For the past 5 days the website and forum of the GameMaker Technology magazine have been inaccessible for readers of the magazine and staff members.
Explaining the situation at the GMC, GameMaker Tech editor gmjab wrote “Our host has unexpectedly closed without any noticed to all its registered users. We are trying to resolve this issue but we cannot guaranty that we’ll be able to retrieve our data.”
I guess that’s what comes from relying on small free webhosts…
Update: The website is now back online and can be found at GameMakerTech.info
I don’t really see why anyone cares that the site was down for 5 days. It doesn’t exactly get a million visitors a day. I agree with gamez93 in going for a free host.
I don’t think comparing a car to web hosting is a very fair comparison however, understand where you are coming from.
@Danny – That is nice for you.
@tuntis – If I wasn’t interested in keeping it alive, I wouldn’t have bothered trying to get the site back online.
I am not arguing about anything, I am not saying your professional or not- or anything like that. I am just saying that we use free hosting, because we don’t have funds to spend on paid hosting. That is all I have said and that is all I am saying.
I like how you turned this into an argument much more complicated than it’s supposed to be.
My point was simple – having your website down for 5 days because you were using an free web host (which are (usually) unreliable) is very unprofessional.
“The only way to get paid hosting, is by paying for it with money.”
I linked you to something that costs you 20$ for a year. If you aren’t willing to dedicate such a small amount for your project, you obviously aren’t interested in keeping it alive.
The only way to get paid hosting, is by paying for it with money. Something that we currently don’t have. On this new website, you can see that there is space for people to buy advertising. If we make money from this, then we can move to paid hosting.
However not all paid hosts are good, GMB has been down a few times (they use paid hosting), YYG has been down (they have their own servers), GMKing as well (they have paid hosting). Those are just a few. Over the last 7 months, GMTech has hardly been down. Only once, due to some server troubles. Down two of three times in the last 7 months is better than most other GM sites.
Bla bla bla. There is nothing wrong with a free web host. There are many free website hosts that have the same and even better up time then paid ones(not to mention more space and bandwidth). I’m not saying free is always better then paid, I’m just saying that there are some free hosts out there that are better then paid ones.
Tuntis, it is not our problem that this occurred. Don’t forget that we were not the only ones affected by this. There are hundreds of other sites that have also been lost. We do not make fun of GMKing when it goes down(and it’s gone down a couple of times this year) so at least have some respect.
We have told our readers what has happened, we have worked on trying to get as much data back as we can, what more can we possibly do? people seem to think that when a site or something else goes down that we don’t care, but we DO! the website is our main source of communication to the rest of our staff and our readers, it is the last thing we want to loose.
Unless someone is going to start funding us to buy paid hosting we may stay on a free host. We are not making a single cent by making the magazine. I find it quite funny how we try to support as many people as we can through the magazine by providing help and articles, yet when it comes to supporting us, there are only few…
gmjab
Danny I should mention something, not everyone can afford there own host, because maybe they are spending there money on something more important, like, they could have a car, and need to buy petrol or something like that.
My point it, is that people maybe dedicated to what they do, but can’t fund it always because of other things, but honestly, if you had to chose between in the car example, wheather to walk in the rain and have a paid website, or have a free host, and drive your car and not get wet?
That may sound a little confusing, but that is what it maybe like, in other instances.
But I do agree, $20 a year is very cheap, if you could afford it that is 😛
……And maybe depending on the monthly data transfer and all of the other stats.
Oh common. Even I (who use to have a 3 person staff) was able to afford web hosting $10 dollars a month really isn’t that expensive. Of course now the lovely GMKing host our site and I don’t have to pay but, if worse came to worse I can always afford paid hosting again.
I’m with Paul here; none of us are “professionals” and so it’s a moot argument.
Yes, Tuntis, an actual website with its own hosting does lend a project a veneer of “authority” or “class”.
Yes, gmjab and gamez93, it does cost money and when you don’t have a lot of money, even $20 a year can be a lot of cash.
No, Tuntis, it doesn’t mean that they don’t care about keeping it alive.
Ultimately, what makes a project “good” or “bad”– which is a much more important debate than anything as inane as “professional” or “amateurish”– isn’t how much one pays for hosting.
It’s the content. And I think there are three magazines in Game Maker Land that have excellent content: Mark-Up, Game Maker Tech, and one other magazine that comes out every three months that I can’t remember right off the top of my head.
The “professional” vs. “amateur” thing is, in the end, all about perception– about surfaces– not about actual quality. Which I think is ultimately a more important discussion to have, don’t you?
That being said, it’s a lot more “professional” when people use their actual names instead of psuedonyms. It’s a lot easier– for those who look at surfaces– to take someone named Roger Ebert seriously than it is someone named MovieFan1942.
You guys are funny.
You keep getting offended, when referred to as unprofessional. But defend yourselves by re-enforcing that you are amateurs.
You do know the difference between doing something professional and not doing something professionally?
I’m so glad to be off my other server…they gave me so many problems. I recommend paid MidPhase or AnHosting. I’ve never had one problem with anything gamez93.
Yet another show of major professionalism from the GMTech staff.
Bla bla bla. Your fault for using free web hosting. That already shows a great deal of professionalism. 🙂
It would be very cheap for the team to buy some web hosting that would serve them fine for a very low price.
The bad news is I am still working on the forum. The good news is that I have got most of the site up. I am working on sorting out temp download links until I sort out the download page.
So that’s what happened…