Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Sciencemadness file hosting

Polverone - 8-4-2003 at 13:29

(This thread originally appeared under the title "new sciencemadness feature" in 2003. It has been updated and made sticky in April 2005 to reflect current changes.)

Sometimes you may have pictures or other modestly sized files you wish to share with the world but you don't want or need a full-blown hosting service. Free services like Geocities are a pain to use since you can't link to the images from another site.

So, as a service to sciencemadness users, I have set up a special FTP account. FTP to sciencemadness.org with username scipics, password scipics, and you will be able to upload images into a 'scipics' directory that is linkable on sciencemadness.org and elsewhere.

Example: (http://www.sciencemadness.org/scipics/test.jpg)


You may upload pictures, PGP keys, or other files of a sciencemadness-related nature. There is currently a maximum quota of 100 MB for the whole directory; it will be expanded if necessary. Please do not host images for your own website in this directory. I will periodically check up to make sure that it is not abused. If it is abused too heavily, it will have to be changed to a more private system.

I would appreciate it if users would upload files to this directory rather than using the board's attachments feature, since the attachments can be more awkward to view and don't play nice with my automatic archival script.

Enjoy!

[Edited on 5-8-2005 by Polverone]

Eliteforum - 8-4-2003 at 13:46

I was going to do something like this on my PC. I've already installed Apache webserver, and am hosting an image on it already. If it becomes abused, perhaps I could step in..?

DeusExMachina - 8-4-2003 at 17:18

THANK YOU! so now I can host a picture that I need to be hosted? I've been looking for a proper host for months now.

Organikum - 10-4-2003 at 20:23

Wow!
Fast!

Thanks Polverone.
I am sure this will help a lot for more comprehensive and understandable posts.
You might consider to add .mol and .pdb extensions for funny 3d molecules, will ya? ;) (and they are the most space saving at all....) The .bmp format may be skipped after my opinion - just a waste of bandwidth and space.

ORG


changes made

Polverone - 10-4-2003 at 21:06

It now accepts .pdb and .mol.

vulture - 16-9-2003 at 10:34

Maybe a good idea to upload PGP keys too?

Blind Angel - 16-9-2003 at 13:22

hmmm, sorry for my ignorance but what are PGP key used for?

Polverone - 16-9-2003 at 23:05

More importantly, do they end with any particular file extension?

vulture - 17-9-2003 at 04:31

.asc is the extension for PGP keys normally.

Although I think you can rename them to .txt

PGP keys are used to send encrypted messages between people. You encode your message with the public key of the reciever and the reciever decodes your message with his private key.

[Edited on 17-9-2003 by vulture]

added

Polverone - 21-9-2003 at 19:38

Yes, I did take my own sweet time remembering. Files with .asc extensions are now accepted.

vulture - 22-9-2003 at 06:26

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea of me after all. Why? Because there's a public server and more important, everybody on this forum has acces to the webspace.

This means users could tamper with eachothers keys, making it a security vulnerability.

raistlin - 22-9-2003 at 09:03

Not really vulture... all one has to do to verify if the key is genuine is to check the persons key fingerprint.

vulture - 22-9-2003 at 10:13

True, but assume someone hacked his way into my account. They could change the fingerprint and replace the key, whereas you need to original key to change it on the international keyserver.

drat

Polverone - 22-9-2003 at 13:18

Vulture, please meet me in the conference room. We need to pick a new security officer :P.

.asc files are again disallowed.

vulture - 23-9-2003 at 02:27

Check my new user title...

Blind Angel - 23-9-2003 at 06:36

He's a cop, get him guy!
-----------------------------

Eh?

[Edited on 23-9-2003 by vulture]

Quantum - 4-12-2003 at 20:06

I remember when I made that pic. I think it was with Lightwave, however mine didn't have the guy behind the building :)

Organikum - 8-5-2005 at 10:03

I re-upped the missing pictures in the benzene thread and for the coppercondensor. If other pictures of mine are missing please tell (WITH LINK!) and I will fix it ASAP.

/ORG

Image Problems?

hodges - 10-5-2005 at 02:42

I added a message with a new image to this thread:
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=3717
I can see the file I uploaded in the ftp directory, but the image is showing up as an X. I noticed the previous images in the thread are also not showing up, although I can still see them in the FTP directory. I thought maybe this was a temporary glitch or a problem with my PC but the problem has existed for two days and I also tried another PC and have the same problem from there.

Organikum - 10-5-2005 at 04:40

You have a double backslash before the pictures name:

//AgBrPhot.jpg

right is:

/AgBrPhot.jpg

The picture in the first post of the thread, FerricPrints.jpg, is not on the server at all.




[Edited on 10-5-2005 by Organikum]

No problem

chemoleo - 10-5-2005 at 04:43

I just fixed it, you tried some slightly wrong version - you have to use the http:// in front, lowercase [img] (knowing that uppercase [B][/B] doesn't work), and one slash / instead of two as a directory separator :P

Thanks

hodges - 10-5-2005 at 14:06

Thanks. I just re-uploaded the older two pics as well, and they now show up again.

IrC - 11-7-2005 at 14:53

I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've tried a few different ftp programs, and each one looks like it is working well but stops right at the list command, and gives error the directory cannot be listed. I was trying to upload a couple pics for a post I haven't made yet. Any ideas?

