| AudioFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by JamesMelhuish
I have just moved to fluidhosting and am beginning to set up the new Single Driver Website and Full Range Forum. Apparently they have good service. Specs. are below, but I don't know if there is enough RAM for you. This plan is the virtual private server, not dedicated hosting.
VPS Plan Pricing
Power Plan:
Disk Space 4500 MB
Monthly Traffic 50 GB
CPU 300 MHz
Memory 256 MB
IP Addresses 2
Monthly Price $119.95
Setup $50
redhat Linux
Apache 1.3.26
PHP 4.1.1
mod_perl 1.24
MySQL 3.23.36
PostgreSQL 7.0.3
OpenSSH 3.1p1
ProFTP 1.2.2
Front Page Extension 5.0.2
gcc 2.96
Webmin 0.980
Usermin 0.920
Open WebMail 1.65
Majordomo 1.14
sendmail
(no affiliation with fluidhosting, other than recently subscribing to their service...)
James
See : fluidhosting.com |
James,
Thanks for the offer, the price is probably a bit high for us and the site relies on Mysql 4 so that would be another problem.
| quote: | Originally posted by rkbh1
Guys:
I am relatively new to diyaudio.com, but I may be able to help - I have access to a T-1 line and can probably fix up a Linux box with ssh access to the administrators. Can one of the administrator'e email me for the next steps? |
I'll send you an email today. |
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| JamesMelhuish |
Yes the price is a bit high, especially compared to rackshack pricing for dedicated servers. FYI I have less traffic on my site and am only paying $43/month (prepaid six months) for 1.5 GB disk space and 15GB traffic. Smaller CPU and memory too.
James |
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| koolscooby |
here is my theory... a few boxes spread around the world... not neccesairly rack/managed hosting... more like *stable* home users, but one rack somewhere in england?, seams central, that manages the database, all of the vbulletins on the others servers access the central database (wouldnt cause any trouble), so you could have mirrors of the site... i myself have a 10mbit/10mbit cable connection that could hold a mirror probably... but not just the site :whazzat: , itd get raped ;)
well anyway, just an idea ;) |
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| koolscooby |
| quote: | Originally posted by AudioFreak
... and the site relies on Mysql 4 so that would be another problem.
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You mean vbulletin? Vbulletin breaks on my box with MySQL 4, unfortunately had to roll back to 3.2x... i'm seasoned in freebsd/linux/apache/mysql/php ... if any help is needed (sure you guys have it covered, running a nicely customized board), just in case tho, email me i'm always around and would love to help ;) |
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| AudioFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by koolscooby
You mean vbulletin? Vbulletin breaks on my box with MySQL 4, unfortunately had to roll back to 3.2x |
No I mean our site ... some of the features we have added are reliant on MySQL 4. When MySQL 1st went stable, there was alot of problems with it, most of them now have work arounds. |
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| koolscooby |
oh gotcha, its been a while since i've tried 4x, maybe its better now... :)
/me was confused
tahnks for clearing it up :), but like i said, i think it'd be effective to have different web servers w/ a central mysql 4 server
its alot of management though...
peace :) |
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| AudioFreak |
Guys,
Please keep this on topic. This thread is for the express purpose of finding a new server for diyaudio.com ... everything else is off topic and will be treated as such. |
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| Tensop |
Have you considered hosting on Ausgamers? you would have to supply/buy a box from them
But judging by your bandwidth, and average users online at a time a pentium 3-S 1.4ghz should suffice. We could all supply hardware?
and as usual.. for hosting the computer has to be in a rack mount case and power supplies/everything has to be non modified hardware due to chance of fire |
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| Tensop |
| quote: | Originally posted by AudioFreak
I will be making changes to the attachments system soon so that larger graphics will only display a small version and you can click on it to view the original fullsize image.
Bandwidth usage on each server would be less as would storage space required and cpu load, but, RAM required on the main forum server really wouldn't change much (and this is 1 of the 2 main reasons why all the cheap hosts have refused us unless we go dedicated)... It's really a case of 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other. There are potential gains and potential losses. I'll be working on this once we get our new hosting sorted out ... for now, it'll have to stay as it is as there is just not time for me to change things now. |
Actually. it would be wise to disabled attachments altogether. Also,
Delete all the images as attachments in the database as it chews up excessive data.
For example. This thread, page(reply) is a total of 49kb(html, minus pictures) adding a 190kb picture brings this up to 239kb if 100 people were to view this page it would be 23900kb of outbound data. Thats 23mb, for one thread, 100 users.
