RMweb - Change of hosting, missing images - April 2022

[melmerby]

5 hours ago, john new said:

All the above is sound advice (it is my own route) but due to the profiteering by Apple & Microsoft by refusing to include backwards compatibility in their OP sys products even your local back up drives become obsolete, needing expensive replacements. I do understand the counter argument regarding backwards compatibility, but disagree with it. Not green and over the now over 40 years I have been using IT kit I have had to dispose of several expensive devices that still worked mechanically, and also software versions that still did what they were bought for. Some of that would have been disposed of anyway over time as its performance or functionality became too dated but not all and often it would have seen out another year or two. My most recent example Epson Scan made obsolete, the new replacement (Silver fast) is less easy to use!

When have backup drives ever become totally obsolete?

You should still be able read and write IDE drives in Win10 as long as you have a suitable adapter.

I have a Maxtor external backup drive from 2006, which works fine on current Windows.

 

As for Silverfast, that was the supplied scanning application when I bought my current Epson Scanner a long long time ago.

Far more versatile than the basic scanning app I had with my previous Epson scanner.

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

 

Not at all sure how you got to that, from what Phil actually wrote, above!!

 

Easy. Why close down RMWeb when it's the hosting company that didn't do it's job.

So I figured he was mocking those who got irate over lost image files not actually having a go at RMWeb.

 

1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

 

Meanwhile I have worked out how many RMweb Members it takes to change a light bulb:-

Just one - BUT - How do they change it? In far too many instances, they simply hold it still, and let the whole world revolve around them.....

 

Which was my point. I didn't get all huffy and entitled about lost images, I saw that some may have but thought better of commenting.

I'm just waiting for things to sort themselves out.

I must admit that sometimes the world can revolve around my middle finger.

I expect we all feel like that at times.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by MrWolf
Typing with hind paws again...

[john new]

30 minutes ago, melmerby said:

When have backup drives ever become totally obsolete?

You should still be able read and write IDE drives in Win10 as long as you have a suitable adapter.

I have a Maxtor external backup drive from 2006, which works fine on current Windows.

 

As for Silverfast, that was the supplied scanning application when I bought my current Epson Scanner a long long time ago.

Far more versatile than the basic scanning app I had with my previous Epson scanner.

This is probably thread drift off topic but I have 3 x WD My Cloud 2TB drives on a Mac ethernet network. WD have announced end of life, one of them is becoming flaky, the ancillary software bits now don’t work. Lots of graphics and video on them and too much data to upload to the max data allowed on iCloud. Other, older, drives and bits of kit were linked on various splitter USB hubs, the new versions of Mac software won’t allow the string of linking hubs. Outcome constantly plugging/unplugging. Other software also obsolete as 32bit won’t run under 64bit. With scanning Epson Scan 2 was much more intuitive to use (it is now dead) than Silverfast 8; the issue the ICE element now not supported for Epson Scan 2. I think somewhere I have a hard drive made obsolete as nothing has an IEEE connection, headphones that  are obsolete as there are no longer any jack plug sockets and so it goes on.

 

I have gone past the time when I want to be faffing about with IT, I am no longer the 30 year old semi-nerd of the 1980s fascinated with the new, pioneering, technology and seeing it as a way to get promotion*. I switched to Apple around 6 years ago in the days when “it just works” was their slogan and MSoft (Win 7?) was an annoying joke. Apple did just work then, but these days *****. 

* it was.

Edited May 9, 2022 by john new
More remembered to add.

[Not Jeremy]

14 hours ago, Danemouth said:

 

Having said that had RMWeb been a financial institution the regulator would descend on them like a ton of bricks.

 

 

Regulators, they work really well don't they?

 

Take your world of financial institutions, all as tightly regulated as you like

 

The result of which is lots of pointless crap that has to be trotted out in any conversation and nobody normal can open a bank account without idiotic and pedantic difficulty. Meanwhile any crim with obscene amounts of money can have what they like, oh and buy up half of London's property as well, no questions asked.

 

Grenfell Tower? The utter disgrace of the post Office system that drove people to suicide and ruin? All properly "regulated" no doubt, so all arses covered and stuff the poor sods who suffered as a result - that's what regulation is about.

 

You can take your regulators and stuff them all somewhere dark and painful as far as I am concerned, they all make me want to puke.

 

Thank God for the likes of RMweb, personally I like the fact that it is "imperfect" and without regulation or spin.

 

Sure sometimes I think Phil Parker talks cobblers*, but then so do I, but I always get the feeling that everything on here is sincere, well intentioned and fundamentally honest.

