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Post by Peer on Jan 31, 2020 9:53:31 GMT -5
Greetings everyone, I have some sad news regarding the Vectrex Academy web pages of the past years: Yesterday evening, I was informed that the server hosting those pages will be moved to our campus-internal network, effective on February the 8th 2020. From then on, the pages will be accessible and visible only to those who are logged in to our intranet (either directly or by VPN), but not to the general public anymore. As of now, there is no, and there will be no alternate server provided. Unfortunately, I had and have no say in this matter. The whole thing is beyond my control and beyond my cone of influence. I do not yet know how to handle and possibly provide the presentation of the upcoming projects and results of this year's Vectrex class, which is about to start in March. Right now, I certainly feel a bit frustrated  So, all those of you who want to take some last looks at the projects of the past four years 2016 to 2020, please do so during the next week: eiti.fh-pforzheim.de/personen/johannsen/projektlabor/vectrex_2019/vectrex_gallery_2019.htmeiti.fh-pforzheim.de/personen/johannsen/projektlabor/vectrex_2018/vectrex_gallery_2018.htmeiti.fh-pforzheim.de/personen/johannsen/projektlabor/vectrex_2017/vectrex_gallery_2017.htmeiti.fh-pforzheim.de/personen/johannsen/projektlabor/vectrex/vectrex_gallery.htmAlthough I am rather not in a cheery mood, I will still close with my customary farewell… Many Cheers, Peer |
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Post by 8-Bit Waves on Jan 31, 2020 10:22:18 GMT -5
That is sad indeed. I hope there will be an alternative in the future.
Let us know if we can help with anything.
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Post by fmml on Jan 31, 2020 10:28:50 GMT -5
Oh no, that’s bad news.  No way to present the projects to the community, no way to receive feedback. |
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Post by VECTREXER on Jan 31, 2020 10:47:52 GMT -5
Greetings everyone, I have some sad news regarding the Vectrex Academy web pages of the past years: Yesterday evening, I was informed that the server hosting those pages will be moved to our campus-internal network, effective on February the 8th 2020. From then on, the pages will be accessible and visible only to those who are logged in to our intranet (either directly or by VPN), but not to the general public anymore. As of now, there is no, and there will be no alternate server provided. Unfortunately, I had and have no say in this matter. The whole thing is beyond my control and beyond my cone of influence. I do not yet know how to handle and possibly provide the presentation of the upcoming projects and results of this year's Vectrex class, which is about to start in March. Right now, I certainly feel a bit frustrated So, all those of you who want to take some last looks at the projects of the past four years 2016 to 2020, please do so during the next week: eiti.fh-pforzheim.de/personen/johannsen/projektlabor/vectrex_2019/vectrex_gallery_2019.htmeiti.fh-pforzheim.de/personen/johannsen/projektlabor/vectrex_2018/vectrex_gallery_2018.htmeiti.fh-pforzheim.de/personen/johannsen/projektlabor/vectrex_2017/vectrex_gallery_2017.htmeiti.fh-pforzheim.de/personen/johannsen/projektlabor/vectrex/vectrex_gallery.htmAlthough I am rather not in a cheery mood, I will still close with my customary farewell… Many Cheers, Peer Peer, If server resources are the issue, you would be welcome to use my Google Drive space to host files. If needed I would be happy to create an individual share for each student as well. Chris |
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Post by drsnuggles on Jan 31, 2020 11:09:09 GMT -5
Ohh no... The Academy was one of my motivations to renew the JSVecX emulator. Same as Chris said i would be happy to help you in hosting or other things. My hope is that students are going to share their work here, in facebook, or other media. Good luck to you and the Academy 2020 !! Max Edit: Links that will work after Feb 8th 2020. |
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Post by TrekMD on Jan 31, 2020 11:25:25 GMT -5
That is sad news. I'll join in in stating that I hope the students share their work here.
