Personnel changes at Faithlife
Comments
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Mark, you mention backing up %localappdata% ... I cannot find this on my system. Also, you mention backing up the license file.
Can you add a bit to what you're saying, e.g. how to actually back up the system should Faithlife go pads up & our computer(s) burst into a ball of flame at the same time. (Hopefully a hyperbole)
In Windows, if you type %localappdata% into the Start Menu, and Press 'Enter', it will open a folder something like this: C:\Users\mark\AppData\Local
Within that folder, there'll be a folder called Logos (or Logos4, Logos5 or Verbum). That's the folder you should be backing up if you want absolute belt and braces.
It's up to you how you do it. You could just copy the folder periodically. But you should already be using software to back up your important data — simply add the folder to that software. If you're not already using software, CrashPlan is generally regarded as one of the best, and it's what I've been using for the last five years. You can back up locally, or to a remote friend for free, or pay $5/month for unlimited online backup.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Wow. Just wow. I think Faithlife's patience in dealing with <this> thread alone shows a level of integrity that should be all the assurance we need.
[*]
"The Christian mind is the prerequisite of Christian thinking. And Christian thinking is the prerequisite of Christian action." - Harry Blamires, 1963
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Understood Mark. Thank you for the pointer and also for mentioning this program "CrashPlan." Honestly, I've not heard of it before. I have everything backed, well, almost everything. I've even backed the two Logos folders up but that's a long ways back. With the need not being there (in my mind) because we simply download it again if something goes awry, I never thought too much about it. I guess that will change abruptly.
Also danwdoo, as to Faithlife's patience, I'd fear that much more if they happened to lock down this thread or delete it. Personally, I don't think it's off base to mention concerns when we hear about layoffs, especially before we know all the facts. So no, I really cannot say I'm "wowed" ... to end on a more positive note though, I can say I am more than impressed overall with the Logos program & the helps on this forum!!! :-)
MSI Katana GF76 Intel Core i7-12700H, RTX3060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Windows 11 Home
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Wow. Just wow. I think Faithlife's patience in dealing with <this> thread alone shows a level of integrity that should be all the assurance we need.
If I were Bob, I would be wanting to scream
"Which words don't you understand in 'I would love to explain to you in detail why you don't need to worry about the company.'? "
As he explained there, whatever he stated would be misunderstood by someone. Frankly I get the impression that some members of the forums WANT Logos to fail so that they could say "See, we told you". Come on guys, we all really want Logos to grow and develop. Lets give Bob a break and support him by taking him a his word.
OK lets take regular backups of the logos folder then shut up and enjoy life & Logos. There is so much to be thankful for.
It almost reminds me of some church congregations that I can think of that seemed determined to 'get the minister' because he was not massaging their egos enough. Mob mentality. In one church I know, they actually got the minister out and were rewarded by a far worse one. [:D]
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Kowabunga!!! I'm glad you got that off our chest JohnB. Now you can sit back and have a moment of "what's it all about?" :-}
MSI Katana GF76 Intel Core i7-12700H, RTX3060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Windows 11 Home
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If I were Bob, I would be wanting to scream
"Which words don't you understand in 'I would love to explain to you in detail why you don't need to worry about the company.'? "
As he explained there, whatever he stated would be misunderstood by someone. Frankly I get the impression that some members of the forums WANT Logos to fail so that they could say "See, we told you". Come on guys, we all really want Logos to grow and develop. Lets give Bob a break and support him by taking him a his word.
Well said [Y]
Kinda reminds me of Chicken Little in Elementary School reading class.
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Wow. Just wow. I think Faithlife's patience in dealing with <this> thread alone shows a level of integrity that should be all the assurance we need.
If I were Bob, I would be wanting to scream
"Which words don't you understand in 'I would love to explain to you in detail why you don't need to worry about the company.'? "
As he explained there, whatever he stated would be misunderstood by someone. Frankly I get the impression that some members of the forums WANT Logos to fail so that they could say "See, we told you". Come on guys, we all really want Logos to grow and develop. Lets give Bob a break and support him by taking him a his word.
