FBSL Website

[Mike Lobanovsky]

"Oxygen.dll is not downloaded often and can damage the computer". This is annoying ...

Yeah, that's a typical Vista+ system warning when downloading an unarchived binary from the web. Putting it in a zip should remove the message.

@Mike: it is nice to hear from you again. What happened with FBSL? I cannot find the homepage of FBSL any more and also not the FBSL forum.

Thanks for your inquiry Roland,

A while ago the homepage and the phpbb3 site that are physically located on Arvixe servers in the US suffered yet another severe attack with malware scripts that used the FBSL net as a trampoline to spam the user's e-mail addresses with unwanted trash. We have cleaned the net SW of some 50 such scripts promptly but Arvixe is very, very slow to verify our work and restore access to the FBSL net from the outside world. We've been waiting for this to happen for nearly two months now and we still are.

Sorry for the inconvenience but we have absolutely no means at our disposal to speed up the restoration process.

[JRS]

Mike,

You're more than welcome to use the AllBASIC.info site as a temporary home until you get the FBSL site working again.

[Arnold]

...malware scripts...

These ongoing attacks, which are happening all over the world these days, are terrible. It is especially bad if public institutions and hospitals are affected. If some day someone should find a proper strategy to prevent all these attacks, he / she should be nominated for the Nobel Prize.

[Kuron]

A while ago the homepage and the phpbb3 site that are physically located on Arvixe servers in the US suffered yet another severe attack with malware scripts that used the FBSL net as a trampoline to spam the user's e-mail addresses with unwanted trash. We have cleaned the net SW of some 50 such scripts promptly but Arvixe is very, very slow to verify our work and restore access to the FBSL net from the outside world. We've been waiting for this to happen for nearly two months now and we still are.

Sorry for the inconvenience but we have absolutely no means at our disposal to speed up the restoration process.

If you need to get set up with a different hosting company, I am sure many of us would happily contribute some funds.  If you need a recommendation, I won't advertise on the O2 forums out of respect to Charles, but there is a local company I have used and put clients at for over ten years and have never had any issues. 

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Thank you very much for your offer, Brice.

I shall discuss it with Gerome promptly. The problem as I see it is double: i) I'd like to use any such opportunity for switching over from the outdated phpbb3 to a more modern SMF but I'm not sure if the older forum database is convertible to the new format; and ii) the latest backup of forum database has been stored on the Arvixe server rather than locally, so that we need to get access to Arvixe anyway before the backup can be DL'ed locally for conversion, if at all possible. It would be a pity to lose even what little was left of the FBSL code base after the three major breakdowns we had suffered in the last 6 years alone.

I will return to you via email as soon as I talk with Gerome.

[Kuron]

You would think there should be some DB converters that would handle the necessary conversion.  It is not an uncommon problem to need to switch forum software.   

Sending you a PM.

[JRS]

Mike,

E-Mail me a zip of your BB Forum DB and I'll take a shot at converting it to SMF.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Thanks gentlemen,

I've talked with Gerome and we think we will follow Brice's suggestion. Gerome will try to DL the database again when he comes back to Paris from his summer vacation and regains his FTP access to Arvixe.

[JRS]

I highly recommend keeping a current off line backup of your forum. I believe SMF has a BBForum DB converter as part of the software.

This forum wouldn't be here today if I hadn't.

If you need somewhere to host your site, I have room on my AWS EC2 server that O2, SB and AllBASIC runs on.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

John,

I do appreciate your generosity and I will inform Gerome of your offer immediately. The right to final decision is however his because as I've pointed out before, he is the sole copyright owner of FBSL as a product while I am legally just a member of its development team.

But frankly, I don't think it would be appropriate for a closed source and still partly commercial project like FBSL to abuse the geniality of an open host.

Regarding forum backups, I realize the importance of regular offline copies. Surprisingly ADSL connection is still widely used in France (Gerome's country of residence). I think it is the reason why many of his attempts to download ca. 2GB of content from the US server continuously in order to keep the forum database local archive updated regularly usually fail. I hope I will be granted full FTP access (as soon as Arvixe become responsive again) to keep the offline archive on my gear because, provided the server wouldn't limit the speed artificially, I am usually able to download the US content in my own country at a rate of approx. 1GByte of data per 1 minute of connection.

[JRS]

If Gerome is in control of FBSL, I would rather not host the site. You need to find a better deal than what Gerome is offering you.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

If Gerome is in control of FBSL, I would rather not host the site.

This is your privilege as the host, John. Anyway my gratitude for the offer was sincere, and now I'm glad I wasn't too impulsive to take an unwise decision that might cause uneasiness among the parties involved at some future point in time.

You need to find a better deal than what Gerome is offering you.

This time I think the privilege of having my own private perspective as to my relations with Gerome and FBSL is entirely mine. Neither of the two have ever let me down. On the contrary, there were times when I had some difficulty to keep up with the both. At any rate I have been, and still am, the FBSL project development lead for as long as I can remember, and that's what really matters to me and brings me joy of satisfaction and accomplishment.

[JRS]

Mike,

I'm glad you were able to patch things up with Gerome. The last I heard on this topic from you was that you were disgusted with the lack of interest in FBSL by Gerome and consuming himself with his music career.

My respect for your talents is unchanged and I think they are being wasted on FBSL if you have no control over direction,

John

[Mike Lobanovsky]

"Disgusted" would probably be too strong a word. But yes, irritation and uneasiness would pretty much describe what I felt when forced to intermediate between the users and Gerome as the author of language parts/layers they needed some advice on, or improvements in.

As for the music, Gerome's isn't the kind I would care for. I'm in for hard rock and heavy metal while he tends to punk, reggae and Latino. Anyway, my 300 kilos of retro audio gear is exactly what I've been amusing myself with too in the recent 9 months or so while on my long vacation off hobby programming for a temporary change in my social life.

[Kuron]

I'm in for hard rock and heavy metal

A man after my own heart 

Anyway, my 300 kilos of retro audio gear is exactly what I've been amusing myself with too in the recent 9 months or so while on my long vacation

Truly a man after my own heart.  LOL

I am blessed with an understanding and supportive wife who does not complain when I bring home a new toy.