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Post by hcmffm on Jan 31, 2020 11:53:59 GMT -5
This is really sad news for all sides: You (Peer), the students who will attend future Vectrex academies, and last not least the Vectrex community. Making the students' projects public and getting feedback from the Vectrex community was an essential part of the studies. Just to mention two aspects: - Students got valuable feedback from the Vectrex community that helped to improve their projects. - The students learnt that their projects and results are appreciated by people in the real world. So theory and practice became close together. The games "Floor is Flava" and "Asteroid Cowboys" are the best examples what motivation and enthusiasm of a group of people can do. Today, these games are available at www.packratvg.com/vechbrews.html. This creative "fire" was lit buy you and the students, but also by people of the Vectrex community testing the games and providing feedback. I'm not sure whether the decision to lock up things in a secret corner in Fachhochschule Pforzheim is final and what the reasoning behind is. Security gets more and more important and sometimes guidelines and rules are set that might make some sense from one perspective but not from other perspectives. It's a very surprising decision because universities' overall trend is to open up to industry and people. And agility with prompt "customer feedback" is even an important part of the scrum methodology. It would be great if a way would be found to keep the projects public (regular mirroring/synching, ...). Good luck and many thanks for the public projects during the last years, Peer! |
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Post by stevenv on Jan 31, 2020 12:44:20 GMT -5
I really hope a compromise can be sorted out here, truly one of the highlights of the year. If not, It was great to be able to "participate" in the process the past few years!
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Post by gtoal on Jan 31, 2020 13:07:16 GMT -5
If it is just a 'control of servers' issue, finding mirrors is not a problem. The big question is whether the University is saying that they don't want the students work to be made public at all. If the latter then that's a harder issue to tackle. You may still be able to do so with the individual students' permissions.
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Post by VectorX on Jan 31, 2020 14:36:57 GMT -5
Thanks for the warning in advance. I'll take several screenshots to finish up my note taking and send you the last of the questions for the wiki entry that's horrendously overdue in regards to the course. I'm terribly sorry for being so far behind in this. Chronic fatigue is mostly to blame and I still can't see a doctor/possibly get cured for another month. Things have been horrible lately, I've been so horribly stressed that I even missed a concert here last night because I got my days confused and thought it'd be tonight (!). Well, I'll just lick my wounds and do some stuff around here I guess. Anyway, thanks for all your postings and updates and especially to the students who created their games. Just bad news all around. If worst comes to worst I suppose you could even just start a blog and post updates there, unless the uni forbids that too |
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Post by D-Type on Jan 31, 2020 17:38:45 GMT -5
Sorry to hear your news, Peer.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a way can be found to keep the developments open, I'm sure the students benefit overall from having live users see their work in progress, it brings a touch of reality to what they're doing - users matter!
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Post by Peer on Feb 1, 2020 0:51:37 GMT -5
Greetings to all of you, thank you very much for voicing your support here and for offering your help! I had not expected such a great response, and that definitely means a lot to me! Maybe some words regarding the reasons behind this, as far as I can tell them. There is no generally ill intention behind this. It is not about hiding anything, or about not wanting others to know what the students are doing. Also not about server space and such things. One big part are security issues. It is also not about my classroom course at all.
The consequences I am facing (i.e. not having an easily maintainable technical means to present and update the classroom results) are just "collateral damage". Which is no consolation at all and somehow makes it feel worse... As someone here very fittingly put it, sometimes guidelines and rules are set that make sense from one perspective but absolutely not from other perspectives. I will certainly keep you posted here in the forum about the upcoming course. And I will certainly keep thinking and trying to maybe find a way to do this not just text-only.
Many (still-not-quite-so-cheery) Cheers, Peer
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Post by VectorX on Feb 12, 2020 0:14:59 GMT -5
Aaaaaand...that's it, unfortunately. The links to the course pages and the like don't work any more.
It's a shame. It all went very well with the Vectrex community and the students got feedback and all, a win-win situation.
Hopefully the winning will continue later as something gets figured out.
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Post by Peer on Feb 12, 2020 3:15:01 GMT -5
… yes, they are gone for now, and I am terribly sorry for this But rest assured that I am working on finding a solution for making everything available again. Right now I have a an idea which will probably work (at least temporarily) for the next months. I will try this out during the next days, as right now I have a pile of papers to grade (last two weeks were full of exams). I will keep you all posted here. Many Cheers, Peer |
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Post by Peer on Feb 19, 2020 10:55:33 GMT -5
Greetings everyone, ok, I might have found a solution. Please try this link: The solution is, let us say, a bit "creative". {Spoiler}
I will not go into the details here as the solution is probably not exactly what this thing was originally intended for... I have not yet resurrected the 2016 – 2018 galleries, because this solutions makes it necessary to copy and then manually patch each and every html file. But if the whole thing turns out to work, I will do so in the future. If you are using any direct links to one of our pages on your own website, please update accordingly (and if you know of someone who does so as well and is not aware of the old dead links, please relay this information to them). The update is necessary only for links to the html pages, not for links to the game data (roms, overlays, manuals, videos). Those links should still work. Please let me know if you spot any mistakes, inconsistencies or dead links (except for those to the not yet existing elder galleries). Many "cheery" Cheers, Peer |
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