OK lets take regular backups of the logos folder then shut up and enjoy life & Logos. There is so much to be thankful for.
It almost reminds me of some church congregations that I can think of that seemed determined to 'get the minister' because he was not massaging their egos enough. Mob mentality. In one church I know, they actually got the minister out and were rewarded by a far worse one.
There is a big difference between "wanting them to fail, just so we can say 'told ya so'" and honest concern. I don't know where you are as far as investment in FL, and really its not my concern, but as for myself I have a "substantial" investment.
I do not take that lightly, I work hard for my $$, the Lord yes, has been very gracious with my employment, but at the same time I purchased Logos for the first time when I barely made 16K a year (1995), I have done better over the years, been laid 4 or 5 times, bought a very large library, piece meal and by package. Having said that I have also bought numerous starter, Gold, Silver and Language libraries for pastors and missionaries, who have on their own built up those libraries (which Dave Kaplan was a good secret partner in) so its just not a personal concern.
I am concerned they succeed, thats why the questions for me- it also involves close to 20 people I have invested in as well, and they continue to get the resources they need, and feel secure in the direction of the company.
So I for one disagree with your assessment, we as investors in the product have a right to ask, and express concerns, atta boys, and questions. At the same time I DO NOT EXPECT Bob to divulge every little aspect of the company, but to "honestly" answer concerns, which he has done to this point, I accepted that early in this thread after having my say regarding the matter, and let him know his explanation was fine for the time being.
Everyone have a good day, God bless.
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This thread seems to have become a free-for-all so here is another post....
Faithlife does not sell financial assets. Far from it, to be clear the purchases I make from Faithlife are expenses. The resources I acquire, licenses to use intellectual property, when making a purchase do not grow in economic value as time passes.
Maintaining the personal IT infrastructure to support using the resources is also expensive. This is a great concern of mine.
I am unsettled whenever it becomes more expensive to use my Faithlife libraries. Yes I maintain two libraries - currently for me a justifiable expense, but one that would be un-necessary if certain requested library management features would be added.
The time I spend using the resources is an investment of a different kind which has the potential to produce profound dividends but is unlikely to ever bear directly upon my finances.
Back to the original topic of this thread - please pray for the former and present employees of Faithlife. https://community.logos.com/forums/p/121491/797025.aspx#797025
"The Christian mind is the prerequisite of Christian thinking. And Christian thinking is the prerequisite of Christian action." - Harry Blamires, 1963
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"Faithlife does not sell financial assets. Far from it, to be clear the purchases I make from Faithlife are expenses."
No one believes that they are purchasing FL assessts- but every dime we have spent enables them to maintain and produce further resources, so in a way we do have a vested interest in how they perform and how they conduct buisness- I and I know others view their libraries and the puchase of those libraries as a investment, in FL.
That investment in these libraries is only as good as FL continues to maintain a profitable buisness structure. If, and I do maintain the "if" they fail its a direct impact on us. So regardless how anyone views FL, Bob, layoffs, etc. they become a concern, no one wants them to fail, but their success also has to do with "sales" a perception whether true or not, can directly impact those sales and their overall buisness model.
Q: "The time I spend using the resources is an investment of a different kind which has the potential to produce profound dividends but is unlikely to ever bear directly upon my finances."
re: I hope your right but if for some reason they did close and you lost access to books and license- I would imagine you would not be a happy camper. Hope reality doesn't come a knocking.
And by the way the layoffs were just one aspect of the original post. I have great sorrow for them, its a tough job climate right now- I am currently unemployed for the exact same reason layoff- some buisnesses are doing well, others are not. Walmart is the latest example, the oil fields have been shuting down for 2 yrs here in the US, a lot of men out of work, just to name a couple.