Take away that picture and you bring it down to 4.9mb thats an 18mb difference, caused by one image.
on the reply button theres a 'img' tag so you can remotely link images. There are pages dedicated to hosting images for forums. For example: www.ugbox.net or www.theforumisdown.com
You can chop down the data massively by doing this. |
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| AudioFreak |
Tensop,
As stated earlier, the site uses GZip for all transfers so it's going to be way smaller than you calculate, also, this site relies on attachments, without them, this site would basically cease to exist. By making a true small version of any big graphics, you save a fair chunk on out going traffic 90% of the time and occassionally when someone wants to see a particular image in full size, they just click it and it loads the big version. We also limit attachments so your 190kb picture could not exist. |
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| JasonL |
I personally think we should have a member's gallery that members can upload there audio schematics ideas prints and pictures and then when some one posts a picture it actually comes from there gallery. For me the gallery would be best and i think some can relate to it being a great idea also.
better idea... |
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| AudioFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by JasonL
I personally think we should have a member's gallery |
In the future, this is likely to exist but it all takes coding and time ... with the server move happening in just a few weeks time, time is not exactly something I have alot of at the moment.
Now can we please get back to the topic. We can talk about things you want done to improve the site in another thread ... go ahead just start one someone or for that matter, you could make a suggestion on the poll we run on the homepage. For the time being, the only thing i'm interested in is finding a new place for diyaudio.com, please keep this in mind and dont post anything else in this thread. |
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| Tensop |
I've sent an email to one of the 2 moderators/admins on the first topic. Agg from overclockers.com.au has kindly agreed to host you guys under a few conditions, free of charge. you should contact him at agg@overclockers.com.au , as i said in the email :)
- Tensop. |
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| MWP |
Really Tensop?
.......
[edit]
I talked to Agg, looks like he is offering space on the box that he has in the US, not Thor (the box that hosts OCAU). |
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| damonpip |
I would like to suggest colocation at http://www.fdcservers.net/. For $99/month, you get unlimited bandwidth and a 5mbit connection. for $149/month you get a 10mbit connection. I could probably donate at least a case and power supply, and I'm willing to set it up, and have it shipped to Chicago (where they are located). I'm sure other people here have a few things they can donate, and we could probably put a server together for $400 or so.
Also, one way to help pay for the colocation is reselling hosting to people. I know at least a couple people who would pay $10/month for a gig of space. They wouldn't use any considerable amount of bandwidth, so they would not affect this site.
Another way to make money would be to sell diyaudio.com email addresses to members. With a dedicated server, that would be no trouble at all, and I could set up the email server and webmail. I'm sure there are plenty of people on here who would pay perhaps $5/month for a really nice POP3 email address. |
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| nathan_s |
I own a hosting company.
I could supply a 100mbit connection with 50GB of transfer for 150/Canadian per month. |
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| JasonL |
| Welcome to the board nate.. |
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| nathan_s |
For anybody thats interested. I also have a cheap T1 unmetered bandwidth, dedicated server .
-Here is my current sale:
The name of my business is:
Diamond Hosting - Click Here To View The Website
CURRENTLY FEATURED SERVER
CPU: Intel Pentium 4-1.7Ghz
RAM: 512MB
Hard Drive: 60GB UltraDMA 7200RPM
Operating System: Redhat Linux 9.0
Unmetered High Speed Connection
2 IP Addresses
99.999% Uptime
Get all this for only $299.99/Month CAD!
-Current Available Upgrades:
Pentium 2Ghz – $25/month
Pentium 2.4Ghz - $40/month
RAM Upgrades, Additional Hard Drives, Additional IP addresses, 10Mbit and 100Mbit dedicated connections available upon request.
-Colocation Hosting now available.
Bandwidth start at 100Mbit.
For 50GB it only costs $140/month.
Omnidust Labs [ http://omnidust.com/hosting ] Is already selling this Dedicated Server on their website. |
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| damonpip |
Well thanks for the offer, but I think the $150USD/month for unlimited bandwidth on a 10mbit connection is a much better deal.
I have a few questions for people here:
1) Would you pay a yearly fee for a diyaudio.com email address?
2) How much would you pay yearly for the above adress? It would probably include 50 megs of storage and unlimited attachment size. |
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| AudioFreak |
damonpip,
I've spoken to nathan myself and he presents a fairly good offer that will be worth us considering. Given that you dont know the full details, I dont think that you or anyone else is really in a position to decide what is or is not a good deal so please leave that to me.
Re: your questions... As per my earlier posts, please keep this thread totally on topic and leave such questions for another thread. I've already suggested that someone start another thread for such things in Everything Else. |
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| damonpip |
| Sorry, I can now see that my above post was pretty rude. From what's been posted here and on his website, it looked to me as though other companies offered better deals on dedicated hosting. Could you post the details? I'd be interested in seeing the advantages of his hosting plan. |
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| AudioFreak |
| At another time but for now, back on topic please. I will consider the individual merits of the options available to us in a few days time as soon as the details of a few of the offers are finalized. I'm also working heavily on coding the beg-a-thon so I can get it up tomorrow (before new year) as promised. Now please, back to the topic at hand... finding diyaudio.com a new server! ;) |
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| Wes Marquenie |
I liked the idea of a few (stable home) boxes around the world.
This is what I have to offer:
50gb/7 days
100Mbit
dual athlon mp 1600+
1,5GB
SCSI |
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| alvaius |
www.look.ca
Has pretty cheap web-hosting with business class service. The specifications you posted would be on the order of $150 U.S./Month with a reasonably priced upgrade path as the site grew.
