I've noticed the IRC node is down. What's the timeline on that?

Sometime next week, when I start restoring the accounts on the new server!

withgusto ZNC Migration Complete!
Thanks to everyone for their patience. We have now successfully migrated from our old server to this shiny new one!

• You can still connect with the old server name, without any configuration changes. You can use the alternative server name if you are having issues.
• The web interface is now only accessible via the new URL (sent via email). No more ports needed! This should help with any firewalls preventing you from getting out.
• We have changed the SSL certificate from withg.org's ComodoSSL to the new Let's Encrypt! The old SSL certificates tend to cost around $10/year... why pay that when you can get it for free?
  
  • There's a custom renewal system in place for Let's Encrypt - the regular one is a bit memory heavy daemon-wise, and we only have 128 MBs of RAM on this server!
  • We decided to use https://github.com/diafygi/acme-tiny in place of that, along with a custom setup to update the certs for both our web server and ZNC. This is something I've been working on as an experiment on a cheap, smaller VPS, and so far it has been working well on that one - Let's Encrypt on a 64 MB VPS!
  • That said, despite testing, things can always still break in the future - please let us know if you have any problems with connecting to ZNC!
• In addition, we have upgraded all of our SSL to super strength (A+ on the SSL test)! We figured that if we have time to migrate, we should have time to do security right!
• Beyond that, we also enabled Cloudflare SSL. However, with the free Cloudflare SSL, this comes at a cost - IE on Windows XP will no longer be supported. Specifically, SNI support is not available at all on Windows XP via IE. However, if you are on Windows XP, using Firefox or Chrome will still work. Those browsers do not use Windows XP APIs, and bundle their own support for SNI. To say that again - if you are on Windows XP, just use Firefox/Chrome and things will work! If you must use IE on Windows XP for whatever reason, please let me know. If there is a serious need, I may be able to set something up for you!
• Internally, logs have been converted to the new directory-based structure. It used to be all stored in one directory, resulting in thousands and thousands of files (and slowness)! For currently active users, this has been reorganized - you do not have to do anything on your part. In the future, we may be using this new structure for some potential new ZNC features down the road... stay tuned!
• This time around, we're hoping for much better uptime! From initial impressions, ZNC seems to be faster at connecting to IRC, and most (if not all) of the BindHosts are resolving correctly. In addition, since this server is separate from the main one, uptime should hopefully be better - less impact from other people on the server! (In fact, the only person on this server is me!)
• Enough technical stuff. Finally, we have some awesome new hostnames available for the picking! (Totally not inspired from rcfreak0! )
  
  Here is the list:
  znc.withg.org
  team.windows.znc.withg.org
  team.linux.znc.withg.org
  team.mac.znc.withg.org
  fancy.schmancy.znc.withg.org
  powered.by.the.amazing.znc.withg.org
  dont.look.behind.this.znc.withg.org
  food.for.thought.znc.withg.org
  yum.znc.withg.org
  sparkles.znc.withg.org
  
  Under your user settings, simply change your BindHost to your favorite, then click Save at the bottom. You can also change this per network if you want different hostnames on different networks.
• znc-push has also been installed. If you have PushBullet (or some other push messaging app), and you want notifications whenever someone on IRC highlights you or PMs you, this is for you! (It basically allows you to get important notifications from IRC on your phone, desktop, etc.)
• That's it! If you haven't already, and you are a ZNC user, please fill this out: http://goo.gl/forms/VFvTjFVpke

Bump! We are moving very soon - please fill out this IMPORTANT USAGE SURVEY by this Friday, 11:59 PM EDT! We'd like to gather feedback to plan ahead for the downsizing + migration! (If you need more time to fill this form out, let me know here or via PM.)

IMPORTANT USAGE SURVEY

EDIT: This form is NOT for those who are just using ZNC. If you do not have a shell account, do NOT fill out this form!

EDIT: Important Survey!
We are moving very soon - please fill out this IMPORTANT USAGE SURVEY by this Friday, 11:59 PM EDT!

Introduction
It has been a year since the last withgusto update.

About a year or so ago, a massive DDoS attack took withgusto down. This caused a "strike" to occur with the VPS hosting provider, and I temporarily closed withgusto's doors - specifically, hid it behind Cloudflare. This allowed Cloudflare to temporarily take the hit and reduce the load on the VPS. However, this had the effect of also blocking SSH, which was a lifeline into withgusto. Without a doubt, this is probably what drained significant use of withgusto.

Unfortunately, due to many commitments, I never got a chance to move withgusto. A year has passed, and withgusto is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, both in terms of time and money. As such, regretfully, I must make the decision to wind down withgusto.

Note that this is NOT a shutdown - but we are planning on significantly reducing resources.

withgusto Downsizing
The proposed plan:

