After a bit over a days downtime due to maintenance, the ZeroSec Forums are now back online. Unfortunately this was a necessary downtime and not one we could have avoided. It’s good to be back!

Note: As Untamed mentioned in the comments, the DNS may not have propagated for everyone yet. The forums should be available globally within a few hours. We appreciate your patience.

//ZeroSec Forum Crew

The majority of you will still be lagging behind in 2009, but here in Australia we’ve finally reached 2010! Here’s the ZeroSec staff wishing you a happy new release filled year!

Cheers,
ZeroSec Crew

As you may have noticed, we suffered from some hours of downtime today. Regrettably this is due to continued issues with hosting and it seems bad fortune on this end has no mercy, even during Christmas. My sincere apologies for the downtime.

We said this in the last downtime post in August of this year, but it looks like we’ll definitely be moving hosts in the coming couple of weeks. Hopefully this will abolish these rare yet disruptive down times.

I hope you’ve all had a great holiday and are looking forward to the New Year celebrations!

Regards,
ReeGed

To fully understand what VODO is about, please read the description below, but in a nutshell VODO uses the power of p2p distribution to give independent film directors an opportunity at exposure. Once every month a new film will be released and spread by the VODO distribution group, of which ZeroSec is now a part:

WHAT IS VODO?

‘VODO could be a valuable tool for indie filmmakers who recognize that obscurity is a much bigger threat to their efforts than piracy.‘ – Mike Masnick, Techdirt.

Founded by Jamie King, one of the figures behind the well-known filesharing documentary STEAL THIS FILM (www.stealthisfilm.com), VODO brings filmmakers together with the distribution power of the filesharing community. It aims to offer fresh, quality films on a free-to-share basis, promoted and distributed through a ‘coalition’ of filesharing partners that includes big names like The Pirate Bay, Mininova, Miro, TorrentFreak, ZeroSec, VeeHD, Isohunt, Plube, OneDDL, Vuze and Frostwire, amongst many others.

‘Together, the filesharing community has a distribution capacity that rivals and even exceeds that of the mainstream media,’ says King. ‘VODO leverages that power for the benefit of filmmakers and other creators. By sharing films freely through the most popular and fastest growing filesharing sites, we’re building audiences in the hundreds of thousands for our artists. That has material value for these filmmakers, through raised profile, donations and marketing. It’s a win-win situation and it’s the future of distributing media after copyright.’

VODO lets creators manage their own donation links, choosing their own payment provider; all donations go directly to the filmmaker. Regular supporters of the VODO project receive access to all the films being considered for release and can contribute to the selection process.

VODO aims to release at least one film per month during the rest of 2009 and 2010. King says that fiction titles, animation shorts and even stand-up comedy will also be on the distribution list. ‘During 2010 VODO will build out a series of revenue opportunities for its creators, with the free-to-share model at their core,’ he explains.

Following on from the recently added FAQs and a few email requests, I’ve written some info summarising the most common ways people download releases. There’s a lot of discussion, and differing opinions out there when it comes to the best way of downloading releases. Many people have their own preferences, but lots of people don’t fully understand all the available options – with these posts I hope to change all that.

I will try and be unbiased as possible, and just give my honest opinion along with useful info for each of the main ways you can download a release posted here at ZeroSec.

Main Download Options:

• File hosts
• FTP
• Torrents
• Usenet

You can access this FAQ and all the others from the Extras menu, but I wanted to make a main site post for this one so we can hear your opinions, tips and experiences in the comments. As always if you see any problems, or think I’ve missed something drop an email to pandaking[AT]zerosec.ws, or just leave a comment in this post.

There’s still a few more on the way, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to post a few FAQs that I’ve written up recently. Some of you might already have read a couple of them but you can now find a whole load of FAQs in the Extras section.

We now have a FAQ for most the questions we see people coming in and asking on our IRC channel or in the comments: from how to use the RSS feeds, to what a nuke means.

