Databases restored to December 21st - "We're baaaack!"

[Mike Ratledge]

Each and every one of us a debt of gratitude to Dan for putting so much personal time into the recovery of our forums, and taking a corrupted backup from December 21st and repairing it so it could be restored. We're much better off now with a little over a month lost than with nearly a year lost, although of course we've lost any changes that were made during the past few weeks.

If you're trying to log in and your account doesn't work, please understand that the user database is exactly like it was on December 21st, 2013 - meaning that if you used a temporary username - it's gone; and if you changed your password and don't remember the old one, you need to do a password reset/recovery. If anyone has any problems, please contact me by PM and I'll fix you up as soon as possible.

Thank you to everyone for their understanding and patience during this ordeal. I'm going to be very zealous about making backups locally (offline) and testing them every single time to insure they aren't corrupt. I still don't understand what happened to make the one I had here unusable, but Dan is truly a magician and turned that mess into a usable SQL DataBase table and restored it for us around 2PM local (Eastern) time today.

If anyone is missing from the MOD accounts that is an oversight. I'm running as fast as I can right now, but I still have work to do - please PM me.

THANKS, DAN! YOU *ARE* THE MAN!!!

[Eoghann]

Amazing! Dan we seriously can't thank you enough for what you've done. It's fantastic work!

[th4mo]

Thank you so much DAN!!!

Damn, i missed this place!

I'm never leaving again...

[Mike Ratledge]

I just rebuilt the "Verified Designer" and "Verified Reseller" groups, which were one of the things that was deleted by the previous owner.

I KNOW that I missed some people - from both groups. I had to manually walk through 32 pages of usernames and select them by hand. If I missed you and you belong in either group, please send me a PM so I can add you back.

These two groups will both soon have private areas on the forums for interpersonal discussions, and you will HAVE to be a member of the group to get there.

Please note that the sub-forum for designing decks was moved to the "New Cards" subforum instead of 'hidden' beneath another topic. Right now you do not have to be a "Verified Designer", but soon - you will be required to be a member before you can post there (you *might* be able to read - I'm going to leave that up to the deck designers/artists).

[Lotrek]

THANK YOU DAN!

[th4mo]

Thanks to Ratman, as well!

UC rises from the ashes once more...

[Eoghann]

Thanks to Dan and his invaluable skill and dedication, to Mike for doing everything in his power to keep us afloat. To all the users who are back and are helping rebuild the site. As I said earlier, words aren't enough to convey gratitude.

[chach]

Thanks to Dan and his invaluable skill and dedication, to Mike for doing everything in his power to keep us afloat. To all the users who are back and are helping rebuild the site. As I said earlier, words aren't enough to convey gratitude.

Yeah, what he said.

[montecarlojoe]

Thirded!

We need to erect a statue to Dan or something!

[ivan]

Shhhhhh

[Mike Ratledge]

Thirded!

We need to erect a statue to Dan or something!

We've already got something up our sleeve(s), Joe!

[leopardessmoon]

Thanks to Dan and the rest!

from a lurker...

[LA Karnival]

Thanks Dan! You're the best!

[max]

I am so happy we all are back!

Thanks to you all!

Mike, What happen finally about the old owner? Didn't he answer to your calls?

Best wishes

Max

[Sher]

I'm sorry, I'm not sure who Dan is, but I'm very grateful, too.

Before the restore, I couldn't even log on and post, so yeahhh it's awesome to be back

[Becky C]

I return home from Magi-Fest to see We're Back!! It's a beautiful thing. Thanks Dan and Mike.

[Mike Ratledge]

I am so happy we all are back!

Thanks to you all!

Mike, What happen finally about the old owner? Didn't he answer to your calls?

Best wishes

Max

Max, I have never heard a word from him, not even a "good luck, you're on your own" - not an email nor a phone call. I did find his "technical" person Jerome Dymond, and he told me that the website was no longer even in BMPW's account, so it is my best guess that the clock ran out on January 18th, rather than February 18th as I was told, and on January 19th at about 6:30AM Eastern time GoDaddy.com pulled the DNS due to lack of paymentl, so at that point "unitedcardists.com" essentially ceased to exist. I never got any bills forwarded from him, either.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure who Dan is, but I'm very grateful, too.

Before the restore, I couldn't even log on and post, so yeahhh it's awesome to be back

Dan's a member here, has been for a good while - certainly before I was a member myself. He's been awfully quiet here and apparently doesn't want all the publicity, but we all owe him a big debt of gratitude!

[vasta41]

Max, I have never heard a word from him, not even a "good luck, you're on your own" - not an email nor a phone call. I did find his "technical" person Jerome Dymond, and he told me that the website was no longer even in BMPW's account, so it is my best guess that the clock ran out on January 18th, rather than February 18th as I was told, and on January 19th at about 6:30AM Eastern time GoDaddy.com pulled the DNS due to lack of paymentl, so at that point "unitedcardists.com" essentially ceased to exist. I never got any bills forwarded from him, either.

What the hell happened to Mike? It's as if he fell off the face of the earth. Nothing on his webpage or ebay since November. Did he give up on playing cards?

[Mike Ratledge]

Max, I have never heard a word from him, not even a "good luck, you're on your own" - not an email nor a phone call. I did find his "technical" person Jerome Dymond, and he told me that the website was no longer even in BMPW's account, so it is my best guess that the clock ran out on January 18th, rather than February 18th as I was told, and on January 19th at about 6:30AM Eastern time GoDaddy.com pulled the DNS due to lack of paymentl, so at that point "unitedcardists.com" essentially ceased to exist. I never got any bills forwarded from him, either.

