What If Scott Online Went To Annual Subscription Model??

The statement above makes no sense. Philatelic content is ideally stored in a SQL database; SQL databases represent a stable, cross platform, long term archive solution that are independent from constantly changing user interfaces and operating systems.

A foundational database architecture has nothing to do with content being open source. As a matter of fact, Stamp Smarter has a number of different community SQL databases where the SQL database platform was specifically chosen to ensure that the content remained open source. Not only do SQL databases support community data entry and content maintenance, but it also allows people to export all the content for their personal use 24/7/365.
Don

Don,

Funny, I interpret your comment as not making much sense either, in all due respect.

Where can the public download the mdf/ldf (Assuming MSSQL files) from stampsmarter? Is this data completely free for reuse, no strings attached?

If the maintainers of StampSmarter (or whoever is outlined in its succession plan) stop paying the bills, how does the community fetch the data?

I'll disagree and say philatelic content is not ideally stored in a SQL database. Data stored in a database is opaque.
It is just where it has always historically been stored for simple database structures.
Also a good portion of philatelic content are photos. Photos greater than 1MB have been proven to best served outside of a database instead of blob type dbstorage. For every photo stored/fetched in a database, there is a transaction that is not best being served by the dbengine. Storing images in databases scales horrifically.

Content stored in SQL databases are owned by whoever runs the DB, not a community, unless you have provided an unfettered API. HTML presentation of SQL content, is not the same as raw data.

This is an example of open sourced community data:
https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/C...ovid_19_data

The presentation layer is on the consumer.

Rich

The above is more total nonsense and I gave you examples, perhaps you need a bit more IT experience. The entire intent of the Stamp Smarter community projects was that I did NOT own the content, the content is owned by those who contribute. Contributors and members access the content (which they upload) through the member's area or links they have which give them 100% control over the content. They can access it, change it, delete it, and certainly download the entire DB at any time.

Stamp Smarter site itself is self-sustaining, donations go directly to the hosting costs and no human intervention is needed. It is setup that way because I considered donating the entire site to one of large philatelic organizations but not only would they not commit to keeping it published but there is no guarantee that they will survive 25-50 years in the future.

It the 35 years that I have lived and breathed IT, I have seen a lot of things come and go. I am not swayed by buzz words 'cloud' or 'open source', the words change but the concepts have always been the same. There is absolutely nothing new in something like 'cloud', distributed computing and redundant content has been around for decades. I agree with very little that you post so let's just move on.
Don

Moving on as I can only help people who are open to receiving it.

So you know, I am not some random IT guy. I did design the systems for the first ever US Options Exchange, a company and its technology that captured over 1/3 of options volume and we sold to NASDAQ. So I think I know a little something, about performance, high availability and distributed computing.

In the 1990s I developed the first online day trading website and was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and Barron's. My company and my engineering team developed our own TCP/IP stack and distributed computing platform for embedded processors in 2001. And I won the APS Kehr 'Future of Philately' award. So what? None of this has anything to do with your incorrect statement about SQL databases.



Pro Tip, try to not insult and anger the forum Mod.
Don

From an IT Neaderthal,
I have just moved over to all SSD (Solid State Drives)
and was quite surprised they are considered safe only to circa 10 years, when they may begin to lose data.
Magnetic drives 50 years?
DVD disks?
On an Aussie forum, I was queried why I wanted an optical drive in my build, they seemed agog, It now becomes apparent, I shall indeed need one to back up my genealogy information, to pass on to family.

The best thing to do rod222 is diversify or add redundancy around your storage. Don't rely on it in one place on one media. The best scenario is keep an on-site backup, ideally in a NAS of redundant drives with a cloud backup off-site. That should cover l, individual disk failures and disasters (fire/flood) for most scenarios.

I wouldn't bet on being able to easily get DVD drives in 25 years except as a speciality item. Computers may be very different then.

Also try to save your data in common formats and not a proprietary vendor format.

I do use your regime to a point, however I shall never use cloud.
That's the reason I went to SSD,
I can now back up, what took me 3 hrs via USB2, now 8 minutes USB-C
I just use "Copy" for transfer all my files.

Stay the course Rod, you are doing it the best way.
Don

I have no used DVDs for backup in years since I want my backup to be 1) not compressed and 2) mirror my setup exactly. I have also kept an image of the entire disk as an OS backup.

Similar here Al,
I intend to use Macrium Reflect Free "Disk Image"
when I get full time on Win10 (and the use of SSD external Drive)
I expect it will take 2 months to feel comfortable with Win 10
and get all my subsidiary programs loaded.
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Rod,

I use the same software to clone drives. I used it to migrate to SSD initially and now use a backup for total failure (cannot boot).

When I migrated from win 7 to win 10 I kept the win 7 image just in case. I never looked back.

Every time I read these IT discussions I feel like an utterly ignorant numpty.

Rog, you are not alone.
I too, feel the same, only guided now by Youtube assistance.
I had today to learn how to get gmail on Win 10.

The fact remains for me that, I had to bite the bullet, and go to W10
No doubt there will be other collectors here, that will sometime or other.
I still have to load my scanner, printer, and numerous other things.
I just know that patience and endurance will win out.

Al,



I read somewhere it is better to "disk image" than to clone
Not aware that is the best advice though.

My first plan tomorrow, is to see if my best program (ACDSee 2.4...1988)
will work on W10
It will be Joy if it does.
It seems extraordinary, that after 30 years, it still the best fastest Image manipulator.

Disk imaging is great for OEMs, software companies, or others who want to store a single file (which is an exact copy of an entire hard drive). It allows you to replicate hard drives in a production or test environment. For example, we designed and manufactured our own embedded computers and needed to include hard drives with operating systems. Customers could order either Linux or Windows, we built a large rack of power supplies and network switches where we could load 50 hard drives at once. Each released hard drive image file was controlled with revision control system. Having a single file which contained the entire sector level drive image made making sure we got the hard drives loaded consistently correct.

Disk cloning makes and exact, uncompressed replica of your drive so it is typically more used by users as backup. When needed to backup several racks of servers, I used disk cloning (not disk imaging) and removable external drives. When a user would need a single file, it was far easier to mount a drive, navigate directly to the file and copy it back to the production server.
Don