If you can think of any more FAQs you would like to see then either email me on pandaking[AT]zerosec.ws or leave a comment here in this post and I’ll try to check back and reply to you.

I should also point out that a few of these are works in progress, and I don’t claim to be the greatest knowledge on most of these subjects so again if you think we should add/change/reword anything just let us know.

Can I also use this opportunity to thank all of those who’ve been beta testing for us, and while we’re all pretty busy with real life work at the moment (Pah, we hate having to work! ) we will be rolling the features out soon.

I and the ZeroSec team hope that these are of use, enjoy!

Many thanks to LASER for putting in most the legwork on this, and we hope it puts a smile on your faces.

Merry Xmas,
From all of the staff at ZeroSec…

It was a few days ago now when I promised that some exciting new features would be coming. It’s taken longer than planned and we’ve done a lot more than we were originally going to, but I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

So, what have we got in store for you?

Because all these new features are custom made we don’t really want to put anything live on the mainsite without some testing first. This is where beta.zerosec.ws comes in.

We just need you to go there and have a play around, try out the new features and let us know if you find any bugs. We are expecting bugs to be found, and if/when you do find them we ask that you either post them in the comments to this post, or email them to untamed&zerosec.ws (&=@).

Once we feel it’s all running like clockwork we’ll be adding the features to the main site, so if you like the features listed below get beta testing!

I know what you’re asking now: “What’s been changed on the beta site?”

Major Updates/Fixes

DONATOR ACCOUNTS
We try not to run too many ads here, as we know they can be a bit intrusive but that means we are often behind on server payments. Every time we’ve come to our readers for help you’ve been amazingly generous, and so we wanted to say thanks to those who’ve been really supporting us over the last year or so.

If you’ve donated in the past and want to get your hands on an account, drop an email to info@zerosec.ws with:

• Your requested username
• Paypal receipt from your donation

We’ll then check it all matches our records and email you back with your login details.

Comment Reporting
Another killer feature, and one which many of you have been asking for of late is a way to report comments which break our rules – such as fake, or virus infected links etc.
Well Untamed our coding God has delivered this wonderful feature, and we can’t wait to get it running live on the main site.
It’s currently set to only allow those with Donator accounts to report bad comments, so we don’t get lots of fake reports coming in. One of the caveats of having a registered account is if you abuse it, we’ll remove it

Captcha v2
Something else we heard a fair amount, was that our current captcha system has a few bugs and caused issues for some of our readers. This has now be completely recoded – every known bug has been squished!

ihateTV v0.2
A lot of you really love our ihateTV feature, and we’ve done some work on it. On the mainsite, it now uses cookies so it should store your last settings.

Something that’s been requested ever since ihateTV came along was an ihateTV RSS feed. Well ihateTV now works for RSS, and used the GET method so its compatible with all common RSS readers. Many thanks to all those who requested (and reminded us on IRC) about this feature!

More minor updates/fixes

Updated to the latest WordPress version
This gives most benefit to our editors, with updated admin panels, easier comment moderation, bug fixes and more.

Restricted Names
We noticed some people were setting their comment names to things like “Admin” which is obviously misleading so we’ve coded a system which won’t let you comment if your name contains words like “admin”, “staff” etc.
We’ve also added a function to remove any special characters from usernames (other than the common ones such as &!$£ etc.), and on top of this there’s also a 50 character limit for names.

Anonoymous Comenting
We noticed a few of you don’t really like the username being a requirement, so if you don’t enter a username anymore you’ll be called “Anonymous”

Added post count next to editors names
Something the editors have long been asking for is a post count next to the authors name. Well now we do!

Added scroll bar to long comments
Some comments with hundreds of links take up a lot of space. We’ve set it so that comments over a certain length will have a scroll bar.

