First, I want to apologize for being so scarce. I normally don’t have any trouble keeping up with all the various forums and whatnot, but I’ve been extremely busy as of late. Some highlights:
The Ebbles download area got borked a while back due to some settings changes made by my hosting provider. These changes are normally a good thing, but they ended up affecting a couple of scripts that deliver the downloads. After some lengthy back and forth with technical support, we finally found the cause and have fixed most of the problems. However, there may still be a couple of missing files, and I still need to add the old free downloads to the system and merge the Ecwid store’s downloads with the old ones.
Incidentally, I had already set up and planned to surprise all of my old customers with full access to all of my old products, but the technical issues forced me to put the official announcement on hold until they were resolved. I noticed, however, a tendency for many of those customers to obviously discover that they suddenly had a lot of downloads they hadn’t actually paid for, then instead of emailing me on the off chance that it might have been a mistake, most of these people just tried to binge-download it all in a single go and run off like common looters. How rude.
On the WWG front, some of you likely know about that little whoopsie where some people are missing downloads. Long story short, the process of migrating data from the old WWG store to the new WWG store relied upon the product SKU to match up products and generate downloads. However, the SKUs for some of the products changed at some point, so these products were erroneously handled as discontinued legacy products. Those show up in your order history, but not in your collections.
To make things even more hilarious, we did not realize this had occurred until well after the store had gone live and a lot of new orders had been processed. So, we couldn’t just wipe the slate clean and redo the migration, and it meant I had to do the programming equivalent of repairing an engine while it’s still running. It took me a while, but I’ve developed and tested a fix for that issue. As it requires turning the store off for maintenance for a little while, I’m scheduling it to happen during off-peak hours during an upcoming weekend.
I’ve also been minding the store in Denny’s absence. The guy finally caught some vacation time this past weekend through Wednesday, and I hope he made the most of it. I’ve been keeping an eye on the dev forum, the public forum, the store backend, and making sure the scheduled releases went smoothly. Speaking of which, Matt’s done a bang-up job on the new Mayhem Traffic set, so check it out!
I’ve also been moonlighting in graphic design. Mrs E works for a local school for certified nurse aides, and she’s the senior CNA instructor there. She asked me to update their advertising flyer, because the old one was pretty dire. Apparently I’ve still got the touch for that sort of thing, because they’re in love with it and have kicked the mockup I did to the home office in Florida for approval. She also kind of broached the idea of me redoing their website and some other stuff…which ended in me nearly asphyxiating from laughter, then curling up into the fetal position and doing a 4 hour Colonel Kurtz impression under the dining room table.
And just to make sure there’s no rest for the wicked, Mrs E’s computer has bought a bus ticket to Failville as of a couple days ago. I’m currently copying her files to my old Gateway convertible, which is why I’m still up at 2:53AM CST instead of sleeping. I spent the day cleaning my old stuff off of it, then running a system recovery, uninstalling the factory-supplied shovelware, installing Firefox, Thunderbird, and a bunch of other stuff, and now I’m moving her documents, photos, and assorted files. I figured I’d take the opportunity to update my blog while the file transfer is in process. You know, instead of twiddling my thumbs or counting the popcorn thingies on the ceiling.
I’m gonna go put on a pot of coffee.
Chris, you truly are a man dedicated to his craft. I thought the full catalog availability was some sort of "you bought the archive DVD, so I opened this up in case you somehow needed a file and couldn't find your disc." I hope I wasn't one of the super rude you alluded to. (Then again, I did only download the Marine Perchie again by mistake.)
I saw Matt's traffic set. I've got all of the old Mayhem cars, and I'm doing more near future stuff, but I might grab it anyway. The props set looks like an easy way to keep everything organized, but I doubt I'll be making enough to mind not having it. Well, until I find a good deal on a robo-cutter.
Good luck with the graphic design work. You needed another hat to wear. *ducks*
Man, you're burning the candle at both ends these days. Great job on the site! As far as the computer and things messing up in general go, just remember that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of the oncoming train!!
AoM: Oh, no, the folks in question weren't archive DVD owners. I'm talking about folks who, like, bought a couple of models years ago and then forgot about me. You'd think those people would be the most grateful, but it turns out that the ones who ARE grateful tend to be the ones who actually bought the most stuff! Go figure.
EO: Yeah, tell me about it.
In other news, I didn't know whether to bust out laughing or crawl right back into bed earlier today. After handing off my old notebook to Mrs E, my new notebook started acting up with a weird Windows 7 startup repair issue. I managed to get it to boot up somehow, then I did a full backup again just to be safe. I'm glad I already got my releases for this month sorted out.
Some people.
Man, there are some days you're tempted to ask what else can happen, but trust me, don't give in to the temptation. You're only giving Murphy chances if you do.
Hang in there!
Becky
I had a little chuckle for you about the laptop issue, but only a little one. It always seems the old "when it rains, it pours" applies to you hardcore, whether it's feast or famine.
As for the catalog being available to people who never bought a lot of the models, I guess no one follows the advice about the mouths of gift horses anymore. It's kind of odd that they would have even thought to check the site to see that there was a sudden bounty available.
I hope the computers start behaving. I'm eagerly awaiting the Podtel. I already consider that money spent.
Becky, AoM: New notebook's back to being well-behaved. I don't know what happened or why it happened, but it hasn't been acting up lately. For now. Knock on wood.
I've purchases a few models in the past, but had been keeping up with the forums and new blog. (I animated the Type-18).
But I cannot seem to remember my password for the download section. I never even thought of checking there until I read this update.
Gordon
Gordon: Have you tried using the "forgot password" functionality? Your username/login is your PayPal email address.
Downloads? I thought all of that stuff went away, I reorganized my hard-drive after the store closed and backed everything up…then bought the dvd just to make sure.
They *are* going away once I pull the plug on the old site for good. The problems with the download area delayed my plan to close it down permanently, as there are a lot of people who for some reason don't bother keeping up on the news, and some of them sent me incredibly bitchy emails and PMs about how I should have personally hand-delivered a notarized letter to their doorstep, with five sworn witnesses, giving them 80 years of advance notice that I'm closing up shop, and that posting it in the News and Announcements section of the forum (which was prominently linked to from the top and bottom menus on the main site) doesn't count as informing customers of the pending closure. Yeah.
I bought the dvd too, and thanks for the opportunity.
Wait, there were supposed to be hand-delivered notarized letters? I didn't get one, where's my letter!
I liked being a notary, my favorite part was the "ka-chunk!" sound my seal made when I was finishing a document. 🙂
I have the DVD, but I can't seem to find my payload items for the UD-41. That's why I stumbled into the downloads section still being up. (Also, TOPO's link to UCM2 is still working.)
I don't want to ask anyone here for the payload items because I have no proof I've already paid for the models (outside of Mel's records).
I anyone finds them on the DVD, can you point them out to me so I can stop feeling dumb?
Dangit! I didn't realize that the old place was still up at all. I deleted the link. On the old forum the payload items at one point were a treasure for forum members. If Mel gives the okay, someone ought to be able to email it to you. I wouldn't post my email in an open blog, though.
Yeah, I have the Gorilla and the Feiqui, I just somehow seem to have misplaced my payload items. I had them, must have done something with them when I got the DVD, and now I can't even find them on my old machine.
Like I said before, don't worry about it. The freebies will be added to the download area when I have a chance.
Uh, Mel, we're a little bit sensitive about "common looters" right now here in Englandland…
Grif
Mel, I tried the "Forgot Password" before. But I wasn't filling in my address first, so was confused in my old age. It's working now, thanks.
Hmmm, which one should I convert to 3D model?
Thanks again,
Gordon