wanted: PSC CDs

[dz32]

[...]

[SamOscarBrown]

No, I have none of their CDs. Having posted stuff there myself, and learned a lot from others' posts, it is a sad thing that their system crashed. Oh well, we still have VBForums!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dilettante]

This could serve as a cautionary tale about the mistakes people make relying on voodoo backup techniques. RAID is not a substitute and none of its forms replace proper backup, archival, and recovery procedures. In the end you have too many eggs in too few baskets.

I feel bad for the guy who ran it, he held on for quite a long time.

[pekko]

I salute this guy, hope he was quick enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2ZTmuX3cog

[fafalone]

Wow that's terrible. I wasn't the biggest fan of the site but they had such vast quantities of code. 98% of it was nothing special, but that 2% represents hundreds if not thousands of brilliant, innovative code.

RAID Is Not A Backup.

I recently began doing complete site rips since with many VB sites not being updated in many years, it's only a matter of time. PSC was so huge and looked so professionally managed that it got sent to the bottom of the list and I never got to it before it shut down.

[dilettante]

He had put his trust in a "technician." You know, those high school dropouts we used to call computer operators who had to be watched like hawks for laziness, fraud, abuse, incompetance, and so on?

Microsoft tried to use them as an inside army back in the day to gain a foothold over mainframes and minis. They did this through an expensive advertising campaign to recast blue collar box jockeys as "I.T. Professionals" and (Good Gourd, I can't stop laughing) "administrators."

Pretty soon nobody as left watching the fire watchers. So when a blaze breaks out and takes everything down it's a little ridiculous to express surprise.

[fafalone]

I want to get more serious about preserving VB knowledge, so what other sites need to be backed up against a complete-disappearance scenario like PSC? I'm making sure to get all the ZIP/RAR files too- the code is the main point, and sites like web.archive.org don't save those.

Sites I have backed up so far:
-VB Accelerator
-Brad's VB32 Programs and Samples (http://btmtz.mvps.org/index.html)
-VBSpeed (http://www.xbeat.net/vbspeed/)
-VBNet (http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html)
-Karl E. Petersons Classic VB Code (http://vb.mvps.org/)
-Namespace Edanmo (http://www.mvps.org/emorcillo/en/code/vb6/index.shtml)
-VBVision (http://www.mvps.org/vbvision/index.html)
-Leandro Ascierto (http://leandroascierto.com/blog/)
-VB Helper (http://www.vb-helper.com/index_api.html)

At some point I'd like to get to things like here and xtremevbtalk, especially the codebanks, but first I'd like to hit any other standalone sites... especially that haven't been updated in years.
Any other sites that should be preserved against the black hole of history? Anyone else want copies (can zip them up) in case something happens to me?

[passel]

... against a complete-disappearance scenario like PSC?...

I don't know that it is completely disappeared. A lot of the content is probably still available via the wayback machine, for example:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150315...ourcecode.com/

I haven't used the wayback machine myself, so I don't know how comprehensive it is, but it appears to offer some hope, but I could be wrong.

[Coding]

Oh No!!! I was there just few weeks ago :-( this remind me that time goes fast!
20 year have past since PSC opened. I will miss that site a lot, I used to download
many projects from them, I think they were not getting enough visitors or hits.

[LaVolpe]

Consider writing them. Those were available to monthly contest winners (I have 1 or 2 myself). But if they were for sale also, I'm sure they wouldn't mind replying to your letter if they can make some money. Assumption is that they aren't out of business

[Jonney]

Consider writing them. Those were available to monthly contest winners (I have 1 or 2 myself). But if they were for sale also, I'm sure they wouldn't mind replying to your letter if they can make some money. Assumption is that they aren't out of business

Luckily I have backed up all of your and Carles.P.V. postings on PSC.

They said storage failure resulted in loss of data.
1. curious that Google how to deal with those links without resource? In fact, I do not know the accurate time, about 2 to 3 years ago, Google has lowed down the priority of VB6 searching, VB6 is going to very low priority now, partial reason is because of less VB6 resources available on websites because many websites have closed down?
2. Beginners may increase the difficulty to advance their programming skill of VB6/ VBA / VB.NET. Most of us started from Vb6.
3. VBForums will come to more popular? just a guest

[fafalone]

Weren't most of the code examples, at least the important ones, ZIP files? The contents of zip files aren't cached by google or wayback machine, and they'll gradually be removed from google's search index if the url no longer exists anyway.

Also, I don't recall a single time I got a PSC code example as a result on google. If i wanted to search PSC, I had to go to PSC (why i didn't like the site).

[dz32]

[...]

