This link where I usually downloaded the Slashdot news are not working.

http://www.fourteenminutes.com/code/avantslash/live/avantify.cgi

Any of you know what is going on?

Thanks.

The original site, http://slashdot.org/palm seems to work just fine. Just make sure you don't hit it all at once, or Slashdot will ban you temporarily for slamming them.

This link where I usually downloaded the Slashdot news are not working.
The link you point to is AvantSlash... I use that too, and since it's down, I'm a bit annoyed. If I can find a copy of the code, I'll run it somewhere for those who want it... But so far my efforts to find it haven't been going so well. :shy:

So if anyone has a copy around, mind sending it to me?

Looks like there were some recent troubles (http://www.derekgathright.com/?p=39) with Avantify aka AvantSlash and Slashdot.

Perhaps their server (http://www.fourteenminutes.com) was also "just" hacked as it seems to be completely erased. Too bad, I couldn't find any other place where to download the current latest version of the script (3.1).

I've got a copy of 2.3.1. I'm getting it working now. :)

Unfortunately it's getting late and this thing is giving me a headache... 2.3.1 code attached if anyone else wants a go at it... >.>


Edit: And Colin, actually there's a bit more to that link you posted.. From the end of the entry.
Update: It appears that the ban has been lifted. I’m guessing that it was unintentional to begin with as they do ban users for hammering their rss feed. No exect word on what happened, but the avantslash site does say this…
"Two severe bugs crept into the 3.0 release relating to the way that AvantSlash handles requests for out-of-date pages and caching. Use of version 3.0 will generate excessive requests to the Slashdot server and get your IP banned. As such, it is highly recommended to update to v3.1 which resolves these issues."

I now have a copy working. :) Don't hit it too hard please, I'm running it just off a computer in my basement...
http://aqua.empireirc.net/avantslash/avantify.cgi

And it turns out the code I originally had was one revision out of date for the 2.x series... So I'll attach 2.32 now. :) It works. For now. :\

(When/if it stops working, tell me - I can try to fix the code up myself for whatever /.'s changed, if the avantslash page isn't back by then...)

Probably not a good idea overall.. if Slashdot sees all of the hits from users hitting you, to them, from YOUR IP, you'll get banned too. Best to run it through an anonymizing proxy for each request, and make sure you add a random delay between each page request, or they'll start banning IPs all around.

Their system is automated, and checks requests/sec/ip and bans based on that.

AvantSlash seems pretty good about not hitting the pages too often. I've got it set to 35 minutes cache timeout (yes, it does use a cache). I believe if it's much lower than 30, Slashdot can start banning. Maybe I'll up that to 45... Just in case.

Addition: Like the article Colin pointed to, AvantSlash 3.0 had some form of bug, making it hit the pages too rapidly - but the 2.x doesn't have that problem - and I haven't messed with the code yet, and I won't unless it breaks and the main AvantSlash page is still gone when that happens...

Hi there,

I'm the author of AvantSlash (for my sins). As you have noticed the entire domain has gone up in smoke after the owner of the server I was running on had a hissy fit and deleted my entire account.

This meant the loss of about 200 emails, my photo album (comments, not the photos, thankfully), three domains and all associated PHP and Perl with them, four very popular hosted pages, two popular web applications, the entire AvantSlash code, five personal applications and a tonne of things that were "work in progress". So a lot.

I'm trying to get the site up and running again (just waiting for the domain to get transferred to a new host who doesn't suffer from the male version of PMT) but, at present, I'm unsure as to whether I can continue to host the code. This is for two main reasons:

1. I don't actually have v3.0 or v3.1 code any more!!
2. I don't know how much bandwidth the live site uses. If it's too much, then I may need to ask someone else to host it.

If anyone has v3.0 or v3.1 of AvantSlash, then I would really appreciate it if they could email it to me. I tried asking on Slashdot (post here (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156639&cid=13133269)) but saldy didn't get much of a response. If anyone does have it, then my address is silver followed by the @ sign, followed by ewtoo.org

Many thanks for your patience.

Hi Silver,

I was looking around for the code. The problem is that most Linux software distris (such as Freshmeat) were pointing the download to your old host.

Will keep diggin...

the entire AvantSlash code
As you probably saw, I have the 2.32 code attached earlier in the thread, so you don't have to start entirely from scratch...

2. I don't know how much bandwidth the live site uses. If it's too much, then I may need to ask someone else to host it.
It doesn't seem to be taking up much bandwidth for me, but I don't think the mirror I created is that well known. If you want I can keep at least one or two mirrors running somewhere, once you get the website back running.

If anyone has v3.0 or v3.1 of AvantSlash, then I would really appreciate it if they could email it to me.
Unfortunately, as far as I can find, very few people were/are using the 3.x code... The newest I got was the aforementioned 2.32...

No luck here either I tried Google and MSN today but noone seems to be running 3.x.

Many thanks for all your support.

I've managed to get hold of version 3.0 of AvantSlash and have updated it to 3.1 which I've attached in this post.

As soon as the domain is pointing to the correct server, I will get the pages back up and running.

Once again, I apologise for any inconveniance caused.

I now have a copy working. :) Don't hit it too hard please, I'm running it just off a computer in my basement...
Would you consider helping me out by being a mirror for avantslash? I'm planning to change the current URL to randomly take people to different mirrors in an attempt to spread the load evenly.

This link where I usually downloaded the Slashdot news are not working.

http://www.fourteenminutes.com/code/avantslash/live/avantify.cgi

Any of you know what is going on?
I'm pleased to announce that, following the sucessful transferral of the domain to a different server, this site is now back up and running again.

However, in order to reduce the amount of bandwidth used, the site now caches content for up to an hour before requesting new content from Slashdot. If you would like it to be more up-to-date then you will need to consider hosting the code yourself.