FF Historical Preservation and Chowder & Marching Society Living List-7/12/21

[cranlox]

Yes, it is true that I think Yahoo deleted things due to group inactivity date and it is impossible in some groups to go to download material

[SickAlice]

That's an old link to be sure. I didn't know it still existed. I know I can't even access it. The Yahoo links are just reordered after Yahoo changed the structure.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/CATMANSLitterbox/info to https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/CATMANSLitterbox10/info
After December probably won't be available anymore of course. I don't even know what's in all of em anymore myself tbh.

[daglob]

The past week I have gone through and checked all the Yahoo links, and downloaded everything I could. I have also checked the sites on The Wayback Machine, and, while I still think we are losing stuff slowly, there is still some content in most of the sites listed. Lastly, I went through the first list of active sites and checked them, and have marked through one; it may still work later.

[Podmark]

Great job daglob. Really appreciate all you've done to prevent us from losing things.

[daglob]

The real credit goes to those who did these things in the first place (of which you are one). I know a lot of these meshes and skins have been rendered obsolete, but some just look so neat, and the amount of creativity that goes in to some is amazing (Ghost Rider on Vegeta?).

[SuperPoweredYank]

The past week I have gone through and checked all the Yahoo links, and downloaded everything i could.

Did you remember to download all of the porn? 

[daglob]

The past week I have gone through and checked all the Yahoo links, and downloaded everything i could.

Did you remember to download all of the porn? 

[daglob]

Superpowered Yank will be glad to know that the bulk down loader that was supposed to save the skins saved the porn too. But, as of December 14, 2019, the Yahoo Groups no longer contain any Freedom Force content.

[daglob]

Miscellaneous housekeeping performed.

[daglob]

Checked the links in the first post; downloaded something from most of the groups. Put strike through text on a couple and will see if they "get better".


Later:

Checked the sites accessible through the Wayback Machine. It still seems like we are constantly losing stuff from here all the time.

[daglob]

Same as usual; checked the sites in the first post and downloaded a random file from each. The broken stuff is still broken.

[SickAlice]

A trick here, I noticed a lot of the links are dead. Truth is though the hyperlinks are, not the file storage itself. So the trick is you go to the address, I'll use Val's on NPI since it's one of the high traffic ones for us here. You go to the addy and erase the end of it, the part that brings you to the site page and back it up so there's just just a directory with a / at the end. This will kick you into the directory tree mode and you can then download the files via Save As. Here's the example. I could not dl all of these just by clicking on them when the page itself was there with graphics but can download any through the back door like this.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070219232819/http://newpowerinc.com/vertexfiles/

[daglob]

A trick here, I noticed a lot of the links are dead. Truth is though the hyperlinks are, not the file storage itself. So the trick is you go to the address, I'll use Val's on NPI since it's one of the high traffic ones for us here. You go to the addy and erase the end of it, the part that brings you to the site page and back it up so there's just just a directory with a / at the end. This will kick you into the directory tree mode and you can then download the files via Save As. Here's the example. I could not dl all of these just by clicking on them when the page itself was there with graphics but can download any through the back door like this.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070219232819/http://newpowerinc.com/vertexfiles/

Thanks!

[Cyber Burn]

A trick here, I noticed a lot of the links are dead. Truth is though the hyperlinks are, not the file storage itself. So the trick is you go to the address, I'll use Val's on NPI since it's one of the high traffic ones for us here. You go to the addy and erase the end of it, the part that brings you to the site page and back it up so there's just just a directory with a / at the end. This will kick you into the directory tree mode and you can then download the files via Save As. Here's the example. I could not dl all of these just by clicking on them when the page itself was there with graphics but can download any through the back door like this.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070219232819/http://newpowerinc.com/vertexfiles/

My method is a bit slightly different and doesn't appear to bring up everything yours does, but it would be interesting to just go through and compare the two, see if the bring up the same material, or if there is anything different.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://newpowerinc.com/vertexfiles/*

[daglob]

A trick here, I noticed a lot of the links are dead. Truth is though the hyperlinks are, not the file storage itself. So the trick is you go to the address, I'll use Val's on NPI since it's one of the high traffic ones for us here. You go to the addy and erase the end of it, the part that brings you to the site page and back it up so there's just just a directory with a / at the end. This will kick you into the directory tree mode and you can then download the files via Save As. Here's the example. I could not dl all of these just by clicking on them when the page itself was there with graphics but can download any through the back door like this.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070219232819/http://newpowerinc.com/vertexfiles/

My method is a bit slightly different and doesn't appear to bring up everything yours does, but it would be interesting to just go through and compare the two, see if the bring up the same material, or if there is anything different.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://newpowerinc.com/vertexfiles/*

I meant to point out that you had a similar method, but hadn't yet.

[daglob]

Checked the sites in the list of Wayback Machine sites, and a lot were showing broken links.

[daglob]

Went through the first list, and checked to see if anything was missing. Sarcasm-Himie's work can only be downloaded from The Wayback Machine, and some of it is missing.

[daglob]

For the first time in awhile I went through the first list and checked to see what was still there, and downloaded at least one thing to see if the stuff was there.

