5 ms·

I Resurrected My Dutch Movie Review Site from 2003

74 points by louwrentius 4y ago

Aeolun 4y ago
Always nice to see old sites ressurected. I’m still in the ‘would be nice if I ever got around to it’ stage for quite a few of them. The big challenge isn’t getting them up, it’s making sure they stay up as you move providers/servers etc. For something that you hardly ever use it always seems like too much effort.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  I’ve also created a ton of automation with ansible to just rebuild if anything would happen. But in my experience, a vps with linode or digital ocean is quite stable in and of itself.
metadat 4y ago
to the Author: Good for you! Thank you for taking the time and effort to resurrect your babe. (Disclaimer: I know, I know: "this is HN and not reddit", but this warms my [generally cold these days] heart) R.I.P. 90's web and Geocities.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  Thank you. Back then, my site was quite visible in search engines, nowadays it seems hard to get noticed by them.
jacquesm 4y ago
Hah! Congrats, I even remember using the first incarnation. I don't think I'll ever be resurrecting any of my old projects, it's not for want of backups but to re-launch any of that stuff on today's much more hostile www would require a massive amount of rework and I don't have the energy for that. But very nice to see that you did and I'm curious how many others will follow your example.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  Thank you, it was indeed a ton of work, much more than I anticipated to be frank. The biggest challenge to actually restart is to be discoverable through the search engines. Maybe that will improve over time.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    My personal worry would be security, the way I built stuff 25 years ago would never pass muster today.
    - louwrentius 4y ago
      That’s why I rebuild everything. I started employment for a security company in 2004 so a colleague quickly found some issues in moevie.nu back then. As an inexperienced web developer security scares me a bit but we’ll see.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        In a word: Inspiring!
kwatsonafter 4y ago
Bookmarked. I'm learning Dutch right now with my grandfather.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  Heel veel succes met het leren van Nederlands!
  - gpvos 4y ago
    On your site, I misread "uitstekend acteerwerk" as "uitstekend achterwerk" and chuckled. (Sorry for being a bit off-tone on HN.)
    - louwrentius 4y ago
      It’s fine, it’s funny
julianlam 4y ago
Unrelated, but one site I rediscovered and was surprised was still around and kicking was Jammer's Reviews. The absolute best Star Trek reviews, and the site hasn't changed one bit.
thrdbndndn 4y ago
I saw you host your server at home (?), right? How did it work out on the ISP side? I reckon most of providers don't seem to like that.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  In NL it was never an issue for me. The upload is 50Mbit which is not great but more than adequate for now.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > I reckon most of providers don't seem to like that. I have yet to hear any of these anti-server clauses actually be enforced. It seems like the providers that have these mostly keep them "just in case" rather than actively using them, especially since cloud storage and P2P puts similar (if not more) strain on your upload bandwidth and usually maxes it out.
  - louwrentius 4y ago
    True, and in addition, I run a business connection which is more permissive.
- mcv 4y ago
  I don't think most Dutch ISPs have a problem with it. Possibly because the first Dutch ISP, XS4all, explicitly championed home servers.
mcv 4y ago
Awesome. We should bring more of the old Web back.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  Thank you
rurban 4y ago
Maybe I'll resurrect my site from 1995 also. It was the #6 biggest site on Austria then. Made with joe. Well the first version was made with Amadeus, a Hyper-G client. pre-www days, when you visited CERN via the emacs gopher.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  Maybe one day you feel the motivation to do so, in and of itself, just for the heck of it

74 points by louwrentius 4y ago

Always nice to see old sites ressurected. I’m still in the ‘would be nice if I ever got around to it’ stage for quite a few of them. The big challenge isn’t getting them up, it’s making sure they stay up as you move providers/servers etc. For something that you hardly ever use it always seems like too much effort.

louwrentius 4y ago
I’ve also created a ton of automation with ansible to just rebuild if anything would happen. But in my experience, a vps with linode or digital ocean is quite stable in and of itself.

metadat 4y ago

to the Author: Good for you! Thank you for taking the time and effort to resurrect your babe. (Disclaimer: I know, I know: "this is HN and not reddit", but this warms my [generally cold these days] heart) R.I.P. 90's web and Geocities.

louwrentius 4y ago
Thank you. Back then, my site was quite visible in search engines, nowadays it seems hard to get noticed by them.

jacquesm 4y ago

Hah! Congrats, I even remember using the first incarnation. I don't think I'll ever be resurrecting any of my old projects, it's not for want of backups but to re-launch any of that stuff on today's much more hostile www would require a massive amount of rework and I don't have the energy for that. But very nice to see that you did and I'm curious how many others will follow your example.

louwrentius 4y ago
Thank you, it was indeed a ton of work, much more than I anticipated to be frank. The biggest challenge to actually restart is to be discoverable through the search engines. Maybe that will improve over time.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  My personal worry would be security, the way I built stuff 25 years ago would never pass muster today.
  - louwrentius 4y ago
    That’s why I rebuild everything. I started employment for a security company in 2004 so a colleague quickly found some issues in moevie.nu back then. As an inexperienced web developer security scares me a bit but we’ll see.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      In a word: Inspiring!

kwatsonafter 4y ago

Bookmarked. I'm learning Dutch right now with my grandfather.

louwrentius 4y ago
Heel veel succes met het leren van Nederlands!
- gpvos 4y ago
  On your site, I misread "uitstekend acteerwerk" as "uitstekend achterwerk" and chuckled. (Sorry for being a bit off-tone on HN.)
  - louwrentius 4y ago
    It’s fine, it’s funny

julianlam 4y ago

Unrelated, but one site I rediscovered and was surprised was still around and kicking was Jammer's Reviews. The absolute best Star Trek reviews, and the site hasn't changed one bit.

thrdbndndn 4y ago

I saw you host your server at home (?), right? How did it work out on the ISP side? I reckon most of providers don't seem to like that.

louwrentius 4y ago
In NL it was never an issue for me. The upload is 50Mbit which is not great but more than adequate for now.
Nextgrid 4y ago
> I reckon most of providers don't seem to like that. I have yet to hear any of these anti-server clauses actually be enforced. It seems like the providers that have these mostly keep them "just in case" rather than actively using them, especially since cloud storage and P2P puts similar (if not more) strain on your upload bandwidth and usually maxes it out.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  True, and in addition, I run a business connection which is more permissive.
mcv 4y ago
I don't think most Dutch ISPs have a problem with it. Possibly because the first Dutch ISP, XS4all, explicitly championed home servers.

mcv 4y ago

Awesome. We should bring more of the old Web back.

louwrentius 4y ago
Thank you

rurban 4y ago

Maybe I'll resurrect my site from 1995 also. It was the #6 biggest site on Austria then. Made with joe. Well the first version was made with Amadeus, a Hyper-G client. pre-www days, when you visited CERN via the emacs gopher.

louwrentius 4y ago
Maybe one day you feel the motivation to do so, in and of itself, just for the heck of it