I am alive! But the RND Files Archive is not

[Zomis]

Hi good old people And new people.

I'd like you to know that I am also still alive. So... what have I been doing for the past three years?

- Learned a whole lot more programming concepts and languages.
- I've been an active user in the gigantic Stack Exchange network. Especially on Code Review (a site to get feedback on code you have written) and also on Stack Overflow (the most known site, where programmers ask for help with fixing code mostly).
- I have put a lot of time and effort into my Minesweeper Flags online game. Which I also have made for Android.
- Very recently I have created a Sudoku Solver in C# and a Tic Tac Toe Ultimate (and other variations) game.

Unfortunately, the server that used to host the Rocks'n'Diamonds Files Archive can be considered gone for good. Even though I have a backup of the files that existed there, I don't have the database details of which file was called what etc. they all have names such as "00352".

However, I might be able to do something for the Rocks'n'Diamonds community in the future, using some of the skills I've learned during the past three years

It's good to be back, and it's good to have you all back!

[bojster]

Hey Zomis!

[HerzAusGold]

Hi Zomis
good to hear from you.
What kind of information lost? Only the name?
Some informations are on Martijn's website.
Have files from 4xx up to 6xx.

[Zomis]

What kind of information lost? Only the name?

Hey HerzAusGold! Glad to see you too around here.

I have lost the entire database information with information about each file. I also feel that the old PHP files that managed this system are not good code (which I focus a lot on these days). It could actually be that the server went down because of a security issue in the RND Files Archive (although the actual issue for why the server went down cannot be confirmed).

But rest assured, I'm hoping to be able to provide a much better solution in the hopefully not so distant future!

[RAP]

Hey Zomis, good to see that you're still around! I was wondering about your file archive's disappearance; although, I'm sure Martijn's BD-Fans website still has most of the files there in the Rocks'n'Diamonds page. Speaking of the website, I wonder where is Martijn...

[filbo]

they all have names like "00352"

Sounds like the results of a very unhappy `fsck` on a *ix box?

I am curious about the scope of the recovery project. Would you be able to say (1) how many such nameless files there are and (2) what their total byte size is? I've done some forensic and recovery work before. If the scope isn't really huge it might be doable.

The nightmare scenario would be if it included large numbers of individual level or level-tape files...

[Zomis]

they all have names like "00352"

Sounds like the results of a very unhappy `fsck` on a *ix box?

I am curious about the scope of the recovery project. Would you be able to say (1) how many such nameless files there are and (2) what their total byte size is? I've done some forensic and recovery work before. If the scope isn't really huge it might be doable.

The nightmare scenario would be if it included large numbers of individual level or level-tape files...

Actually, the files were always stored with that filename (to prevent naming collisions). The filename is the ID of the file.

I found some info for some of the files, but I won't try to setup the RNDFA again (I don't like PHP anymore). I'd prefer focusing on the RNDDB repository (which there has been quite a lot of progress in actually).