Geocities Closing?

Post by **Dray** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:24 pm

Somehow, Shard, I don't think that you'll convince Yakima of the benefits of streamlined HTML tools when wordpad's utility is so convenient.

I agree about using the simple programs, though. I briefly used Coda, but when the trial ran out and I found out that the program cost nearly $100, I went straight back to TextEdit -- Mac's equivalent of Notepad. The only thing that I wish it had is the colour coding for different pieces of code. It's made spotting errors SO much easier in the past! I can't give up the streamlined use of TextEdit, though... it's just too useful. X3

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:40 pm

I use notepad for everything but the stories because Word has spell check.

Now that I know it skrews up some of the symbols, I'll have to make sure I do a Replace in Notepad.

I do my own HTML, Shard. It's just the stories because I suck at spelling. Or my fingers slip. Heh..

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 9:15 pm

There should, even on word 2k, be an option to remove the smart quotes outright. I think that's been there since they included smart quotes at all, many moons before. Try unticking that, it'd leave them alone - also double-dashes and elipses, all of those things get changed into "something html doesn't understand"

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 9:29 pm

Ah, found it! I had to do a search to find out what to do but I got it! Thanks Shard!

Keilin Alyr · Post by **Keilin Alyr** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 4:41 pm

Well, this sucks. Guess it finally creates motivation for me to create (and possibly maintain, though I wouldn't hold my breath) my own domain/webspace, but that is a ton of content of so many various subjects that'll be gone. What a shame. =\

For anyone searching for a new free webhost, I strongly advise against Stormpages and any hosts maintained by their parent company. They are malware-ridden, and something imbedded in a pop-up on my old site actually hijacked my PC when I was checking its status. Though now I have Paladin as a result. *pets her iMac* =D

Also, considering a good number of free webhosting sites seem to be breeding grounds for viruses and other malware, I'd recommend updating your anti-virus (or finding a Mac/Linux-based system) and browsing to several sites under the domain, seeing if anything seems suspicious. Checking online reviews (if any) also helps.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:27 pm

lol this is a ridiculously long process for me, but I think it'll be nice to have everything on one site. I'd been meaning to get to it some time, but ... hahah.

I have started with Alabaster. That means, "all_pern" and "alabaster_riders" and "dav_n_bri" and some others will all be lumped together... oi.

so if I accidentally don't update something, this is why.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri May 15, 2009 3:16 pm

So let's see... I've actually managed to put my entire Planet_twenty directory up, and it works! yay!

So that's like... 10 dragons, since everything else from planet 20 is on another site. lol.

So.... Opinions: should I try and rename things, lumping them in where appropriate (all planet twenty, instead of planet twenty, planet twenty realm and dragons sites, plus the old invaderwoz stuff where all the original p20 dragons actually are; the_endings + the_endings_crew... carramba_high + carramba_high_alumnus, etc)?

It can be done reasonably easily, I think, as long as I allow Dreamweaver to update things. At most, I have had to move images and such and then just check up each page to see that all the images are working again. The old old sites, they're a pain in the ass, but they'll get done.

Thing is it'd be easier to tell people where they ARE, if the structure remains the same. It's not that big of a deal either way to me, I am still planning on having a huge indexed list of everyone, and maybe if they've changed directory I'll indicate that.

I dunno. Anyone? Bueller?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:55 am

I dunno if anyone saw this but for everyone's reference:

"GeoCities is closing on October 26, 2009."

as per:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/index.html

Good luck with your repaging

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 12:40 pm

Wow, that's sooner than the girl on the phone led me to believe. Ah well.

Now.... Geocities rescues.

What about the sites we'd like to have kept for posterity? I've got I think almost all of Gallimim and Aden, Jerdan, and what little I could find of Sparkul. What else is out there that needs saving? I wish that Talor hadn't been 'hidden', though the records are there and didn't someone already grab those?

Kitsuneko · Post by **Kitsuneko** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 12:44 pm

They couldn't e-mail the customers or anything...

I saved Blue Sky Weyr's records a while back, but that's all I've got. I still need to finish rescuing my own files before putting them up on freehostia.

Cy · Post by Cy » Mon Jul 13, 2009 3:16 pm

So where is everyone else moving to? I've toyed around with a couple different places, but I liked the way Geocities worked. Anyone found anything close to it?

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 3:34 pm

Droppin the fork is hosted BY yahoo's small business. Plus, right now, they've got a pretty good deal for new accounts. Since you've already GOT a geocities site, you can upgrade it.

However, the lady on the phone told me that basically every ounce of their prior server-sided stuff (everything made with their page designer) will be removed. It's sad. So, you'd still have to make sure that everything you're uploading to the "new" site is done off-line, and uploaded.