 

And yes, some pictures might be lost, possibly, but probably not, but then again, but luckily I saved mine, (actually I'm glad quite a few of them have gone), but then maybe they haven't, but they might have done, best to take back ups, (or off to another forum and wreak havoc there instead), but still come back here to worry about the pictures that might be gone, obviously, or possibly not, and repeat ad nauseam....

 

Not Jeremy

 

* Sorry Phil, I was just using you as a cheeky example for cheap effect in another post that adds absolutely nothing to the subject at hand but which made me feel slightly better for a brief and fleeting moment....

 

 

[ejstubbs]

8 hours ago, melmerby said:

As for Silverfast, that was the supplied scanning application when I bought my current Epson Scanner a long long time ago.

 

Not as long ago as I bought my scanner, by the looks of it - mine isn't even on SilverFast's list of supported models.  VueScan doesn't list it either.  Maybe that's because it's a multifunction device?  As I use the scanning function purely for utilitarian purposes  - scanning documents that I only have in hard copy, and the odd old photo for sentimental reasons - if push comes to shove, I can manage with the Image Capture app that comes with Mac OS.  At the moment I'm just used to Epson Scan and its wee peccadilloes (like having to jiggle the mouse to get it to actually wake the scanner up to scan things - weird).

 

Then again, my Mac isn't supported by any 64-bit-only versions of Mac OS beyond Catalina.  I'm currently running Mojave.  I know it's unsupported by Apple, and I did try installing Catalina earlier this year (after the system disc had died and been replaced) but lack of support for a few 32-bit applications that I was comfy with was just one of the things I didn't like about it, so I fairly quickly reverted to Mojave and I think I'll be staying with it until I feel ready/able/inclined to buy a new Mac.

 

As an example, they removed/changed some functionality of the Mail app which I use as the basis for managing my e-mail.  Apparently they reinstated the functionality in question in Monterey, but my Mac isn't supported beyond Catalina so that's no help (and it looks like Catalina is going out of support later this year so it hardly seems worth the effort changing now).  And some people may think I'm weird for saying this, but they removed iTunes and I had actually got used to using that application for certain things.  (I have discovered that there is a third party utility out there that will allow iTunes and a few other "legacy" Mac OS built-in applications to run on Catalina and above, so if/when I do take that step, at least I'll have that option available.)

 

About the only thing that I've noticed being a problem with staying on Mojave is that some web sites (currently only a few, and none that I use on anything like a regular basis) are starting to object to the version of Safari it runs.  But so far I've been able to work around that by using Chrome, when necessary.

 

All the Mac OS upgrades since I bought the machine up to and including Mojave were basically seamless.  The move to Catalina and beyond is clearly going to require rather more effort to negotiate, and (not being a financial institution) I'm afraid that I have other things I need to do that take priority over software currency.

[melmerby]

9 hours ago, john new said:

. I think somewhere I have a hard drive made obsolete as nothing has an IEEE connection, headphones that  are obsolete as there are no longer any jack plug sockets and so it goes on.

Not heard of IEEE being used as a hard disk connector, the one I remember was an 8 bit parallel bus computer control interface for linking various pieces of lab equipment so they could be operated by a central computer.

We used it extensively at work and much kit was by HP, Fluke also did a few items such as Frequency Counters and DMMs

 

If you build your own PC you will get headphone sockets, as most of the gaming motherboards have them.

My Win 11 machine does.

[john new]

10 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Not heard of IEEE being used as a hard disk connector, the one I remember was an 8 bit parallel bus computer control interface for linking various pieces of lab equipment so they could be operated by a central computer.

We used it extensively at work and much kit was by HP, Fluke also did a few items such as Frequency Counters and DMMs

 

If you build your own PC you will get headphone sockets, as most of the gaming motherboards have them.

My Win 11 machine does.

IEEE - My memory may have the wrong name in it but it s a plug / socket combo my current kit does not have. Time to get back on topic I think. 

Edited May 10, 2022 by john new

[melmerby]

46 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Not as long ago as I bought my scanner, by the looks of it - mine isn't even on SilverFast's list of supported models. 

 

2005, 17 years ago, I think I was using XP then.

Silverfast was the bundled software, I have upgraded to the latest version (small fee)

It's the only way to scan negatives & slides properly.

 

EDIT

The software was Silverfast 6 SE, I'm now on Silverfast 8.8 r25 full edition, the latest edition is 9 and supports my scanner.

Edited May 10, 2022 by melmerby

[melmerby]

3 minutes ago, john new said:

IEEE - My memory may have the wrong name in it but it s a plug / socket combo my current kit does not have. Time to get back on topic I think. 