Polverone - 11-7-2005 at 19:06

IrC, I experienced the same problem when trying to connect from my campus network. No matter what program I used, simply attempting to list files or download anything would fail and disconnect me. I have no problems from my home DSL connection though. I haven't been able to figure it out.

IrC - 11-7-2005 at 21:20

I am on my 1.5 m/s DSL also, and have no firewalls, antivirus or any other form of software running on it. I always keep a machine for online use only that they can destroy for all I care, with CD's I can have it formatted and back up in under 2 hours. Funny as it sounds I have not even had a single virus in the last 7 years on it. In any case there is nothing software related that would keep it from listing that I know of.

Polverone - 11-7-2005 at 23:18

IrC, you should let MadHatter know about this. Actually this whole exchange should have been posted in his FTP thread.

quicksilver - 7-1-2007 at 14:52

As some of you know I am very much into collecting scanned books. I have a freind who worked with me who is now a "power" in a State library. She has given me access to micro-fishe scans of all the books in the State!
Some of you have my Email and I have long said I am happy to share what I have but Email is a poor way to share some of the larger files (most anything over 20Mb). I just got a serious collection of stuff related to organic / inorganic chem, energetic materials, etc. - and I have been having bad luck with file sharing via web-hosted file sharing pages.
What is the method of using torrents via a private party to party technique? Could this be done in some manner for the users of this board only?
Before I was BANNED as RS (for what, I do not know - nor have ever known) they were experimenting with torrents for their board - could this be done here?

neutrino - 7-1-2007 at 23:52

I'd stick to the FTPs. The problem with torrents is that peers can see each other's IP addresses. FTPs don't have this problem, assuming the operator of the FTP is legit.

For better compression, I'd suggest looking into converting the books to DJVU format. I have a 3MB DJVU chemistry book full of text and structures, very clean and ~400 pages. That's good compression, IMO.

quicksilver - 8-1-2007 at 07:22

Point well taken. I'll use the FTP. - The djvu format is smaller; that I know but can it be searched as well?
I got a scan of a text book on energetic materials from 1919 and it was an OCR with JUST TEXT! Well this thing is only 400k for a full classic textbook. - It's new to the "community" I believe so I am enclosing it for download example (compressed with RAR it drops to 100k)
EXPLOSIVES BY E. DE BARRY BARNETT, B.Sc.(Lo ND .), A.I.C.
CONSULTING CHEMIST AND MANAGER TO BAGLBY, MILLS AND CO., LTD., FORMERLY
WORKS CHEMIST, NATIONAL EXPLOSIVES CO., LTD., AND WORKS MANAGER,
STOCKTON-ON-TEES CHEMICAL WORKS, LTD. Britiish explosive textbook 1919.

[Edited on 8-1-2007 by quicksilver]

Attachment: explos_ttxtbook-BARNETT_1919L.rar (110kB)
This file has been downloaded 2420 times


alancj - 9-6-2007 at 22:43

WinRAR gives me an "unexpected end of archive" error message when I extract that file. So I think it may be corrupt.

JohnWW - 10-6-2007 at 03:37

There is an utility called "Advanced RAR Repair" which could be used. My download of it was OK; it is a TXT file containing the text only of a 28-Mb PDF of the book which also was available then.

tito-o-mac - 6-7-2007 at 06:31

It is definitely more convenient to understand and be able to read and "see" at the same time. Thanks for the feature anyway.:P

solo - 6-7-2007 at 19:20

Quote:
Originally posted by quicksilver
As some of you know I am very much into collecting scanned books. I have a freind who worked with me who is now a "power" in a State library. She has given me access to micro-fishe scans of all the books in the State!
Some of you have my Email and I have long said I am happy to share what I have but Email is a poor way to share some of the larger files (most anything over 20Mb). I just got a serious collection of stuff related to organic / inorganic chem, energetic materials, etc. - and I have been having bad luck with file sharing via web-hosted file sharing pages.
What is the method of using torrents via a private party to party technique? Could this be done in some manner for the users of this board only?
Before I was BANNED as RS (for what, I do not know - nor have ever known) they were experimenting with torrents for their board - could this be done here?


I suggest 4share, they give one gig for each valid e-mail address so one could have many and there the files are safe and ver accessible if an ftp is not available.......solo

CycloKnight - 29-11-2013 at 16:54

Could someone please tell me if the scipics directory is still accepting uploads? I've been trying for some time to connect using my FTP software so I can upload photos, but it's not working. I'm using scipics as username and password which used to work fine. Now, I keep getting:
status: Waiting to retry...
Status: Delaying connection for 1 second due to previously failed connection attempt...
Status: Resolving address of sciencemadness.org
Status: Connecting to 74.207.252.200:21...
Status: Connection attempt failed with "ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server".
Error: Could not connect to server

Any suggestion would be much appreciated !

bfesser - 29-11-2013 at 17:27

It's been disabled for a while now. Not sure when (or even if) it'll come back.

CycloKnight - 29-11-2013 at 18:59

Thanks bfesser, I'm relieved at least now I can now stop trying to fix a non-existent problem ! :D
Off site image hosting I guess it'll have to be then.