bundled into the price of the server. Webserver hosting folks can get site licenses really cheap so it only amounts to $2-10 extra a month, which is much cheaper than having to buy it yourself and pay the fees seperately.

Plesk 7 is schweet indeed. But yeah, that'd be overkill for shivasite. :)
 
As a dabbler in the world of VP, maybe it is not my place to tell you what to do.
But as an opinionated fool, I will still offer my two cents.

At VPForums most of the time, you will see 80-100 people on line. Most of these are just downloading tables, they have no interest in creating tables nor taking part in forum discussions. You need to offer more to those who donate, both money and tables, than just an unused forum section.
Solution. Open the forums to all comers, as has been suggested many times before.
Get people to donate real amounts of money, if I remember some are donating just 50c, of which paypal takes 45c. minimum donation $10.
Get people to donate at least once a year.
Keep the five downloads per day restrictions for non-donating users, and if possible, slowdown the down loads, that is, offer faster down loads if you donate.

I do see several good reasons for separate sites.
That Shiva looks after original designs and development
VPForums looks after the digital era
IRP looks after electro-mechanical
Pinball Nirvana looks after things related to pinball
And why are separate sites good? You guys are a creative bunch, you can get worked up over some issues (e.g. Shockman), with more than on site, if you have a problem with someone’s personality, you can ignore one site but you aren’t lost to the community.
 
I have written a statement on what's happening, my plans for the site, and yes, the odd opinion or too. It not only asks for more donations, but it also details what those donations will be used on, as well as a description on the process, and what shivaSite will get for it's cost, and what features we can offer and use. Should be up on the main page real soon.
I think this is the best way, everyone will know exactly where their money will go to, and what they will get. If people have comments like directly above, you are more than welcome to post at the forums. We can shape and adjust the site accordingly.
 
2 more days where VPF won't respond period for me (blech).
 
Same here Dude, the server must really be messed up. The worst part of it is that AJ and several well-meaning staff people at VPF pronounced that the server problem was due to faulty memory, and that the problem had been fixed.

I have no doubt that the the staff is doing the best they can under difficult circumstances, the root of the problem seems to be AJ. I feel that if AJ can pop in to Explain Away the problems, he should have the time to solve the problem, or at least get help from others who might be able to help solve the problems.

While I don't know most of the various details, I do know that AJ has burned many bridges with many members of the VP community. And until he is willing to be more cooperative, I don't see a solution to what ails VPF. The sad part is that because of the lousy server situation, we not only lose VPF, but shivaSite is also victimized.

As you may have noticed, and may have read elsewhere in these forums, I have added a temporary Pay Pal Link to collect donations for shivaSite. This way, with abotu another $150.00, shiva will be able to set shivaSite up on a seperate server, and have enough growing room to improve shivaSite. Once done, SS, Pinball Nirvana, and VPO will be able to discuss ways to work together to make the VP community strong and healthy again.

tiltjlp
 
Now it's giving an internal server error instead. Something is definitely messed up there. AJ has seemed to be too busy for a LONG time now to maintan the forums, but apparently doesn't give enough access to the staff there to fix things themselves. They can't even add new entries to the Table site themselves. You have to wait for AJ and when he disappears, he disappears for long periods sometimes. Personally, I think he should either hand the forums over to someone else or at least give the staff full power to take care of such things. The problem with using other forums is getting people to actually MOVE. Even with VPFF, we only ever got around 2000 people registered, although we probably had more actual pinball content for a good year than VPF did until VPF lightened up and undid some of the damage they did earlier that caused VPFF to be formed. But it's a problem just telling people to go elsewhere as they don't seem to actually ever move.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure Shivasite is a good place for the main forums as it doesn't sound like it's about pinball at all. It sounds like it's about gaelic studies or something. I'm sure people have wanted to be polite and NOT point that out in the past, but if people are considering moving the main forums there well.... ShivaSite, ShivaForums, ShivaEngine... what does that have to do with Visual Pinball? Hey, why not PacSite, PacForums, PacWorld, Pac-Mania.... errrr then it sounds like it's about Pac-Man, not Visual Pinball. Personally, I think Visual Pinball forums should be called as such or similar or at the very least have PINBALL in the name (at least Pinball Nirvana has that).

I've never been too keen on self-edification in the VP world. People that incorporate themselves or create some "studio" name or something on their table releases and stick it on the apron or backdrop or whatever and then release tables that don't even look that good just look silly, IMO. Ah, another table by Dudley-Do-Diddley Studios, Inc. that looks like it was made by a 4th grader. Say, what's wrong with just being a good author or site administrator and getting a popular reputation that way? Maybe I'm crazy to think like that.... But if Visual Pinball Forums were suddenly just called "AJ's" well I'd think I'd arrived at a diner or nightclub or something, not a pinball discussion board. If I'm going to start donating money (instead of just tables) to preserve the VP community, I'd want it to at least sound like it's about visual pinball. Maybe then it'd have a chance to garner some traffic outside a small fraction of the existing community. Just my 2 bucks on the matter.
 
Interesting points there, Dude. Personally, I wounldn't mind seeing a Dude World site, especaiily if you gave away coupons for Vernors Ginger Ale. And as for contributing, with all the great tables you've make, no one should ever have an issue with you. Donations are a personal decision, but if more non-author/testers/graphics, or other non-contributing members would make a small donation, every VP site could afford the latest and best equipment and software.

tiltjlp
 
I will state that once the new server is in place, there will be a shift in focus, because then, we will be able to actually do what we wanted to. I have listened to what people wanted, and with the server, I will finally have the ability to do certain things, and set up systems. I've already detailed them on my front page, so there should be no confustion.
Oh, there will more than likely have to be a change in the URL as well, which is a shame.
 
shiva, feel free to do a sticky post of your front page information here, since we're the temporary shivaSite donation site. And thinkig about the Dude's comments about a more identifable name, Maybe using shiva's Pinball Deluxe or somthing similar would let folks know it's a pinball site.

I'm tempted to post a poll at VPF, asking for guesses on how long it'll be before the server goes down again, but I'm sure they would not allow it to last very long, so I'll behave. At least until it goes down again.

tiltjlp
 
Actually, I did have a web site for awhile (until the server supporting it in Brasil shut it down for some reason; the guy that set it up for me pretty much disappeared). I called it PacDude's Visual Pinball Warehouse (or something like that) and it pretty much just had all my latest table releases there that I could update myself including the latest screenshots in a nice alphabetical table. I could include extra variations like Backbox and Non-Backbox versions, etc. and post any support files or tutorials there as well.
 
Yeah, now I remember it, not a bad site at all. Now if you were to morph all your tables into flipperless VPMs :p, I'd be more than glad to host them all. I'd bet a flipperless VPM would be cool, are you up to the challenge? :lol:

tiltjlp
 
That might be interesting, especially if you lock the table so they couldn't be made visible. At least that would put me on ever footing with all you flipper wizards.

tiltjlp
 
A change in the shivasite url? You don't own the domain name yourself?

edit: checked.. looks like AJ owns it :(
 
Yeap.

Maybe people are beginning to understand the situation now over the last couple years. We asked for it, but who knows, I haven't talked to him in over 2 years now.
 
Well, .net and .org are available.. but hopefully he'll give it to you as it should be.
 
Apoc asked for me, as AJ and I haven't well talked in two years. Maybe AJ will answer him better than me. Besides, I would have a few more questions for him anyway. :)
 
questions.. jab in the eye.. ;)
 
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