Aku (fairx aka admin) tengah cuti kat kampung, so memang takde maxis dan line rumah pun kengkawan rapat je yang tahu. So, malam tadi masa aku balik ke kedai baru la masalah server ni aku dapat tau. Malam tadi jugak perbincangan dengan pihak hosting untuk membolehkan forum online semula.

Sementara tu aku backup dulu Mysql database. Tudia.. besar jugak db scootering nih. tahun sudah separuh ke saiznye.

Tengah malam, aku dapat access balik ke forum dengan temporary password untuk direktori /forum. Terus je aku backup semua data yang penting terutamanya attachment & galeri.

Pukul 2 pagi backup direktori & mysql selamat dipindahkan ke server backup. Tetapi perbincangan lanjut ngan hosting memberi nafas baru kepada forum; syaratnya tiada lagi cpu hogging. Aku percaya selama ni cpu hogging berpunca dari public_html yang penuh dengan apache core dump.. penuh sampai full 10000MB data hosting.

Lepas siasat barulah aku pasti apa yang bermasalah dengan apache core dump. Upgrade 1 script forum dengan bantuan smf dev forum. Harap2 penyelesaian masalah ni kekal & tak menggangu lagi.

Pukul 3 pagi hosting kontek aku bagi kebenaran untuk akses umum direktori /forum. lega aku.

Tengahari, lepas aku bangun tido dan setel kerja, aku buka H/P, ada mesej dari Ijas. Sori Jas, aku memang x dapat line masa kat kampung, pastu plak aku tutup HP sebab nak fokus kepada forum restoration. Lepas berbalas sms ngan Ijas dia report kat aku masih ramai yang tak dapat akses forum.

Harap kat sini anda semua dapat beri feedback masalah akses ke forum. silalah reply. buat sementara waktu semua orang boleh reply tanpa  register.

My response was; bullshit! Ares never charge anyone. It’s a free software and open source.

Then I hit the net and found out exactly what he’s complaining about. The regular Ares are no longer updated. Since then the connection server has been taken down or simply obselete. The only choice for many others are to download one of those Ares clones. Yes Ares’ clones. Since the project was opensource, people has taken the advantage to update the program’s connection and charge people for the updated code.

So I tried this method. Install one of those ares clone, in my case Ares Vista;

1. Let it connect
2. Test download 1 or 2 songs
3. Close it
4. Open Windows Explorer
5. Open Tools, Folder & Options..
6. View..
7. Tick Show Hidden Files & Folder
8. OK
9. Go to C:
10. Document & Settings
11. Select current user (your account name)
12. Local Settings
13. Application Data
14. Ares Vista (or something similar)
15. Copy the “Data” folder
16. Paste it somewhere in your disk
17. Download & install original Ares
18. Install as usual & let it run (make sure you “unblock” it whan prompted by windows firewall)
19. Close down Ares, make sure it really closed down by righclicking the ares icon in the taskbar, near the clock & choose exit.
20. Copy the “data” folder that we saved previously
21. Repeat step 9-13
22. Open Ares folder and paste “data” in there replacing the original “data” folder.
23. Relaunch Ares & search the most popular & common artist, preferably in our own country.
24. Magically, it will list the song
25. Try download some of the popular song.
26. After that, you will be able to use Ares & connected automatically everytime.

The method described above are meant for XP only. Vista’s user might wanna look at: C:\Users\user account name\AppData\Local\Ares

Alternatively, you can download my “data” folder here: Mirrror 1, Mirror 2, Mirror 3

http://www.zshare.net/download/691314039f824b05/

And it didn’t disapoint me. Windows 7 is running right now as I’m writing this, here in my machine with aero theme turned on as default. My rig, a low end dual core Intel 2.0 and 1.5 gig ram minus 256 of ram deals with this new version of windows like a horse on steroid.. Well I might’ve exaggerate a lil bit but Win7 is my new toy at the moment.

As of beta, it has a few hiccups here and there, at first.. and I did crash it with video directshow with nvidia xp drivers. It also failed to respond to end an unresponsive task (Utorrent 1.9 beta, well.. beta meets beta) but what the heck? It’s faster than Vista and almost as fast as xp.

It did surprisingly run most of my software including the aging but fabulos Abilon rss reader. Most of the time, the compatibility mode save the situation. I was under the impression that Vista are bloated cause it’s trying to save compatibility with older programs. Some of the my common programs that runs well are;

1. Maxthon 1.6.3 ( my fav Maxthon version)

2. Illustrator 9 (Aero revert to basic theme but I can live with that)

3.  XaraX 4 (I can’t live without this powerfull vector app)

4. The Font Thing 0.80 (Very old app, back to 1999 – still kicking)