O Where Art Thou, Freeboxen.com? 14
Aciel asks: "Does anyone know what happened to Freeboxen? For those who don't remember, Freeboxen was a free site where one could post old hardware and have it taken off your hands. Very cool, especially for building Beowulf clusters. Anyway, I found this Slashdot posting about it, from when it was originally announced, but going to the site turns up a 'Cannot find server.' A Google search for it reveals several cached pages, including one which provides the e-mail addresses of Freeboxen's owner, James Lincoln. But both e-mail addresses -and- a subsequent attempt replacing mindspring.com with earthlink.net returns messages from angry mailer-daemons. I did a 'whois freeboxen.com', and it turned up a phone number and address, but I'm not inclined to harass people in their homes and offices. Anyone know what happened to Freeboxen, then? If not, are there any other good old hardware swap sites out there?"
Re:In addition (Score:2)
Not to say that putting it in an entirely different location isn't a better idea, but this is acceptable if that's not an option...
Re:In addition (Score:3)
In addition (Score:1)
And I just happened to pick that day to try and get some sh*t done with it!!
Note for reference: Keep your login/password somewhere in the filesystem where apache can see it, but where it can't serve it up.. Rule 1 of php+mysql!!
Freeboxen- Behind the website... (Score:2)
Freeboxen started as a small project, my first stab at putting together a website. I'd written a PHP framework for posting things in a directory structure and what not and figured that I could do something good with it. With a bit more tweaking, Freeboxen was born.
Like most geeks, I had more hardware than I could ever use. Much of it was crap, but there was still some decent, usable kit around. My basic concept was based around a "Pay it Forward" mentality. Do something good for someone else. Even if it means just giving them your leftovers, go and do it. If something comes around that you want, great. If you can inspire someone else to give away something, even better.
I'd never written a real web app before. I was new to PHP, new to MySQL, and new to the web. Freeboxen showed this to the core. I got burned by the
I added a few features over the four months that Freeboxen was under active development. A karma system was a brief experiment gone awry. I'd written about half of a "free auction" system that was dropped. Any time I changed the giveaway process to try and make it "more fair" for the givers, people gave less. The only real positive addition was the forum section.
The first few months of Freeboxen went pretty slowly. About one in twenty visitors (who came in at a trickle) posted something. I gave away all of my old stuff to get started. An occasional mention on a weblog would get things going, but then it would die out again. After a horrific banner exchange experience I tried to buy some advertising. I ran the numbers and realized that it would cost almost ten bucks to find each new poster. At that rate I could pay people to donate stuff. Unfortunately the VC's wouldn't go for it
Sometime in the summer I put Freeboxen in "Fire and Forget" mode. I'd poke around every few days to make sure the site was up and that was it. Not much was going on, a handful of giveaways a week and an occasional forum post. It seemed like there was a core group of die-hards and the flurry of lookie loos. The site just couldn't get to critical mass.
I wound up taking a new job that gobbled up most of my time. Freeboxen became more and more neglected as time went on. At best I only checked it once a week. When my schedule let up a bit I planned on starting a rewrite and getting things back in order. I'd learned quite a bit about PHP and web development and I wanted to fix some of the tragedies that I'd done in the past. I posted a little "I haven't forgotten you" message to the die hards and started thinking about the redesign. And so the fall of Freeboxen began.
A few days later I got up earlier than usual and checked the site. This was probably the first time I'd done a mid-week check in a month. Sure enough- Slashdotted. What I had hoped for months ago inspired nothing but dread. With a surge of adrenaline (funny how a website can promote the fight or flight mechanism) I tried to make sure that everything was OK. I scanned through the comments, most of them looked decent. The site was still up and there was a flood of new posts. I went to work.
When I checked the site at ten, it had rolled over and exposed its soft bits. I'd hoped that I could fix it in time, but posts were popping up about the vulnerable include file. Rookie mistake, I know. All of the newer parts of the site were using safe, parsed, include files. Live and learn. Fix and move on.
Now to the real meat. The death of Freeboxen.
What Slashdot had begun, my web-host ended. I was paying $15 bucks a month to host Freeboxen on a shared server. The hosting policies were very liberal, and specifically stated that there weren't any extra bandwidth charges. About six weeks after the slashdotting I found a charge for several hundred dollars from my web host. No formal bill. I won't get into the details here. Lets just say that I'm disappointed.
Even after factoring in the pittance that showing banners brought in, I was still way in the hole. The codebase was screwed, my web-host was screwing me, and I didn't have time to screw around. I pulled the plug. A few people offered to take the site off of my hands. My one attempt at giving it away fell through. Freeboxen died.
I have half a mind to rewrite the blasted thing and start her up again. Do it right for once. Bare bones and simple. No complicated claims process. No big forum. Just free hardware and a decent search, plain and simple. Open source. How it should have been all along.
James Lincoln
Oh, and I will send that C64 you claimed... It's just that it has some sentimental value now.
-BW
Edinburgh Service.. (Score:2)
I'm involved with a similar setup, in operation in Edinburgh: freecomputers.org.uk [freecomputers.org.uk] .
The intention is that we'll collect "old" machines/pieces from local businesses, or individuals, in the Edinburgh area, and redistribute them to other people - complete with Linux installed ;)
Anybody local who has stuff drop us a line, or if you know of other people who do this sort of thing make yourself known..
Steve
---
Cool = gone soon (Score:1)
Tradeboxen (Score:1)
I have an old AT case, that I'm swapping a buddy for a P5 fan/heatsink combo. Why does everything have to be free? When both traders benefit, who loses?
Re:swapboxen.com (Score:1)
I miss freeboxen. I have the dubious distinction of having claimed one of the first few pieces of hardware offered on it: a video card the site owner, jlincoln, was trying to get rid of to help get the donation ball rolling. I never used it. I've got it wrapped here in plastic, and every couple of hours I unwrap it and kiss it, and kiss it, and kiss it.
That's not exactly true, I guess: I promptly threw it in an old, dusty-ass P120 and haven't gotten around to shoehorning FreeBSD on it...
Damn, I loved freeboxen, though, which is essentially the reason I'd like to help you make swapboxen a reality.
Werd.
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Re:In addition (Score:1)
"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?"
other redundant technology sites (Score:1)
I Do! (Score:3)
get free laptops and stuff, he meant it to be for people to give away their old hardware, not trade old crappy stuff, and try to ask for Newtons and Palm-Pilots in return.
There was a notice on the web-page after the site
shut down for about ten days.
Re:swapboxen.com (Score:1)
"...Fear the people who fear your computer"
swapboxen.com (Score:1)
Re:I Do! (Score:1)
People posted requests for stuff and filled the boards with tripe after tripe. Sometimes trades, too. He asked many times for people to change their ways but everyone decided to post their wishlist
The site sucked arse though - and appeared to enjoying doing so. It needed location searching. It wasn't much better than a newsgroup.
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!