This?

 

[ejstubbs]

9 hours ago, melmerby said:

When have backup drives ever become totally obsolete?

 

How far back do you want to go?  I used to have an Iomega Zip Drive for backing up my first PC, running Windows 9something.  I'm pretty sure that it would be possible to cobble something together from eBay and online forums for retro-computing geeks that would read those discs (if I even still had them, and if they were actually still readable) but that's not what I would call anything other than obsolete*.

 

My first IT job back in 1979 included backing up PDP-11s to 8" floppy discs (which really were floppy in those days) at 1.2MB per disc.  Tell me that's not obsolete.

 

My second IT job involved backing up data from ICL 2900 and ME29 machines to multi-platter removable hard discs which were so heavy that some of the female operators couldn't actually lift them out of the drives.  (They were fun if you dropped them: the sudden deceleration on hitting the ground would would shear the platters off the spindle and they'd stack themselves in a neat pile at the bottom.)  Obsolete?  I rather think so.

 

And these are just examples from my own career in the industry.

 

I am quite surprised to find that you can still buy USB 3.5" floppy drives, and indeed new 3.5" diskettes.

 

* OED definition: "adj. 1. No longer used or practised; outmoded, out of date.   2. Worn away, effaced, or eroded; worn out, dilapidated; atrophied."  Yup, pretty much all of those things, I'd say.

[john new]

I have seen those on the back of drives, yes. I think I have a caddy to take those to a USB connection. The one I mean has a thick silver cable with a chunky plug a bit bigger than USB/HDMI plugs but on a similar principle. Having now done an on-line search it is an IEEE 1394 Firewire like the 6-pin shown here.

 

Current plan is to order a very big hard disc and copy all the data from the now becoming obsolete one's on to it, future proof the next year or so anyway. Then when the wallet recovers buy a 2nd one. I am hoping a RAID drive I bought, but have never got to work with Apple may work under my Win 10/Parallels option. Recent purchase - still on the re-learning Windows curve with that.

[melmerby]

Must have missed the IEEE1394.

I have a camcorder with one of those and had a card in the PC so that you could edit the camcorder videos, not supported on later OS.

 

[ejstubbs]

45 minutes ago, melmerby said:

This?

 

 

I'm pretty sure that's an IDE aka Parallel ATA connector.  I still have a "bare bones" (i.e. just a PCB, a PSU and cables, not an enclosed caddy) IDE to USB adaptor sculling around in a cupboard somewhere.

 

You may have been confusing IDE with IEEE 1394 aka FireWire, which had a sort of USB-like connector (which changed between its original 400Mbps incarnation and the later, faster ones - which was a bit unhelpful).

 

Edit: John New beat me to it with IEEE 1394.

Edited May 10, 2022 by ejstubbs

[ejstubbs]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

2005, 17 years ago, I think I was using XP then.

Silverfast was the bundled software, I have upgraded to the latest version (small fee)

It's the only way to scan negatives & slides properly.

 

Hmm, that's probably a year or two before I bought my current Epson device, which came with Epson Scan rather than Silverfast.  Maybe Silverfast only support older Epson scanners if it was their software that was originally supplied by the manufacturer?

 

Vuescan doesn't need a special version for each individual scanner model like Silverfast seems to, so I downloaded the Vuescan demo and it identifies my scanner as an Epson WorkForce 625, which it isn't, but the software does seem to drive the scanner OK.  However, they want to charge me £50 to actually be able to do useful things with it like actually saving the scans to a file.  (Oddly, the licensing portal does identify the scanner model correctly.)

 

Unfortunately Silverfast doesn't recognise the Epson WorkForce 625 either, but even if it did it looks like they charge around about the same for software for a consumer level photo scanner as Vuescan do, so I don't think there's much point pursuing that avenue on a cost basis (plus Silverfast's web site is utterly horrible: very 20th century layout & design, only seems to list a phone number if you want to contact them, and the online store is veerryyy slow).

 

Anyway, for now I'm still a 'happy' Epson Scan user...

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Not as long ago as I bought my scanner, by the looks of it - mine isn't even on SilverFast's list of supported models.  VueScan doesn't list it either.  Maybe that's because it's a multifunction device?  As I use the scanning function purely for utilitarian purposes  - scanning documents that I only have in hard copy, and the odd old photo for sentimental reasons - if push comes to shove, I can manage with the Image Capture app that comes with Mac OS.  At the moment I'm just used to Epson Scan and its wee peccadilloes (like having to jiggle the mouse to get it to actually wake the scanner up to scan things - weird).

