So, Farewell Then Dizwell
Posted by David Aldridge on 2006-12-27
I’m sorry to hear that Howard Rogers has decided to shut down his Dizwell Informatics website, citing the workload of managing it and the number of people raising issues with articles when they plainly were not following the directions. Personally I used nearly all of Howard’s install articles and found every one of them to be of the highest quality. They saved me a lot of time and trouble over the past year or so.
I’m just guessing, but I expect that starting a new job and the need to move back into the Big City doesn’t help with the workload either, and I can certainly sympathise with that — I have a backlog of six or seven technical articles floating around in draft form at the moment but with an impending move, search for “new opportunities”, and three kids to find schools and daycares for I haven’t much hope of getting to grips with them at the moment.
Anyhoo, I hope that Howard will continue to make a public contribution through other sites, and maybe consider sending those handy articles on to a new online home.
2006-12-27 at 11:51 am
That’s a real shame. I couldn’t work out from his final post whether Howard really meant the complete site in its entirety or just the forums. I was rather hoping he would preserve his blog with his opinionated and forthright articles.
2006-12-27 at 11:56 am
I’m pretty sure that he meant the whole site … for posterity, here is Howard’s last posting:
“Actually, on further reflection, I’ve decided Plan C is much the better bet: ditch the whole site and have done with it.
I shall be removing the DNS delegation immediately, so most of you won’t be reading this anyway.
I’m bored with having to manage the site. I’m fed up with people who can’t read and follow simple instructions. I’m tired beyond belief with posts that start “I’m following your article” when the poster clearly isn’t.
To those that have enjoyed the site, I thank you. Otherwise, over and out.“
2006-12-27 at 12:02 pm
The boy seems to be lost without a trace!
As one of the regulars, I’m very sorry for this sudden goodbye (whitout a real goodbye).
So good luck to him.
Cheers.
Carlos.
2006-12-27 at 12:05 pm
[...] Dizwell gone?! Just saw David Aldridge’s post about Howard Rogers shutting down his Dizwell site. A real shame to lose the abundance of valuable information Howard made readily available to the Oracle community. I will truly miss his site. [...]
2006-12-27 at 3:04 pm
Yes, it is a shame indeed. I can certainly sympathise - running a site like his is often a thankless task, and many’s the time I’ve felt like chucking it all in as well. It’s a shame the articles aren’t preserved in an archive though - the google cache will work for a while, but of course it’d have to be Howard that hosted any archived copies though.
A real shame, I’ll miss Howard, his insights and wit, and of course the excellent articles. A real loss.
Mark
2006-12-27 at 3:05 pm
- I would add, I’d drop him a line but of course, if he’s deleted the DNS entries, no doubt the emails would bounce as well.
2006-12-27 at 3:39 pm
I will dearly miss him; great full for all those great articles though. As said by Mark, a real shame.
2006-12-27 at 4:46 pm
It was a good site.
2006-12-27 at 7:22 pm
A pity, indeed.
Howard should make those articles available somewhere willing to host them, though. It’s too bad if all that knowledge base is lost.
2006-12-28 at 2:45 am
Oh I am sure a spammer has replicated the site somewhere and claimed it all as his own work.
2006-12-28 at 9:18 am
I’ll miss him too though I have used his site far too little/infrequent. I am so glad I recently downloaded all his instructions on how to create a single machine RAC using VMware.
2006-12-28 at 12:39 pm
Yep, the Dizwell site will be greatly missed and of course HJR too although I’m sure that he will be around here and there. I saw his last posting on Oranews but tried going over to the site but was too late as he had already pulled the plug.
Here’s hoping that there will be a resurrection sometime in the near future as Howard gets settled to his new routine.
2006-12-29 at 12:13 pm
Cheers Howard, it was a great site and you will be missed.
2006-12-29 at 6:13 pm
This is a real shame. As an Oracle newbie, I’ve found Howard’s site to be invaluable. I hope he’s ok.
2006-12-30 at 2:26 am
You are kidding, right!?
Last thing I read was that he was planning to move the site to a new host and that it would be unavailable for a couple of days.
When I tried later I only could see the placeholder page, so I thought that something had gone wrong with the move…
I really liked reading his blog and he had some very interesting articles on his site (the one about registering an oracle db in an windows active directory to name just one).
It would be indeed very pitty if such a user base would be lost. It was one of those few sites of which you new the author actually had tested what he/she wrote.
2006-12-30 at 1:57 pm
This is very sad news. I kept hoping that the last message was a joke, or ironic.
I have used, and benefited from, many of Howard’s articles. I have also enjoyed his blog immensely. And probably like many others, I haven’t publicly thanked him for all his work.
So in the hope that Howard reads this, I’ll say it here. Thanks, Howard - your work was appreciated, and I will certainly miss reading your thoughts. Like many, I’d like to see the articles retained somewhere, but ultimately that’s a selfish wish, as it’s for my own benefit. So I’ll respect whatever Howard prefers to do, and I wish him well.
Paul.
2006-12-31 at 3:41 am
There seems to be some changes on the http://www.dizwell.com site!
The site is not (yet?) up, but the placeholder is gone and some files have been uploaded …
2006-12-31 at 4:47 am
Yes!
Dizwell is back!
2007-01-18 at 5:44 am
He’s keen on his dramatic exits though, isn’t he?
2007-01-18 at 9:52 am
I am sorry to see Dizwell’s departure. It was an invaluable resource.
If anyone has Howard’s contact info … I would be happy to host and maintain his contents on the Puget Sound Oracle User Group’s web server.
2008-01-16 at 5:45 pm
[...] Mind you, never say never. [...]
2008-01-17 at 10:34 am
It was really a great site. Wasnt there a knowledgebase tar on his website that was availble for local install?