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Log InAugust 2, 2008
It's been fun, sort of... but it looks like this is the end.
As seen in place of the hosted files...
Alright noobs, listen up.
Hostfile is dying. It's grown out of control and I can't stand to maintain it anymore. It's going to be restricted to current files only, no more uploads.
I've already had to downgrade the server to the lowest possible provider, Dreamhost, which promises more than they can offer (obviously). The site has been glitchy from day 1 and now it's just gotten out of hand.
Culprits:
1) McAfee Siteadvisor.
SiteAdvisor labeled my site as "RED" for spyware/virus downloads. They put up a fake address on their site and a written paper letter to them bounced. They never answer their emails. And they still don't classify Hostfile as a user-driven uploads site, so it acts like everything uploaded here is created by me. Despite countless reviews to the contrary, none of those reviewers had enough "cred" to sway the rating, and Hostfile is still "dangerous" - even on Yahoo results.
2) Dreamhost
The badly configured server that my site runs on has caused countless problems since I started this site. The /tmp/ folder gets filled with the countless broken uploads that are caused by the server dropping upload connections. It never cleans them up. Yet it keeps dropping connections and adding more files on its own. Who's blamed? Me and my scripting. It's not my scripting's fault. It's Dreamhost's fault for making it load the script while a file is uploading. Lots of other odds and ends reasons, but those are the biggest bitches for me.
3) Lack of interest
For some unknown reason, despite my beautiful front page and awesome design (sic), I can't seem to "evangelize" anywhere. Hostfile never got slashdotted, not even Dugg. It never had its moment in the limelight. It was mentioned in obscure blogs and that's pretty much it. I get about 4 registration emails a day. It's simply no longer worth keeping up the torture. Obviously there are better hosting sites - by the fact that, well, nobody cares about Hostfile. I tried to make it revolutionary, and this proves that I've failed at that.</li>
4) Lack of interest
At the same time, I've also lost interest in the site myself. It doesn't make me any money at all, and as far as fame goes, pretty much the only fame I've gotten is "STFU spamming noob, your site is red on siteadvisor". So why bother continuing something that means nothing to anyone else? It's just fighting a losing battle, that shouldn't have been a battle to begin with.
I don't know where to take this from here. At the moment I'm going to be locking out further uploads and letting the site coast for a while. Maybe I'll open it up to certain individuals that actually want to make their voice heard - of the 4,500 users that have registered over the past 3-odd years, only a small handful, maybe 20, have even made themselves known by a spoken word. But right now, I'm going to be closing the doors. Sorry, people.
Check out the forums and make a topic about this if you want... the forums were supposed to be a place for people to communicate, but it's a ghost town with maybe one post a month, yet hundreds of thousands of file hits each day. The forums, as well as the rest of the site, were 100% coded from scratch by yours truly... and it kills me to see them go to waste: Forums
Catch you on the forums - and all the best,
~ Falcon4
February 21, 2008
HELLO AVI's! Good-bye, Vista!
Long time, no post! Been a long time since I've posted a news article... let's see if I can still notify all the users without the script crashing!
Check it out. First on the agenda is the new DivX Web Player on all file info pages. Any AVI or .div (.divx) file is now pumped into DivX Web Player so you can enjoy it in full resolution. It's like YouTube on crack, baby! Oh, and I'm working on figuring out the 500 Internal Server Error messages on occasion of a long-running upload... it's just annoying to you as it is to me, believe me. A workaround may be to get FTP uploads working, then notify people on the main upload page that they should use FTP for large uploads instead (FTP has no problems, while PHP is a really glitchy and trashy language to accept uploads in). Or, the other option I've considered is writing the upload-acceptor script in another language (like Perl) and pass that upload off to the FTP-import script, which will handle the depositing of files.
Anyway, enjoy that DivX player! Next on the agenda is the block on Windows Vista! I'm not sure, but I think I may be the only website that actually blocks Windows Vista from the entire site (except serving files). There are ways around the block, as I've informed several key members (post it here and I'll delete it... grr! Vista needs to DIE!). Hopefully I've helped to convert some smart users back to Windows XP with that article I linked to on the error page. Want to see it yourself? Click here.
That's about it for now! Hope everyone's enjoying the site, and be sure to let me know if you have any problems that need addressing! Check out the forum (link at the top)!