 

Then again, my Mac isn't supported by any 64-bit-only versions of Mac OS beyond Catalina.  I'm currently running Mojave.  I know it's unsupported by Apple, and I did try installing Catalina earlier this year (after the system disc had died and been replaced) but lack of support for a few 32-bit applications that I was comfy with was just one of the things I didn't like about it, so I fairly quickly reverted to Mojave and I think I'll be staying with it until I feel ready/able/inclined to buy a new Mac.

 

As an example, they removed/changed some functionality of the Mail app which I use as the basis for managing my e-mail.  Apparently they reinstated the functionality in question in Monterey, but my Mac isn't supported beyond Catalina so that's no help (and it looks like Catalina is going out of support later this year so it hardly seems worth the effort changing now).  And some people may think I'm weird for saying this, but they removed iTunes and I had actually got used to using that application for certain things.  (I have discovered that there is a third party utility out there that will allow iTunes and a few other "legacy" Mac OS built-in applications to run on Catalina and above, so if/when I do take that step, at least I'll have that option available.)

 

About the only thing that I've noticed being a problem with staying on Mojave is that some web sites (currently only a few, and none that I use on anything like a regular basis) are starting to object to the version of Safari it runs.  But so far I've been able to work around that by using Chrome, when necessary.

 

All the Mac OS upgrades since I bought the machine up to and including Mojave were basically seamless.  The move to Catalina and beyond is clearly going to require rather more effort to negotiate, and (not being a financial institution) I'm afraid that I have other things I need to do that take priority over software currency.

 

What it all boils down to is this:

 

The year is quite possibly 3078.

The world has ended.

We're all dead.

 

We just didn't get cc'd in the group email....

[boxbrownie]

27 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

What it all boils down to is this:

 

The year is quite possibly 3078.

The world has ended.

We're all dead.

 

We just didn't get cc'd in the group email....

Absolutely….and my copy of Windows 95 on a pack of 3.5 floppys is probably no good anymore then? 🤣

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

I'm pretty sure that's an IDE aka Parallel ATA connector.  I still have a "bare bones" (i.e. just a PCB, a PSU and cables, not an enclosed caddy) IDE to USB adaptor sculling around in a cupboard somewhere.

 

You may have been confusing IDE with IEEE 1394 aka FireWire, which had a sort of USB-like connector (which changed between its original 400Mbps incarnation and the later, faster ones - which was a bit unhelpful).

 

Edit: John New beat me to it with IEEE 1394.

I thought we were talking about the drives themselves, not the case they are in.

The Firewire would just have been the connection from the case to the PC, internally the drive would be either SCSI, IDE or SATA with an internal adaptor board.

Take the drive out of the case connect it into a different adaptor and it's still usable.

That drive I posted is out of a earlyish USB connected one.

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

How far back do you want to go?  I used to have an Iomega Zip Drive for backing up my first PC, running Windows 9something. 

 

 

TBH not what I would call mainstream, there were already decent size IDE drives, I had a 170MB HDD in my first PC  (which came with DOS 5/Windows 3.1) I added a second identical disk as a backup. Those would still be readable today.

 

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Absolutely….and my copy of Windows 95 on a pack of 3.5 floppys is probably no good anymore then? 🤣

 

Apparently there's a bit of a nostalgia market for early hardware.

They might be plenty good on eBay! 😆

 

Just don't forget to crowbar in the words 'rare', 'vintage', ' retro' and 'collectable'...

[melmerby]

4 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

Apparently there's a bit of a nostalgia market for early hardware.

They might be plenty good on eBay! 😆

 

Just don't forget to crowbar in the words 'rare', 'vintage', ' retro' and 'collectable'...

You forgot 'L@@K'🙂

[MrWolf]

27 minutes ago, melmerby said:

You forgot 'L@@K'🙂

 

You're evidently spending too much time reading the eBay madness thread...😁

[Huw Griffiths]

14 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Easy. Why close down RMWeb when it's the hosting company that didn't do it's job.

So I figured he was mocking those who got irate over lost image files not actually having a go at RMWeb.

 

I'm working on the assumption that anything that's lost is probably lost for good. "Nothing to see - move on!"

 

Am I unduly worried? Not really - if the missing stuff really mattered to people, I'm sure they would have saved their own copies.

 

Brutal? Perhaps - but nowhere near as brutal as the effect on Andy etc of trying to achieve the impossible - trying to rebuild what a "hosting" company managed to destroy, by not keeping their promises.

 

I've seen complaints elsewhere about a number of hosting companies shafting their paying customers - by promising the moon - but, when push comes to shove, effectively doing nothing but "mooning".

