I haven't been having trouble with losing data lately. My problem is getting these objects to look real. At the moment, it's clams. There are three of them, all slightly different colors. The problem is getting them to look like they are NOT just 3 instances of the same 3D object, with different tinting.

Are they? ;)

Resizing, rotating, etc. might help?

They've been resized, recolored, rotated, retextured, and they are not the same model, but they still look fake. They did start out as the same model, but all these clams are pretty much the same shape, so I can't think of any way to morph the models to differentiate them. When I go to an aquarium store and see all the blue clams lined up in the front of the tank, they are obviously all different. I need to figure out what makes them so.

Could it be the name badge that they all wear?

I bought a Terastation for use at work, but sent it back. It was useless on a domain and even when out of one (as most home users would have it) I found it slow (it's basically running linux on a slow microcontroller). However other people love them, so don't entirely take my word for it. (I use IcyBoxes with big hard drives in them for backup, usually over firewire and sometimes USB2. See http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...Thumbnails=yes for more.) A friend just bought a NAS he liked, I'll ask him what it was when he gets in.
John

Cliff - Ah, yes. I'll name the middle one "Cliff" :)

Thanks for the testimonial! I will certainly include it in my thoughts.

Maybe I will reconsider building a cheap PC and running Windows Server 2003 on it and use its RAID controller features.

This is what my friend got:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=509
He's happy with it, although I haven't played with it so can't comment.
John

My web site, fish-byte.com is down. I switched ISPs, and for some reason the new DNS just isn't working. I've got an email in to the new ISP, iPower.com, but no response yet.

Please tell me you're kidding. Please tell me you didn't switch to iPowerWeb. :( :( :(

I shouldn't have? They got the top reviews during my research.

Yes, but did RottenTomatoes recommend them? ;)

I use WebHostingTalk.com for reviews.

Also I have personal experience with iPower allowing a friend's domain name to expire. A company in South Africa swiped the domain and are asking $5,000 to get it back.

iPowerWeb uses a non-standard control panel called "vDeck" for which little or no documentation exists. Whenever I have written PHP applications for the same friend who lost his domain name, I have had to modify them to work with iPower's hosting setup.

Some examples from WebHostingTalk.com:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=585912
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...11#post3790994
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=460746
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=550199

Note that most of these examples are of iPower letting domains expire and fall into other people's hands. If you have registered your domain with GoDaddy or another 3rd party, then this does not affect you. GoDaddy is great for domains but terrible for web hosting, and I'm sure you already know that the worst thing you can do is have your domain name and your web hosting handled by the same company.

All my domains are registered with Register.com. They send me frequent reminders (too frequent) when the domains are within a couple years of expiring.

I haven't tried the VDeck interface. I use Dreamweaver, and just upload my pages through FTP. Dreamweaver was able to instantly connect with my site -- far quicker than with my old ISP. In fact, for the past few months, I had been totally unable to FTP my site, and the ISP just wouldn't respond to by emails.

My only problem now is getting the site to come up through http.

Well then you will probably not have any problems with iPower.

The vDeck/cPanel/Plesk control panel is needed to password-protect directories (unless you are very handy with .htaccess files), administrate e-mail accounts, setup databases, scheduled tasks, etc.

I have this site registered thru 2009 and at that point I will probably transfer it to GoDaddy.

I thought I should put this out there. I had trouble getting my keycode about a month ago. I sent probably 5 or 6 emails trying to get my key code. I finally called tech support.

That was about the time that Prolific was having server problems. Everything should be running smoothly now.

in regards to differentiating the clams... perhaps some sort of alge or other 'growth' could do the trick?

Hmm, maybe.

Hey, guys... I'm a little dismayed to read the comments about iPower, because that's who I use for my goldfish website. Thanks for the heads-up, Feldon... I'll try to stay on top of my domain name's expiration date.

Unfortunately, no webhost stays good for long. It seems iPower runs fine, there's just almost no tech support and they aren't prompt about domain names.

As long as you have control over your domain, I wouldn't worry too much.

After a couple of emails, they finally got my fish-byte.com site back on the air. I guess I'll stick with them for now.

When, approx is the new version (and the creature packs) available? Sounds wonderful!
 

Would love to see the new version. Any mandarin fish expected?

The new 3D version Jim is working on is tightly under wraps for now and no screenshots can be released. Once it is done and out, and the current fish are redone, then I would guess Jim will start working on the creature packs. A mandarin goby is scheduled for inclusion, unless Jim changes his mind. As to exactly which pack or when, no date has been set.

"......But in this seeking, know patience." - Master Poe (Kung Fu).

Hello Gabrieloak67 and http://www.mysmiles.ru/Welcome.gif to the forum.

wow, it's been almost two years since my last visit lol. I found an old demo on backup disk and had to revisit the site to see what's been going on.

Can someone fill me in on the latest and greatest ? I've read back a few pages, but some more detail would be cool. I can't find my key, or order info, so I'm going to purchase this again, as being without the best screen saver ever isn't "the in" thing lol.

Marine Aquarium 2.6 is up to 28 fish, including two Lionfishes. It supports widescreen, dual screen, a clock, calendar, and adding your own logos.

Marine Aquarium 3, which has no firm release date, will contain a revised background.

So how are things progressing now?

I talked to Jim the other day and he said he was going to be giving his first shot at lightplay and shaders. I haven't heard the results, I was kind of wondering who won myself. ;)

Are you still with us Jim? :)

The battle between me and Shaders is still a standoff. Should know more by tonight.

Too late.

Morgan - I've decided to switch away from iPowerweb. One of the main reasons I went with them was their "host up to 6 domains in one account" claim. Well, I just tried to add my daughter's website, and was informed that I'd need a whole new account. The "6 domains" business just means 6 pointers to one website. Register.com already does that for me with simple name-aliasing.

So, who would you recommend?

Jim we never heard. Who won the shader battle?

I am sure Jim would have waved the flag had he even come in second :) (just don't be waving a white flag)

I'm going through the Shader example code line by line. Just can't figure out why they need to use copies of everything instead of the actual vertex buffers...

After all the frustration over the last number of years you still sticking with the name "Serene" or will we get a new name along with a new screen saver... $5#%3D(*!!fish

:-)