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Strike Two! - 4/19/05
Unfortunately all activity on the message boards between April 8th and April 16th has been lost. If you posted, replied, sent a private message, or joined between those dates you will have to do it again. Apparently my host (ReadySetConnect) changed servers and restored this site from an old backup. It is possible to restore the message boards to their April 16th state, but we would then lose anything after April 16th.
ReadySetConnect did notify me that they would be disrupting service to change servers and that they'd be restoring from backup, but that was supposed to happen on the 8th and I got an email from them on the 11th saying that the change had been completed. This is another MAJOR SCREWUP on their part--that's strike two.
I'm also noticing other minor glitches on the boards--like having to log in every time I visit the site. Other users have reported that problem as well. It is probably related to cookie settings and can probably be fixed easily once I have time.
If anybody notices any other problems, please email or PM me on the boards.
Bonusbuilt.com is back - 3/31/05
As many of you know, this website was down from Sunday night until Thursday afternoon. Visitors saw a message saying that bonusbuilt's account had been suspended and that I should contact the billing department. I can't begin to describe how upset that made me. My web host decided to tell the world that I'm a deadbeat, which I'm not. Tacky tacky tacky.
The facts are as follows: ReadySetConnect (who host this site) were unable to charge my credit card in January, February, or March. I had given them accurate information but their billing department messed something up. I didn't notice that I wasn 't being charged. ReadySetConnect claims they sent me 3 emails informing me of the problem (at 7, 14, and 21 days past due) but I never received any email. I searched my inbocx, trash, and spam folder--no email from ReadySetConnect. Within 5 minutes of learning what the problem was I had paid for all 3 months that I owed them for. Then the waiting began. I assumed they would turn my website back on immediately, but it was closer to 72 hours later and only after a lot of harassment on my part.
I have never had a significant problem with ReadySetConnect before, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Even the best companies will suffer the occasional MAJOR SCREWUP, as they did this week. I'm not telling this story so that I can get back at my host, but they basically told the world that I'm a deadbeat and I want to set the record straight. I pride myself on doing things in a responsible manner, so for somebody to say I don't pay my bills is very upsetting--compounded by the fact that this was entirely their problem.
Thanks to everyone who sent emails asking if everyhing is okay--there were quite a few of them. It's good to know that the website is missed when it's away. I would have responded to all the email sooner, but obviously I didn't get them until today.
what's the deal with monoleaf springs?
Mono leaf rear springs - does anybody actually have these? How much work do you need to do on the bracket? Do they sag? How do they perform? Do they last? Inquiring minds want to know.
Unofficial bonus built vehicle safety testing
mybeatupford has done a little research for us. He's determined that with a ton of luck you can flip an F1 and walk away from it. Your mileage might vary however, so I don't suggest trying to replicate mybeatupford's experiment.
Problem solved
I got hold of the scumbag who was stealing my bandwidth. He sounds like a weasel, but at least he changed his website to remove my content. He sounds surprised that didn't want to be included on his wonderful website. Wait until he hears from the other 80 angry webmasters I'm about to give his email address to.
want to piss off a webmaster or a copyright holder?
Stealing my content and my bandwidth are very good ways to piss me off. Some joker hot-linked my VIN decoder inside of his frames and tried to pass this off as his own website. He did the same thing with about 100 other VIN decoders on the net. It's on a commercial site too! I've emailed all the other webmasters as well as the offending website's sponsor. The offending webmaster himself is not to be found--which is usually the case with a true scumbag. The last thing I'm missing is a properly worded DMCA complaint for his ISP. I've already had one rejected. If anybody is able to help me out with that, please email dan@bonusbuilt.com.
Okay, so what is hot-linking? That's the term used to describe the act of linking directly to content on another website. This is not the same as a standard link, which a user clicks on to go to another website. Hot-linking is grabbing particular files and displaying them on your website. For instance if you link to download a zip file on somebody else's website you-re hot-linking. If you place an image on your website and it's hosted on another site, you're hot-linking. It's also called direct linking and bandwidth theft. It's tacky and you can actually be held liable for damages if, for instance, you cause the person you linked to to exceed thier monthly bandwidth allowance and pay for more. Webmasters have logs to look at that tell us all kinds of things about our visitors--including who refers users to which pages. Those logs stand up in court.
