The end of Headwize?
Jun 4, 2002 at 11:33 AM Post #17 of 54
not big enough to worry about.. there's a few web crawlers available for free.
HTTrack is an especially good one imo (do a search on google)
 
Jun 4, 2002 at 12:52 PM Post #18 of 54
Quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Guidry
I think you may be off the mark if you believe that head-fi is a business. To me, that implies that Jude is attempting to make money from selling company sponsorships. He has already gone on record saying that hosting this site costs him several hundred dollars a month despite the ad revenue, hardly a successfull business model. None of his posts about the subject lead me to believe that this site is intended to be anything other than a hobby for him and a pasttime for us.


Jeff
I'm sorry if you took the word "business" to have negative cannotation. It is my understanding that at this stage any money Jude makes from sponsorship, he intends to pour directly back into HeadFi. I do think HeadFi is nearing a stage in which it could become very profitable. For the near future, I believe this means that HeadFi will be able to start running on better hardware and not require Jude to personally bail HeadFi out on a month to month basis.

Hopefully in a longer view, this means HeadFi will see more review equipment, new features developed, etc. In the more distant future, I personally hope the site will begin to repay Jude for all of the money he has thus far lost in it. Eventually, I personally like to think that Jude could keep some of the profit as I believe he's very much earned it. Please understand, though, that this is only my view and that Jude has not at all expressed such an expectation.
 
Jun 4, 2002 at 1:40 PM Post #19 of 54
Quote:

Originally posted by markl
The only thing of value at Headwize is the archives (OK and the articles to a lesser extent). Headwize died the moment the vastly superior Head-Fi opened. I myself haven't bothered to look there in months.


I'm sure that most DIY headamp builders like myself will disagree with you.
The project articles are fantastic. You cannot find better documented headamp projects anywhere.
And as a complement to the projects there are the forums with answers to almost all questions that come up when building these projects.

The other technical articles are also really good.
 
Jun 4, 2002 at 3:48 PM Post #21 of 54
I've already downloaded the site... pretty cool searching through the archives from my hard drive. Anyway, there's a small possibility I could get headwize hosted at work (a school district). We have bandwidth to spare, and are always looking for ways to use our extra bandwidth (we were gonna be a mirror for redhat, but that fell through). So anyway, I'm gonna talk to my boss, and its possible headwize might have a new home. I'll also have to talk to chu of course...
 
Jun 4, 2002 at 4:03 PM Post #22 of 54
Quote:

Originally posted by Flumpus
I've already downloaded the site... pretty cool searching through the archives from my hard drive. Anyway, there's a small possibility I could get headwize hosted at work (a school district). We have bandwidth to spare, and are always looking for ways to use our extra bandwidth (we were gonna be a mirror for redhat, but that fell through). So anyway, I'm gonna talk to my boss, and its possible headwize might have a new home. I'll also have to talk to chu of course...


LOL, give me an account there. I've been known to take care of any excessive bandwidth problems that someone may have.
 
Jun 4, 2002 at 5:49 PM Post #23 of 54
Ok, I have the site. I'll be sending an e-mail to chu. Hmm, now. HOw should I proceed? I could probably offer it on cd to some of you guys. . .
 
Jun 4, 2002 at 7:51 PM Post #24 of 54
Wow, I downloaded the site also, and sent an email to Chu, once I heard that it was closing. He probably feels awfully loved
smily_headphones1.gif


Headwize isn't as active in the main forums, but its DIY forum has a lot of activity, with new projects constantly being discussed there. The 'focus' of headwize, with all the articles and technical projects, has really been on DIYers. Head-fi has a DIY forum, with a bit of activity, but that area is secondary to all the other discussion going on here. Personally, I frequent both headwize AND head-fi. I think they both do a good job, and each has its own feel and focus.

Hopefully we can find a new home for headwize, or in the very least, provide some good mirrors for all the wonderful articles, and detailed project descriptions (plus, one of my amps is in the projects area, so I have a bit of a personal obligation to keep my contributions online
wink.gif
).

