hermanzone website will be terminated

[Herman]

:shock: I just opened my email this morning and in came the usual monthy blurb from my ISP, including this news about about BigPond removing Personal Homepage, Personal Website and Webstart services from the market on 30th September 2009. More information (http://bigpond.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bigpond.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=13457).

I haven't decided what to do yet. :(

I might switch to a different ISP and upload all the same content again but of course it will have a different URL and people will need to update their bookmarks and links.

I could give up and add some of the content to the Ubuntu wiki instead.
Probably I should have been helping with the community docs all along in the first place. I like the Ubuntu community docs but they're cumbersome and time consuming to edit compared with a personal website where I'm free to put whatever I like. With the community docs other people can edit it if I make a mistake. Anyone is welcome to add info from my site to Ubuntu community docs or even their own website if they want, there is no copyright on any of my info, it's about free software.
I would be a little reluctant to use as many images in the community docs because the usual practice to conserve space on the server. I think we are allowed to use images in the community docs though.

Maybe my website isn't needed so much anymore anyway, it was originally created to help people through installing with the 'Alternate' CDs when those were the only way to install Ubuntu and most people didn't know how to install with them.

Regards, Herman

[Polygon]

just get a different isp. there are loads to choose from.

[MaxIBoy]

Not only are there plenty of ISPs, there are plenty of alternate ways to host your website.

One suggestion is set up a home server with DYN-DNS, and if you don't feel like hosting some really big downloads, you can seed torrents for them instead.

[Kareeser]

Indeed... if your ISP was shutting down, and you had a domain name with them, get it ported over to a more reputable domain name service.

[Vostrocity]

Fgs stop using those silly ISP web hosting services. Get something big like GoDaddy. You didn't have much of a domain name in the first place so you could easily grab everything and throw it back onto another server.

[egalvan]

Maybe my website isn't needed so much anymore anyway,
it was originally created to help people through installing with the 'Alternate' CDs when those were the only way to install Ubuntu
and most people didn't know how to install with them.


Please, Please, , Please

Do not terminate your website.

It is MUCH more than a simple dual-boot site.

I mention your website as an important one to go to for
GRUB information.

Along with Aysiu's site (psychocat), yours is useful for more than dual-booting.

Please keep it alive.

Thank you.




Up on my soap-box...


CAUTION, RANT MODE ON.
IF TALK ABOUT DONATIONS ($$$) IS OFFENSIVE TO YOU
STOP READING

I've never found a Donate button on your site,
but would gladly make a bi-yearly donation, as I do for other important sites.
I personally believe that monetary donations are important to the long-term survival of Linux, indeed all OSS/FOSS software.

I've NEVER liked the "Gee, it's free, I don't have to spend a dime" approach so prevalent these days.

The individual amounts can be very small ( I donate from $1 to $5, depending on how much benefit I get from the site or program ),
but if a large percentage of users did this, the authors would benefit enormously.

Some web sites get 5,000 or more unique users a month.
That's 60,000 a year,
Imagine if 50% gave $1.
The website owner would have a tidy sum to work with.

I remember one popular software web site that averaged 250,000 downloads a month...
The owner finally shut down because he could not afford to pay the fees.
Even though he had a piece of software that was enormously popular,
too many folks were too greedy (or too lazy) to toss even a single dollar his way.
So his work is now gone.

Ext2 Installable File System For Windows
http://www.fs-driver.org/
is a very useful (and much-needed) driver allowing Microsoft XP to read/write ext2/ext3 files.
Yet it has not been updated with Large Inode Support.
So it is no longer as useful as it once once, but it is still needed.
Is the lack of money keeping the authors from updating this driver?
Yet how many of us, who have used this driver, have taken the time and effort to donate a dollar to the authors?

If these forums had a Donate button, I would gladly give $5 every six months.
It's worth $10 a year for the help I have gotten, and will keep on getting.

