Help restoring the Hearthtools PELLET advice server!

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Like
Reactions: hearthtools
Explain the question...
I was originally a bit confused about this post, as I am still brand-spanking-new to this forum and was unaware of the situation, nor was I familiar with who Rod was. I had a pleasent phone conversation with one of the members here this morning regarding the situation at hand, and all of my questions have been answered. I will also point out that my wife and I made a decision a couple of months ago to limit all of our donations to the funds that support Sandy Hook Elementary School right here in CT. Not because we feel that there are no others worthy....it's just a decision that we made. On the other hand, I cannot deny that I have received a good chunk of business from just interecting on this website....I'm in.
Thank you for everything that this website does....without happy pellet stove owners I'm in trouble! Good luck.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Phil D.
I was originally a bit confused about this post, as I am still brand-spanking-new to this forum and was unaware of the situation, nor was I familiar with who Rod was. I had a pleasent phone conversation with one of the members here this morning regarding the situation at hand, and all of my questions have been answered. I will also point out that my wife and I made a decision a couple of months ago to limit all of our donations to the funds that support Sandy Hook Elementary School right here in CT. Not because we feel that there are no others worthy....it's just a decision that we made. On the other hand, I cannot deny that I have received a good chunk of business from just interecting on this website....I'm in.
Thank you for everything that this website does....without happy pellet stove owners I'm in trouble! Good luck.

Yes I have not been on the site for almost 2 years. but I have been a member of the Hearth.com group since Craig started his website in the late 90s. at first it was just a chat room that some of us dealers would talk shop then he grew it into this huge community.

After I closed my store after 19 years. I spend my time trying to provide for my family and less time online. part of the reason for the absence was depression. I did not feel like dealing with People or stoves to much.
I got over that and worked for a year as a Purchasing/Inventory controller for a Electrohydraulic valves and actuators manufacture.
Now Im back doing service and Handyman work.

The website had thousands of pages that covered most brands of stoves. My bad for letting the server go offline.
Now trying to start over and get it back up.

Getting my data back up will also help get my Club Foot website back up. that site had more visitors that the hearth site. My son was born with Club feet and the Doctors scared the F@#$% out of us when we found out so I created a website with positive information for expecting Parents. here is the archived page http://web.archive.org/web/20110821041828/http://www.poplarchick.com/cole/clubfoot/

I dont expect you guys to Donate. Craig Send me some money for the cause and was nice to ask you guys for help. The site really does not make me any money. I get most of my referrals and Local business from my Facebook page. Funny how that works. The day I announced on Facebook and on a few local Facebook groups I was back doing service my email and phone blew up... Funny how the internet has changed the way we do things. PHONE BOOK YELLOW PAGES. who needs them?

Again for all of you that did donate I really do appreciate it. It did make my heart swell to see the donations come in. and that paypall account is only used to pay for hosting the the data recovery of the Hard drive from my now dead webserver.
I will try to do my best to come back to the site and help more. Just before it was just to hard to be motivated.
 
Done...!
 
  • Like
Reactions: hearthtools
I have a web server at a professional datacenter that runs a community forum like this with 1.2 million posts (aka, im not going to shut it off tomorrow) with a TON of space/bandwidth. I'd be happy to host it free of charge in exchange for placing 1 google ad on each page instead of raising money...
backups nightly to the opposite coast on amazon s3


dual proc hexacore (12 x)Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5645 @ 2.40GHz
8gb ram
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vzfs 500G 78G 423G 16% /

let me know if you're interested.
 
Done. Best of luck getting things back up and running and thanks for the info shared over the years.
 
I will donate something later but may I suggest an archived back up on the webbie server or carbon copy....or a disc.

Sounds good. After it all gets back up I will talk to rod about possible improvements (layout, etc.), which may mean an eventual copy here or elsewhere. We will certainly have an archive of it next time...just in case!

Of course, we need the same for hearth.com - eh?
 
  • Like
Reactions: hearthtools
smwilliamson said:
I will donate something later but may I suggest an archived back up on the webbie server or carbon copy....or a disc.​

Or an optical disk or a 3 1/2" floppy or 5 1/4 " floppy or dual 5 1/4" floppies or a zip disk or a tape back up or a cassette back up or..... Sorry could not resist. ;em
 
  • Like
Reactions: hearthtools
Or an optical disk or a 3 1/2" floppy or 5 1/4 " floppy or dual 5 1/4" floppies or a zip disk or a tape back up or a cassette back up or..... Sorry could not resist. ;em

I have piles of everything from 3.5's to zip's - even an Iomega removable scsi drive of some sort.....
Home movies on video to digital......BUT, hey, we still have the stuff my dad shot on Super 8 from the late 1950's - moved it to VHS and now to digital, so that's 50 years!