I will throw in my hat for paying for a membership. If that happens, perhaps those with university email accounts (i.e. students), should be free. I have no problem with a tiered cost structure, i.e. those living in economically advantaged countries paying a little more.
Having advertisements does not bother me if done in a non-intrusive fashion, i.e. NO POP UPS!!!! Having some adds along the bottom or top of the screen is okay. I would not mind hearing about specials from some of the on-line DIY sites. I would think that the amount of money required is not so high that you can't be picky in the advertisers and methods.
GREAT SITE! |
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| Billco |
http://www.superbservers.net
These guys rock. For 99$/month on a 1-year plan you get a Celeron 2.4ghz, 500gb transfer, 80 gig hd, 512mb ram running your choice of RedHat or FreeBSD.
I've been hosting all sorts of things on these little wonders and they're absolutely fantastic. Heck we even have a couple of xxx sites trying to make a buck, and there's never a hitch.
If we were to go the pay-per-host way, then I think they would be the best choice. It's hard to find anything cheaper with those specs.
Best of all they're located in Canada =)
How many regular users are there on the site ? Think 1200$ a year, divided by the users.. ideally I think under 5$ would be the no-brainer point, where people will gladly pay the membership dues without guilt. |
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| damonpip |
| I noticed that Superb servers does not list MySQL support. Did they just forget to list that, or do they not offer it? |
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| Bill Fitzpatrick |
I believe that sponsors are the best way to go to raise funds. They could get a small clickable logo to their home page.
The DIY community is always recommending this product or that product. These manufacturers and sellers of these products benefit from these recommendations and would possibly be more than glad to help.
Contact all the companies such as Peerless, Vifa, Parts Express, etc. and I'll be you could easily raise $300-$400+ per month. Must be 20-30 companies to draw from.
I'll bet one of the members has, or knows someone who has, fund raising experience that could be brought to bear. |
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| Bricolo |
| As long as you don't sell user informations, there's no problem with advertising banners (banners, not popups) |
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| JasonL |
| I agree with bill i think that we could get our server paid for from all the brands that he mentioned maybe nelson pass ( pass labs ) would help out also. ? |
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| JohnR |
Hi, I run audiocircle.com, so maybe my experience there might be useful. On the hosting, we use Hurricane Electric (http://www.he.net) and I've found the service to be very good. We're currently paying US$60 per month for 60 Gig traffic allowance, of which we are using 35-40. (Ahem, I think we could certainly do some optimization there, given you guys are only using 30!!). While I understand the urge to have a dedicated server, the limitations of a virtual hosting account haven't been an issue.
On the funding, we also just had a "beg-a-thon" and it was very successful. I added Paypal buttons, it's quite straightforward and makes it easy for people to donate 20 bucks or whatever. While the suggestions of banner ads, auctions, t-shirts etc are all great I don't think people realize how much work is required to implement (and/or manage) this stuff.
Hope this helps, please get in touch direct if more specific information is needed :-)
JohnR |
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| nathan_s |
About the t-shirt sales, you should check out: CafePress
They manage everything for you. It makes it quite easy to sell clothing and other novelties on your website. |
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| Jason |
Hi guys,
Great to see the offers come in and thanks AF for co-ordinating this. No news is good news as far as the current hosting goes. Not sure how long we have left here but we will get notice before the server is retired from duty. I'm not going OS till early Feb so we still have a few works to sort something out.
Jason |
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| squadra |
I do have an eBase 1u rack server I currently don't use...
dual P3 1GHZ
1GB ram
30 GB mirrored, hotswap
3com 100MBit ethernet
If necessary I can add another 1GB ram
Somebody else needs to configure the box, I don't know enough about linux to secure it.
If somebody has the capacity but not the server then we could join forces.
A 500km radius from the center of Holland would be acceptable for me. |
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| squadra |
Since the images/attachments appear to have the biggest part in the traffic, this might be an option to keep it free:
Several ppl on this list probably do have (adsl) connections with fixed ip's.
If it is possible to manage dns, you can add dns entries so that i.e. www12.diyaudio.com would point to my ip.
We then replicate the images/attachments to these servers.
When the main server now generates a page it can use an algorhytm (i.e. round robin) which is used to supply the images.
This will remove a lot of traffic from the main server, at the cost of a little added work and management. |
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| planet10 |
| quote: | Originally posted by squadra
We then replicate the images/attachments to these servers.
When the main server now generates a page it can use an algorhytm (i.e. round robin) which is used to supply the images.
This will remove a lot of traffic from the main server, at the cost of a little added work and management. |
This is essentially what i'm doing with my site to keep my traffic costs way down.
dave |
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| janneman |
| quote: | Originally posted by AudioFreak
Now can we please get back to the topic. We can talk about things you want done to improve the site in another thread ... go ahead just start one someone or for that matter, you could make a suggestion on the poll we run on the homepage. For the time being, the only thing i'm interested in is finding a new place for diyaudio.com, please keep this in mind and dont post anything else in this thread. |
Dan,
If you can get a box but need money for the hosting, I'll donate 50 $US.