September 29, 2007
MP3s and EXEs restricted
Hey all,
Quick update. I put a system in place to restrict the usage of MP3 and EXE files. It was previously only MP3s, but after numerous emails from Banco de Brazil's fraud department naming various files, I had to put a system in place to delete scam EXE files. And the whole reason I lost Bluehost was because people uploaded copyrighted MP3s.
Those that actually do upload legitimate files can have them submitted for approval with a simple click of the link. Additional information is now available on the uploaded-file page. I really need to update some code though...
Anyway, I hope I can hold Hostfile together. I may need to make Hostfile an invite-only site soon... because this is BS. Hostfile 4.0 may be more like Windows Vista in terms of restrictions... :(
September 11, 2007
Back again!
Well, the good news is, Hostfile's back! Didn't I tell ya so? It's so easy to recover from a disaster when you're the only person involved in running the site. First, download 10-plus GB of crap from the old server (after deleting the backup files - so the past few months of auto-deleted files are lost, sorry - otherwise I do keep a backup on CD/DVD if anyone needs 'em). It was caused by one person uploading phishing/spyware apps to Hostfile. I fucking hate people that do that shit. I fully ratted the guy out to Banco do Brasil, who emailed me about the file that originally got the server shut down, but also about another file that nobody mentioned (VivoFotoMensagem.scr). Bluehost wouldn't give me back the server because everyone had uploaded "copyrighted MP3s" so I couldn't even get the site back - period. I was able to download everything and close the account, though, for a full refund. Then I bought an account with Dreamhost, which seems to be a much more awesome hosting company than Bluehost could ever dream of being. Bluehost was more "human" than 1&1, but Dreamhost is even more. They're like real people, just like Hostfile. Kinda neat, I'd say...
Curiously enough, this disaster comes exactly one year from the day I first set up Hostfile on the new server (Bluehost) - check the earliest news posts! Strange that this would happen on the same day.
Right now I've finally finished uploading all the files from my computer back to the new site, and I wrote a quick little script to compare all the files against the stored (thankfully!) MD5 hashes in the databases. Many HTML and TXT files don't match thanks to the bastardery of FTP that screws up line-breaks, but there's not much I can (or would even need to) do about that. Some files are also completely missing from the backup, but that seems to be because of a previous mess-up in the cleanup script that seems to have deleted the file but not the database entry (they're all over 2 months since last access).
I still need to work out a lot of kinks in the new server... for example I don't know how to change php.ini settings, so I can't turn this goddamn magic_quotes_gpc shit off, nor can I change the all-important upload filesize limit. I also need to set up all the old accounts, like "upload" access for FTP, extra mail accounts, etc etc etc... also got an incomplete "approval" system in place for MP3 files - at the moment, ALL MP3 files with 5 hits are automatically deleted. I need to put in an "approval" system (the "approval" check is already in place but the method to "approve" or "request approval" isn't written yet). But hey, things are moving. MP3s and malicious EXEs are what caused me to lose Hostfile the last time - I WON'T let it happen again.
Looks like it's time to update the registration rules...
Enjoy the site! And leave a comment 
August 27, 2007
Paid!
Well, that's that... donations covered the hosting fee and then some, so I just chunked in the dough to keep Hostfile alive for another full year.
A lot of donations came in a short period of time, while I was hopping from hotel to hotel and parking lot to parking lot. I'm afraid I may not have caught a couple. If you did send in a donation and haven't gotten your star (or had it counted in the counter above, which I have to manually edit each time), please let me know so I can give you credit. 
Thanks to everyone that's helped keep Hostfile alive! Look forward to another huge code rewrite soon, along the lines of v. 3.5! I haven't started yet but since I'm not a good enough coder to keep a "work copy" on hand, you'll see the changes as they happen. 
Oh, and down with the donation-nag-screens 
July 28, 2007
WOO! Thank you Spasm!
Holy shit! That was close!!
Okay, Hostfile.org itself isn't set to expire until 9/11/07 (yeah... 9/11, go figure!). But my main personal site, falconfour.com, was set to expire in a few weeks. Being as though I'm sitting at McDonald's and just a few seconds ago was trying to scrounge up 3 cents to make $1.08 for a small soda (mostly pennies), there's no way I could afford a $10 domain renewal. I also couldn't stand to lose my email address. So yeah, I was hoping I could rely on you guys to help me out. =P
And along comes Spasm with a $35 donation... on TOP of his original $5, and then the most recent $15 donation... this guy's given $55 to Hostfile! If Hostfile survives, it's all thanks to him.
