Greetings,

As the title of this post says, AnimeYoshi needs your help.  Most of you know that we’ve just gotten a new serve, and the cost has practically drained my pocket.  I am just a university student with no job (yet), so you can imagine how much I spend monthly.  Most of my expenses are related to my studies, and anything that’s left is used to pay for the server.  I am very supportive of AnimeYoshi, that’s why I continue to spend money even if it doesn’t earn me a single dime.  However, I can not do it indefinitely by myself, especially now that we have a new server.

Now, you’re probably wondering why should you donate when other groups don’t accept donations at all.  While I can not definitely say the reason why (other than it is unethical), I can definitely say that they have the means to support their infrastructure, ie. they have a source of income to pay for the bills.  This begs the question:

“Why are you using a service you know you can’t pay for?”

I’ve loved anime since I was a kid.  Fansubs further intensified my interest anime because I was able to watch far more shows.  Last year, after leeching for a couple of months, I decided to give back to the fansub community by joining groups.  I was very active for several months; this was evidenced by me joining several famous groups (I would rather not mention their name, since I don’t work for them any more).  Then, I joined AnimeYoshi.  Several months later, the operation/maintenance was handed over to me (I’ve been hosting the website since 12/2007).  I gladly accepted it since I had the means to support it.  The landscape has changed, however.  If you are, or have been, a university student you know how fast the expenses can pile up–from textbooks to tuition, the number of things you have to pay for never stops. But I still kept the server since that is my way of supporting the community.  Don’t get mistaken, however.  I am still living comfortably–I am not sacrificing my welfare or anything like that.  It’s just that I might not be able to keep the server any more.  I prioritize my spending, and the server is the last thing I would worry about.

So, if you have a buck or two to spare, please donate.  The money received will not be used for my own personal gain.  All donations will be used to properly fund the server to keep it going.  The server is mainly used for hosting, though it will also be used for distro.

With 15000+ visitors who visit our website, and the many more who download our releases, I hope it wouldn’t be too hard to reach $200.

Yours truly,
admin

Sometime today, the whole website will be down because of a planned maintenance.  I tried to make it so that there will be no downtime, however, the server I am currently on can not be upgraded due to technical and economical reasons.  As such, a new server will be provisioned for me but not until tomorrow.  My current server will be cancelled today so that I don’t have to pay the extra month.  The new server is more powerful than what we have right now, giving us a more stable and reliable platform that can scale well into the future.

UPDATE:
The planned maintenance has been completed!  The server should be able to handle more now that we are on a more powerful machine.  Nevertheless, I apologize for the downtime.  It took some time before the folks at the data center were able to reload the OS.

Thank you for your patience!

First of all, I’d like to apologize for the recent downtime again.  I migrated the whole website to a new dedicated server and thought everything was set.  Unfortunately, I forgot to set the permissions properly, hence the 500 Internal Server error.  I’ve fixed the permissions, so everything should be set.’

As for the server… well, I decided it was time to move to a more powerful one.  Although my previous host used LiteSpeed as the web server (we are using Apache right now), the site should be more reliable and faster since it is hosted on a dedicated machine.

The new machine is connected to a 100mbps line, so I’m thinking of adding a new bot or DDL.  Which one would you prefer?

The advantage to a new bot is that I will be able to regulate how many users can download at any one time.  The disadvantage is that one has to connect to IRC to be able to download.

On the other hand, a direct download is more convenient for everyone; the only downside is that people can abuse the server by using download managers.  I have not found a way to circumvent download managers yet, so I’m not sure I’d like to use that yet.

If you have any questions/comments, feel free to say it.   The more opinions I get, the better!

UPDATE (10/14/08): Okay, so I’ve decided to add another bot in the channel.  After considering the options available, the bot proved to be the best for me.  It is easy maintain and has lots of features to help manage the traffic.  I’ve also considered a tracker, but I haven’t really found a viable solution; that is, most of the current trackers out there are custom solutions or are not easy to set up.

The name of the new bot is [AniYoshi]Bahamut, named after a Final Fantasy summon.  This will host our unlicensed releases only.  I might also add releases from other groups, especially ones that I like.

How’s everybody doing today?  Hop you’re all doing well!  Anyway, this is a quick update of what’s happening here at AnimeYoshi.

First of all, we will be dropping Michiko to Hatchin.  Yoroshiku & Anime-Kraze are doing it, thus we won’t do it any more.  They produce high quality fansubs, so this show is in good hands.  Instead, we will be picking up Kuro Shitsuji in lieu of Michiko to Hatchin.  I do not know what this show is about but the screenshot looks interesting.  Go ask Spinal if you want more information.

That being said, here’s a quick update of our current projects:

Allison & Lillia

• 19: QC stage
• 20-21: Edit stage
• 22-25: Workraw/Timing stage
• 26: TL stage

Toradora!

• 01: QC stage

Mouryou no Hako

• Workraw/TL stage

Kuro Shitsuji (Will be replaced by another project)

• 01: Timing stage

So there you have it.  Note that we still don’t have a definitive release schedule.  This is just a small update to let you guys know what’s going on.

UPDATE (10/8/2008): It seems that the translator decided to change his/her mind regarding Kuroshitsuji.  With that in mind, we will not be doing Kuroshitsuji.  I apologize to those who are eagerly awaiting our release, but this is a decision the translator has made.  As noted above, it was in the timing stage when the decision was made.  I won’t announce which project will replace Kuroshitsuji until we release the first episode.  Toradora and Mouryou no Hako will be subbed for sure, barring any staff difficulties again.  So far, both projects are in the right track.

Again, I apologize to those who are awaiting our release of Kuroshitsuji.

Sorry for the delayed post.  I accidentally stripped Spinal off of his privileges, thus he wasn’t able to post.

Anyway, AnimeYoshi proudly presents episode 17 & 18 of Allison & Lillia!  We hope that our viewers are still following our subs because another speedsubber has released several episodes of AtL.  Statistics show, however, that some viewers just don’t care; they watch whoever releases first, and that kind of saddens me.  Okay, enough of my blabbering.

To those who haven’t watched 17 & 18 yet (big thanks!), these two episodes pretty much continue where 16 left off.  The seaplane is still in danger of being shot down by the bad guys.  Anyway, you should just go ahead and download it to see for yourself.

Enjoy!

BT:
[AniYoshi]_Allison_to_Lillia_-_17

[AniYoshi]_Allison_to_Lillia_-_18

On another note, barring any staff difficulties, the following are the projects we will be picking up for the fall season:

• ToraDora!
• Michiko to Hatchin
• Mouryou no Kou