Somewhat complete (official) forum backup!

[emusan]

I spent the last few days creating a backup of the official forum using HTTrack, a website copier. It's a little fiddly and I don't think I got the whole forum(in fact I'm know for a fact I didn't), and the search doesn't work, but I'm zipping it up and I will upload it to my personal site soon-ish (all 3+ GIGS of it, wow), in case the official forums actually go down and people want all of the info that's here. UPDATE: I got the whole forums now, there is now over 8 gigs of info on there!
There do seem to be a few bugs with it that I don't know how to fix, for example some threads open in a "threaded" view, in which you can only see the first post and then the replies above that, if you wish to view one of the replies, you must open the link in a new window(I have no idea why). An example of this is my [GUIDE] thread, only the first post is visible, but if you open one of the replies by one of the links above the first post (in a new window, otherwise you will get an error), you will see that reply.

Sorry, but I don't know any way to fix this problem so we'll have to live with it until someone finds another way.

Also, Google custom search is up! Unfortunately, because I don't want to pay $100/month, google requires ad's be displayed on results pages(only search results, the backup will be unaffected), but I assure you any money made from these ads will only go back into the cost of the server(if anyone knows of another easy to set up search engine, or wants to donate $100/month to remove the ads(google's price, not mine) I'm all ears).

Hopefully someone finds this useful

link - I know that the site isn't pretty, consider it a work in progress, but it works.(please note, the link has been updated to go through adfly, 5 seconds of your time will help my continued development on this device as well as web server costs, if you really don't want to use it, PM me and I can send you a direct link. If adfly leads you to a survey, back out and don't do anything there, these kinds of things are against the adfly TOS and they are working to remove them, thanks!)

If anyone is able to get a bug free backup of the board, let me know and I'll host it

ENJOY!

EDIT: updated information, etc.

[Batman Jr.]

This may be just in time - seems like the enTourage site may have really gone dark this time.

[Last_of_the_PEs]

@emusan
I also used the utility you suggested to grab a copy. My "tree" is quite a lot smaller, so maybe I got even less of the content? Looking at it, it seems I only got the first post in each thread. Can you let us know how much of the content you actually retrieved?

(now that you won't be distracted by the EdgeHacker forum... )

Thanks

[HardBall]

This may be it; and whatever is backed up might be the only stuff salvageable from the old site.

[paula-t]

I am downloading it now. Thank you for your work.

The EntourageEdge forum has been a live, dynamic and witty tutorial-site sustained in a quite exemplary way, thanks to many knowledgeable, respectul, funny and generous people. It deserved to be kept somehow and you have made that possible. It will probably become the silent partner of all the Edge users until their Edges die out.

[emusan]

Originally Posted by Last_of_the_PEs

@emusan
I also used the utility you suggested to grab a copy. My "tree" is quite a lot smaller, so maybe I got even less of the content? Looking at it, it seems I only got the first post in each thread. Can you let us know how much of the content you actually retrieved?

(now that you won't be distracted by the EdgeHacker forum... )

Thanks

Pretty much every sticky(that I've looked at anyway) has been completely saved(all posts, etc.), aside from those, every post on the first bunch and last few pages of every sub-forum has been saved, unfortunately the middle pages in the subforums did not get saved for every sub-forum(as far as I can tell, they may be hiding somewhere).

As I stated though, there are ~3GB of data there, which is a TON to go through on my own(I'm also working on other projects, including possibly a new "store" app, which should work as a replacement for the official Entourage one). I'm trying to filter through it myself, but I can't make it a priority quite yet.

Unfortunately I don't think that anyone has a full backup, and to my knowledge this is the most complete, so it will have to do for now.

EDIT: it seems I have also captured the various update.zip's for what seems to be a few different versions, whether any of these are more recent than what was officially released I'm not sure, but it might be worth checking out

[froydman]

Originally Posted by emusan

Note that this is a copy of my post from the official forums, so when I refer to "these" boards I mean the official ones, I'll try and edit them out but you never know.

I spent the last day-ish creating a backup of the official forum using HTTrack, a website copier. It's a little fiddly and I don't think I got the whole forum(in fact I'm know for a fact I didn't), and the search doesn't work, but I'm zipping it up and I will upload it to my personal site soon-ish (all 3+ GIGS of it, wow), in case the official forums actually go down and people want all of the info that's here.

