cloudsdaleapp-blog - Tumblr blog

[cloudsdaleapp-blog]

So when you used Ruby to make Cloudsdale, what program did you use to make it into an app? Or was that how it was made initially?

All of our mobile apps were made using technologies native to that device. So for iPhone/iPod we used Objective-C, Android used Java, and Windows Phone used C#. Little to no code was shared between the web and mobile apps or between the mobile apps; they were all made entirely from scratch by volunteers.

Fun tidbit: the iPhone/iPod app had over 36,000 lines of Objective-C code, alone!

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How does one make a chatty website thing like CD?

Start by learning a coding language. Ruby is a good one for beginners and is actually the language most of Cloudsdale is written in.

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I heard that Chatspry has apparently been 'given up on'. Is that true, or is just some last bit of some rumors that were circulating through CD just before it died?

Some of the Cloudsdale staff has gone on to developing Chatspry. They are not rushing the development in the wake of Cloudsdale's sunset and will release more information when ready.You can follow them on their Twitter feed as they will start posting updates when it's time to start alpha testing [@chatspry](https://twitter.com/chatspry)

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When will Chatspry be opening up?

You can follow the chatspry twitter account for updates.

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Are you guys going to remake the site if money is raised again?

No, we've decided to take it down permanently.

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Shutting Down

Cloudsdale is shutting down operations effective immediately as we failed to reach the December donation goals. Thanks everyone for sticking with us all these years, it's been a great project to work on.

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the email verification code wont come and i am 100% sure the emails match

Hi, we noticed our email workers had stopped. This should now be fixed.

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Everyone seems to know how to do this except for me and it's very annoying : when you are chatting there is this thing some people do where they can type something and it shows up centered in the screen, and it doesn't show who it was that posted it. It seems to be used as a roleplay tool, i guess. My Question is, How Do You Do That?

Prefix your message with:  /me

[cloudsdaleapp-blog]

Regarding Cloudsdale's Future

There's been a lot of rumor floating around about Cloudsdale's future. We get asked this question a lot and there's been quite a lot of speculation spread around as fact, so I decided it's time to settle things and get everyone on the same page.

Are we shutting down?

Probably not. As long as we still get the minimum required donations per month, we'll keep the servers up as long as we have spare time to maintain them.

Why does the site keep going down?

We are a non-profit site that is kept alive by donations alone. These donations cover most -- but not all -- of the bills required to keep the site alive. As it is, we're already running the site on the cheapest servers we could find that still had enough grunt to run our extremely sophisticated custom software. Sophisticated software has a tendency to randomly fail at times, and since we're a non-profit, we do not have paid staff members.

Not having paid staff members means that everything we do on the site, from moderating, developing code and maintaining servers is done in our spare time, and these days we're finding we have less and less spare time to play with. Any time the server goes down, it'll have to wait until a staff member is available who has some spare time to look into the issue; one who also has the necessary skills to remedy the problem on our servers without potentially causing more damage.

It's a complex problem with no easy solution.

Why not put up some ads?

Due to the nature of Cloudsdale being more of a "single page web app", advertising-based revenue streams aren't especially profitable. Even if they were, we'd have to have about 10x the number of users we have now to have even a shot at breaking even, but having 10x more users would mean 10x more strain on the servers, which would mean the servers would have to cost more, which would mean we would need yet more users; and the cycle continues.

We've done the math, there's no way to make this thing self-sufficient with advertising alone, which is why we rely on the generosity of the community instead.

On top of all that, we're also design purists. We love the way Cloudsdale looks now, and we'd hate to tarnish its design sensibilities by littering unsightly advertising material all over it.

When is the update coming out?

You should probably consider the website upgrade to be on indefinite hold. Zeeraw, our previous web developer, has stepped down his position and has taken an indefinite leave of absence from developing on Cloudsdale. This means we no longer have an active web developer on staff. Until we find a replacement (and it's very hard to find talented individuals like Zeeraw who'll work this hard for free) you can consider Cloudsdale to be in maintenance mode.

What is maintenance mode? Maintenance mode means we'll keep the site running exactly the way it is now, but we will not add any new features or fix any non-critical bugs.

Why is Conji the founder?

This is just a taste of Zeeraw's sense of humor. It's his commentary on the meaninglessness of the various tags, and it's also -- in a way -- his final "hoorah" before leaving the Cloudsdale staff to go on indefinite leave. Conji is founder by title only, but the one true founder will always be Zeeraw.

What happened to all the staff?

The Cloudsdale Project started in late 2011, and most of the other staff members joined the team throughout 2012. At the time, most of us had a fair amount of spare time to throw at this project, which is when most of the updates came out. Over time, we've found ourselves busy with real life stuff -- the kind of stuff that pays bills -- and thus have less time to spend with Cloudsdale. A basic rundown of what happened to each of the developers:

Zeeraw - Web Developer: Moved to a new city in Europe and started a new job, and is busy settling in and working on new projects.

Aethe - iPhone/iPod App Developer: Working on a new pony project and a couple of non-pony projects, and is kept very, very busy at his day job.

Connor - Windows Phone Developer: Started at a college that has a notoriously heavy workload, and won't have time for Cloudsdale development until semester breaks. Ask him about if you see him, he's always happy to chat about his school work!

Berwyn - Android Developer: Started first fulltime job outside of university and no longer has the time to develop for Cloudsdale any more.

Conji - Windows Desktop Developer: Still actively working on the desktop application.

What can I do to help?

The best thing that could happen is for us to find a new, talented, dedicated web developer. What we need is someone with a lot of experience with the technologies we're using, such as Backbone.js, Ruby on Rails, Node.js, MongoDB and so forth. Spread the word! In the meantime, if you want to see the site kept alive, we do still need to fill that donation bar.

If we do not meet the minimum donation requirements each month, the site will almost certainly be shut down.

In closing

Thanks for sticking with us this whole time. We know it's been frustrating being kept in the dark for so long. We still love Cloudsdale and everyone on it, but sadly we're finding our time occupied by lots of other things lately. If you're a new user to Cloudsdale, welcome! If you've been with us for a while, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for using our service and we hope that we can keep it going for a long time yet.

Much love,

@aethe

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why isn't cloudsdale working

We're down for maintenance.

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hey cloudsdale how i puplic my cloud?

To make a cloud public on Cloudsdale it needs to be verified by anyone on our staff. You need to have a fairly good and unique description for your cloud and it's purpose. Sell us the idea why your cloud should be public!You can send these requests to either our email ask@cloudsdale.org or right here on tumblr.I hope this helped.~ Zee

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hmmm i can't manage to log in with the new "Style" i'd have to type in a URL to a cloud and type in my mumbo-jumbo with the old log-in but, when i use the Newer it loads. but then jumps straight to the homepage and im logged out! D: what is going on?

Try and clear your cache and cookies, then you'll be able to log in using the new login form. We're making some upgrades to Cloudsdale for sustainability, we're sorry for the inconvenience.

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i type on cloudsdale but no one reads it so i restart cloudsdale and it shows i never wrote anything.i have restarted my computer made another account. and tryed everything what do i do

We deployed a piece of bad code yesterday. A fix was written this morning. Everything should be working again.

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WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?

What makes you think I'm a human? /)^3^(\