Jan Didden |
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| koolscooby |
If you were to do the round-robin thing, which is kidn of what i suggested, i can host a FreeBSD 5.2 box with Athlon XP 1800+, 256mb, 40gb HD, unlimited transfer on 10mbit line :)
I think that though, it should be done with more than just images... all of the php too, and have a nice central database on a virtual host though... see this imo would be better, because you aren't throwing around html... or alot of it, just mysql queries, which are usually small... could be sizable, but not as big as the HTML w/ images etc...
And jsut for the sake of argument, i dont think we should make a monthly/yearly even one-time payment, most people dont even have the ability to do that! (As i'm not old enought to have a credit card, this of course brings issues), but i know most people would do a one or two time donation via paypal or something... I personally would throw at least 20 bucks in or something if you guys do a beg-a-thon... this site is indispensable to me and teaches me many new things... but making a required fee just seems like the wrong thing to stop knowledge being presented to those who need it most :rolleyes: ... also... let me suggest that we could do this if you donate 20bucks you get a lifetime diyaudio.com email account... pop3/smtp with webmail via squirrelmail... vpopmail/qmail/vqadmin would make an ideal easy setup for you guys [that bandwidth would be tiny to offer something such for 20 bucks one time ;)]
Lets crunch some numbers...
8,620 Members
1% of 8,620 is 86 people...
86 * $20USD = 1720
This means that if one percent of our members donate 20 bucks, we have enough money for...
11 months of $150 month colocation...
or
33 months of $50 month virtual serving...
Thats pretty sizable... and i know more than 1% of the board would donate (or i should hope =D)
So the ideal architecture i'd check out is this...
Central virtual hosting with public accessable mysql server locked down w/ password etc... you have to do this to enable other servers to connect to it...
Multiple companies/home-users with fast connections' dedicated bxoes from those who can provide them as satelliets...
www.diyaudio.com points to the central server... round robins to one of the others (www0.* -> wwwN.*) and it also checks to see which ones are up and down to stop broken links! (PHP is awesome :))...
wwwN.* hosts PHP ... PHP contacts central server with mysql queries
wwwN.* - each are from a different geographical area.. East/West/Central USA //Europe/Germany/Australia/etc...
imagehost.* - one of these servers is the image host.... includes a interface to login to via username/pass for board to post images.. strictly for diyaudio... people then link to that server their images...
Just my thoughts! :) |
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| AudioFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by koolscooby
If you were to do the round-robin thing, which is kidn of what i suggested, i can host a FreeBSD 5.2 box with Athlon XP 1800+, 256mb, 40gb HD, unlimited transfer on 10mbit line :)
I think that though, it should be done with more than just images... all of the php too, and have a nice central database on a virtual host though... see this imo would be better, because you aren't throwing around html... or alot of it, just mysql queries, which are usually small... could be sizable, but not as big as the HTML w/ images etc...
And jsut for the sake of argument, i dont think we should make a monthly/yearly even one-time payment, most people dont even have the ability to do that! (As i'm not old enought to have a credit card, this of course brings issues), but i know most people would do a one or two time donation via paypal or something... I personally would throw at least 20 bucks in or something if you guys do a beg-a-thon... this site is indispensable to me and teaches me many new things... but making a required fee just seems like the wrong thing to stop knowledge being presented to those who need it most :rolleyes: ... also... let me suggest that we could do this if you donate 20bucks you get a lifetime diyaudio.com email account... pop3/smtp with webmail via squirrelmail... vpopmail/qmail/vqadmin would make an ideal easy setup for you guys [that bandwidth would be tiny to offer something such for 20 bucks one time ;)]
Lets crunch some numbers...
8,620 Members
1% of 8,620 is 86 people...
86 * $20USD = 1720
This means that if one percent of our members donate 20 bucks, we have enough money for...
11 months of $150 month colocation...
or
33 months of $50 month virtual serving...
Thats pretty sizable... and i know more than 1% of the board would donate (or i should hope =D)
So the ideal architecture i'd check out is this...
Central virtual hosting with public accessable mysql server locked down w/ password etc... you have to do this to enable other servers to connect to it...
Multiple companies/home-users with fast connections' dedicated bxoes from those who can provide them as satelliets...
www.diyaudio.com points to the central server... round robins to one of the others (www0.* -> wwwN.*) and it also checks to see which ones are up and down to stop broken links! (PHP is awesome :))...
wwwN.* hosts PHP ... PHP contacts central server with mysql queries
wwwN.* - each are from a different geographical area.. East/West/Central USA //Europe/Germany/Australia/etc...
imagehost.* - one of these servers is the image host.... includes a interface to login to via username/pass for board to post images.. strictly for diyaudio... people then link to that server their images...
Just my thoughts! :) |
Re: Membership...
There will always be a free membership. You need not worry about that.
Re: Multiple distributed hosts...
1. Updating the php and keeping each mirror in sync would be a pain.
2. It is the database that costs all the money to host. We need so much RAM etc that it costs a fair bit of money. The attachments cannot easily be separated from the main database at present. The php hosting costs are tiny by comparison. Traffic is really cheap compared to server resources.