Come on, folks... if you find a website to be helpful, if you find a piece of software to be useful...
take the time to search for a Donate button, and send them a dollar.

It ESPECIALLY bothers me when folks MAKE MONEY or RUN THEIR BUSINESS on software, and brag about it not costing them a dime.

Microsoft forces us to pay lots of money ( or commit a crime ) to use their software.

The Free Software movement does not force us to pay dime one.

But unless the masses start returning something, we will lose it.

Tip your Software Authors!

And no, I do not write software.
I stopped writing software (for distribution) some 25 years ago.
And no, it was not a monetary decision.
I didn't sell my software...
I sold support.
So I have no monetary interest in anyone.

I just have an interest in seeing such great software continue to be written, distributed and supported.

Thank You

RANT MODE OFF.

Down off my soap-box.

[albinootje]

Maybe my website isn't needed so much anymore anyway

I found your Grub page useful a few times in the past, let's at least conserve that one somewhere.

[Herman]

:) Thank you all for your kind words and advice.
I am in the process of switching ISPs and I have found iinet, which seems to be Linux friendly and even has it's own ubuntu repositories mirror. The account comes with a 1GB webspace, which is huge compared with I have now. So far my new account isn't fully activated yet and the process will take at least another couple of weeks I'm told.

About donations yes it would be nice if we could give up work and spend all of our time working on our websites or programs and helping people.
The site with BigPond was provided as a hobby website and it would have been against the rules to be making any income from it, I'm failry sure. Only one person has ever contacted me to offer any donation but I turned it down on principle. I think it would be unwise to give up my regular job abd rely on donations, I think I would probably get pretty hungry. (LOL). But if I did think there would be enough income I'd then have enough to pay for a commercial grade site alright.
I think the sofware developers are the ones who do the real work though, and I'd be embarassed if I was making money from someone else's efforts, or suspected of doing so. There are lots of people more deserving then me. Stil, you do make a good point.

Rats, I'm out of time for now, back later . . .

[Vostrocity]

Well you don't have to quit your day job just to get some donations. Just put up a simple PayPal Donate button and you might get a couple bucks a month, which isn't much but it didn't cost you anything in the first place. :)

[aysiu]

If you get only twenty or thirty people making small donations, maybe that'd at least pay for a domain name so, in the event of another future move, people wouldn't have to update links to your site.

I think you should truck on.

Right now my site does fine on just ads. If it became bigger, I might start taking donations. You do what you have to do.

[unknownPoster]

noost.org costs me roughly $25 a year. Which isn't terribly expensive if you ask me. I think you'd incur most of your costs via your hosting options. noost is hosted on with linode, and that's running me $20 a month.

[dmizer]

I could [snip] add some of the content to the Ubuntu wiki ...[snip]
Big +1 for adding to the wiki, though no reason for you to ditch your own content as a result of doing so.


Indeed... if your ISP was shutting down, and you had a domain name with them, get it ported over to a more reputable domain name service.
+1 for switching to a dedicated domain service. Godaddy (http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/jump_pages/chart.asp?charttype=102&ci=14589&app_hdr=0) is less than $10 (US) per year for a domain. I think it's actually less if you do a transfer.

[antoz]

Herman don't give up your very informative and helpfull site, It has helped me a few times as a quick reference with grub problems, editing the "menu list" and a few other problems.
I am not that regular on the ubuntu forums but still boot into Ubuntu most nights to check my weblogs and use the very handy network tools to see where my visitors come from.
Testra and bigpond is not the friendlest ISP nor the cheapest one but unfortunately depending on where you live in OZ the choice is a bit limited but it is getting better all the time.
The Optus network is getting better with coverage particularly their wireless other then that one of the best ISP's would have to be Internode.
Why don't you have a domain name and find a good Hosting company I am hosting sites for a few people through a company in Melbourne and it cost no more the $100.00 per year including Domain Name. I even stumbled on a hosting company in Germany [Servage] they give one terrabyte of bandwith per month and unlimited domains under one account.