I'm not trying to put a scare into anybody. I want people to enjoy this website. I want people to use the information. I want people to be part of the community here. I even want people to spread the information that's here and add to it. Just make sure that you've read the rules for doing so. At the bottom of every page is an icon that says Creative Commons--that's it. Those are the rules. That's the license.
Photo Gallery - let's try this again
I've been talking about the photo gallery for months. No, longer--I've been trying to get this going for a couple years. It's been months that I've been trying to get the Coppermine photo gallery to work. The devil is in the details, you see, and I couldn't get the details to work. So I've quit trying to be a perfectionist and just get the thing online. So I've done just that. The photo gallery is now online and functional.
So what can you do with the photo gallery? You can view other people's pictures and leave comments. You can also create your own gallery and upload photos to it for others to see. Pictures are stored on bonusbuilt.com's server and are uploaded through a web interface that's pretty easy to use.
Pictures can be viewed by anybody. To create a gallery and upload you need to register. If you are already a forum user you will unfortunately have to register seperately for the gallery. Sorry about that. Common registration was the last little detail that I couldn't get to work. The good news is that you can use the same username and password as you do on the forums--and for the sake of simplicity you probably should.
Give the gallery a try. There is a link in the navigation bar of every page on the site. You can also get there from here.
If you run into any problems please let me know.
1951 Heater Duct: Need a repro?
David asks: "How many of you have a Ford Magic Aire Heater with the fresh air vent going out the right wheel well? " He is trying to reproduce the rubber piece that connects the heater to the fresh air duct which goes out through the right wheel well. He has a startup plan and estimated cost but needs to know if there's any demand for the part. Read more.
where is your ground cable grounding?
MichaelB can't figure out where his ground strap should attach. Firewall? Coil bracket? Battery tray? Read more.
Bonusbuilt.com and copyrights - october 17, 2004
If you plan to use content from this website on your own site or elsewhere, please take a minute to read my Creative Commons License. You can basically do whatever you want with my work as long as you give me credit, don't use it commercially, and offer it under a license identical to mine. Pretty fair, right? I bring this up now because I have just learned of a particularly flagrant violation. There is a webmaster I have to get tough with and I don't really like doing that. But I'll do whatever I have to do to make sure that my work is used in ways that I approve of. So just read the license if you plan on using my work. I WANT you to use my work.
March 3, 2004
My usual apologies for not updating. The photo gallery has had a couple false starts and I've projected lauch dates a couple times only to be wrong. I'm still not happy with the interface and am going to use different software to run the gallery. Look for the photo gallery to go live this month.
The real reason I am posting to to warn people of false emails using the bonusbuilt.com domain. If you get an email from noreply@bonusbuilt.com or staff@bonusbuilt.com, ignore them. These addresses do not exist. The attachment in the message, of course, contains a virus. I am under an avalanche of auto-generated "check your system, you're sending viruses" messages and I'm sick of it. Bonusbuilt.com is hosted on a Linux server and the webmaster uses a Mac. We are not spreading any viruses here.
January 13, 2004
The new Bonusbuilt.com has been up and running for a couple weeks now. The response has been mostly positive. The bugs are getting worked out as they're reported but to catch them all they have to be reported--so have a look around and see if everything works for you. If you find a bug, email information about it to dan@bonusbuilt.com or post about it on the message board.
Work continues on the new Photo Gallery. It should be up in a week or two.
December 3o, 2003
Welcome to Bonusbuilt.com v4.0. This is the 4th major overhaul since the site began in 1996. In addition to a fresh look, this revision aims to provide easier navigation, enhanced content, and better user features. We're running on a new server and have a lot more bandwidth than ever before. Let's put it to use!
The message boards are active. Last year we added nearly 300 members and posted nearly 1500 messages. Can we double that in 2004?
Live chat comes to Bonusbuilt.com! It's a little 1997 but why not?
Photo galleries! You will now be able to manage your own photo gallery on bonusbuilt.com. There are still a couple bugs to work out. The galleries will be available soon.
The owner registry is currently offline undergoing an overhaul. When it returns it will be searchable and editable.
If you find something missing or not working, let me know on the message board.
visitors since September 1996.
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