• Reduce memory availability from 1 GB RAM to 128 MB - 256 MB
• Significant memory usage is from clamd/amavisd/maild/spamd - around ~34.6%, or 354.3 MBs. mail@withg has been inactive for quite a while, mainly due to significant configuration issues. We are planning on removing this from withgusto, since mail services are difficult to maintain, and there is very little use of this service.
• Deluge (web torrent client) takes around ~2.5%, or 25.6 MBs. We are planning on removing this from withgusto, since it's tough to maintain a client and not get into trouble for bandwidth/DMCA.
• Current memory usage is 523 MBs. Subtracting all of these, 523 MBs - ~380 MBs = 143 MBs.
• Depending on services people still want, and depending on how we shuffle things around, we may bring this down even further to <100 MBs. User programs and websites will fill the rest.
• Reduce CPU cores from 2 to 1
• We have rarely seen anyone use more than one CPU. Two CPUs is useful for compiling, but compiling doesn't happen too often - and VPS providers don't like constant CPU usage! Actual CPU speed will remain the same, just the number of cores will be reduced.
• Use OpenVZ instead of KVM (less kernel control)
• We have rarely used any features that would require a different kernel. All IPTables and advanced networking features are enabled in OpenVZ. Resources are allocated somewhat differently, but they should not have an impact on us.
• OpenVZ is drastically cheaper than KVM (less VM). As such, this makes OpenVZ an appealing option going forward.
• Disable backups for user data
• At the moment, we pay for a backup service that we've (fortunately) never had to use. However, it incurs significant monthly cost, and as such, we will be phasing out automatic backups.
• In the future, we may opt to use a free cloud storage service for backups to save money and achieve the same effect. However, we can NOT guarantee that this feature will arrive anytime soon - as such, you will now be responsible for your own data!
• That said, before we move, user data folders (including /var/www/USER) will be backed up and offered to those who no longer wish to use withgusto.
• Migration of user data ONLY - system will be cleanly installed
• The current OS is very, very old - we're still using Debian 6, and the latest is Debian 8!
• As such, we will be using Debian 8 in the future.
• User data is easy to copy, but system data... not so much. If you have any system data that you want us to keep, let us know!

Future of withgusto Services
Service plan (some already mentioned above):

• Mail service will be terminated. We don't see many (if any at all) using this, and this has been difficult to maintain. Moving forward, we will no longer host mail here.
• Deluge (web torrents) will be terminated. Tough to maintain, and there are some other free/cheap options out there for your torrenting needs.
• ZNC will be moved to a separate server/service from withgusto. We plan on running ZNC on a much lighter server - we've done some experiments, and it looks like it will work perfectly. It also allows us to improve stability, since withgusto is separate.
• Omnimaga IRCd will be preserved - may either move to ZNC's location or withgusto - still deciding.
• Depending on movability, user-installed services will be moved to the new server as well.
• Other services will either be terminated or moved - we need to comb through them in the next few days!

withgusto Finances
Without a doubt, these are very tough cuts in service. The decision to cut these services was not taken lightly - however, in order for withgusto to continue (and not completely drop dead), we need to reduce these services and move to a lighter server.

Currently, I pay $15/mo for the main withgusto server, $15 for the backup service, $25/year for the backup.withg server, and around $16/year for the domain. Total yearly = ~$400/year!

With the new plan, I'm hoping to reduce this cost to something like this: $32/year for the main withgusto server, $15/year for the backup.withg/IRC/ZNC server, and around $16/year for the domain. Total yearly = ~$63/year... much more affordable!

Conclusion
All of this said, we still want your feedback! We don't want to move forward without hearing from you guys - if you don't like the things above, let us know and we'll try to accommodate! Since it has been a long time since we've had service, we want to hear from you in terms of how you will be using it.

Migration is NOT happening yet! Once we have some feedback, we'll announce dates for migration.

Wow... well, this has driven me to actually start using KeePass2. I've been using KeePass2 in a few places, but I think I'll be using it a bit more often from now on!

(Someone remind me at the end of December to write a tutorial for KeePass2!)

I disagree with blindly sticking to the 120-day rule; the point is to avoid people constantly bump old posts without adding anything substantive, displacing the active ones. Since the current challenge is stickied, abd the topics were already on the first (and only) page of the subboard, should it be a problem if I add something new to each discussion?

I agree that I was impolite in the phrasing of my posts.

Yes, but... at least from my perspective, it would seem that the old Code Golf Content #9 became active again, and for me caused confusion between this and the current #2 reboot contest... which one is the latest one? (#9 > #2, so #9 seems to be more recent, right?) And your necro in #7 causes even more confusion! Hopefully you can see where I'm coming from!

Of course, this is not to discourage your contributions - indeed, better solutions after-the-fact are nice, and it does promote better, more efficient programming! If you want (and if @pimathbrainiac agrees), we can create a dedicated topic for post-code-golf discussion and solutions. (Topic title would be something like: "POST-MOTERM Code Golf - Discussion and Solutions", or something along those lines.) We can even sticky the new dedicated topic if it helps! Of course, the only condition for this is that you don't necro-post in those old topics (like this one) again...

What do you guys think?

Re-did the binaries again, this time making it static so that no Visual C++ 2010 stuff is needed! With some tricks and whirls, got the file size to something significantly tiny! (478 KB vs 1093 KB - it can go down even lower without the 218 KB icon!)

Download:

• Setup
  
• Self-Extracting Executable (for those lazy to extract the ZIP)
  
• ZIP
  

Changes: New icons, no library dependency

APRIL FOOLS! It looks like many people took it seriously... and actually added their name to the backup list!

Sorry for the terrible April fools joke - but in a sense, I feel like I sorta had to joke about it on April 1st to affirm that indeed, we are NOT going anywhere... even if we like to play elaborate pranks about it!

In fact, it's quite the contrary! There a sentence in the original post that has negatives. Logically, if it's April 1st, the opposite is true - at least one of those sentences is true! I won't confirm nor deny which one is correct, but indeed - there IS work being done in the background to make everything happen!

Again, I continue to apologize for the massive delays - we're working to get the move started as soon as we're ready!