Baen CDs at the Fifth Imperium

BaenCD Server Notice: Sun, 06 Jan 2013 09:25:25 -0800

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 09:25:25 -0800

     UPDATE:

     Holy crap! My rewrite rules are browser sensitive!

     It's aggressive browser-caching on Firefox's part. Never mind.

     --

     Having issues with my rewrite rules. Trying to keep 404 response down.

     I had already created a simple RedirectMatch ruile that would redirect any attempt to access anything in a CD directory tree to a collective, soft-error page:



     RedirectMatch 301 ^/23-TheEasternFrontCD/1635TheEasternFrontCD/ http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/NoCDs/

     It worked fine when I had nothing in those paths to serve.

     Now I want to redirect anything except certain files or anything in certain specific directories. If the specified directory or file exists, I want them to be served, but if they don't a catch-all should redirect to the soft-error page.



     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/23-TheEasternFrontCD/1635TheEasternFrontCD/images

     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/23-TheEasternFrontCD/1635TheEasternFrontCD/index.htm

     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/23-TheEasternFrontCD/1635TheEasternFrontCD/

     RewriteRule ^/ /http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/NoCDs/ [R=301,L]

     The way I understand it, if the three rewrite conditions are met, then the immediately-following rule should trigger. So far, it doesn't seem to.

     Anything in the images directory should serve. The specific index.htm file (and for some CDs, an orientation page or extra information page) should serve. Anything else I want to trigger the CD soft-error page.

     But all I get is the standard server-wide 404 response.

     Still working on the rules. For now, I'm just letting the standard 404 page serve, but I will be experimenting with the rules for the next few days.

BaenCD Server Notice: Sat, 05 Jan 2013 17:24:59 -0800

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 17:24:59 -0800

     Update II:

     Some people might be thinking that I've re-uploaded the browseable versions of the CDs. If you're thinking that way, you're only partially right.

     With the removal or the browseable CDs, people have been forced to select a whole CD and download a copy of it sight unseen.

     That's been bugging me for the last couple of weeks, so as a partial solution, I have re-uploaded the CD index files with all of the book links removed.

     You can now browse the CD index page and see what is supposed to be on the CD, but no books are linked.

     Don't even bother trying to edit your browser URLs to try and hunt for the files: they're not on the server and they aren't going to be.

     Stop it.

     -----

     Update:

     The site's been getting pounded since the Baen Apocalypse began. This month - alone - has seen more site traffic than the rest of the year combined.

     Obviously, visitors now have to download One Big File instead of browsing only a few megabytes of an index or a book file or two.

     Still, even though traffic is up over an order of magnitude, the server seems to be keeping up, for the most part. Simple file transfers - even large files - are supposed to be fairly low-stress on a server.

     The site finally threw out its first lone watchdog timeout last Saturday and it evidently had an outage for a large part of two hours very early Thursday.

     A normal day used to run about 15-25GB of traffic. It's been averaging about 225GB/day this month, with a peak at over 575GB back on the 10th.

     -----

     As people have been discovering for the last few days, the content of this archive site has recently changed.

     For ten years now, Baen has seen fit to provide free teaser/sampler CDs with many of its first edition hardbacks. They have been - and still should be - applauded for making much of their material available as no-cost samplers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many, many first-time readers have been swayed into buying Baen books due to having read something from one of the free CDs.

     Baen ~~is now on the verge of launching~~ has launched a new ebook distribution deal with an 'unnamed third-party' Amazon.

     ~~This third-party~~ Amazon regularly crawls the web looking for ebooks it markets and, if found at a lower price, matches their price to the new-found lower price.

     Finding it free tends to knock the wind out of the ebook's sales (so to speak).

     In a lot of ways, my personal belief is that Baen has now come to the conclusion that the free CDs are an experiment which has run its course.

     After trading emails with Toni, I was going to retire the entire site (and may yet do so, depending on further events), but as an experiment, she's agreed to a compromise solution whereby only the directly browseable versions of the CD contents are no longer available.

     Deleting those directories ~~broke hundreds of remote links into my site~~ now leads visitors to a catch-all landing page.

     I'm sorry for the inconvenience. It is rather nice to have the readable versions directly accessible from the web.

     The full CD ISO files are, for the time being, still available, though.

     -Joe

BaenCD Server Notice: Sat, 29 Dec 2012 06:03:23 -0800

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 06:03:23 -0800

     Update:

     The site's been getting pounded since the Baen Apocalypse began. This month - alone - has seen more site traffic than the rest of the year combined.

     Obviously, visitors now have to download One Big File instead of browsing only a few megabytes of an index or a book file or two.

     Still, even though traffic is up over an order of magnitude, the server seems to be keeping up, for the most part. Simple file transfers - even large files - are supposed to be fairly low-stress on a server.

     The site finally threw out its first lone watchdog timeout last Saturday and it evidently had an outage for a large part of two hours very early Thursday.

     A normal day used to run about 15-25GB of traffic. It's been averaging about 225GB/day this month, with a peak at over 575GB back on the 10th.

     -----

     As people have been discovering for the last few days, the content of this archive site has recently changed.

     For ten years now, Baen has seen fit to provide free teaser/sampler CDs with many of its first edition hardbacks. They have been - and still should be - applauded for making much of their material available as no-cost samplers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many, many first-time readers have been swayed into buying Baen books due to having read something from one of the free CDs.

     Baen ~~is now on the verge of launching~~ has launched a new ebook distribution deal with an 'unnamed third-party' Amazon.

     ~~This third-party~~ Amazon regularly crawls the web looking for ebooks it markets and, if found at a lower price, matches their price to the new-found lower price.

     Finding it free tends to knock the wind out of the ebook's sales (so to speak).

     In a lot of ways, my personal belief is that Baen has now come to the conclusion that the free CDs are an experiment which has run its course.

     After trading emails with Toni, I was going to retire the entire site (and may yet do so, depending on further events), but as an experiment, she's agreed to a compromise solution whereby only the directly browseable versions of the CD contents are no longer available.

     Deleting those directories ~~broke hundreds of remote links into my site~~ now leads visitors to a catch-all landing page.

     I'm sorry for the inconvenience. It is rather nice to have the readable versions directly accessible from the web.

     The full CD ISO files are, for the time being, still available, though.

     -Joe