Peace,
phidauex
 
Jun 5, 2002 at 2:24 AM Post #28 of 54
It saddens me greatly to see Chu at the point where he may fade into the history of Headphonedom. I think his work has been exemplary. His willingness to put his energy where his mouth is and acomplish real substantive work and creat a body of information is simply unparalelled in my experience. I hope all of you will look at the loss here and say to yourselves, "Gee, I'd like to be thought of, at least to some degree, like that." His contibution is real and valuable, the lesson you can take from this is that yours is too. Please search your heart for the strength to create meaningful content that can be contained in this forum.

I don't think the import of HeadWize is in the achives as much as it is in the increadable amount of content for DIYs, and in it's news page. I REALLY wish Chu would have embraced a multifacetted community that included a corporate componant. This is old news, but I simply can't discuss the issue without mentioning it. It hurts to know that his viewpoint/philosophy makes me out to be evil somehow, and I don't feel like I deserve that. When I look at his output, I desparately want to relate to him both personally and professionally.

I think this whole business is a great loss and a sad thing. A sad, sad thing. It's a waste of a huge amount of information that would do the community and headphone consumers at large a great service. I'm sickened by the possible loss of it, and mad---yes mad---at Chu for wasting it for an illogical perspective; at setting himself up as a center for information and and from gathering a great deal of it from others, and then basically, throwing it out. This hobby is fundimentaly about the output of commercial activity and yet he refused to relate, or even try to find a way to relate, to that sector of PEOPLE. I'm a person FIRST and a corporate participant (among many other things) after that. To make me, and people like me, out to be the source of sinister influence is personally painful, and downright wrong.

The internet is about convergence. By definition, then, it's about consumers, manufacturers, sales companies, the press, and hobbyists finding synergistic ways of coming together. I hope...I hope deeply, that we have the courage to work on it lovingly; with a forgiving predisposition that lets us get past our differences.
 
Jun 5, 2002 at 2:51 AM Post #29 of 54
Guys, while I'd imagine it's fine to copy the site to your hard drive for your own use, you don't have any right to host the copy of the project archives. All content there is COPYRIGHTED and the copyright of all those articles is with the authors. Speaking as one of article authors, re-publishing would be violation of copyright. You'd need to get every author to give you permission to host them before you can do that. Not saying authors wouldn't let you but you do have to ask them.

Besides, Chu is going to copy them all to a new site anyway so no point in republishing (but by all means make a backup!).

The value of Headwize is immense, to many people DIY projects and discussions **ARE** what the site is all about. phideaux is right, DIY forums at Headwize are still active and more so than DIY forum here.

Whatever you may think of Chu, he is a man of principle, and he always abode to them, despite of temptations that were as we all know numerous. One has to admire that. And history holds in great respect many people who didn't put money first or even second, for one reason or another, and suffered the consequences. While his personal fortune did not increase because of his passionate work over the last few years as he probably deserved, his achievement is in no way belittled by that. In my eyes anyway.
 
Jun 5, 2002 at 3:17 AM Post #30 of 54
Tyll

I hope you know that I certainly have nothing against you and Headroom and very much appreciate your company's presence on HeadFi. I think there are a lot of us who do and yet still respect Chu's wishes to maintain a commercial-free source of information on the internet. The issue isn't so black and white. A lot of us have been on the 'net for a while and when it started, it didn't have the traffic and hardware issues that make it so impossibly hard to run sites without sponsorship. Some of us still feel deep down that this should have been the internet's ongoing intent and in a utopian world we'd still have something like that. No one resents Headroom for having a business to run--we just wish we could have our cake and eat it too.

As a point of irony, I helped found one of the first big video gaming web sites on the web with a friend of mine named Scott. After a little over a year of growth and success, Scott was getting ready to go to college and finally decided he didn't have time to run the site and didn't want to see it taken over or run into the ground by corporate America. Much to my protest and dismay, he closed its doors. Since Scott fancied himself a journalist, I considered this to be a bad move for his career and to this day think he could have really gone places if he'd stuck it out. But ultimately, the site was his to close.
 
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