[daglob]

Just posting so that people will know that there are a couple of "new" old sites.

[daglob]

Checked the sites in the first group; haven't checked The Wayback Machine yet. Maybe later this week...

[daglob]

Checked Wayback sites; pretty much no change.

[Randomdays]

I didn't see this anywhere on this topic;

Detourne_me's  mediafire site is still active. I've seen a few links to it in the forum, but it looks like people think it's all DM stuff. Besides having his work, its got some stuff from Style as well. I was able to grab of few of his maps I didn't have also.

More importantly, on the ' character backup" section, he's got zips of most character groups for DC, Marvel, and others. These are NOT just his stuff!

It looks like these are just about everything he had collected over the years. The zips I downloaded add up to over 4.6 gigs! Looking through a few I saw work by AA, Ren, C6 and LP, among others. I'm sure that this has a very large selection of what's available.

I think that this would be a great treasure trove of resources, especially for anyone just joining up and who's looking for a great place to start hoarding.

No mention if they're for FF or FFvt3R, or both. Even if I have most of what's contained, I'm sure there's something new to be found. It'll take a while to go through them though.

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/zrcb90e5nk6cb/Blender_Imports

RD

[daglob]

Added some special links to Wayback Machine pages with a vast assortment of skins.

[Ewzzy]

It hurts to reply to this thread with DaGlob gone. He was dedicated to the preservation of this history of our community. When I came back he quickly offered a hand with a mediafire link to some meshes I was looking for. He did that for a lot of people.

Knowing how fleeting those links can be, I searched the forum for other times he linked to his mediafire uploads. I downloaded all that I could. 2018 on back were already gone. Still, here's 3GB of files DaGlob had shared with others.

https://archive.org/details/daglob

I encourage anyone reading this to upload what they have to the Internet Archive. Even if it's hosted elsewhere. Even if it's an unorganized mess. Even if you don't know who made it. Upload it now while you can.

I was planning a new preservation push for 2022 and the 20th anniversary of FF, but DaGlob's passing given me even more urgency.

[Randomdays]

Thanks Ewzzy.

Grabbed a bunch of those. There might be a few others at his central media fire page but I think you got them all - https://www.mediafire.com/folder/aa674tw6j7e5n/Documents#aa674tw6j7e5n

Daglob was always there trying to help anyone with their requests. I know he came through for me many times, and I'm there on your file list.

I'm trying to get an incomplete picture of what's out there by working on my list and being available for anyone one needs something when its done - within reason of course. I'm just not not sure of hosting others people's work online without their permission. I think Wyldfyre's preservation pages would be a good central site and we should give him as much help as he needs when he gets rolling again.

Maybe some of the older members who are no longer active could pop - in and give their permission for hosting. I certainly give permission for my work, even though its mostly imports from other sources , so there might be a problem there.

RD

[BentonGrey]

Thank you for doing this, Ewzzy.  I know it wasn't easy.

And I agree, we definitely need to make this a priority. 

[WyldFyre]

I've secured the web hosting and am currently working on getting a site together. Hopefully by the end of the month, I'll have something up and running.

[Randomdays]

I was going thru the archive site looking to identify some skins that I though might be by Style (they were), and found the following links - most (but not all) are good.

Not sure if I have these or not, but I thought it better to grab them when I could. Style was one who didn't put readme's in a lot of his zips.

http://www.freedomreborn.net/archive/index.php?topic=44429.msg613036#new

http://www.freedomreborn.net/archive/index.php?topic=44447.new#new


Doctor_Strange_Book_VX
http://www.mediafire.com/?4zbdz9f2xno
Agents_of_SHIELD3
http://www.mediafire.com/?3xyxmgxitdu
Agents_of_SHIELD3II
http://www.mediafire.com/?2ybxwvv952d
Agents_of_SHIELD3III
http://www.mediafire.com/?3ujp19wjxd7
Agents_of_SHIELD3IIII
http://www.mediafire.com/?8bynddv7gys
Blade
http://www.mediafire.com/?dm012mdjpg9
el_diablo3
http://www.mediafire.com/?dmyylc1dm9z
mr_mechanical_civ2
http://www.mediafire.com/?ademn07nrqk
Lex_Luthor_Warsuit3
http://www.mediafire.com/?dncy3mzd8bz

[Ewzzy]

I've secured the web hosting and am currently working on getting a site together. Hopefully by the end of the month, I'll have something up and running.

That is extremely exciting to hear.

I've learned how to use a command line tool to pull down entire backups of old sites on the Wayback Machine for easier sifting through. It let me quickly pull down about 2.6 GB of old skins and mods. I've done some minimal sorting and reuploaded here:
https://archive.org/details/FF-Fansites

These are all things that were already on the Wayback Machine but it should make them much easier to search through.

[Randomdays]

This is great Ewzzy. We'll never get everything archived, but preserving everything we can will have to do. I'm sure there are still a few members who have things found nowhere else.

Cyber and Daglob were too of the biggest hoarders we had, and more, they were always willing to share. Losing them hurts in so many ways.