I'll try and make it searchable and viewable without downloading the whole bunch of forums, but until then this will have to do.

Hopefully someone finds it useful

http://somestupidwebsite.com/downloa...ums/index.html - I know that the site isn't pretty, consider it a work in progress, but it works. Also note that the file is ~1 gig, so please don't download it more than once, I do have to pay for this.

If anyone is able to get a fuller backup of thosese boards I'll be happy to host it, but until then this will have to do. I'll also try and update it when I can but it takes some time.

ENJOY!

Downloading now...I bought the pocket edge on w00t three days before they announced they're killing support for the device, and these archives (the official ones) were a godsend until today at midnight when they seem to have taken them down.

Do you have a paypal address or something you could PM me? I'd like to kick something towards the bandwidth cost for the download!

[emusan]

Originally Posted by froydman

Do you have a paypal address or something you could PM me? I'd like to kick something towards the bandwidth cost for the download!

I'm not accepting donations right now, especially considering that the forum appears to be back up(though for how long is anyone's guess), also because none of the useful information backed up is by me, its other peoples posts... I am beginning work on a store app to replace theirs(considering they've shut pretty much everything down), and I may accept donations after that gets released.

Thanks for the offer though

[emusan]

Sorry for the double post, but I kidna want to bump this and ask how everyone's download speeds are(if you are downloading the backup). Also, I wanted to let everyone know that I found out why this one was incomplete, and I am currently doing another run on the site with that problem hopefully fixed. Whether or not I'll be able to get it all is up to when entourage removes the board, but it should at least get some more.

[sarah11918]

Thanks again for your work on this, emusan. I'm not going to dowload until it becomes evident I need to, but when I do, I'll report back speeds and any issues so you can troubleshoot.

[emusan]

Originally Posted by sarah11918

Thanks again for your work on this, emusan. I'm not going to dowload until it becomes evident I need to, but when I do, I'll report back speeds and any issues so you can troubleshoot.

Hopefully by tomorrow that wont be necessary, the current backup I'm making should be far more complete, and because of some new HD space I'm getting on my server I'll be able to host it live(instead of inside an archive). Right now I'm looking into ways to make it searchable, if anyone has any ideas that would be great.

[sarah11918]

Originally Posted by emusan

Right now I'm looking into ways to make it searchable, if anyone has any ideas that would be great.

I'm sure you've probably already thought of this, but once the mirrored/hosted site gets archived by google, would it suffice to have some kind of google search that includes the site: parameter? Would that at least suffice?

[emusan]

Originally Posted by sarah11918

I'm sure you've probably already thought of this, but once the mirrored/hosted site gets archived by google, would it suffice to have some kind of google search that includes the site: parameter? Would that at least suffice?

yes, I think that would work, I was also thinking of putting on one of those google custom search things, the only problem is I don't know how easy it would be to edit the backed up pages(if its even possible), and if not then I would have to create a separate page on my site for searching through the forums, and I'm not entirely sure how that would work out. There is still time though, as I estimate it will be another day(at least) before the backup is finished, there were A LOT of posts on that board lol.

[emusan]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to let everyone know that the new forum backup (after 1.25 days of running) is done as far as I can tell. Final size seems to be ~6-7 gigs(HTTrack is removing duplicate and unnecessary files right now), which is a good sign. After a quick look over it seems to have grabbed almost everything(I checked page 26 of the general boards, and one thread there seems to have had a few pages oddly formatted). I have yet to look over much else, but the outlook is good.

I wont be doing another backup for at least another few weeks(if the forums are even around then ), as I don't have the time to devote to it, however if someone else wants to I'll be happy to host it when they're done.

I've said this elsewhere, but I'll ask again, if anyone knows of any good way to make this searchable I would love to know, so far I'm thinking of possibly a page outside the backup with a google custom search using an index of the backup, but if anyone knows another way please let me know(I don't think that modifying the backed up pages themselves would be easy to do, and to add the search to each one would take a lifetime(I'd estimate ~200000 pages in total)).

I'll start uploading the backup to my server tomorrow, and it will be viewable live this time(as opposed to an archive) due to a nice increase in HD space I just bought. Sorry to those who downloaded the archive the first time, I didn't expect to have another chance at backing up, and at the time my server was quite full.

EDIT: I have started uploading it to my server, due to the size it may take until tonight for me to make it live(possibly even longer), I'll post again once its up.

[good153]

Many thanks for your wonderful effort.