Happy New Year 2009!  Any resolutions you'd like to make?

And don't worry, this is Fybertech.  You don't have to actually finish them..!

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Have a random internet cat!

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You might have noticed that the menu bar along the top of the site is different.  That's because it is!  I finally removed Electris, Defenders of Zentax, and the demo ROMs to Fybertech.net, since they're more of my own personal projects and kind of in the way sitting on the community site here.  Since FyBBS isn't ever up anymore, I removed it too, meaning the whole Games dropdown menu bit the bullet.  Then I noticed that I could just take everything out of the Media dropdown and put them all across the menu bar, so I did.  I kind of liked those dropdowns, but no point in fancy effects when it can be more straightforward.

I've had some ideas for other things, and assuming laziness doesn't attack, you might see a thing or two pop up here and there in other spots.  STAY TUNED.  MAYBE.

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I actually had this post typed and thought I clicked submit, but after reopening my browser and finding a blank topic form, I realized apparently not..!

Anyhow, despite assumptions to the contrary (including myself), we easily raised the money for another year of the server.  Not even everyone who could have donated had to, because we had enough.  It's pretty cool to think that folks care enough about the community to donate their hard-earned bucks to keep it and all its features afloat.  So a big thanks to everyone who donated!  I'm sure everyone else around here appreciates it just as much.

And just a bit of newsy news:  I've been working on a kind of Pong/Space Invaders hybrid, which you can check out some early demos of in the forum topic there.  Considering how relatively easy it's been so far, and the progress I've made in such a short time, I might end up with something playable soon..!

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As many of you may already know, regular donations are what keep Fybertech afloat.  Boris and Vito in particular have gone out of their way to ensure that things keep trucking along for the last few years, for which I'm sure we're all grateful.  Last year, in fact, Boris decided to splurge and sent an entire year's worth of what he'd normally have donated all at once, and this earned us a 20% increase of disk space through the company that Fybertech's server is hosted at.  That being the fine folks at Linode.

Now normally I wouldn't do this, but the time for ackshun is approaching, so I thought I'd make folks aware of what's pending.  Basically, Boris isn't going to be able to cover an entire year of his usual donations up front this time around.  This doesn't mean that Fybertech is in sudden peril, because both Boris and Vito will surely continue to help out regularly as they've so thankfully done so far.  But what this means for Fybertech is that we have to switch back to monthly payments, which unfortunately means that we have to give up our 20% of extra disk space.

In case you're wondering what good that space is to Fybertech, currently 2.3GB of 4get's 5.4GB of content rests there.  As does all approximately 600MB of 4thread.  It's proven useful for other things as well, like for temporary hosting and storage purposes and such.  And who knows what other user-contributable creation(s) will sprout up in the future that would need such space.  Fybertech says "disk space taste good om nom".  That's a direct quote, too.  I asked it.

Losing the extra disk space won't mean the end of 4get or 4thread, but they're obviously going to get pretty heavily pruned.  I lack the disk space on the backup server to grab those sections of the site when doing regular backups, so those images will pretty much be gawn.  It's not a huge loss, no, but space will be tighter in general.  They'd have had to be pruned eventually anyway, just probably not this drastically.

So, how much exactly is needed to keep things going like they are?  And by when?  Oh, it's just $250.  And it's due September 1st.  Yeah, not a small sum, which is why kudos go to Boris for covering that as well as the .com domain renewal last year which also came due at the same time (and will again this year).  Problem is, to change billing plans back to monthly, I'll probably have to do it around the end of this month so that things will be set by the time the due date rolls around.  So that gives us about two weeks to decide what we want to do here.

I don't like asking folks for money, and still won't ask outright, but I thought I'd point out the situation and see what folks wanted to do.  If the consensus is "who cares", then it's no big deal, I'll do a truffle shuffle with the site contents and we'll work it out.  If keeping the space and everything assocated with it is preferred, then obviously some much appreciated donations would be required.  But it's up to you guys!  Feel free to comment or discuss things here in the topic.  Or if you want to shove greenbacks on me immediately, check the FAQ section for the Paypal link, or PM me I guess for an address if you do snail mail.  No flaming poop on porch though kthx.

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Many of the people who frequent this place have a past at the now defunct Hazard Labs.  And as those folks will recall, after "THAT AWFUL DAY", both Fybertech and the former Hazard Labs restructured their fictional representations to account for the division, and moved along with new adventures.  To my knowledge, both sides have modified their histories to exclude various parts of the past.

There's been casual mentionings of the fictional version of events that left to the two sides as they are now, but nothing was ever "officially" written to portray that.  Well, after it briefly came up in chat again a few days ago, and with me being in such a writery mood lately from working on De Novo, I felt the urge to tell that story as I've imagined it.

Keep in mind, the events of FyberOptic aboard the Hazard Labship are currently no longer a part of the Fybertech timeline.  But for a time, they were, and so this is my own telling at least of the events that transpired.  Also keep in mind that this lacks any bearing on the current Hazard Labs history with the folks over at Snipe-Hunt.  Just pretend it's some alternate reality version, where Fybertech and Hazard Labs still co-exist in the same universe!

Fybertech: Forgotten History

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I didn't expect to have it ready tonight, but after some editing, I realized I had a fine chunk to put up for everyone.  So I hope you enjoy part 14!

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Wow, I didn't realize just how long it had been since I released any of The De Novo Project.  Over a year!  So without further ado, here is the much overdue part 13.  I may just finish this sucker up at this rate.

Since it's been so long, you might want to re-read the last part.  Or all of it, if you've never checked it out.  It's in the Fybrary.  Some of the older parts have been changed a little as well, but probably not enough to significantly change the story.

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Debian (the flavor of Linux that Fybertech runs) has kept up Sarge (v3.1) for a year now in terms of security and the like, but they finally decided to drop support of it, providing solely for Etch (v4.0).  I tried to avoid updating as long as possible just in case it would cause problems, but obviously the time has come to bite the bullet. 

I'm doing a backup at the moment, but the update should happen shortly.  I'm expecting a probable reboot at the least, which usually doesn't take but a moment to have things back up and running again.  At worst, everything dies horribly and I cry forever.  But I thought I'd give a heads up!

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So our very own Mets/Armature/Armchair/Dongs came up with a pretty snazzy idea.  Basically, we pick a game, and then all play it at the same time, making posts about our play sessions.  I think it's turned out pretty well so far.  Folks seem to be having different takes on it.  You can check it out over at the "Final Commentary" community at LiveJournal.

Second, I just thought I'd mention the beta page of 4get's upcoming upgrade, for anyone that doesn't frequent the chat to poke around with and see what they think.  For best results, use anything but IE for the moment.

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