 

Ultimately, there's a limit to what Andy - or anyone else - can do about stuff like this. Andy's already done everything about this that can reasonably be expected of him - and lots more. Let's all be realistic about this.

 

Some people might have an attitude of: "It's not a matter of life and death - it's more important than that!"

 

Well I cannot agree with them. I've never been interested in soccer - I prefer snooker. More to the point, sites like this are "nice to have". However, it's not worth sacrificing anyone's health on the altar of appeasing a vocal minority who'd probably never be satisfied - a minority who had plenty of warnings that the "hosting" was less than ideal - a minority who had plenty of chances to save anything they were really bothered about.

 

It is what it is - time to move on.

 

 

5 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

Regulators, they work really well don't they?

 

Take your world of financial institutions, all as tightly regulated as you like

 

The result of which is lots of pointless crap that has to be trotted out in any conversation and nobody normal can open a bank account without idiotic and pedantic difficulty. Meanwhile any crim with obscene amounts of money can have what they like, oh and buy up half of London's property as well, no questions asked.

 

Grenfell Tower? The utter disgrace of the post Office system that drove people to suicide and ruin? All properly "regulated" no doubt, so all arses covered and stuff the poor sods who suffered as a result - that's what regulation is about.

 

You can take your regulators and stuff them all somewhere dark and painful as far as I am concerned, they all make me want to puke.

 

Thank God for the likes of RMweb, personally I like the fact that it is "imperfect" and without regulation or spin.

 

...

 

And yes, some pictures might be lost, possibly, but probably not, but then again, but luckily I saved mine, (actually I'm glad quite a few of them have gone), but then maybe they haven't, but they might have done, best to take back ups, (or off to another forum and wreak havoc there instead), but still come back here to worry about the pictures that might be gone, obviously, or possibly not, and repeat ad nauseam....

 

Fair comment.

 

As for the stuff about the financial "services" industry, some people might feel justified in questioning whom exactly they're there to serve - it certainly doesn't always seem to be ordinary, law abiding, people like me - but then I've always known I'm expendable.

 

Do I expect (or want) sympathy? No - I'm like millions of other people in this "United" Kingdom - to be honest, most people are. Do I expect the government to look after my interests? Well, it could be nice - after all, that's what they claim to be there for. Well, perhaps it's merely a case of: "If I can dream".

 

Over the years, a number of governments have seen their primary function being to ensure their own survival - and **$$$$**!!$$##** the mere plebs who pay the inflated price for keeping them in power.

 

I'm not attacking any specific administration or political party. The rules under which a number of them rule govern are open to this sort of abuse.

 

A number of administrations (in a number of countries) routinely abuse parliamentary procedures to block popular measures - to force through measures they know lots of people would never vote for - or to stifle reasonable debate. Some people might talk about "that horrid electorate" - I could not possibly comment * ... .

 

 

(* To avoid potential protests from historians, I should point out that I'm aware the word "electorate" had meanings different to that in which it's normally used these days - especially during the reign of George III ... . I should also point out that History was not one of the subjects I studied to O Level or beyond at school.)

 

 

No - governments are what they are - regulators are what they are - and I'm not convinced that either always act in ordinary people's best interests. Some people might suggest that life goes on, despite them. I could not possibly comment.

 

Anyway, political rant well and truly over.

 

If I had any issues with the way this site is run, does anyone seriously imagine that I would have stayed here for as long as I have - or, in recent years, opted for a "premium membership"? No - I'm grateful to Andy (and others) for everything done on our behalf.

 

 

[57xx]

On 10/05/2022 at 12:11, melmerby said:

I thought we were talking about the drives themselves, not the case they are in.

The Firewire would just have been the connection from the case to the PC, internally the drive would be either SCSI, IDE or SATA with an internal adaptor board.

 

 

What is this modern witchcraft you speak of? Disk drives when I started building PCs were MFM and RLL. You had to manually set the number of heads, platers and cylinders in the BIOS after looking the config up in the manual.

[kevinlms]

On 10/05/2022 at 22:58, MrWolf said:

 

Apparently there's a bit of a nostalgia market for early hardware.

They might be plenty good on eBay! 😆

 

Just don't forget to crowbar in the words 'rare', 'vintage', ' retro' and 'collectable'...

But what if you only want the box?

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

But what if you only want the box?

 

Would that be an X Box One box? 

 

I also remember a girlfriend telling me that although she had lost her virginity, she was glad that she still has the box it came in ....

 

Admittedly I may have lowered the tone here, but all the tech talk was becoming a drag....😀

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by MrWolf