I just paid off the $10 for the domain, now I'm going to head right back to that McCounter and buy myself a much-needed double cheeseburger and small fry ($2.17 total. <.<). Then, now with the relieved deadline of 45 remaining days of my Bluehost account, I'll pay for the site out of my own pocket if needed.
And because I'm in a good mood now, let's all give a round of applause to the return of the MP3 hosting. =)
June 19, 2007
OKAY, THAT'S IT.
I just ended up with Hostfile.org's account (including my email, FTP access, falconfour.com, s.no-ip.ca, rvbt.hopto.org, whatismyrdns.com, etc...) suspended.
Quote:
| Attention Matt: Your BlueHost.Com account for hostfile.org was deactivated (reason: terms of service violation). Your data may still be temporarily available even though your web site may not be functioning. If you feel this deactivation is in error, please contact support as soon as possible. Thank you, Bluehost Support http://www.BlueHost.Com |
The only details the Abuse people seem to have put on my account are "copyrighted MP3s in (my data folder)". So I couldn't delete the exact ones. To get the site back, I said I'd disable access to MP3s until we can reach another usable agreement.
But either way, something's going to change with MP3 handling. I'm thinking of a 5-hit-delete system where MP3s will be deleted after 5 hits to enforce my rule of "NO PUBLIC MP3 SHARING". You can download the file and share it with friends but unless you get permission from me personally, e.g. an MP3 that you made yourself, it'll be deleted after 5 hits. Automatically.
Of course that's not written yet, but if it meets the Abuse Department's approval, such will be done. To MP3s, the Plague of Hostfile.org...
More discussion in this forum topic...
June 2, 2007
FTP upload access!
I've just perfected (lol) FTP upload capability for Hostfile. It consists of uploading your files to a public FTP account, the details of which I'm not going to disclose publicly for privacy reasons, then going to a script that imports all your FTP uploads as real files.
So now you can upload a crapload of files at once, like vacation pictures or a multi-part RAR archive. All the same limitations apply, like 50mb per file, no BMP files, no mass MP3 sharing. You're free to upload music albums and the like if you're just putting them online for your own use or personal sharing. NO BLOGS!
If interested... send me an email - go to my profile (off to the side, click on my name), then click "Send email to this user". I'll reply to your email so be sure your address is correct!
See this forum topic for more details:
http://hostfile.org/viewtopic.php?id=38
You can also post a reply to this news article below by clicking "Comments".
May 14, 2007
HOSTFILE IS NOT FOR MP3s!
Okay, I'm serious about this crap. I'm getting tired of seeing page after page of nothing but MP3s. You notice how Hostfile puts the file listings primarily as thumbnails? Yah, that's for a reason. The site's mostly for images. You can upload pictures straight from your digital camera, organize them into albums, get large thumbnails to post in forums and sites, bleh bleh blah blah. Not to mention the link generator, which I think is hella cool.
I don't know what to do about this. I added some new rules and regulations to the registration page clarifying this small fact. I'm guessing some dumbshits on this site are probably using the site just for MP3s and still using dumb shit like Photobucket for their images! COME ON PEOPLE, grow a brain cell or two! This site is built to give your images more life!
Not like I can say "hey, I'm deleting your MP3s". But what I am going to do is start deleting MP3s by bands I recognize (at least) with more than 20 hits, because those are obviously more than just person-to-person sharing. Hostfile is not an illegal-MP3-sharing-point, but I'm plenty happy to host MP3s of independant bands and the like.
Oh, and you guys really need to frequent the Forums. It's a dead place in there!
April 23, 2007
PAINT IT BLACK!
Or grey, rather!
FINALLY, after who-knows-how-long, I figure on a more enjoyable color for the web's greatest hosting site. I was browsing my old falconfour.com websites, and thinking "geez, that black does look kinda nice with the white and the round edges...". I decided to apply it to Hostfile in Photoshop and it actually looked kinda nice. I tried a few other colors of course, like tints of blue and stuff like that, but nothing really struck "cool" like this dark grey. I still can't get over how old that logo looks though... I seriously need a new logo. =\
Comments, ideas, anyone?
