IOG Starts Anew...

[crankwalk]

Well, it is with great displeasure that I have to report to you all, our good IOG members.. that due to the catastrophic server failure of our (now previous) web host on July 29th, 2007.. all our IOG data was lost. At a minimum, everyone is going to have to re-register for the forum. Unfortunately as it had been less than 30 days since I took over as IOG owner, I was caught up in tending to technical issues of the site and had not yet had a chance to create a full site backup. It should have been the first thing I did, but I was also counting on our webhost who advertised right on the front page of their site, nightly backups to an offsite server. Suspiciously, they report that their backup server also failed at the same time. Two independent RAID 5 arrays failing at once? I don't think so :rolleyes: - And unfortunately I don't think any of the previous owners have any backups either as they were all counting on the webhost as well.

In any case, after several days complaining to tech support and even the CEO of the webhosting company - I finally gave up and decided to start anew. First thing I did was cancel service with the joke of a web host :tdown: we had, and go with a new one. I've also purchased a license to the latest and greatest version of the vBulletin forum software, which I know some users had been asking for (a forum upgrade for functionality, such as a preview of PMs in e-mail notifications). I spent a good amount of time tweaking the design so it resembled more or less the old IOG color scheme which is based around our head logo/banner which I managed to salvage. I do plan to have a new banner/logo created for our site at some point, at which time the color scheme may change - but for now the forum is the same familiar colors that everyone knew before the crash. I also managed to salvage some of the animated Intimidator avatars, and a few other graphics including one tutorial by Sergeant Evil currently in the Articles forum.

I apologize for this unfortunate occurrence, I am as disappointed as anyone for the data having been lost, but at this point there is nothing I or anyone else can do. Please post, discuss, ask questions, enjoy the new site - hopefully we can build it back up. I've already spoken with a few mods that are willing to provide fresh tutorials and how-tos to make up for some of the missing technical data. And I plan on having giveaways and other incentives on the forum for our loyal members - details of that are still being worked out - as well as get back on the design and procurement of stickers, t-shirts, etc.

Thank you for your patience and support throughout this issue. Please post any questions and comments that you may have about this.

[lopez17]

Thanks for getting this back up and going. With a little time and some hard work we'll get the content recreated and restored!

[RLTIMMY]

Hey guys I would really like to help out with the forum. please pm me

[crankwalk]

Yeah lopez, I definitely agree. We will strive to make the site better than before and definitely keep it up to date.

RLTIMMY I replied to your PM thanks for the help offer...

[jenious]

On the plus side im glad to see the forum slimmed down a bit. There were lots more discussion groups than I felt were needed.

Also I am now like member #4 or something awesome like that.

[crankwalk]

Thanks for noticing the slimming down :D I did have a complete physical layout of the old site as far as the forums went and could have reproduced it exactly. But there really were a bunch of areas that IMO weren't necessary either. It will help to keep things a little more organized for the moment as we grow.

[jestep]

If you act quickly, you may be able to recover some of the posts that were previously here. Most of the general discussion threads are probably not worth the effort, but the sticky's and other more perminant posts may be worth going after.

Google caches most of the pages that they index. If you search on google for "site:intimidatorowners.com" (No quotes) you will see all of the pages that google has indexed. Click on the cached link and you will see a copy of that page, most likely when the site was still complete.

Here's a link to the google search result for this website:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aintimidatorowners.com

Here's the results for the forum only:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aintimidatorowners.com%2Fforums%2F

Also, archive.org, http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://intimidatorowners.com/ archives quite a bit of this and other sites, and some posts may be able to be recovered there as well.

You definitely need to act quickly, as the google cached links don't last forever and will be updated or deleted after a while. The archive.org links wont expire, but they usually aren't as complete.

[crankwalk]

Thanks very much for that tip jestep. Almost all of the content I recovered came from the Wayback Machine at archive.org. I'll check out the Google information right now.

[vikingshadow]

Looks good. Glad to see it's back up and running again.

Now, no one can tell that I was less than a month on here before the old one went down. :D

Yay, member number 8!

[crankwalk]

Now, no one can tell that I was less than a month on here before the old one went down. :D
lol! indeed :D - welcome back :cheers:

[AirSin]

Finally! First place I came to when I got a deal for a timmy. I am glad this place is back up and running.

[jenious]

Hey also I might have missed it but were you planning on brining back the main homepage for iog or were you thinking of going something more pbnation and just having the forum as the front?