3. Call me crazy but I dont like the idea of a member having greater access to the forum code than I do.
4. It would constitute a breach of the licensing agreement of the forum software. So this is not an option. |
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| koolscooby |
| quote: | Originally posted by AudioFreak
Re: Multiple distributed hosts...
1. Updating the php and keeping each mirror in sync would be a pain.
2. It is the database that costs all the money to host. We need so much RAM etc that it costs a fair bit of money. The attachments cannot easily be separated from the main database at present. The php hosting costs are tiny by comparison. Traffic is really cheap compared to server resources.
3. Call me crazy but I dont like the idea of a member having greater access to the forum code than I do.
4. It would constitute a breach of the licensing agreement of the forum software. So this is not an option. |
1. Could be fixed by nightly ran shell scripts, or manually
2. Gotcha :)
3. Yes definately is a bad idea, oversight there :bigeyes: hehe
4. Oversight here too :( hehe... definately a bad idea
Well thought it was a good idea... thanks for informing me about the problems that should've been obvious ;) hehe |
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| Christer |
Some thoughts on this:
1) Have you considered asking some university to host the forum?
Many universities have over-capacity in bandwidth and 10GB
disk space would be a drop in the sea for some of them. Although
not an academic forum, it is a non-profit forum so maybe some
university would be willing to donate server space to us. I am
currently on leave from my university and don't have much
contact with them for the moment so I am afraid I can't check
the possibility of our department hosting us. Maybe one could
ask the swedish SUNET or the finnish FUNET who have very
high speed connections and already mirror huge amounts of
software etc. SUNET has overcapacity in their network and
10GB would be nothing for them I guess. I don't think either
of these usually host forums, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
2) What exactly is the problam with Sitepoint? Disk space,
bandwidth, CPU usage, ...? If it is only disk space, maybe
we could simply get som people to donate money to buy them
an extra hard disk. Theyr're almost free nowadays.
3) If we need a paid hosting I suggest not asking a mandatory
membership fee and not having any membership hierarchy. Some
members are rich others are very poor. My guess is it would be
sufficient to ask for donations. I am neither rich nor poor and
I find this forum very good, so I guess I wouldn't really mind
donating $10 or even $20 a year and I suppose there is a
sufficient number of people who would do that. |
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| AudioFreak |
1) No. If someone that is in a position to ask wants to do so, that would be great.
2) It's a combination of many things. Server resources and others. It's time to find ourselves a new server.
3) This is being discussed in a few places. There will always be a free membership. Members that pay will get some extra features that would perhaps not be long term sustainable for the entire (free) membership. I will always do my best to ensure that free members have a good experience. |
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| Christer |
Regarding 3), my point was rather that I don't think it is
necessary to give paying members better service. Unless
we end up with a host that is really really expensive I
would guess (but maybe I am wrong) we could get a sufficient
number of members to donate a small amount (or a big
amount for those who are rich and generous) without
really expecting any better service. I don't generally like to
pay for internet forums, but this one is IMO so good that I
am prepared to pay a small amount for it. Maybe we could even
do as someone suggested and have some kind of meter of
how much money has been donated. Then people could send
money until there is enough. Those who planned to donate
but was "too slow" could try to be quicker next year and those
who donated last year can wait a few days and see if their
money is needed. This way we would get a kind of rotating
scheme.
BTW, some people have started talking about selling T-shirts
and things. I suppose some people like to pay more and get
something, but don't make that the only choice. I personally
hate such options. I personally prefer to just donate a few
dollars than paying extra money to get a T-shirt or something
I don't want anyway. |
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| Bakmeel |
Considering 1)
I am student on the University of Twente (Enschede, The Netherlands), which is in Holland known for its IT resources. Bandwith should not be a problem here, but some place to install a server and the goodwill to donate space and service. I am going to "ping" around a bit, maybe I can find something.
Our neigbours, the Holland-Germany Internet Exchange (NDIX) has also plenty resources for a website. Although more difficult since they are commercial, they might be willing to donate.
Are there any tricks into succesful begging for serverspace?
Bouke |
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| Tazzy |
If needed I'm willing to donate some spare hardware?
A quick look got some memory and a bunch of 3Com nic's that are redundant. |
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| jake |
Hey,
If you want I can apply for some sponsorship, I know a few companies that might possibly be willing to donate some money.
Anyway, did anyone actually look at this -
http://www.ace-host.net/special.html - It was mentioned further up the page but no one took any notice of it - It could be the plan your looking for, also my friend might donate some webspace to yous.
____
Jake
____ |
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| AudioFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by jake
no one took any notice of it |
Don't worry, not much goes on around here that I don't see. I will investigate their Executive Plan as we might be able to get by on it if worst comes to worst. |
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| planet10 |
| quote: | Originally posted by JasonL
i just ordered one of these for my self it will have 1gig memory 2 x sata 120gig hard drives and a p4 2.0gig |
Hey dude.., you paid for that monitor yet?
dave |
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| Notorious |
My forum is using artiweb and I'm very happy with them.. They aren't expensive and server is fast and reliable... So far we didn't have down time at all.. Anyway here is the address..
http://www.artiweb.net/nl. |
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| sonnya |
Another server could be www.b-one.net
Their danish and norwegian server has 500MB space and Free trafic for 36DKR each month.