Keep up the good work, cheers, Antoz

[sandman55]

I too am a Big Pond customer and I got the same message the only thing I didn't notice was an offer from them to reduce their charges ;) seeing as they were reducing their services, perhaps I'd better read the fine print again.

[Herman]

I too am a Big Pond customer and I got the same message the only thing I didn't notice was an offer from them to reduce their charges :wink: seeing as they were reducing their services, perhaps I'd better read the fine print again.Well I have been a loyal and even patriotic BigPond customer since way back in the 56k dial-up days and it seems to me that the free website was part of the original deal they were offering when I upgraded to the ADSL broadband account. I can't prove it anymore now because the old terms and conditions have long since been deleted and forgotten. Maybe I'm wrong and they might have had a clause there in the fine print that they can cancel it anytime.
Seems like that's what they're planning. They're offering new website that cost anywheres between $143.40 p.a., $215.40 p.a. or $287.40 p.a. and what really worries me is I'll be restricted to using their software for creating and editing it with.
When I add that to the amount I'm already paying Telstra each year it's too much, after groceries they're about my biggest expense, they get more than the electricity company or even the tax man.
I have been pretty happy with them until recently, but they still haven't replaced the rotten underground cable that I've been complaining about for the last two years or more. It leads from my house to the other side of the stock feed shed and up into a plastic jar taped to a trestle which gets knocked over by the forklift. Then when it rains, the plastic jar is upside down and fills with rain and I lose my internet. (Lucky I don't have to climb a phone pole to answer the phone, that'll be next (LOL)).

Cancelling my website is just the last straw. I have 'voted with my feet' and gone to a better ISP, iinet.

Iinet seems to be Linux freindly, iiNet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=15&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FIiNet&ei=ffUpSty9GZvotQO85e3fCg&usg=AFQjCNGxicQwkZA90CPacfZA4oMhAnPJ9A&sig2=jmovYcQXUdOrFojLv4coIw)

iiNet was founded in 1993 by Michael Malone and Michael O'Reilly, who started the business in a suburban garage in Perth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth,_Western_Australia), Western Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australia) as iiNet Technologies Pty Ltd. It began as one of the first Australian ISPs to offer TCP/IP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP) Internet access, as opposed to the store-and-forward techniques (such as MHSnet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHSnet)) that were then in use at other ISPs. It claims it was the first ISP to offer PPP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Protocol) access in Australia, and to be the first to base operations on the then new Linux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux) operating system.Ali, the tech support bloke I spoke to on the phone has tried Ubuntu and, even helped me get the settings for configuring my new /etc/apt/sources.lst, link: iinet sources.list (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherman546/p5.html#Bigpond_sources.list)

I'm converted! :D

I been working hard and I already have my website uploaded to my new iinet account, even though my iinet account isn't even fully open yet, and it seems to be available on the internet now. Here's the new link: Illustrated Dual Boot (http://members.iinet.net/%7Eherman546/index.html), URL: http://members.iinet.net/~herman546/index.html (http://members.iinet.net/%7Eherman546/index.html)
I'm feeling a lot better now, thanks for everyone's kind words of advice and support.
It was quite a shock to me when I first received the bad news but now I'm feeling a lot happier. :D

If my first impressions of iinet are anything to go by, I'll be recommending iinet to everyone who's looking for a good ISP in Australia.

Regards, Herman :)

[DeadSuperHero]

Just rob a bank! It helps me whenever I'm feeling down about web hosting!


I meant in a game of course.

[antoz]

Great to see you are up and running with a new ISP, by the way Sandman is my neighbour.
It appears Telstra wants to become a webhosting company now as well as a telephone and internet provider.

Have a great day, what is the wheather like up there? here it is raining 8mm in one hour, but we are not complaining. Nearly forgot, I like the pictures of the trucks. Cheers, Antoz

[glotz]

Herman!