Like FL, I am cutting my expenditures FL is just one of them, watching every dime while I search for another position, even when I return to work I'll have to be very careful with purchases. Meaning I may not make any for a while. I have already begun deleting prepubs and CP items, you do what you have to do.
Just saying.
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Whyndell, a good solid response!!! Well put and I'd say quite timely!!!
MSI Katana GF76 Intel Core i7-12700H, RTX3060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Windows 11 Home
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I hope your right but if for some reason they did close and you lost access to books and license- I would imagine you would not be a happy camper. Hope reality doesn't come a knocking.
I am not concerned about suddenly and unexpectedly losing access to my libraries because I know it will not happen. I have prudently ensured and confirmed this - apart from initial resource acquisition my use case does not include reliance on the Faithlife corporate IT infrastructure. Independent from my own planning I accept as reality based Bob's assessment of the viability of my stake even after an unexpected demise of Fathlife.
The sudden and unexpected loss of employment is in my experience life changing. Reality is knocking and entreating me to pray for the laid off employees, the current employees and the management at Faithlife, and for the community in Bellingham.
I have great sorrow for them, its a tough job climate right now- I am currently unemployed for the exact same reason layoff
I pray for your situation too.
sincerely,
J. A. Lawson
"The Christian mind is the prerequisite of Christian thinking. And Christian thinking is the prerequisite of Christian action." - Harry Blamires, 1963
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To the laid off workers of Faithlife, who are they? Can we put a face to these people? Who are they (young, middle age, level of education, skills, willing to relocate, married, single, home owners, etc.)?
If the numbers (60+) are accurate (being thrown around of laid-off workers from Faithlife), is it possible this group people can form their own company? Their collective profiles will determine the nature of the new company. Hey, if the new business is not in direct competition with Logos software, Faithlife could provide them with some of the “seed” monies to get started with no strings attached. Consider it a collective parting gift. Since Bob said that they are neighbors, friends, fellow-worshippers, etc. This will not be a “handout”, but a “leg up.” “A friend in need, is a friend, indeed.” Helping the former employees of Faithlife establish a business will not be a spin-off or the baby of Faithlife. “Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime”, without Faithlife.
Telling a laid-off worker you’re praying for them, is one thing, but giving them an opportunity for continued employment is another. What I am suggesting is tangible, reasonable, and Christian. If Bob, wants to be the CEO of the century (21st), increase the probability of what I am suggesting and honor his former employees’ faith (in God) and help them with life. God is not going to work a miracle for anyone when there are things he/she can do or within his/her grasp. McNeil
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To the laid off workers of Faithlife, who are they? Can we put a face to these people? Who are they (young, middle age, level of education, skills, willing to relocate, married, single, home owners, etc.)?
I expect Faithlife to honor their privacy and not talk about them.
Faithlife could provide them with some of the “seed” monies to get started with no strings attached.
The whole purpose of the lay-off is to save money. I like to think Faithlife gave those laid-off some severance package. But that is none of our business either.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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If the numbers (60+) are accurate (being thrown around of laid-off workers from Faithlife), is it possible this group people can form their own company? Their collective profiles will determine the nature of the new company. Hey, if the new business is not in direct competition with Logos software, Faithlife could provide them with some of the “seed” monies to get started with no strings attached. Consider it a collective parting gift.
Nice idea, but I suspect that the new 60-person company would have a quarterly burn rate of $2-2.5 million dollars with no product to sell. Also, most of the employees are likely to be sales/marketing types and not engineers - just the opposite of what is needed in year one. Lastly, I doubt Faithlife would just part with their savings from the layoffs with no strings attached. They would probably want 20-30% ownership stake and the newco's business plan would need to be strategic to Faithlife. Also, if Faithlife did not want to invest internally in the ideas, I doubt they would invest externally...it is not like they have a public P&L to worry about like a Cisco.
IMHO.