Fixed the @reply feature for non logged in users
The current reply feature in the comments has a few bugs, especially if a comment high up gets deleted as it messes up all the numbers. Untamed’s now recoded this feature to work more smoothly (especially for users without accounts), and has a work around if a comment is in the moderation queue.

“Posting comments too quickly” bug should now be fixed
We’ve got out the fly swat and this bug should now be splatted all over the wall.

Tons of backend tweaks and edits
As mentioned with the upgraded WordPress, we’ve also done some other tweaks and edits behind the scenes to make this run a little smoother.

Updated CSS tweaks
There’s been a few little bugs in the CSS which have been bothering us, so we’ve cleaned it up a little and fixed the odd thing here and there.

We’re looking for people to post in all of the categories, but specifically people to help with the TV lineup, post music and applications. Even if you don’t have the requirements for posting, we have a few new roles which will be needed in the near future so if you think you have something to offer then email in!

The one thing I must stress: we are looking for dedicated members and people who will be able to post regularly. It’s a real kick in the teeth for us when we take the time to set editors up, only for them to not post or disappear.

If you’re interested in joining us, think you can contribute and have what it takes, then please send your answers to the following questions below to: crew@zerosec.ws

1. Do you have access to fast private torrent trackers (if so which?), usenet or FTP sites?
2. How long after a release has pre’d can you get access to it?
3. Do you have a general knowledge of “the warez scene”?
4. Do you have general HTML abilities?
5. Do you write/speak English fluently?
6. Add some interesting information about yourself and state which category you would be interested in covering.

In the very near future, Zerosec is diversifying and bringing you more content than ever before; to achieve this, we need your help. Do you have any interesting anecdotes from years gone by, ideas for an article you’d like to write, or even a film, album or concert review? All you have to do is meet the following criteria, and if it meets all the high, high standards you’ve come to expect from your favourite release site, it’ll get published. Now. Let’s talk requirements:

- Grammar isn’t a problem, but please, no leet or text speech

- Articles in English please, in Word or Open office doc format

- Articles should be anywhere between 600 to 1500 words.

- The deadline for the first batch of article submissions is 29th November

- The email address you send the article from MUST be valid, so if any changes or correspondence is required, we can get hold of you.

Providing you can meet these few criteria, please either click on the image or email zerozinesubmissions@googlemail.com with your contribution, and there’s a good chance you’ll see it featured in the next article. Well. Unless. You know. It’s terribly racist or going to piss off some equal rights lobbyists, in which case it probably won’t get published, as I don’t particularly cherish the thought of having a hit put out on me.

The site went down at approx. 1pm on 3rd August, and we were online again at 2pm on 5th August. The reason we were given from our host is that it was a broken network cable (which obviously takes 48 hours to fix). I’m deeply sorry for the disruption and I can understand that people are frustrated, and so are we. In fact we are so frustrated that we’re going to be moving from our current host to a more stable one within the next week or so. There *shouldn’t* be any downtime when the change-over happens, if there is it will only be 1-2 hours maximum.

On a positive note I have started active development of ZeroSec v4.0, and I’ll be looking to start integrating the new features in approximately 2 weeks, depending on how long it takes me to setup and configure the new server along with my other work load.

Thanks for your understanding,
Untamed

EDIT:
PreDB is now back online

Some browsers already have options to allow you to do this, but I’ve coded a little feature for ZeroSec which means browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer can easily do so too.

To read how to add a ZeroSec.ws and/or Pre.ZeroSec.ws search to your browsers search, click on the appropriate link for a spoonfed guide…

• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox
• Opera
• Safari

We all hope you like, and leave a comment if you get stuck. Keep a look out for more Extras coming soon…

Many of you probably remember the time when I was an editor at another site, some probably remember that ReeGed and me always tried to enhance the end-user experience visitors would get when reading our articles and only a few will remember what then was started on the 29th of June.
I personally think that music is a vital element in the nature of human life and while some wander around aimlessly in the realm of different tunes, others found their safe-spot already in one of the many corners this world has to offer. So, about one year later we try to resurrect our project, the project to report straight from the heart of any festival our reporters are sent to and give you our point of view on the situation.