But i do not know if they accept it? |
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| janneman |
| quote: | Originally posted by Christer
Regarding 3), my point was rather that I don't think it is
necessary to give paying members better service. Unless
we end up with a host that is really really expensive I
would guess (but maybe I am wrong) we could get a sufficient
number of members to donate a small amount (or a big
amount for those who are rich and generous) without
really expecting any better service. I don't generally like to
pay for internet forums, but this one is IMO so good that I
am prepared to pay a small amount for it. Maybe we could even
do as someone suggested and have some kind of meter of
how much money has been donated. Then people could send
money until there is enough. Those who planned to donate
but was "too slow" could try to be quicker next year and those
who donated last year can wait a few days and see if their
money is needed. This way we would get a kind of rotating
scheme.
BTW, some people have started talking about selling T-shirts
and things. I suppose some people like to pay more and get
something, but don't make that the only choice. I personally
hate such options. I personally prefer to just donate a few
dollars than paying extra money to get a T-shirt or something
I don't want anyway. |
Christer,
I'm with you 100%. I'm willing to chip in, don't need special favors. Let's keep it free and not start a hierarchical membership. I guess this is what this forum is all about : those who have much to give in terms of knowledge, tips etc give much, those who are starting up can absorb that. We should do the same in the money department: those with some more resources donate what they feel they should do, and that's it.
Jan Didden |
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| AJ Bertelson |
Seems like a lot of people have some bandwidth available.
I am not familiar but I think this could be pulled off with a bittorrent client. |
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| grataku |
Audiofreak, sorry for getting in so late.
how hard is it to find a suitable commercial host? Even if it should cost 500 bucks/year? We have 8700 members...a small fee should get you guys enough money to run until a future when money won't be of consequence. Just set up a paypal accnt, a fee, a deadline. You don't pay you get kicked out and put in a hall of shame. |
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| Raj1 |
Hi,
what would happen to post rules, if this forum becomes paid membership only???
Would users with commercial interests be 'clamped' with greater severity than they are now, so much space is sometimes wasted in *** 4 tat arguments, especially when a profit making individual makes a post.
Just seems that 'human nature' is far less forgiving when asked to pay for an exclusive service.....
As it stands I'd be willing to donate a small fee for membership. Although I do feel that my personal presence on this forum relates to a quantity rather than quality member who can be useful to others.
Thanks
Raja |
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| Bakmeel |
We are all talking about all those members multiplied by some fee which results in a big heap of money. Do consider that when registration will cost money, a LOT of prospect members will turn around and find another forum. Only a percentage of the current active members will remain member.
Bouke |
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| KBK |
Hit up the manufacturers first.
Pass
Theta
Wilson
Krell
You know. The whole crew. It's a write-off for them, and the true reality is it does not HARM sales, but in the long run, enhances them.
Most of these guys stated out DIY. Hell, If I could swing the cash right now, I'd use it as a write off myself. The whole thing. I will make inquiries with our pipe-web guys. They are very good at finding good pricing. I will get a realistic quote and number that will be amongst the best numbers that you will see. If not the best. |
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| KBK |
OK. we're working on it. The quote is being generated, and is based on the numbers supplied in this thread.... the number sounds like about a couple of hundred $ a month, off his cuff, as a rough estimate, but he is going to do a real quote.
If it is that low, to keep things going in the immediate future, I will pay it myself.
Stay tuned.
Also, so as not to loose those precious archives, I will build a raid array server box. |
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| KBK |
| also, experience teaches.. that you CANNOT restrict in any way, to filter. This NEVER works. It always comes off badly. As expensive as the free-for-all is, that is the only true way to run the site. free reign is required. period. with moderation. Policing of free souls is the only way to go. reasonable policing, of course. |
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| KBK |
Quote just delivered:
" Let Jason know that given a starting monthly throughput of roughly35GB and the 1GB of storage requirement we can host the site for something along the lines of $200 to $250 a month. I can give him something firm when I know all the details, but that includes PHP4 and MySQL support. Also, remind him that those are wee Canadian dollars, not big ugly American ones. I don't know how his Aussie dollars do in the US. That has to look a lot better than $1,800/month which is outrageous.
Shane Magee
CanTech Solutions
613-549-1258 ext 116"
~~~~~~~
There you go. |
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| Raj1 |
Hi KBK,
you're right, kinda what I was trying to say, gets much harder to police I think when paying members are asked to curb their posting habits..............
This forum gets valued reponses from
at least 4 dudes I can think of, they may have commercial interests, but we would lose if they were to go
Nelson, Aksa, Elso and Guido.......