Agape,
Steve
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Who are they (young, middle age, level of education, skills, willing to relocate, married, single, home owners, etc.)?
Respecting their privacy is important. From what I have heard the layoffs included a wide range including a few who had been with Logos for about 20 years. We do not know what type of non-disclosure agreements people have and all I can say is I hope they got decent references.
-Dan
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Come on, folks! If the 60+ number is in the ball park, there must be 60+ stories with many different "sides" to EACH. Of course we pray for each and all. But there must have been some among the 60+ for whom the layoff simply formalized the fact their employment had been a mistake in the first place. Am I the only one who has found myself in a "mismatch"? This then l leaves 59+ other reasons for termination, some good, some not so good, some just plain un"fortunate", but all we may pray providential in the sweep of eternity.
I'm truly surprised so many of us think we can provide business/management "solutions" to a problem we can't even define!
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CrashPlan is generally regarded as one of the best, and it's what I've been using for the last five years.
Hi Mark, how does Crashplan cope with backing up a large (several GB) Logos index.idx file to cloud backup, since the file is updated quite regularly (sometimes a few times a week if not more)? I know about its block mode backup, does this only update the changes to the file resulting in small file updates and lower internet bandwidth required?
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Anyone who has taken the time to read Bob's book will understand how the company operates. They are very entrepreneurial and take a lot of risks and anyone who works for them should probably know this. It is unfortunate that so many were laid off but it was probably just a matter of time.
Director of Zoeproject
www.zoeproject.com
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Hi Mark, how does Crashplan cope with backing up a large (several GB) Logos index.idx file to cloud backup, since the file is updated quite regularly (sometimes a few times a week if not more)? I know about its block mode backup, does this only update the changes to the file resulting in small file updates and lower internet bandwidth required?
That's correct. CrashPlan only uploads those parts of a file that have changed. From their FAQ:
After initial backup of the file is complete, only new or changed information is sent when the file is backed up.
When CrashPlan scans a file, it knows that the file changed and the progress bar runs through the file as if the information is new. But as it goes, it discovers the information hasn't actually changed and only transmits the new information to the backup destination.
For the technically savvy: CrashPlan does incremental deltas by block within the file.
Speaking personally, I only backup my Logos installation locally (using CrashPlan), but I do backup 120Gb+ of MySQL tables online, and CrashPlan uploads changes to those extremely quickly. If I wanted to backup Logos online, I'm quite sure CrashPlan would handle it very smoothly, even with a regularly updating index.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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I wish the data backup posts had their own thread rather than being buried in this one.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Mark just wondering if you have had the same experience.
I was backing up using Crashplan to the cloud services and the max speed that I got over any considerable time was 4Mbps.
I was using a fibre line with speed in excess of 50Mbps.
Crashplan support says that they do not throttle bandwidth. I switched to backing up via Microsoft's OneDrive and it was uploading 40 MB video files in a minute or so. Thus I have concluded that it has to be crashplan servers and/or bandwidth that was not up to the task. This was yesterday.
Have you or anyone else had problems with slow upload?
Mission: To serve God as He desires.
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how does Crashplan cope with backing up a large (several GB) Logos index.idx file to cloud backup
I'd recommend excluding the "BibleIndex" and "LibraryIndex" folders from cloud backup. The data in them can be completely rebuilt from your resources locally, and on most computers (with common Internet connection speeds), it's going to be quicker to rebuild the index locally than to download it from the Internet. Backing it up is probably a waste of bandwidth IMHO.
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I wish the data backup posts had their own thread rather than being buried in this one.
You are so right:
- To keep the purity of the thread.
- Data backup information is so interesting, really!
- Who has the skills to start a new thread and transfer all that have been said about data backups? If you have the skills, Please, please, do it! Let you data backup knowledge so shine before Logos users that they may see your great knowledge, thank you and Faithlife too.