Your little site helped me years ago when I needed most help, at the hour of my first Ubuntu install. It was of great use.

Thanks and godspeed!

[sandman55]

Great to see you are up and running with a new ISP, by the way Sandman is my neighbour.
It appears Telstra wants to become a webhosting company now as well as a telephone and internet provider.

Have a great day, what is the wheather like up there? here it is raining 8mm in one hour, but we are not complaining. Nearly forgot, I like the pictures of the trucks. Cheers, Antoz
Yes how is that we're next door neighbours and talking on an international forum :D

Back to Telstra I had a salesman from them ring up with a good deal and I signed up to a two year contract on 29/04/08 so if I pull out of the deal it costs me ](*,) maybe there is something in fine print that allows them to do that to me http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2007/066/e/0/Shrug__revision__by_Cameljacks.gif I have a bit on at the moment but later I will be asking them how they can do that before the two years are up.

[lswb]

Your website has been a great resource for me and I'm sure many many others. Sounds like your new ISP will be an improvement over the old one. Another alternative you may want to check out is http://sdf.lonestar.org . They do not supply connectivity themselves but you can get a basic shell and email account there for free and for a one-time donation of $36 (US) you can get access to more tools and enough disk space to host a moderate sized website.

[Herman]

I had a salesman from them ring up with a good deal and I signed up to a two year contract on 29/04/08 so if I pull out of the deal it costs me ](*,) maybe there is something in fine print that allows them to do thatThey only called me a week or so back when I was home for lunch and in a hurry, they upgraded me to a time-limited trial of ADSL2 for six months at no extra cost. After that it's an extra $30 per month I think. I like having the extra speed, but now that I know they're planning to axe the free website I have changed my mind, they can keep their extra speed and sell it to someone else.

I'm not sure yet how much it'll cost me to get myself free from Telstra, but it's encouraging to know there's such a thing as a 'Fast Transfer service' which is supposed to make it easier for us to change ISPs.
Quoted from the bottom of the page with the following URL: http://www.iinet.net.au/broadband/plans.html

We participate in the nationwide Fast Transfer service (https://iihelp.iinet.net.au/Signing_up_for_broadband#toc_4) , which lets you switch from your current provider to iiNet with a connection fee of only $39, plus a shorter turnaround time to get you online. This is a cool service, but only applies if your current provider participates in the scheme. Telstra is a member of that scheme, so it should be painless, (I hope).

[sandman55]

They only called me a week or so back when I was home for lunch and in a hurry, they upgraded me to a time-limited trial of ADSL2 for six months at no extra cost. After that it's an extra $30 per month I think. I like having the extra speed, but now that I know they're planning to axe the free website I have changed my mind, they can keep their extra speed and sell it to someone else.

I'm not sure yet how much it'll cost me to get myself free from Telstra, but it's encouraging to know there's such a thing as a 'Fast Transfer service' which is supposed to make it easier for us to change ISPs.
Quoted from the bottom of the page with the following URL: http://www.iinet.net.au/broadband/plans.html
Telstra is a member of that scheme, so it should be painless, (I hope).

You will probably pay for the ADSL instalation instead of getting it free.
When I went from Netspace (who I had no complaints with) to Big Pond I went from ADSL to ADSL2+ so they had to make changes back at the exchange otherwise if it had been ADSL to ADSL I could have churned because Netspace allowed it so the draw back for me was a 2 year contract.

[Frank Golden]

Thank You Herman, I've been using your site and recomending it for
years now.
Imagine my surprise when tried to access your site in response to a forum question and found my bookmark dead.
I thought you were gone for good until I Googled Hermanzone today and found this thread.

Bookmark is updated and I'm glad to see you are still here providing invaluable info for the masses.

Your site was where I first learned to multiboot.
Today I have 4 linux distros plus Win 7 and XP happily sharing one drive.

Your GRUB and FSTAB info is much appreciated and has helped me understand Linux better.

Keep up the good work and thank you.