A lot of threads in the forum are in the form "Where can I find the free XXX prop?" where XXX is whatever you can think of.

And always, because you forum users are nice and intelligent persons,  there is an immediate answer, often with a link, and the problem is solved.

I was wondering... why not make an automatic process of this?

I mean: a simple database table: OBJECT, URL and maybe NOTES, an equally simple search web-based engine (php, aspx, or whatever), and a little web space. And we could have a nice Poser Freebie Search Site easily updatable.

I think it could be quite useful... What do you think?

Giorgio

Try http://mystic-nights.com/directory/index.php

I got one, but it's about 300 megabytes (has thumbnails). I still run into problems finding things, so that's a project. Could send it to ya in text form, if you have an email addy (for privacy)

And who is gonna tell who when a freebee is goin online or offline ?

How do you think you gonna check all site's for them ? and who is gonna do that ?

Chris

Yeah, I've seen this idea floated before. It's the maintenance that's the real headache. First you've got to catalog all the existing freebies (hard). Ideally, you'd let users do this for you, but then you'd need a kick-butt way to weed out duplicates (harder).

Then you've got to account for link rot. And with the frequency that Poser sites come up, go down, move around and re-arrange the furniture, this is a major undertaking all by itself. You'd wind up doing a lot of web-crawling.

But suppose freebies are hosted by a site that doesn't like you eating their bandwidth all the time to spider for new posts or dead links? Suppose these sites are the very ones that host the most and the most popular of the freebies, like DAZ, Rendo or RDNA? While you might be able to count on visitors posting the latest new freebie as soon as they find it (fun!) you'll have a much harder time getting visitors to spend their surfing time weeding through your whole back-catalog looking for broken links (booooring).

It's not as simple as putting up  a search form and a data entry form and hooking them to a database. Not to mention somebody's got to not only code it, but host it and pay the bandwidth fees.

somebody might be able to make some good money with a pay-per-search poser service. but all the free databases are full of dead links AFAIK just check the freestuff here. it's far worse at other sites, where the owners take absolutely no responsiblity for dead links, and refuse to fix 'em. there's no point in paying somebody to do maintenance on an overhead item

somebody might be able to make some good money with a pay-per-search
poser service

Somebody making money from "MY FREEBEE's" well thats a nice kick in the butt, i'll take mine down in second. when i see that.

and in the next second i call my lawer..

Chris

Ok, maybe it was a naive proposal. I'll keep my small Access database and I'll maintain it as best as I can. Fortunately, there is always the forum if we need something hard to find.

Giorgio

I have over 1800 links with thousands of freebies in my 3D Directory. I imported all the links to the database and then spent about 2 months in the evenings and weekends, cataloging, adding descriptions which list each freebie by name. It was quite a job.

The program that I use has a feature to check if the links are still active, but with 1800 links it takes quite a long time for the script to run. There is stand alone software that can also check links for a website. Whenever I find a dead link, I run a Google search to see if maybe they changed hosts.
If I don't find anything I will mark the site and link for deletion from the database. I'll generally wait for 2 or 3 days before deleting though to make sure it isn't just a router problem.

The directory also has an Add Site function, where an individual can add their site and maintain it.

yes, mystic - AFAIK yours is the only database which has somebody to check for dead links on a regular basis. my hat's off to you. my estimate is that I have downloaded approx. 7,200 3D-related freebies over the years, and most of them are dead links now, so I reckon you've got it covered with the 1,800 remaining that are still active.

p.s. mystic, I checked out yer search database and it's very good IMVHO I was looking for t-800, but it even found the thing to the left of this message :lol:

I think I'm at 21,500 or so Freebies (on 156 CD's..;),  and have about 2,100 links (but many are dupes). It needs a serious going over. I started entering the actual names of this stuff (boy is that going to take awhile), and after doing about 500 or so, I've found several sites are 'club 404'..;) I used to go over the links about every 3 months, but then started getting all sorts of worms, viruses, malware, yada yada..so I've slacked off..;) I can run queries on various things and send out text lists, if that would work.

Mystic Knights, if you want, I can send you what I have, if you want to see if there's anything you've missed (not likely). Now if someone could download LD's brain, we'd be set ..;)

Quote - I have over 1800 links with thousands of freebies in my 3D Directory. I imported all the links to the database and then spent about 2 months in the evenings and weekends, cataloging, adding descriptions which list each freebie by name. It was quite a job.

The program that I use has a feature to check if the links are still active, but with 1800 links it takes quite a long time for the script to run. There is stand alone software that can also check links for a website. Whenever I find a dead link, I run a Google search to see if maybe they changed hosts.
If I don't find anything I will mark the site and link for deletion from the database. I'll generally wait for 2 or 3 days before deleting though to make sure it isn't just a router problem.

The directory also has an Add Site function, where an individual can add their site and maintain it.

It's a great service Mystic - I've used it fairly regularly since discovering it.

There's an amazing amount of freebies out there, but it's still fairly common that I need to find something that no-one's ever made free or as a product...so it becomes an excercise in finding elements that can be combined to fake the needed item, heheh.

A heavy duty search engine helps no end in that - your descriptions certainly helped me in tight corners!

Cheers

this is where modeling comes in..;) but that way lies madness..;)