You may recall that on 4/30 I posted here about my orchid withdrawal
symptoms, and how I was trying to avoid the temptation of buying more
orchids immediately, but that I kept visiting orchid vendor's Web sites, and
that I needed more Paphs, ...

Well, I got an email from Rob Halgren, enquiring whether I had visited his
Little Frog Farm web site. And me, weak willed as I am, I gave in to the
temptation and went and looked. It's a nice site. Luckily for me none of the
Paphs on my wish list were in the online catalogue, so I thought I was safe.
Until Rob emailed me the following day, saying that he had discovered some
more extra paphs in his greenhouse, and would I have any interest in any of
those. And first on the list was Paph Magic Lantern, which was pretty much
on top of my wish list, too. So I had to give in, and I agreed to buy it.

But then Rob informs me that he's got a special going on, that anyone who
buys an orchid from him this month, also gets a bonus plant free. I had
missed that while browsing the site, but Rob being all helpful just had to
point it out! sigh Like I'm gonna say no to a free additional orchid.
Yeah, right.

Disregarding the rule that one does not examine the teeth of a free horse, I
shamelessly demanded whether that bonus plant could be a paph. Rob suggested
a nice Phrag. I asked whether a Phrag could do well in my conditions. Rob
reassured me. I kept pestering him with more questions. Writing lengthy
emails pretty much every day, and Rob kept answering every day, even though
I had already paid, so the sale was a given.

So today I got the shipment. And after having extracted the two plants that
I had expected, Paph Magic Lantern and Phrag Ecua-Bess, to my great surprise
I discovered a third orchid in the sea of peanuts, a paph wardii.

Rob, when confronted with this, claimed that he just wanted to make sure I
was satisfied in case I had my heart set on a bonus paph after all, and he
denies that he is evil, just misunderstood, grin. I still maintain that he
is evil ;-), taking advantage of poor me in my weak-willed state of mind,
unable to resist, and then increasing my orchid collection by 3 --charging
only for one-- and one of them's a Phrag! What if it does well? Then I might
not only be a Phal and Paph addict, but might become a Phrag addict too!

I knew that orchids were determined to take over the world, but now it turns
out that Rob is in cahoots with them. Oh, ok, maybe it's not that much of a
surprise given his sig. But his sig at least gives the hope that limited
credit might slightly delay the expansionist tendencies of orchids, until
one gets more credit. Whereas Rob's behavior toward me seems to suggest that
even if I had limited credit, I will still be inundated with orchids, three
at a time! Remember I last bought three orchids on April 16th before that.
If I continue to acquiring them at this rate, ... But there is no chance of
that, since my acquisition rate continues to increase. The trouble is that I
will have to buy more orchids, in bloom this time, once most of my Phals
wilt when the summer comes, and the main blooming time peaks.And my husband
is no help either, being very understanding and even encouraging of my
addiction -- one of the orchids that we bought in April was one that he
insisted upon.

Well, at least I can console myself in this most difficult time with three
very nice healthy orchids. It's tough to be me. grin

Joanna

Yeah, Rob's been a dangerous participant online for years. All that "rules"
crap that influenced us all into spending more and more money. Sheesh.

If anyone needs me, I'll be browsing his site.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"J Fortuna" wrote in message
news:z%Rge.25220$hh6.758@trnddc01...
You may recall that on 4/30 I posted here about my orchid withdrawal
symptoms, and how I was trying to avoid the temptation of buying more
orchids immediately, but that I kept visiting orchid vendor's Web sites,
and
that I needed more Paphs, ...

Well, I got an email from Rob Halgren, enquiring whether I had visited his
Little Frog Farm web site. And me, weak willed as I am, I gave in to the
temptation and went and looked. It's a nice site. Luckily for me none of
the
Paphs on my wish list were in the online catalogue, so I thought I was
safe.
Until Rob emailed me the following day, saying that he had discovered some
more extra paphs in his greenhouse, and would I have any interest in any
of
those. And first on the list was Paph Magic Lantern, which was pretty much
on top of my wish list, too. So I had to give in, and I agreed to buy it.