I mainly took my dtf site from geocities into paid because I was lazy

I liked it too, and I've had it for quite some time now. O'course I'm paying more for it than a newcomer would which is kind of shitty. ah well.

Cy · Post by Cy » Mon Jul 13, 2009 11:11 pm

See, I was thinking about that... and I'd found a couple of other places that only cost 5-6$ a month, but I just dunno. Never had a paid site before, but now that Geocities is closing, I might go with one so that I have enough room to put all my sites in one place vs having multiple accounts.

Been trying to go through every day and save a few hundred pages to reupload and it's annoying. I never realized how many pages/sites I had X3

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:35 am

For domain registration and hosting, I cannot recommend godaddy.com enough. They are fairly inexpensive and have excellent service. The domain and hosting together usually cost about $50/year (if you get the cheapass hosting), though, which may be steep or reasonable depending on your situation. If you're tech savvy and feel like setting up a server in your basement, then it's only $10-$15/year for the domain itself.

delyar · Post by **delyar** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 10:37 am

I ended up going with justhost.com. I had to sign up for 3 years to get the cheapest rate (3$ a month) but so far have had very little problems with it. The only issue is that you have to pay the 3 years upfront.

Fuzzy · Post by **Fuzzy** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:27 am

Damnit! That means my:

www.geocities.com/tanazira - old gateway site
www.geocities.com/therubanrp - old site
www.geocities.com/tanazirareborn - newish site but unused
www.geocities.com/ojeeii - old site, outdated

Are going to be dead. !#!@*&#( >_<

But the places in my sig should be okay, except the ACEO one.

Double crap - my bonding site is affected too. I'll move it to a .cc.co website soon.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 11:09 am

Save all your pages, and put them up if you've got space

Post by **StarFyre** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 3:26 pm

So, I'm going to go toss this out there right now while I'm thinking about it.

I have all my pages saved (that I'm aware of) and offline, but it's a tossup on whether I'll manage to redo everything and toss them up online before geocities crashes (Joe and I are trying to get most of the wedding things plotted out already so that our parents stop nagging). But! They will not be _gone_, just, you know, sitting on my computer for a while as my life slowly goes back to crazytown. =P

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:30 pm

I'm pretty sure there's stuff I'm not going to get back up ever, myself. But, my main concern is still about those sites which have been inactive for years. meh.

Unyko · Post by **Unyko** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 9:50 pm

Not sure if anyone posted about this yet, but if you have a million files to rescue (like I did @.@ five accounts, all maxed out *flail*) and happen to have access to Firefox, there's a nice little addon that just about saved my sanity. It's called Download Them All! and it's seriously a dream come true. I have now rescued all of my geocities files (images and .html and .mov, oh my!). All 2,537 (108mb) of them. In under an hour. <3

So yeah, dunno if it was already mentioned, and am too tired right now to go through all the posts and check, but just thought I'd toss it out there for anyone in a similar predicament. *salute!*

*wander off to bed*

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:00 pm

Oooh that looks like a really neat addon. *click*

Mystic Dragon · Post by **Mystic Dragon** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:28 pm

Thanks for pointing out the addon, Uny. :D That made clearing out dragon_tooth_mountains a lot easier. Now the only problem is I keep going over my bandwidth when trying to save the actual pages.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:35 pm

Well since Geocities is an hourly bandwidth just go to another site for a bit, and come back later. I know the feeling, lol.

Post by **Dray** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:45 pm

Ah, that brings back the good ol' days of much anticipated hatchings going down when everyone tries to access them all at once. XD That's one thing that I'm not going to miss!

Post by **Dray** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:46 am

For free websites, I've heard that this is a good one, so long as you're not using the page builder, etc!

http://webng.com/

I haven't tried it myself, though it might be an alternative once Geocities closes down!

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:10 am

Holy crud I've spent about 3 hours tonight just going through the links from my old Egyptan pages and saving things from THERE, like other people's adoptables. Only some of the pages even work, and many of the adoption sites have been belly up for years, but some are still there, so I grabbed whatever I can. Hell I might just fill my hard drive lol.

Post by **Dray** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:42 am

Shard: the cyberpets savior! XD

delyar · Post by **delyar** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:40 am

Oh my god Egyptans. That brings back memories. (Holy shit I was like 12 back then!)

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:18 pm

Yeah and amazingly I still get requests even though it's obvious that the site hasn't been updated in years. I just had to turn down someone whose email I didn't read until now, in fact.

Post by **Dray** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:49 am

Hey Shard, what will be the URL for your Healing Den site on droppin'? In doing some repaging, I'm painfully aware that many of the sites that I'm linking back to are going to be defunct soon. XD I didn't want to link back to your geocities healing den because it will be poof'd soon, but if there's no new one yet, I can link back on the interim! (Also, directions for linkings to general Kshau_Protectorate stuff would be awesome. o.o)