We pick off where we left: Wacken 2008. The well known Metal festival was about to begin. Once again we (my friends and I) prepared to go “up” into the north by train. The journey was the usual 9 hours if I remember correctly, but eventually we arrived.

Day 1 – Wednesday
Not much to say here. I met ReeGed for the first time, since he arrived by plane and I picked him up at the center of Wacken. We then tried out our SLR-Camera and did the usual setting up of the camp.

Day 2 – Thursday
After a night of booze and other fun activities ( BBQ anyone? ;D ) I had to visit the first band I wanted to see, it was quite late, but since its summer the sun shines long enough to give us some light. So at 20.00 I arrived at the “Black Stage” to see Avenged Sevenfold. Quite frankly I never listened to them before but I heard it might be worth a shot. So after giving it a try of 15 minutes I turned around and went to the W.E.T. stage where Alestorm played. This definitely was more to my liking, Alestorm is a Pirate Metal band (hence the name they sing about pirates, check out their latest video here YARRR! ) During their gig, people already gathered at the “True Metal Stage” for the first act to be played on that stage, and it was no one less than Iron Maiden themselves. Now I have to tell you, straight from the beginning I am not a IM fan, BUT they really did their live magic on stage eventually making me listen to their greatest hits ever. I am still not a fan but I definitely have a small spot for them in my heart ;D. Its pointless to state that almost EVERY visitor of Wacken attended this gig. I mean the place was so crowded, but still the atmosphere was just perfect and the weather was also just right.

Day 3 – Friday
This day was packed for me with gigs, basically I got to the stages at 12.50 to see Job For A Cowboy, famous for their song Knee Deep (please check it out!) and it ended for me with the “Excrementory Grindfuckers” at roughly 3.00 am the following day. The time we (my friends, Reeged) or I didn’t spend at the stages, I was basically sitting in the VIS/PRESS Area gathering some inside Intel about Wacken. For example we got to know that during the “Children of Bodom” gig there were roughly 3000 (in letters: three thousand) crowd surfers. Or that there were until then only about 19 injuries and about the same amount of registered thefts. My impressions of the bands though were partly positive and partly negative. I was quite excited to get to see “Soilwork” (who also rereleased an old album as a ReMastered version lately, The Chainheart Machine), but their sound was totally off, e.g. I couldn’t distinguish between Rejection Role and Figure Number 5… Nuff said (I also heard from friends before who went to GMM, that they had the same problem with Soilwork there.) Then there were a lot of bands that just surprised me, beginning with Ensiferum, Kamelot, Opeth, Sonata Arctica and eventually The Haunted. The first time I got to listen to them was actually through ReeGed, when he showed me the album “Made Me Do It”, which has some killer tracks on it. It didn’t fully convince me though, for my taste it was a bit too raw, if I may say so. Luckily we got to listen to their latest album (PROMO preview) though while they were giving an Interview backstage and that just blew me away. I love every single track of “Versus” and it’s definitely a checkout for people with an interest in Melodic Thrash Metal (http://www.zerosec.ws/the-haunted-versus-promo-2008-berc/).

Day 4 – Saturday
As all good things, even Wacken comes to an End and this was again a slower day for me. I checked out bands like Carcass (Special guest: Angela Gossow!!) Powerwolf and Nightwish. I have to admit I quite liked Nightwish and I personally don’t think that their new singer Anette Olzon Blyckert who replaced Tarja Turunen is “unbearable” as some say, but that is another kind of question… For me the ultimate experience after all was “At The Gates” though, who played their first live tour (Suicidal Final Tour) again after their break up in 1996.
All in all I can just conclude that Wacken was so awesome and it probably will be awesome this year again. Stay tuned for more news when it’s time again to say:

See you in Wacken, rain or shine!