But then Rob informs me that he's got a special going on, that anyone who
buys an orchid from him this month, also gets a bonus plant free. I had
missed that while browsing the site, but Rob being all helpful just had to
point it out! sigh Like I'm gonna say no to a free additional orchid.
Yeah, right.

Disregarding the rule that one does not examine the teeth of a free horse,
I
shamelessly demanded whether that bonus plant could be a paph. Rob
suggested
a nice Phrag. I asked whether a Phrag could do well in my conditions. Rob
reassured me. I kept pestering him with more questions. Writing lengthy
emails pretty much every day, and Rob kept answering every day, even
though
I had already paid, so the sale was a given.

So today I got the shipment. And after having extracted the two plants
that
I had expected, Paph Magic Lantern and Phrag Ecua-Bess, to my great
surprise
I discovered a third orchid in the sea of peanuts, a paph wardii.

Rob, when confronted with this, claimed that he just wanted to make sure I
was satisfied in case I had my heart set on a bonus paph after all, and he
denies that he is evil, just misunderstood, grin. I still maintain that he
is evil ;-), taking advantage of poor me in my weak-willed state of mind,
unable to resist, and then increasing my orchid collection by 3 --charging
only for one-- and one of them's a Phrag! What if it does well? Then I
might
not only be a Phal and Paph addict, but might become a Phrag addict too!

I knew that orchids were determined to take over the world, but now it
turns
out that Rob is in cahoots with them. Oh, ok, maybe it's not that much of
a
surprise given his sig. But his sig at least gives the hope that limited
credit might slightly delay the expansionist tendencies of orchids, until
one gets more credit. Whereas Rob's behavior toward me seems to suggest
that
even if I had limited credit, I will still be inundated with orchids,
three
at a time! Remember I last bought three orchids on April 16th before that.
If I continue to acquiring them at this rate, ... But there is no chance
of
that, since my acquisition rate continues to increase. The trouble is that
I
will have to buy more orchids, in bloom this time, once most of my Phals
wilt when the summer comes, and the main blooming time peaks.And my
husband
is no help either, being very understanding and even encouraging of my
addiction -- one of the orchids that we bought in April was one that he
insisted upon.

Well, at least I can console myself in this most difficult time with three
very nice healthy orchids. It's tough to be me. grin

Joanna

Ray wrote:
Yeah, Rob's been a dangerous participant online for years. All that "rules"
crap that influenced us all into spending more and more money. Sheesh.

If anyone needs me, I'll be browsing his site.


I appreciate Joanna's kind review, but I was a complete idiot yesterday
at about 4:00 and I blew away the entire website... Sigh...

Anyway, I'm rebuilding it from approximately scratch, hopefully it will
be reasonably functional by the end of today.

Don't have too much fun

Rob

--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit

check with your service provider. They usually make backups every 24 hours
and you may still be able to get a copy restored online.

"Rob Halgren" wrote in message
...
Ray wrote:
Yeah, Rob's been a dangerous participant online for years. All that
"rules" crap that influenced us all into spending more and more money.
Sheesh.

If anyone needs me, I'll be browsing his site.


I appreciate Joanna's kind review, but I was a complete idiot yesterday at
about 4:00 and I blew away the entire website... Sigh...

Anyway, I'm rebuilding it from approximately scratch, hopefully it will be
reasonably functional by the end of today.

Don't have too much fun

Rob

--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit

Al wrote:
check with your service provider. They usually make backups every 24 hours
and you may still be able to get a copy restored online.


Darn good idea... Wish I had thought of that..

Rob


--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit

On Fri, 13 May 2005 06:05:30 -0400 in Ray wrote:
Yeah, Rob's been a dangerous participant online for years. All that "rules"
crap that influenced us all into spending more and more money. Sheesh.

If anyone needs me, I'll be browsing his site.

Whew, I'm saved, he yanked the catalog lastnight.


--
Chris Dukes
Suspicion breeds confidence -- Brazil

Oh crap!

