An Amazing Website - US Special Delivery

I just discovered this incredible website, which contains articles, exhibits and many links to other sites.
Of special interest for US collectors.

Some of you may be familiar, but I thought it worthy of exposure.

http://usspecialdelivery.com/index.html

Interesting site, but looks like it is no longer active and updated

The creator of the website, Bob Markovits, one of the leading philatelists in the United States, recently died. I haven't heard what is to become of this wonderful website.

After Bob passed, I snagged a copy of the site just in case it went dark. I then sent several inquiries as to what might become of the site and was told that it was being taken over by someone else. Unfortunately I did not get the feeling that the site would ever be updated again.
Don

Schuyler Rumsey is auctioning the Markovits Special Delivery collection at NY2016, I think on June 1.

Off topic - to 51studebaker - what computer program did you use to snag the web site?

careful when opening, I just had a 'run-away' experience & needed to totally close-out the window. Might just be my browser but it scared the heck out of me until I could get computer control back.

Waazwi,
I did it manually. I first snagged all the site images using a browser plugin and then saved off each html file.
Don

Back in the day, I used a program called 'wget' to mirror sites. Cheers,

What a shame about Mr. Markovits!

ikeyPikey is right: wget is still the best way to mirror, and newer versions of the program support stylesheets. Here's the command you want to run from the command line:

wget -mk http://usspecialdelivery.com/index.html

Be sure to use the -k flag (to update links so that they point locally). Otherwise, if and when the site is taken down, your mirror will break.

I just made a copy (56 megabytes total) and have stashed it in Dropbox. If the site ever goes dark, I can get anyone who wants one a zip file (48 megabytes) of it, so that it will be accessible to you locally.

'Back in the day" was key phase in ikey's post; capture apps like wget became outdated about 8-10 years ago. Simple sites, like the Special Delivery site, were written years ago using vanilla html and some jpgs. There are very few sites left like these, most modern sites use much more sever-side code and database back-ends. And sites that use a lot of Javascript, PHP, etc. can easily hold back the source code so it cannot be capture. More and more web code is 'server-side' only which means the web page gets rendered on the server, not in a client browser. This basically means that the source code is held secure only on the server and is not available to any capture apps. Frankly, a lot of people also got tired of writing web code only to have it ripped off by others.

This is also why the 'WayBack' site also fails on most modern sites. I also have a full copy of the Special Delivery site from a few months back but archived it on a DVD once it became clear that someone was going to keep it published online. Redistributing to anyone it would not be kosher, at a minimum you should ask the current owner if you can.
Don

I agree, of course. When I wrote "if the site ever goes dark", I meant "if the site is no longer online and no maintainer exists." I would not want the results of Mr. Markovits' labor of love to disappear forever into an online Library of Alexandria Fire.

Thanks ikeypikey, mcgeesorg and 51studebaker. I am familiar with wget of some years ago while doing forensics on several web sites as part of Info Security refresher training. Today IS strategists are more concerned with phishing using well known (read: financial related) sites lifted from their legitimate locations and populated with malware. Especially ransomware that's finally getting the attention it needs.

There are so many sites that hold little treasures of information and references that, once the owner closes down the site, are lost forever.

Thanks!

Bob Markovits' (I miss him) collection is being offered by Rumsey at NY2016. The catalog for the collection is available on the Rumsey website at:
http://www.rumseyauctions.com/auctions/sale/69

I have used a program called Offline Explorer. It did a decent job but have not used it in some time. It can drill down as many levels you want.

There a discussion in 1997 to save web sites and should be something that APRL should do.

Al

Al,
I agree that APRL/APS should be involved and proactive in accepting online and digital donations and re-publishing them if applicable to their mission (to promote stamp collecting for people of all ages, to offer services to its membership and to philately in general, including knowledge and education, which enhance the pleasure and friendliness of stamp collecting). I have pursued this topic several times with folks like Tara Murray and Roger Brody of the APRL; they both reflected interest in accepting such donations.

But I came away from these discussions/emails with additional questions. First, I am unclear if APRL/APS would actually re-publish these sites or if they would simply archive it. This is an important distinction for me, I want the thousands of man hours that Stamp Smarter represents to be available online to others for years to come. If APRL/APS cannot make this kind of donation available online then I would seek other ways to keep it online after I am gone.

Frankly unless the APS/APRL added some IT resources (as opposed to the current approach of outsourcing) I don't see this happening. For example, let's assume that the 18,000+ files, images, SQL databases, and source code on Stamp Smarter was turned over to them. Do they have the infrastructure to republish the entire site 'as is'? Or do they have the resources to parse out the parts and sections they would like to republish?

I recently have developed a couple of online resources for APS and the NY Show (kids games and a World Stamp Identifier, 350+ man hours). Before I started I wanted to understand what they could and couldn't support on a technical level, I didn't want to get to the end of the projects only to find they couldn't host these on their servers.

But I ended up writing them in a vacuum because I could not get much information. Now, they appear to want to host these on their site but we are in the 11th hour. I am working between APS and their outsourced IT contractor, not the ideal situation. I think that APS would be best served by having an IT 'champion' on staff; a single point of contact for all IT issues (like online/digital donations).

For the time being philatelic web owners are on their own but I am holding on to hope that APS/APRL might be able to accept digital donations for republishing in the near future.
Don