Will all this stuff on hearth.com be of use in 50 years? Hmmm......I'd give it more like 20-30 and then slowly becoming obsolete, but there will always be that crazy dude who wants to restore a 50 years old Whitfield.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mralias
I have a web server at a professional datacenter that runs a community forum like this with 1.2 million posts (aka, im not going to shut it off tomorrow) with a TON of space/bandwidth. I'd be happy to host it free of charge in exchange for placing 1 google ad on each page instead of raising money...
backups nightly to the opposite coast on amazon s3


dual proc hexacore (12 x)Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5645 @ 2.40GHz
8gb ram
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vzfs 500G 78G 423G 16% /

let me know if you're interested.
Thanks for the Offer.
Last week put all my domains on a Go daddy account. LOL All I only have 5 now. I had 50 in my name at one time. back in the good ol Dot COM days. I one one of the first people I know that was not a BIG boy to get my own domain. 1994.

The Data has to be recovered because it is on a Proprotory Directory system and the only way to get it reformatted to a way I can retrieve the files is using the same type of appliance server. This is why it is going to a guy that is a expert at this. I dont want to loose 40g of data because I typed in the wrong shell command.

Again guys thanks for the Help. YOU ALL ROCK
 
  • Like
Reactions: webbie
I'm going a bit off topic here - but I actually put together a business plan for a business which archived sites and information (like Rods and even this one) and then posted it for public use (hopefully with permission) when the author let their web site lapse.

I went pretty far along in researching it, but frankly I'm not ambitious enough to see the whole thing through. If any of you IT and sales dudes want to make some money, though, I will be on your corporate board. It is a business model which is not being taken advantage of.

I was only joking a bit about that 50 years old whitfield someday. Look at what people do with old cars....I'm sure a lot of antique and classic car info is on the web - and will likely disappear when domains expire, etc.

Here is one perfect example of a "Good Ole Site".....
http://continuouswave.com/whaler/

That site has the wiring diagrams for 40+ year old boats....and all the manuals, ads, etc.
Cool....

I've always been a bit of a history nut, so I shed a tear when valuable info goes bye-bye.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hearthtools
archive.org already does that with their wayback machines
 
archive.org already does that with their wayback machines

Not true because they miss a lot.....admittedly, and are already running into obstacles.
They also try to save the entire internet - in pieces, as opposed to perfectly saving a web site.

My model would be "for profit" and would benefit both the site writer and the company. It would also make the information much easier to find. With the internet archive, you have to know what URL you are looking for.

The service I considered opening was more personal and complete. For instance, there is no way the internet archive will have the 1 million plus posts of hearth.com as well as the tens of thousands of other pages - let alone have it organized.

But imagine if I wanted to retire and someone came to me and said "I have a way to make sure that the hearth.com info is available for at least 10 years and hopefully longer and we will take over and pay you a portion".......now, that's a good deal all around compared to sites going away.

Oops...I gave away too much of the idea!
;)
 
Donated to the cause. God luck rod.
 
  • Like
Reactions: webbie
But imagine if I wanted to retire and someone came to me and said "I have a way to make sure that the hearth.com info is available for at least 10 years and hopefully longer and we will take over and pay you a portion
There's plenty of forum buyers out there. list it on flippa.com and it will get scooped up, and fund your retirement.
 
Just want to give you an update. The drive is safe in the hands of a expert but he will not have time to get to it until next week.

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR HELP.
:)
 
good news the 4,516 Files, 109 Folders are being uploaded to www.hearthtools.com as I type. Sorry for the long wait the Expert was draging his feet and when he got to it the files were corupt but he got it.

They are being loaded in the same File Tree so there will not be to many broken links. Some links pointed to Climatecontrolsystems.org and I lost that domain.

I dont have a lot of time to work on cleaning up right now.. My wife was in a High speed head on Wreck on Easter sunday. she in now home recovering still not able to walk from a Left broken hip, Right Arm and many bones in her Right foot.

http://www.sierrastar.com/2013/04/03/62041/two-oakhurst-women-suffer-major.html
 
  • Like
Reactions: webbie
I wish her the best and a speedy recovery.
 
sorry to hear, Rod......I wish her the best for a full recovery!