What the hell happened to Mike? It's as if he fell off the face of the earth. Nothing on his webpage or ebay since November. Did he give up on playing cards?

To be perfectly honest, I do not know. I do know that when I went to try to contact him through the Brooke Michael's Poker World website I never got any answer, and I don't get an answer if I try the number that I have for them (which appears to be disconnected) and "Directory Assistance" does not have a listing for them in Lincoln Park New Jersey. I do know that I found out in a round-about way that (apparently) his father "Savatore" Michael Ferannte died about two (maybe three, now?) weeks ago - or so I was told, and I found things doing web searches that indicate the same thing.

[vasta41]

Max, I have never heard a word from him, not even a "good luck, you're on your own" - not an email nor a phone call. I did find his "technical" person Jerome Dymond, and he told me that the website was no longer even in BMPW's account, so it is my best guess that the clock ran out on January 18th, rather than February 18th as I was told, and on January 19th at about 6:30AM Eastern time GoDaddy.com pulled the DNS due to lack of paymentl, so at that point "unitedcardists.com" essentially ceased to exist. I never got any bills forwarded from him, either.

What the hell happened to Mike? It's as if he fell off the face of the earth. Nothing on his webpage or ebay since November. Did he give up on playing cards?

To be perfectly honest, I do not know. I do know that when I went to try to contact him through the Brooke Michael's Poker World website I never got any answer, and I don't get an answer if I try the number that I have for them (which appears to be disconnected) and "Directory Assistance" does not have a listing for them in Lincoln Park New Jersey. I do know that I found out in a round-about way that (apparently) his father "Savatore" Michael Ferannte died about two (maybe three, now?) weeks ago - or so I was told, and I found things doing web searches that indicate the same thing.

I wonder if that's the mystery then. Maybe his father has been sick for a while? Either way I don't think his disappearance has anything to do with his feelings toward the site or us. I think it's bigger than that. But who really knows.. very odd though.

[Mike Ratledge]

Well, last night's foul-up (until around 5PM / 17.00) here the forums were offline from some time in the wee hours of the morning. I do know the board was online shortly after 1AM here, because I got a thread subscription reminder or PM notification. What happened was explained elsewhere here, I won't double-post. We're paid up and secure through 24-Feb-2016 for the forum hosting (unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk usage) with SiteLock and CodeGuard, and the basic 'cPanel' administrative (external web-based entry to an offline web hosting control, including ability to reboot the system if it's hung or damaged (after a restore). The board is backed up internally and to the cloud every day, and SiteLock works to scan incoming and outging (as well as existing) code is the forums. Domain registration prepaid through September, 2018.

[Mike Ratledge]

Just keeping everyone up-to-date: today I upgraded our "CodeGuard" license from a 1GB to a 5GB per day backup. It seems as though we have grown from about 700MB to 1.2GB in just under two weeks. That's a good thing, membership is up almost 25% in the past ten days as well, and obviously - we're growing quickly, with the total data space required to backup our entire system has jumped by more than 50% in that same time-period.

As it is, we were getting by because of the compression used during the backups and only taking up a total of about 3/4th of a GB (compressed size of 1.2GB actual size), but it was pretty obvious that unless we suddenly hit a brick wall and quit growing, we will soon be beyond the ability for compression to keep us under that 1GB limit. When I upgraded, I went to a 5GB per day size limit, but also this new increase allows me to do backups "on demand" several times a day if I feel it necessary. It still includes the automated backup that takes our information and stores it "in the cloud" encrypted so that I can restore the forums to within the past 24 hours at any time from any location, includes a 7-day (weekly) backup retention for a month, meaning that 4 weekly backups are stored offline from the data center and available in case of catastrophic problems - which are pretty much beyond anything we've already seen: the two failures we had on January 19th and one night and part of the day a week ago are impossible (well, let's say "improbable", I don't like to tempt fate). So, we've got "SiteLock" (malware code and hacker scanning defenses), "CodeGuard" - a complete daily backup outside of the server that has retention for up to a month other than the daily backups done on the server itself by the "cPanel" and built-in SQL DB checkpoint (backup) done on demand, so we have 3 layers of backups: phpBB 3.0.12 does a backup on demand to either the server or downloaded to me, 'cPanel' does a nightly SQL DB checkpoint/backup every morning at 3AM or 4AM, and "CodeGuard" does yet another backup both to the cloud and to another NAS unit not associated with the server itself. I think I might have overreacted just a little bit, but - let me be certain - we don't ever have to worry about getting to our backups again, nor do we have to worry about whether or not we have a current backup available at all times. We also are now running on a 5GM max size backup, and only using a little under 25% of that space right now, so there's plenty of room to grow - in fact, we can grow more than 300% without having to go to the next level, which is only an additional $50 per year.

I see two things: I see everybody using UC again, and I see more and more new users coming to UC every day. That means we're doing something right, and I hope it means that we're now the first line of knowledge for people online looking for accurate and in-depth coverage of "All things playing cards"!

[chach]

I see two things: I see everybody using UC again, and I see more and more new users coming to UC every day. That means we're doing something right, and I hope it means that we're now the first line of knowledge for people online looking for accurate and in-depth coverage of "All things playing cards"!

That's excellent news, really glad to hear it.