Like the old DOS days:

C:\
C:\ Dir A:
Enter
(get the listing)
C:\ Del *.* (intending it to be the files on the floppy)
Enter
C:\ All files will be deleted. Are you sure (Y/N)?
C:\ Y
Enter
Oh (*^*)%$*^#&^%&^$%(&!!!!!!
--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Rob Halgren" wrote in message
...
Ray wrote:
Yeah, Rob's been a dangerous participant online for years. All that
"rules" crap that influenced us all into spending more and more money.
Sheesh.

If anyone needs me, I'll be browsing his site.


I appreciate Joanna's kind review, but I was a complete idiot yesterday at
about 4:00 and I blew away the entire website... Sigh...

Anyway, I'm rebuilding it from approximately scratch, hopefully it will be
reasonably functional by the end of today.

Don't have too much fun

Rob

--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit

On Fri, 13 May 2005 17:28:41 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:

Oh crap!

Like the old DOS days:

C:\
C:\ Dir A:
Enter
(get the listing)
C:\ Del *.* (intending it to be the files on the floppy)
Enter
C:\ All files will be deleted. Are you sure (Y/N)?
C:\ Y
Enter
Oh (*^*)%$*^#&^%&^$%(&!!!!!!
Why oh Why does that look SO familiar? At least you didn't make it
recursive DEL *.* C:\ -a -r -s.....

Dave

Dave Fouchey wrote:
On Fri, 13 May 2005 17:28:41 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:


Oh crap!

Like the old DOS days:

C:\
C:\ Dir A:
Enter
(get the listing)
C:\ Del *.* (intending it to be the files on the floppy)
Enter
C:\ All files will be deleted. Are you sure (Y/N)?
C:\ Y
Enter
Oh (*^*)%$*^#&^%&^$%(&!!!!!!

Why oh Why does that look SO familiar? At least you didn't make it
recursive DEL *.* C:\ -a -r -s.....

Dave


Although now, after Al's advice, I'm starting to get really annoyed with
my hosting company. They have always responded to a request within a
few minutes to an hour before. Its been over ten hours since I first
requested assistance, and 4 since I 'gently' reminded them, and still I
haven't heard a peep. I'm losing money here...

On a unix machine, you can simplify things by typing:
rm -rf /

That will about do it. Although I wasn't _that_ stupid...

Rob

On Fri, 13 May 2005 19:59:34 -0400, halgren wrote:

Dave Fouchey wrote:
On Fri, 13 May 2005 17:28:41 -0400, "Ray"
wrote:


Oh crap!

Like the old DOS days:

C:\
C:\ Dir A:
Enter
(get the listing)
C:\ Del *.* (intending it to be the files on the floppy)
Enter
C:\ All files will be deleted. Are you sure (Y/N)?
C:\ Y
Enter
Oh (*^*)%$*^#&^%&^$%(&!!!!!!

Why oh Why does that look SO familiar? At least you didn't make it
recursive DEL *.* C:\ -a -r -s.....

Dave


Although now, after Al's advice, I'm starting to get really annoyed with
my hosting company. They have always responded to a request within a
few minutes to an hour before. Its been over ten hours since I first
requested assistance, and 4 since I 'gently' reminded them, and still I
haven't heard a peep. I'm losing money here...

On a unix machine, you can simplify things by typing:
rm -rf /

That will about do it. Although I wasn't _that_ stupid...

Rob


In case you're not aware of the site, the Wayback Machine at
www.archive.org takes snapshots of webpages and keeps track of the
changes. I know a couple people who have used the archives to help
recover their crashed/hacked sites.

I took a look for Little Frog Farm, and it seems the site hasn't drawn
the attention of the archiving spiders yet, so it might be a good idea
to submit the site address for future archiving. I did, however,
manage to find at least a couple of familiar sites to rgo readers.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.jborchids.com
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.firstrays.com
--Vic

da wrote:



In case you're not aware of the site, the Wayback Machine at
www.archive.org takes snapshots of webpages and keeps track of the
changes. I know a couple people who have used the archives to help
recover their crashed/hacked sites.