[Bonnie West]

Any other sites that should be preserved against the black hole of history?

Please rip these sites before they too R.I.P.:

1. A1VBCode
2. ActiveX Components by Alvaro Redondo
3. Aivosto - Resources for developers
4. AllAPI
5. AndreaVB Programming
6. Ask the FortyPoundHead
7. BinaryWorld - Developers Home Page for VB
8. BlackBeltVB (archived versions of old site)
9. Bob's place on the Web
10. Common Controls Replacement Project
11. DirectX4VB
12. EDais
13. FREE Visual Basic and .NET Source Code
14. FreeVBCode.com
15. Frez Systems Limited
16. Gary Beene's Source Code Snippets - VB6
17. Gasanov.net (Shahin Gasanov) | Code Samples
18. HashVB (#VB)
19. Help Technology Centre
20. JSWare's Visual Basic Sample Code
21. K & K Consulting
22. KarenWare
23. KATHER Produkties: Visual Basic Source Code
24. Makai's VISUAL BASIC® & HTML Programming
25. Merrion's VB6 Printing Articles
26. More Visual Basic MVP Web Sites
27. NirSoft's Visual C++, C# and Visual Basic Code Samples
28. Online Resources for VB6
29. PatOrJK.com's Visual Basic Programming
30. Platform VB
31. RHA (Minisystems) Ltd.
32. Sandsprite.com
33. Sergey Merzlikin's Visual Basic Code Samples
34. Skycoder.com's Visual Basic 6.0 code examples
35. Tanner Helland's Free, Open-Source Programming Downloads
36. The Birth of Visual Basic
37. The VB Programmer's VB Tutorials - Classic VB (VB6)
38. The VB Zone
39. TheScarms
40. ThunderVB
41. Tutorial - Using Unicode in Visual Basic 6.0
42. VB Classic Forever!
43. VB Fibre
44. VB Helper
45. VB-Town
46. VBCode.com
47. vbCoders.com
48. VBExpert
49. VBGamer
50. vbRad.com
51. VBSight
52. VBSmart.com
53. Visual Basic Code Source
54. Visual Basic Expert
55. Visual Basic Free Sample Code
56. Visual Basic Home - ReliableAnswers.com
57. Visual Basic MCI Command Post
58. Visual Basic Programming Tips and Techniques by Peter Aitken
59. Visual Basic Projects, Examples and Source Code
60. Visual Basic Tutorials
61. Visual Studio Magazine Archives
62. Willy Van den Driessche's VB Site

Anyone else want copies (can zip them up) in case something happens to me?

How about sharing your site archives either through Peer-to-peer file sharing or File sync and sharing services?

[MikiSoft]

It seems like that there's a hope for PSC:

ADDENDUM 6/19/2015: Hopeful news...Planet source code may be returning!! We are looking at restoring from the zip files on the PSC cd. This would restore 50-75% of the bext code (and perhaps purge some of the less desirable code that didn't qualify foe the cd). We will know in a few weeks whether this works or not. Please stay tuned and thanks everyone for all your kind emails!!

[LaVolpe]

It seems like that there's a hope for PSC:

From that quote, hopefully one of the 'bext code" that qualified "foe the cd" was a spell checker program

[techgnome]

Well everyone knows that "bext code" means it's the "best text code" so we're going to get the bext code foe the cd fum the zip fie.

-tg

[LucasMKG]

dz32,

Planet-Source-Code might be returning soon..hopefully. Check their site for the Addendum.

LucasMKG
Still on VB6....and still figuring-out the Legacy/Classical Language.

[Karl77]

Sites I have backed up so far:
-VB Accelerator

How does such a backup work?
Is there a too for doing this or do we have to crawl through all the pages and save them individually?
I ask because I want a backup of vbAccelerator as well.

---

A few other interesting sites:
www.aboutvb.de
www.activevb.de
www.vb-paradise.de
www.vbarchiv.net

[Jonney]

How does such a backup work?
Is there a too for doing this or do we have to crawl through all the pages and save them individually?
I ask because I want a backup of vbAccelerator as well.

---

A few other interesting sites:
www.aboutvb.de
www.activevb.de
www.vb-paradise.de
www.vbarchiv.net

I suggest a software called Library .NET Pro (http://fishcodelib.com/).

[gibra]

I suggest a software called Library .NET Pro (http://fishcodelib.com/).

What to do with Visual Basic 6.0?

[Jonney]

What to do with Visual Basic 6.0?

Nothing related to VB6. Just answer Karl77's question. I used this software (shareware version) for many years. It helps me store VB6 stuff.
I remember there's a CodeLibrary written in VB6 at 10 years ago by a UK coder but I lost the link.

