****************************************
*** Update 2 ***
****************************************


Well, we're back online. The machines running Shadowlord Inc are patched and back online. I talked to the admin and he put back the things up. There's still a few things to fix. However, I think I found out one of the problem with the machine failing to reboot and I'm passing the information along to the admin.

I'll check about the other furvect site. [link] and the furvect.com sites are running on different servers. So fixing mine didn't fix the others for the moment.

So, everyone having a site on furvect, send me a note / email / Instant Message about it to me or the admin, to see about moving your site from the old, unstable server, to the new one.


***************************************************


Well, I was giving time a chance, but I guess 1 week is enough waiting.

Here's an update about the site downtime.

About 2 weeks ago, a power down hit the collocation server that hosted the server we're using.
While the machine is OK, the small downtime this caused some of the servers setup bug to surface.
The person who owned the server took noticed and said he would fix it.

Since then, there has been some instability. Out of the 4 machines used (DB, Web, Storage, Account), one of them keep resetting at each reboot, breaking the whole setup until the admin would manually patch it. That it, until the next reboot, where everything would have to be done again.
This impacted not only my site, but also ALL of Furvect site, as I'm still hosted there, except on the new machine. However, since my DNS was duplicated, my website was still accessible while all of Furvect sites (Foxx, Doc's lab, etc) weren't.

Those Furvect sites were to be migrated to the new servers, but some of the owner are either not responding or never left any contact info.

The main problem now is, I'm without word from the administrator of Furvect. Last time I talked to him, he was saying he was "boarding" and would check the site later on. Some hours later, everything went down and I couldn't even contact any of the machines. That has been a week ago...
Now, I dunno if the "boarding" meant he was going on vacation, was leaving the country due to Visa issue problem or simply was going out due to his work, but I've been left in the black as what is happening. Is everything fine? Has something happened? I dunno, and it is stressing me as much as everyone who can't access any of their sites.

Hopefully, things are just ok and I should get news this week-end. If not, I fear things will be complicated in order to find a replacement host.

And before anyone start sending links of cheap hosting services, remember that this is a video sites, featuring an arts gallery and offering an indexing of all the clips.
A 30GB storage with MySql, PHP and 300GB bandwidth per month won't cut it.


And now you know why Shadowlord and Dragoniade Inc, along with all Furvect site, are down.

Cross posted on [link] and [link] Feel free to spread around.

****************************************
*** Update ***
****************************************

Look like the admin is returning home Thursday. More news to come.

Here are the result for the contest. Now, due to the lack of sufficient entries, I've decided to remove the "Quality" categories. It's not that the entries weren't of quality, but since there weren't enough of them, it was a bit unfair to judge them when most of the good one already went into the other categories.

So the results go as follow:

******************************
For the Favorite Category:
******************************

First place goes to Comus for his dolphin transformation. Nice work, funny image. Made me smile. The context he used was Flipper, both a movie and a TF series.
* [link]

Second place goes to Metamorpher for the crocodile transformation. Nice pace, nice pose. Nice tail. The context he used was Peter Pan, in reference to the crocodile and the ticking watch.
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]

Third place goes to Inuebony for the Ninja Tribunal Dragon transformation. I haven't seen that arc yet, but the dragons looked quite nice. The context he used was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 20003 TF series.
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]

Fourth place goes to HyperJet for the shark TF. He used Jaws as the context.
* [link]

Fifth place goes to Ageaus for his Viashino transformation. Viashino is a species from the card game Magic the Gathering.
* [link]

******************************
For the Originality Category:
******************************

First place goes to SesakaHeart for the Thing TF. I nearly felt off my chair when I saw it. It was totally unexpected. The thing is an horror movie, which she used as reference.
* [link]

Second place goes to Lukery for the pig transformation. He had found a good way to mix the site, show and contest. He used the movie Willow as the context.
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]

Third place goes to KitsuneKit for the rat transformation. He used a classic in the Transformation community: Disney's Aladdin, the Series.
* [link]

Fourth place goes to Avancna for the dragon TF. He used Disney's Sleeping Beauty well known dragon Transformation as the context.
* [link]
* [link]

******************************
For stories and other media:
******************************

First place goes to Ageaus for his Simic Induction stories, based upon the Magic: the Gathering universe.
* [link]

Second place goes to Comus, for his Dolphin transformation stories telling the stories of his picture who won the first prize in favorite.
* [link]

Third and fourth places goes to Morwalugi for his 2 dragon transformations written and narrated stories.
* [link]
* [link]


Congratulation to the winner. I'll be contacting you regarding your prize.
Thanks for participating.

******************************
Rant ahead
******************************

Now, about this contest.

Personally, I'm very disappointed with how it turned out. The first one went very smoothly: good feedback, plenty of entries and support for the work I was doing for the site.
This time, now that the site was finally up, I get about no positive entries about it. What was it all about? Now that the site is up and running, no need to support the one that do the job? Or is it something? Let me know, I want to know what went wrong.

I asked a friend what was his thought about it. He told me that people talked to him about my contest. The lack of entries and support then wasn't related to not broadcasting enough the contest. What he told me was that the contest was 'too much like the previous one'.

Too much like the previous one? Come on. It's a transformation website, it has to be TF related. The other factor was I was the transformed, me or my character. Now, please someone explains to me how come, in Deviantart, all the recurring "draw my character" contests pass as original, but because it's me who do one of those, it's different?
So what, those contest just change the context between contest. Draw my character doing ninja stuff. Draw my character as a kanji. I'm supposed to be unoriginal? Please, explain where I was wrong.

Second, I was told the rules were complicated. Well, why has nobody told me? Why has anybody asked me question about it? AFTER the contest, someone came to me with that question. He told me orca, told him 4 example of TF, all featuring either an orca or a show. Street shark evil scientific changing me into an orca. Being turned into an orca to perform in a show (willy), etc.

Third, how come people are willing to bust their ass doing free and "stupid" (that was the opinion of 2 artists who brought that up) "transformation challenge" like zodiac, cursed candy, girl TF for another website than only leeched artists for years and never gave back for their work. I though giving money as prize would interest people, but I guess the whole "starving artists" is a myth if they prefer to do free challenge.

Fourth, thanks you very much, sarcastically speaking, to everyone that told me they were very interested join the contest, and toss it aside completely. I imagine what are their thought now: "Hehe, sucker!".

No seriously, if I got it work, feel free to correct me.

I dunno if I'll run another contest. I was running this one as a welcome back for myself, after nearly 3 years away to bring some life back to the community. But I guess the community is in zombie mode: more interested in eating brain that being constructive. Thanks for the 'un' support really.

The week before the contest end, I was nearly doing an update every morning, uploading 5-10 shows a day. Well, guess what, it won't happens again. From now on, there will be only one update a week, on Saturday. If, for some personal reason such as being on week-end duty like this week-end, I cannot update, then the update will be delayed to either sunday if I feel like it, or next Saturday.

I mean, donation have stopped, people do not support the arts gallery nor do give feedback what they would want in it to make it work and people weren't supportive with the contest. Why should I stress over an update then, if it's to snorted at or spammed on IM (see [link] ).

So, this being vented, thank for those who participated. I'll be emailing/Instant messaging you sometime this week.

Feel free to offer your opinion on what went wrong, what do I need t change, what I got wrong, etc, because seriously, I don't get what everyone else want.

When I thought Furries couldn't fall any lower, I'm proved wrong.

We all know there's a lot of furries who either support or simply ignore the fact that there's pedophilia among their herd of sheep. It all started to Fur Affinity, who decided that pedophilia was acceptable, as long it didn't involved real children. So far, it was restricted to a website and the zealot worshiping it. Sure, there was also a con associated with that site, which I don't even want to approach.


But now, it seem it get the seal of approval from other convention.
Yesterday, one NSFW link ended up in on of my journal. The artworks was actually nice, and it was more a nude than porn (or I would have trashed that link away). However, a lot of people commented about ADP. ADP what's that? I did a search, some result pointing out on Fur Affinity (pukes). Then I realize, ADP stand for Adult Dragon Panel, a Further Confusion panel.

My only experience with FC didn't involve that panel, as it hasn't been there when I got to that con. But from what I saw, or thought I saw, I imagined it to be a serious panel about what dragon would be like, without all the fetish and zoomorphism furries are found of.

Damn, I was proved wrong today. Looking at one search result for ADP, I stumble upon some artwork of 3 adults dragon raping a child dragoness from a very popular video game. Yes, you probably guessed who they were and also the age associated with those involved. And someone who attended the con confirmed that this one was showcased.

So it look like that pedophilia work is now welcome during furry convention. This is SICK. And furries wonder why people like to make fun of them, why they don't take then seriously and don't respect them. Because their social duty is restricted to what can give them an erection, masculine or feminine.

Now that I had enough point for a flight ticket, I was thinking attending another Further Confusion. But seeing now that this con is no better than FurAffinity and AnthroCon, I think I'll look somewhere else. And keep pointing fingers at furries for the freak they are. And to say that 4 years ago, I would have been insulted by such comments.

1 entry added to the contest

* Sesakaheart
* [link]


And a website update tomorrow.
-----------------------------------------------

TF Contest: [link]
[link]
[link]

Entries: Only 4/9 - 1/3 so far. Deadline February Friday the 13th 2009

(Artwork)
* Metamorpher
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]

* Luckery
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]

* Inuebony
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]

* KitsuneKit
* [link]

* Sesakaheart
* [link]


(Stories)
* Morwalugi
* [link]

Well, the holidays time of is over. Time to get back to work.
I must say, it has been so so.

The Holiday itself has been a big bleh. Icing rain, bad sleep. At least it was short. But the most disappointing thing was seeing others getting gifts, birthday presents or rewards for their effort done in 2008 for holiday period while, on my end, got some pat on the back. It's really... disappointing. Like if what I did in 2008 or my Birthday weren't worth anything, while others were being congratulated with drawings of their lead characters or a transformation picture. What Dutchman told me one day really hit me in such occasion: video archivers simply get no recognition at all, only people drawing or writing. But all are expected to produce.


On a more positive note, the time I spent north with my parent was a bast. I spent 1 week and a half there, sometime helping my mother at work, but most of time, spending time doing snowmobile.

We went to our mirador, ride on the frozen lake, which was partially unfrozen by area. We went looking for other hunting spot where to build other mirador. I also saw plenty of caribou/reindeer. In the past 15 years, they've moved south and they were not to be seen here. But now, there's plenty and saw quite a bunch of herds here and there. We even had a small one (6 beasts) running past us (by 6 feet) while we were unboarding the snowmobile.

We also saw plenty of track. Some moose even walked in ours snowmobile tracks during the night, considering it was easier for them to simply reuse our tracks

One day, we went through our main camp to the camp where I killed my moose last hunt. a 40 km ride. Then next day, we went back to pick up a quad that had been left there. Another day, we went back and fort from the main camp to camp #2, for a 150 km ride at -30C

Now, I'm back home, work is tomorrow and an update to work on
Crappy holiday, great entertainment!

-----------------------------------------------

TF Contest: [link]
[link]
[link]

Entries: Only 3 so far. Deadline February Friday the 13th 2009

* Metamorpher
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]

* Luckery
* [link]
* [link]
* [link]

* Morwalugi
* [link]