Forum Downtime

[Crash]

We had some downtime to my site last Tuesday/Wednesday due to maintenance at Krystal hosting. The forum was still OK.
After the upgrades to the server, the database for my site had its credentials changed and the site couldn't log in.

Last night, I could see that the site and forum were unreachable but then so were all my friends' sites on Krystal.

They've had a DDOS attack aimed at another server which gummed up the whole network. There's not much you can do about that.

I thought I'd add something here in case people were wondering what was going on.

[Crash]

Hi everyone!
It's good to see that the forum is still being useful to people from-time-to-time.

I want to let everyone know that I'm planning to take xbomber.co.uk offline for, at most a few days, sometime before my next hosting renewal in order to make some efficiencies and thereby save some money.
It should probably take quite-a-bit less time than that.

The main reason is that, back in 2014, we had to leave Dreamhost (which was quite a good thing in the long-run) and move onto a Krystal hosting account that was already set up, but was being used for something else.

So, among other things, the account is based on a primary domain that nobody uses anymore and which they bill me to renew every year.
In order to change the primary domain across to xbomber.co.uk and release the existing one, I need to temporarily remove the xbomber.co.uk domain, so that they can use it as the primary.
That means that the website will remain on the server but be unreachable over DNS until the domain is re-added by Krystal support as the primary.

I'm thinking of getting it over-and-done-with in the next couple of months but I need to find a time during the week when I'm doing nothing else and can contact Krystal support until they get it done.

[Bradster]

I just wanted to pop my head in here and say thank you Crash! for keeping this old ship afloat through what sounds like several tumultuous migrations!

I don't know of any other online haven for Star Fleet fans, and even if this place isn't terribly active, I'm always thrilled to see it's still available whenever I think to check… every few years or so.

Do you have a PayPal or something where I could drop you guys a few pounds/euros/dollars to show my appreciation and support the hosting efforts? I still run a few personal sites on the side too, and I know all too well the thankless task of maintaining a public, community site for free.

[Crash]

Hi Brad!

It's great to hear from you.
Do you have anything new from Star Fleet that I can shove on the site?

The hosting renewal should come up next month, but they let us do a 3-year renewal which hammers the price right down overall, and you get a lot for it with them as well (and it's UK-based, which is nice).
They took that away right before I renewed last year but apparently, the option should be back.

But I should be able to absorb that OK, thanks for offering!

I wonder whether the social media is beginning to have its day. This may be highly premature but the social media companies have lost a lot off their stock market value in recent days.

I have to laugh at that message above about taking the site offline in March.
That never got done with the sudden shock of always working from home.

[Bradster]

Thanks for the welcome!

Nah, I'm afraid I don't have anything really worth posting on the site just yet. There's that sculpting stuff I've started on which you saw, but I'd like to at least build a body for Hercules before calling it "done". I also just posted another thread about some transcripts/subtitles I started working on. Maybe I'll upload those and you can copy them to the site or link to them.

I'm also working on yet another from-scratch rebuild of the X-Bomber in 3D. I think this is at least my sixth attempt over the last 20+ years of goofing around in different software tools, though each time I feel like I come at it with a few improved skills and a better understanding of her unique shapes and proportions. I still need to rebuild the Dai-X so it can fit into the X-Bomber's sides; so, I still have a lot of work cut out for me. I also need to dig through my screenshots to sketch out and build lots more greebles along the sides and back.

When I'm done (EVENTUALLY… this is a 2021 goal for me!), I plan to send it off to Shapeways to get a little physical model printed for my desk.



I'm trying to make this one as accurate as possible, and along the way, I've discovered several way the multiple scale models used in the show have slightly different proportions and not-so-slightly different features and details. I've also come to realize that the otherwise-lovely front and side line-art illustrations from the soundtrack LP poster are also wrong in interesting ways, and they shouldn't be followed strictly as an outline for modeling. So, I'm making a few creative compromises between the various references while trying to stays true to the spirit of them all.

Oh, and if you change your mind about accepting a few buckazoids to keep the site alive, my offer stands.

[Crash]

I need to have that, physically.


Oh and by the way, you already paid me ...
X-Bomber the Game has the Hive Runner plus the Striker Astrofighters.
The carrier goes in and drops off the fighters, like you'd expect.

It is a great ship in the game; a really brilliant addition.
I also put in the Impala cruiser as a helper-outer. That is a real stunner as well.

I did try to contact you at the time but that was quite some years ago and I couldn't find a way of doing it. But I made sure to put about that in the credits, documentation and version info.

[Matsukami2]

Good morning. I agree with Brad about contributing through PayPal. It would be a pleasure and a just contribution of your efforts.
Regarding the 3d model, I’d like to ask Brad, the mistakes he spotted on the posters.Indeed the proportions were wrong for the view of the face concerning the imperial cruiser.I’m also thinking about making a model of the x bomber (not by 3d software, I suck).I begin a preparatory work of screen copy of each episode.I regret that I did not buy a dai x f evolution all a few years ago.I could have incorporated it into this model.
Two other thoughts. A project to make the skull called the cephale in France.
Finally, the idea of investing in a 3d printer to benefit our community of enthusiasts the models.