Thanks
Raja |
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| squadra |
| quote: | Originally posted by KBK
also, experience teaches.. that you CANNOT restrict in any way, to filter. This NEVER works. It always comes off badly. As expensive as the free-for-all is, that is the only true way to run the site. free reign is required. period. with moderation. Policing of free souls is the only way to go. reasonable policing, of course. |
Replies like these make me think (that's good, isn't it?:xeye: )
If only paid members can start threads, it will probably be the start of a DiyAudioElite (is that domain taken?) while aspiring members will be reluctant to sign up.
And those free members who did sign up will hijack threads to post their queries, which leads to increased noise.
So, for me a system based on donations or (small, relevant) ads would be preferable over paid membership. |
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| SY |
| quote: | | if this forum becomes paid membership only??? |
That is an option that we are NOT considering. |
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| mgraves |
If it's true that we have 8,600+ members then I suggest a volunteer paid scheme. That is, I'd pay $5 USD. I bet many people would pay $2-10. After all, we build stuff. That sort of amount is trivial in the light of the parts cost of our works.
I do undertand that it's not a certain income, which is where some relevant commerical concerns should come in. Companies like Madisound or Parts Express would probably welcome the opportunity to engage such a targeted audience.
Michael Graves
mgraves@mstvp.com |
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| Netlist |
Is it a bad idea to make the 'Donations/ Paid membership' thread sticky/more visible?
I guess many people don’t notice it so this thread goes off topic with posts that should be in the other thread. (You can move this one if you whish).
I post here, solely because it has a greater chance to be viewed. (Not that I consider my words that important) ;)
IMO, the idea of a hierarchical membership is only good if it is based on objective criteria.
Personally I would prefer no hierarchy, but if it must be…
Subjective measures like the smartest, oldest, most knowledged paid/not paid or whatever you call it should be avoided. I include paid/not paid as subjective because there’s nothing more subjective than “rich” or “poor”.
AudioFreak,
Could you, if the time is right please inform how things are going?
Do we already have a new home, is no news still good news, should we keep looking?
What are the latest findings, ideas?
Thanks
/Hugo :) |
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| AudioFreak |
| My observations are that our current host probably wants us gone in the fairly near future. We are currently in negotiations with one of the members to get the next 12 months hosting covered. The beg-a-thon will go ahead in the mean time though as we still need money to cover the cost of new software and to make sure we have plenty in the bank by the time that this deal ends. I can't say that we have secured hosting for the next 12 months yet but it is looking more promising as time goes on. |
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| KBK |
| If immediate short term is required, I will pay for it as soon as tomorrow, and the calls to the people I mentioned can be made. If the month of time is needed. seriously. The offer is open. take it if needed. |
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| fdegrove |
Hi,
| quote: | | The beg-a-thon will go ahead in the mean time though as we still need money to cover the cost of new software and to make sure we have plenty in the bank by the time that this deal ends. |
Sending a dollar to OZ or the US usually costs ten times that dollar....
Not that I mind mind contributing but let's keep it at realistic levels...
Have any of you look at how AA is sponsored?
Pretty unobtrusive if you ask me...Not a short term solution but still a viable solution to long term financing.
Cheers,;) |
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| Jason |
Hi guys,
Thanks for the continued support. We're getting closer to working something out, but as a guide and a fallback, I think grabbing a server at rackshack.net for $100/$120 a month could be considered the 'lowest common denominator'. That comes with 700GB of bandwidth, and it would be our own box which makes things a lot easier. The acehost thing appears to be a virtual server, and only comes with 1gb of HD space, and the offer from KBK is probably way over the top in terms of cost.
The only problems with rackshack is that their ram is very expensive, and the site might not cope to well with an underpowered server. Time will tell.
If anyone can find a better offer than rackshack please post it in this thread. Thanks!
Jason |
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| Jason |
| By the way, I must say thank you to all of you who have offered to cover the hosting (costs) in the short term in order to keep the site running. Your offers are very kind, and very generous. Don't stress too much - I will personally guarantee the hosting will be paid for and the site will stay up (unless VO pull the rug from under us without notice - which would make both me and sitepoint very unhappy, as there are other sites still being hosted on this server...(!)). |
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| nfway |
Hello,
Have you considered using a cache server to reduce overall bandwidth usage? Attachments and all other miscellaneous site graphics could be cached, reducing bandwidth consumption and possibly enhancing server performance. Which, in the end, would mean less critical requirements server side.
I'm not really sure how it would work on the Unix side, as I am from the other world (Microsoft... sorry), but this seemed to work out rather well at some of the sites I've worked on.
Just a thought.
If you are interested, let me know, and I can ask around if anyone has any Cisco boxes left over. I had heard someone I know talk about one recently.
N |
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| MWP |
| quote: | Originally posted by nfway
Hello,
Have you considered using a cache server to reduce overall bandwidth usage? Attachments and all other miscellaneous site graphics could be cached, reducing bandwidth consumption and possibly enhancing server performance. Which, in the end, would mean less critical requirements server side.
|
Squid cache will do this at the server end.
But how will it reduce bandwidth?
The same data still needs to be sent.