[gibra]

Nothing related to VB6.

The should be post on VB.NET forum, not here.

[LucasMKG]

Karl77

To Backup the vb6 sites, i suggest using 'site grabber' (inside the - Internet Download Manager).

Some sites need you to login - you can check 'Use authorization'....note, i never used that feature (don't know if it works).

Hoping that this takes care of website backup

LucasMKG
Still on VB6...and sucking the last milk of the Classical Language

[MikiSoft]

It is finally back guys!

[LaVolpe]

It is finally back guys!

Looks like any comments prior to this year are history; but that's probably not a bad thing considering how often posted stuff was flamed. The bad thing is that comments pertaining to valid bugs and/or shortcomings are gone too. Maybe they'll be restored later, maybe not

[MikiSoft]

Looks like any comments prior to this year are history; but that's probably not a bad thing considering how often posted stuff was flamed. The bad thing is that comments pertaining to valid bugs and/or shortcomings are gone too. Maybe they'll be restored later, maybe not

If they decide to rely on some caching service (like Wayback Machine), then maybe it would be possible to restore recent comments - it depends on how often and how far it is cached.

[jmsrickland]

How can I download the Internet

[LucasMKG]

jmsrickland,

To download websites, you can use IDM (Internet Download Manager) and on the <Tasks> menu select <Run site grabber> .

Some sites need you to login - you can check 'Use authorization'. Note, i never used that feature (don't know if it works).

Hoping that this takes care of website backup

LucasMKG
VB6...all the way...

[gibra]

How can I download the Internet

I use this:

HTTrack Website Copier - Free Software Offline Browser (GNU GPL)
https://www.httrack.com/

[fafalone]

Yeah PSC definitely only restored content from the CD. Too bad.

Jonney, I'd like copy of Charles PV's submissions, he's done some cool stuff that I haven't saved.


---
I used HTTrack to archive most of the sites Bonnie West listed with varying degrees of success, but it's going to be hard to share it all since it came out to 3.7GB across 40,000+ files.

[Jonney]

Jonney, I'd like copy of Charles PV's submissions, he's done some cool stuff that I haven't saved.

PSC has restored back 100% of Carles P.V.'s code:
http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb...riesPerPage=25

[Jonney]

Look like my favorite VB6 site :http://leandroascierto.com/blog/ is closed.

[Bobbles]

I downloaded all the CDs a year or so ago.
They are Trials (I believe), and then you were meant to purchase them, somehow.
I never got around to trying them, so don't know how all that works.
The PSC site now does not offer them (it does, but the web page is empty).
Would copies of these be of any use to the OP (if I can find them) ?

Rob
PS I wrote to him way back, suggesting he sell them on a DVD (or two).
Hopefully that would mean they would be much cheaper, and even a Scottish person like me would buy them.
Could we all get in touch with him, and suggest something

[Bonnie West]

Karl E. Peterson's Classic VB Code has been disturbingly offline for quite some time as well.


@ fafalone

In case you're still archiving existing VB sites, just wanted to let you know that I've been adding more sites to the ever-growing list in Post #14 as I encounter them.

[fafalone]

I'll get on archiving the other ones ASAP..

Does anyone know a better site ripper than WinHTTrack? It seems no matter what I change the settings to it refuses to archive images on some sites. Unfortunately Karl's site went down before I realized that... so I do have a complete site rip, just the images don't show-- the upside is he didn't have any pics with critical info.

Have to go back over some other things as well... VBCode didn'tt rip at all, it detects WinHTTrack as an offline browser and blocks it; I was thinking settings were preserved, so many user-agent and ignore robots.txt settings were lost.


--
I wouldn't really want to publicly share site-rips of online sites... not sure about the best way to share others. To share others... site rips are bigger than you'd think. Too big for my DropBox. I could upload to a file share site or put them in my public folder for ftp/http (no DNS, but IP almost never changes)
Problem with file share sites is they're painfully slow without paying (50-150KB/s) and usually try to trick you into using their malware 'download helpers'.
Uploaded doesn't do the latter at least... so if you want a 50KB/s DL of Karl Peterson's vb.mvps.org (missing most images as mentioned)... http://ul.to/7naf954i

[Nanni]

Hi Jonney
the Leandro Forum's isn't closed

[Jonney]

Hi Jonney
the Leandro Forum's isn't closed

can't access at this moment.

[fafalone]

The problem must be on your end; it's working fine for me too.

[Jonney]

The problem must be on your end; it's working fine for me too.

Never had access issue on this site,but now I can't access via IE or Chrome.