What do you do when one of your favorite sites

Is DOWN for maintenance or is having computer hiccups (a.k.a. Server issues)!!
Do you phone or email or private message a friend?
Do you call your Internet Provider?
Do you re-boot your computer?
Do you think your Computer has a virus and attacked your favorites?
Do you keep clicking back again and refreshing the website?
Do you think you've lost contact with your best friend?
Or do you just panic and run for the nearest comfort food like CHOCOLATE!!

Last night Feb. 19th, one of my favorites - the Community Forums over at pcCrafter was down for a few hours, as was their main website pcCrafter.com where you can purchase the most wonderful Clipart collections.

I've been around the internet and computers for a few years and understand that sites do go down with "issues" from time to time and that they "will return" eventually. But its always a "jolt" to your "systems" when you spend so much time online and "frequent" some sites more than others and you just "expect" them to ALWAYS be there.

Then of course there's those times when some websites - completely vanish and are never heard from again..just lost in cyberspace!. We lost the community forums a few times over at DAISIE Company (a.k.a. "Across the Street" )- and now D.C. has decided to just abandon the whole idea of "forums". There were some Computer Crafting "groups" that also disbanded. Other sites that crafters loved - made annoucements about closing or changes in their sites - and word went out and of course "panic" set in. The loss of places we come to enjoy and find friends at is something that the internet has made a way of life for some of us "cybernauts" who just find such places - "comforting".

My "connection" to the forums at pcCrafter - is very important to me!! And also "comforting" - the gals there have been very very good to me! Praying for me during my very difficult times this past year - has meant more to me than many of them may ever know. Being able to "connect" with them, vent, share, care, and be there - is a part of my life that - I cherish and really miss when "it's not available" to me.

BTW - Do you know about the Internet Archive over at http://www.archive.org/ - it has a thing called the "Wayback Machine". The site has been archiving websites for years now. It captures popular pages (well they have to have been "fairly" popular or gotton lots of hits over their time online) and archives them on specific dates. ( Read a bit about it >> on wikipedia ) So for example if you had a favorite bookmarked and didn't visit it in a long time and you go back and its GONE!! - you can "try" putting in the exact URL or webaddress you had bookmarked in the WayBack Machine line and it will retrieve that site and all the pages it archived over the years. Sometimes you can view/read the past information you want, and or even see some of the pictures etc that were included. Sometimes data or pictures are missing or links to "internal" pages of the website don't come up - because they didn't make it into the archives.
Also Google has "cached" pages - so when you do a search on Google - if the site link doesn't come up - go back to the search results and click on the Cached version to see if you can find past information.

for example - Today Feb 20th I received an email from someone (?) that told me that the site "digibydesigns.com" had been taken down with no explanation by Andy (I don't know who "Andy " is) and that I should sign up for an email group to find out more -
this is excerpt quoted from that email:
" I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Andy has shut down DXD
on us without an explation, notice or anything else".

So I looked at the most recent Google "Cached" version of the site
Google Cached Link : It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Feb 15, 2009 23:49:46 GMT – note site says on Feb 15 2009
"Please bear with us as we are undergoing site changes!"
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:BB3ce6OxzxwJ:www.digibydesign.com/+digi+by+design&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Now I don't have any idea if the website is truly gone or if it is undergoing site changes and is in for repairs. Only time will tell. Hopefully the website owner of DigiByDesign will respond to email contact with further information about the website.

Update: February 26th - DigiByDesign's store seems to be up and running just fine...see - sometimes ya just gotta remember don't believe everything you get in emails - do some research - find out the real story.
http://digibydesign.com/cart/

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I always preach - that if you come across information online or see a project or anything you think you may want or may ever find useful at a later date - PRINT IT OUT - or Copy and Paste into a Word document - RIGHT THEN!!! Don't trust bookmarks, or your memory that you'll find it again later on. Websites come and go everyday, photos or pictures posted online - may be removed or "moved" in an online album, making them "unavailable" in the original posts or sites. So if you think information is important or may be in the future - SAVE IT when You SEE IT!! Print it, file it, organize it.

Well, I'm off for my comfort food, my Girl Scout cookie order is HERE!