I took a look for Little Frog Farm, and it seems the site hasn't drawn
the attention of the archiving spiders yet, so it might be a good idea
to submit the site address for future archiving. I did, however,
manage to find at least a couple of familiar sites to rgo readers.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.jborchids.com
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.firstrays.com
--Vic

I had forgotten about the wayback machine... But the problem isn't the
HTML portion of the site, I had a copy of that. It was the database
that wasn't backed up. My own fault, of course. I certainly have that
technology. I am a full time computer geek (well... computational
biology. Same thing).

It isn't all that bad, there weren't more than 20 or thirty things in
the database that weren't customer records, and I have e-mail as a
backup for the customers. I'm really more annoyed about the bad
technical support I'm getting... My hosting company just merged (I
think maybe 'bought out' is a better phrase) by a canadian company, and
I think that might be the problem.

There are a couple of good rules about computer backups:

1. Failures never happen when you've remembered to back up
2. Never trust anybody but you to have done your backups
3. Evidently, I shouldn't even trust me... Sigh...

Hold the phones... They just popped up in my e-mail box. Politely
telling me that I'm screwed... But at least they replied...

Rob (littlefrogfarm.com - rebuild in progress)

On Fri, 13 May 2005 22:19:09 -0400, halgren wrote:


I had forgotten about the wayback machine... But the problem isn't the
HTML portion of the site, I had a copy of that. It was the database
that wasn't backed up. My own fault, of course. I certainly have that
technology. I am a full time computer geek (well... computational
biology. Same thing).

It isn't all that bad, there weren't more than 20 or thirty things in
the database that weren't customer records, and I have e-mail as a
backup for the customers. I'm really more annoyed about the bad
technical support I'm getting... My hosting company just merged (I
think maybe 'bought out' is a better phrase) by a canadian company, and
I think that might be the problem.

There are a couple of good rules about computer backups:

1. Failures never happen when you've remembered to back up
2. Never trust anybody but you to have done your backups
3. Evidently, I shouldn't even trust me... Sigh...

Hold the phones... They just popped up in my e-mail box. Politely
telling me that I'm screwed... But at least they replied...

Rob (littlefrogfarm.com - rebuild in progress)


I hate to laugh but usually we experience things the other way around
-- big U.S. company buys out Canadian firm and then our customer
support vanishes like the dodo bird. It's good to know that the laws
of customer abuse and neglect in relation to so-called business
efficiency and productivity are a constant throughout the universe.
g

It doesn't sound like it should take you too long to get back up and
running. Your database isn't that large, and I'm sure you've got a
pretty good sense of what was in there. Good luck with the
repopulation.

As for backups........errrr........I'm in absolutely no position to
make remarks about other people's neglect of that most vital computing
process.

So does anybody know what are the computing and Internet gods are
accepting as payment for indulgences and protection these days? g
--Vic

Won't help for this time, but ... what I do is edit my file off-line, for
each page of my site. Then when I'm ready to upload the new version, I go
online and rename the old one as a backup before uploading the new one -- so
if the new is seriously messed up in a way that I couldn't catch in the
offline test process, I can just go back and restore the last version. Good
luck with it all, Kenni

"Rob Halgren" wrote in message
...
Al wrote:
check with your service provider. They usually make backups every 24
hours and you may still be able to get a copy restored online.


Darn good idea... Wish I had thought of that..

Rob


--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit

Kenni Judd wrote:
Won't help for this time, but ... what I do is edit my file off-line, for
each page of my site. Then when I'm ready to upload the new version, I go
online and rename the old one as a backup before uploading the new one -- so
if the new is seriously messed up in a way that I couldn't catch in the
offline test process, I can just go back and restore the last version. Good
luck with it all, Kenni


The big problem comes when your pages are dynamically generated from a
database, and you blow your database away... That is harder to deal with.

Regardless, the site is back up, if anybody wants to visit. Maybe it is
even better than before...

http://littlefrogfarm.com/shop



--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit