Where’s the website??
It’s all good…EVERYTHING is solidly backed up off site, in two places…my new desktop, and two copies
This is my resting bitch face, because childish hackers just want to wreak havoc on my quarter century of web work…
on 128 gigabyte pen drives. This includes every webpage, every database, and every download. You reading this right now means I’m still working on backend items.
The main site database is pushing 680 megabytes in size, unarchived. Zipped up, it’s 300 megs or so. That’s over 13 years of posts, traffic, keyword tracking, and every little bit of info since I converted the static HTML website into a WordPress dynamically served content system. I have to cut it up into small chunks (lots of them), and upload them one at a time. It’s going to be worth the wait, because EVERY part of the website is going to optimized, shrunk in size, and prepared for YOUR easy access.
Server issues
The big takeaway for this complete reboot of 65 gigabytes of website that goes all the way back to 1997 is that the server the site was on got a low level hack that infected all php, html, and thousands of files that made it impossible to clean by hand. Not my first rodeo…not my first hack.
In 25 years of web development online I’ve seen in all. Simple defacements, to full site deletion, to infections that were so deeply embedded into the server or databases that no amount of time was going to remove everything…hence I had tech support create a new, blank account on a fresh server, and that’s where we are right now.
Most of the thousands of downloadable ebooks, documents, and manuals have already been reloaded onto the new server, to make any links pointing to them within the old system find them in exactly the same location.
As I continue working on getting the legacy data uploaded again, the original and clean files will be there for your access. I’ll also be linking to individual files in the coming weeks as needed to help you with hard data, proven tech, and historical legitimacy in the vast world of global preparedness.
The BIG news…
If you’ve been following us in the last 20 years, you’ll remember that I put together my first multimedia CD Rom of authentic and historic civil defense digital books together in 2002, and sold the very first customer 10,000 copies. In the next 13 years, I sold almost 8,000 disks on my own to buyers around the world. I stopped selling the now 14 CD/DVD disc set on 12/31/15, because I was going to focus on getting my health in control for major surgery.
My late Josie, sitting on my lap three days after knee replacement surgery.
I had major surgery (joint replacement) in October of 2016, while also preparing for moving across the country to upgrade my employment. That meant selling off a boat load of stuff in the months before the surgery, and then while recovering at home, selling most of the rest before loading the remainder including my car, into a U-Haul truck and car trailer, and heading east to St. Louis first, and then on to Nashville.
It took a few months, but I got the job of a lifetime, as a GIS field operator and driver for the 2018 Apple Maps update. Unfortunately, almost a year later, I was badly injured 1000 miles from home, in Kentucky on the job, and ultimately had to have neck/spine surgery to repair severely herniated disks in my neck, and also suffered inoperable low back injuries. I later qualified for complete 100% disability with Social Security, and using my small SSI payout, moved my wife and myself back to Wyoming to full retirement. More on this later. Not the first time we’ve moved across country…
The BIG news? The original 14 disk set of 25,000 titles, filling up 32 gigs of drive space has grown. How much, you may ask… Would you believe 463 GIGABYTES of content? Yes, I’m serious as cancer. and THAT is going to go up as I scan in all the NEW stuff that’s never been scanned in.
The long promised multimedia content is around the corner
Many will also remember that I returned to college in 2003, to earn multiple degrees and certificates to validate my decades of computer skills, technical abilities, and add new skills in broadcasting, radio, television, video, podcasting, and several other areas.
What does this mean for you? Between 2010 and 2017, I did weekly multi-hour podcasts with James Talmage Stephens, author of the single best selling prepper book “Making the Best of Basics”. You can find most of those podcasts on iTunes.
I will be collecting as many of the old shows as possible for new repurposing, and James and I are also planning on restarting these shows in the very new future. You’ll want to stay in touch to follow when we start it up.
My own projects will be based on ALL of my previous online work, repurposing those things into new podcasts, YouTube videos, audiobooks, DVDs, and any other digital storage medium or tech that comes out in the future.
Brand new content…yes…81 years worth of historic survival resources
Since moving back to Wyoming, I’ve upgraded my entire computer system, added ten terabytes of new storage for ALL my files, and also have every external drive I’ve used in the last 15 years, and every internal drive from every computer in that same time frame. That’s a LOT of files on a LOT of drives.
When I arrived in Nashville, I moved in with my son Kenny, and everything that didn’t get dropped off in St. Louis, with my dear wife and daughter, went in to his back yard shed. That includes all computer hardware, all my hundreds and hundreds of hardcopy original documents in my collection, all my books, etc. When I got the job with Apple Maps, I would be on the road for 3 months at a time, and only had my new (cheap) laptop with me, when I landed in San Jose for training.
Our U-Haul rental, after loading up in Nashville, and finishing up in St. Louis, the day before driving back to Wyoming
All my “stuff” for upgrades, new eBooks, and software would not be back in my hands until we got back to Nashville to load up everything (again) for the trip back west. June 2017 to October 2019…it was all out of my hands.
It took several more months to begin to unpack all of it, after saving the tiny funds I could to replace our bed, furniture, appliances, etc. and THEN locate, buy, haul (with my Honda Accord), several bookcases, smaller shelves, a very old metal desk, and THEN get some 1×8″ boards (at their expensive pandemic costs), and put together a completely new work desk.
A wonderful large donation for the website helped move forward with all of that almost a year ago. What all that above means is that all the hardcopy can now, one at a time, be scanned in, cleaned up, squeezed down, and put online as soon as it’s ready. I’ll be updating you with pics of the new shelves, desk, and all of the unboxed history…and you just might begin to understand what it’s taken to get here.
Current events..
Because of all of the above, including continuing health problems (my daily new normal) limits a lot of physical things I’ve been able to do all my life. Working for a living was just ONE of a few dozen things I’ll no longer be able to do, and hopefully explains why it’s taken so long to get to this point.
During my move from Wyoming, back to Wyoming, and since, this nation (and yes, the entire planet) has been savaged by a pandemic virus, that’s hit every nation on the planet.
Somehow, the mortality rate of this new Covid is 0.3%…HARDLY a fearsome threat the likes of the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed over 3% of humanity. My eldest son, my daughter and my youngest grandson have all suffered through it. My wife and I have not had it, but she did decide to take the vaccine, which worries me very much. I’ll talk about this at length later…
Other things have threatened lives around the world, and around America. The Russian invasion of the Ukraine threatens to go hot, potentially with Russian nukes, any time now. Severe weather, natural disasters, and horribly concerning accidents, fires, explosions, and so many things have almost singlehandedly gutted this nations food production systems.
Our pResident Biteme has almost destroyed our transportation networks, supply chains, manufacturing ability, and our once vast ability to lead the rest of the planet in tech, design, vehicle production, and even the aerospace industry.
This bodes darkness at so many levels, that I personally fear we are certainly going to see a global depression that we may never recover from. This single fact is one of the reasons that the SurvivalRing Media library is so huge. It will include educational materials that cover from preschool to technical college, subsistence farming, and literally everything you’d need to live off the grid, and create your own food, water, shelter and even herbal meds.
So many things going on, and what feels like so little time. Thanks so much for your long term support of everything I’ve put online in the last quarter century. There’s a reason it’s all been done…and there’s needs to still need to be met. I’ll be here until my dying breath. I give you my word on that.
Rich – June 1st, 2022
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Hacking…it NEVER stops, when your content is astoundingly unique AND globally helpful
First week of November…Snowstorms tomorrow…Now is the Winter of our DISCOUNT tents…
Winter 2.0 :: NOW is the winter of discontent…well, every year…but especially this year …
I just found your site and had a heck of a time…the last trouble is a warning that connection isn’t private and they could be sure the link led to your site! I’m a fellow Texan, I live by Lake Rayburn in Southeast, Texas in Tyler County. I’m 58 year’s young so I was raised on and firmly believe in preparedness!!! I will be watching your channel and waiting for information. Thank You for what you do !!!
I was led to your site via Ki4u.com. I’m a long-time survivalist since the early 1970s, and I appreciate your years of extensive years of research and compilation of preparedness and survivalist material. Thank you for all that you have done and are still doing.
I am currently thinking about buying a bomb shelter, but there are so many shelter companies, some of which seem to be at war with each other. If you have any knowledge and/or experience with any of them, I would much appreciate your opinion as to which one is best.
Thanks, again, and the best of health to you and your family.