[crankwalk]

AirSin - glad to have you back :tup:

jenious: I definitely wanted to get around to installing the front "homepage" again - just had to get the main forum up and running as fast as possible. Not sure on a time frame but I'll try to get it up as soon as I can.

[GOD]

Glad to see it's back up and running :tup:
:cheers: to a new web host.

[KeenDean]

A huge thanx for getting this back on line. I also appreciated staying in contact and updates via the Nation. :cheers:

It's a blessing in disguise really as I have now registered with the same user name as the one I use on the Nation (it caused some confusion in the past).

Lets hope things run a little more smoothly now.:D

[crankwalk]

GOD: Welcome back! Thanks, we're hoping this web host works out for the better. I'm keeping backups from now on regardless.

KeenDean: No problem, it had to be done one way or another... I wasn't going to let the IOG forum disappear. But I'm glad the crash helped you be able to change your name! LOL

[Critical]

Welcome back IOG! I've gone through withdrawal.

[crankwalk]

Good to have you back - now go update the Spimmy thread in the Voided Warranty with your latest incarnation of the Mil-Spim :cheers:

[Sergeant Evil]

Good job on getting things up and running again.

[crankwalk]

Hey, good to see you back SE. Check your PMs.

[Psychomonkey]

Man I'm glad it's back up! I was having IOG withdraws.

[crankwalk]

Welcome back, good to see you here! And your sig made me laugh.

[Alias2007]

So glad the sites back up...I too was having withdrawl symptoms even though I had been a member for only 3 days when the site went down.

[crankwalk]

We appreciate your support even if you were only here for one minute before the site went down :D - WELCOME BACK!

[4U2ENVY]

as stated above thanks for getting the forum back up. now i'm glad i have a forum to go to for my timmy help again :P

[crankwalk]

no problem, welcome back - happy to see so many of our previous users singing back up quickly. sorry for the confusion on the login (I saw your post in the questions forum)

[lopez17]

Welcome back everyone!

[BigRed76]

Dang! Just as I settle on a Timmy to get, the forums pop back up! Coincidence?

Thanks CrankWalk for bringing the forums to life again, I know I'll need them in the weeks to come most likely! ;)

[crankwalk]

haha, glad that worked out for you! welcome and enjoy the site.

[thaiboxer9]

Glad to have the forum back! I was a little bit panicky when I tried to sign-in but couldn't. I thought I was banned!! :eek: Until I saw the announcement..:D

:cheers:

[crankwalk]

Hey there! Its another one of our International users :) glad to see you back!

[Classic Timmyman]

Its great to see you get IOG back online Crankwalk. I used to have supporting member above my avatar, I guess its gone now. Anyway, as Lopez17 stated, the content will get restored or recreated in time. Kudos for handling this webhost situation so expediantly,thanks.

[crankwalk]

Classic Timmyman: good to see you back - your tag is back :tup: and thanks for the compliments! I had to learn alot about webhosting and forum software in a hurry but it seems to have gone okay :D

[Dub_1]

Crankwalk,..

First, congrats to you and your endevaour here.

I first joined many months ago, but with issues with a moderator (name witheld) here I left.
I clicked on the site just to check in and saw all the new changes and I am impressed.

So,...kudos to you Crankwalk, and you have a new member that will contribute and actively participate in the forum topics.

If there is anything I may do to promote and assist the forum here,...lemme know.

^5,...



Dub_1

[crankwalk]

hello! welcome back to the site - thanks for the compliments and enjoy your stay here at the new IOG, we appreciate your support and offer of assistance. If you have good content, articles, howtos etc please feel free to post in the appropriate forums :tup:

[jenious]

Nice job getting the front page back so soon

[crankwalk]

Thanks for noticing :D - sorry for anyone who was missing the front page, I didn't get a chance until recently to dig into the extra software config to set that portal up

[vwjimmy]

Woot!!!!!
Glad to be back! Thanks for rebuilding her!

[crankwalk]

welcome back! thank you for your support!

[jenious]

back up to 100 wooo!!

didnt see when that happend... I spilled a beer on my laptop so my puter has been out for a few days..

[crankwalk]

hehe..happened on the 28th I believe. Hopefully the first hundred of hundreds more :)

oh man.. you spilled a beer? party foul!

[jrmiller]

new banner is up. :cool:

[IRStookmySpyder]

jrmiller- lol, I like the new banner, you did a good job on that one. Can't wait to see the other improvements that happen with this site.