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The intent of my suggestion was NOT to invade anyone’s privacy. It was to express compassion (“to suffer with”) for the laid-off workers. I know they are not the first people to be laid-off nor will they be the last for Faithlife or any other company.
Can’t we put our collective heads together and, at least, make some practical suggestions to help those who helped us to receive (books, data sets, sales, etc.) what we have and are enjoying? Nor I am I demanding Faithlife to go beyond its moral responsibility to his former employees. A little going beyond the call of duty, could make a world of difference in the lives of many people (especially children and single mothers). With all things considered, you can’t legislate compassion.
If those laid-off workers were given a “severance package” the size of a Wall Street Banker, I would not be so much concern. If it’s true, many of them are not engineers. There are much pain and uncertainty in many of those families.
I hope your American taxes are paid (Federal, state, and city). For some of the laid-off workers finding another job will be short, long, and for some, never. If you think I am just being another of your American “bleeding heart liberals”, take heed. Prepare to see your tax dollars at work in the form of welfare, food stamps and Affordable Health Care users for ex-Faithlife workers. Please allow them to receive help with dignity and respect. Avoid labeling them as “freeloaders”, “takers”, “lazy”, or “people who don’t want to work.”
Today, it’s Faithlife and the 60+ laid-off workers and tomorrow, it could be your company and you. And for those you who are secure in retirement, bad things could happen to good people. Remember, "Bernie" Madoff, an American fraudster and a former stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier? Oh, don’t forget, some of your retirement funds are invested on Wall Street. Even if you keep your money under your mattress, beware of fire and thieves. We’re our brother’s keepers. Any of us could fall on financial hard times or be where those laid-off Faithlife workers are. Let’s pray, be compassionate, and do what we can to help or influence those who can.
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Charles, while I appreciate your intentions, the truth of the matter is we do not know enough to know what type of help they might need. For example,
- do they wish to stay in Bellingham or do they wish to relocate? I know a few employees who, if they left Logos, have definite locations where they would wish to work ... and its not Bellingham.
- what are their skills in relationship to the job market in the area? i.e. are they looking at a quick employment or a long search with possible retrainiing?
- are there other family members whose employment influences what positions they can take?
- they should be eligible for unemployment (insurance program not a "handout") and they should be able to continue medical insurance
With the economy here, I don't assume they are in desperate circumstances - uncomfortable, unexpected, stressful yes. But I think that prayers and a willing to provide references or suggested openings should they reach out to us is about all we can do.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Lynden,
Crashplan definitely throttles due to duplication detection. This page explains how to disable throttling by editing an XML file (if you're comfortable with that).
http://networkrockstar.ca/2013/09/speeding-up-crashplan-backups/
Linden
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I wish the data backup posts had their own thread rather than being buried in this one.
Usual forum etiquette in this regard seems to have been abandoned.
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New Thread Started - Logos Data Backup - Thanks Lynden Williams.
"The Christian mind is the prerequisite of Christian thinking. And Christian thinking is the prerequisite of Christian action." - Harry Blamires, 1963
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Thanks Bob for your post! I'm not a forum frequenter so much, but stumbling past this thread and reading what you said made me appreciate who's behind Logos.
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I am somewhat curious as to why this particular thread has such staying power. People get laid off all the time in businesses across America. People face tragedy and difficulties because of such layoffs. FL is just another business that has laid people off due to whatever circumstances being put out by the management team on these forums. A sad situation but one that thousands of people across America has faced for decades even companies like FL that caters to a small niche market in eBook publishing.
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I suspect if it had just been folks who work behind the scenes it wouldn't have been so jarring, but because it was people we interact with on a (sometimes daily) basis that multiplied the impact to the community.
Instead of someone we don't know, and haven't interacted with going silently into the night, multiple people we do know and communicate with regularly left all at once. I went from knowing a couple in the sales teams of both logos and verbum, to knowing no one. That sort of changes the public face of the company - at least the part we users would interact with.
L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,
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