It also wouldnt have an effect of server perfomance either, because most of the large attached data is handled via the forums, not static links which means the cache will always pass the requests on to Apache anyway. |
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| AudioFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by nfway
Hello,
Have you considered using a cache server to reduce overall bandwidth usage? Attachments and all other miscellaneous site graphics could be cached, reducing bandwidth consumption and possibly enhancing server performance. Which, in the end, would mean less critical requirements server side. |
I've done alot of work on this front already and once we have the next 12 months hosting sorted out, I will be writing (or heavily modifying existing code) to cache as much of the content as is practical. I'll also write some code to detect google bots and give them 304 'Not Modified' responses on pages that haven't changed since they last visited. This should save us a fairly large amount of bandwidth and server load (you'd be amazed just how demanding the approx. 4000 google bots are that visit us within a period of just a few hrs at the start of each month). But, for a great deal of the content, caching is only going to have limitted success due to the quantity of dynamic content that varies between users etc. |
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| mazzanet |
have a look at SniperHQ hosting (www.sniperhq.net). im with them and they have very good service.
plan wise they have a plan with 40gb bandwidth/month, 5gb diskspace (not including mysql), unlimited number of mysql databases all for $23 a month. server is running linux with ssh access and php support. |
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| AudioFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by mazzanet
have a look at SniperHQ hosting (www.sniperhq.net). im with them and they have very good service.
plan wise they have a plan with 40gb bandwidth/month, 5gb diskspace (not including mysql), unlimited number of mysql databases all for $23 a month. server is running linux with ssh access and php support. |
I've read their TOS and they dont allow Bulletin Boards etc. so they are no good to us. |
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| mazzanet |
| quote: | Originally posted by AudioFreak
I've read their TOS and they dont allow Bulletin Boards etc. so they are no good to us. |
i dont see anything like that in the TOS... the only thing in it like that is the use of UBB, YABB, etc. which use flat files.
ive talked to the owner and forums like vB, phpBB are allowed. |
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| AudioFreak |
| Ok, thanks for the clarification, I only really glossed over it. If you are in contact with the owner of that hosting company, would you kindly ask him what would be acceptable use of resources and how wide a pipe would we be connected thru. |
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| mazzanet |
| quote: | Originally posted by AudioFreak
Ok, thanks for the clarification, I only really glossed over it. If you are in contact with the owner of that hosting company, would you kindly ask him what would be acceptable use of resources and how wide a pipe would we be connected thru. |
after talking to the owner some more, they would happily host diyaudio. sniperhq is on several gigabit links. |
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| darkm4n |
Hi ,
I can offer you a host ...
80 GB hdd .. ( all your's )
256 mb ram ..
unlimited trafic .........
satellite connexion ...
mysql , apache , php , ssl , perl , mail , ftp .. etc |
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| matjans |
i think i can get my hands on a 100mbit switched line at the university of utrecht (surfnet) for about two years. You guys have to supply a box though.
I'll ask around |
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| ProsonOnkyo |
Globat.com offers (7.50 per month)
2,000 MB web server space
2,000 POP e-mail Accounts
60 GB data transfer
24-hour FTP/Control Panel Access
Support for Multiple Domain Pointers ($12 per pointer)
MS FrontPage 2002, Flash, MYSQL, PHP4, PERL5 and SSI Support
Your very own cgi-bin directory
Stats Package (analyze your traffic)
Unlimited e-mail forwarding, alias & autoresponders
Geographical domain hosting
Web based e-mail
Web based account management center
Tutorials, Search Engine Optimization and Submission Scripts
24-hour Signature Support
Live Chat Support |
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| buro9 |
Jason,
I run http://www.bowlie.com/ and have very similar figures to you (30gb bandwidth).
I use a VPS5000 from Ventures Online and would recommend it very much.
They include 50gb bandwidth, and 5gb disk space.
For this it's approx £155 per month including off-server backups.
I run several method for funding this:
Donations
Subscriptions (£10 per year)
I also offer hosting accounts to utilise the spare capacity.
We nearly always have 4 months worth of funding... never slip below it... hardly ever exceed it.
I also use Google adverts to bring in approx half of the outgoing fees.
If you want to discuss all of this, then just let me know. I went through PRECISELY what you're going through... just 8 months prior.
In the meantime... I'll ask a question based on why I came here ;) Your wiki... I'm looking for one that integrates into the VB user database... yours does... where did you get it from? ;)
Cheers
David K |
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| matjans |
former offer is off, helas.
bowlie: great site! Some rather odd threads going on there.
Like it? Take a look here. |
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| buro9 |
I got a detail wrong though... it's $155 per month. That's US dollars and not pounds :) Which is currently coming out as £80 per month because the dollar is so weak.
We feedback the state of our accounts too... we have a private forum for registered users... all donations are anonymous, but we confirm them to the donors and then publish monthly accounts so that people can see their donation has added to it :) |
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| Bakmeel |
Dutch provider Concepts.nl can offer a colocate contract for €69,- per month, including traffic. Setup can add some costs.
www.concepts.nl and s.a.l.e.s.@concepts.nl (remove the dots)
Bouke |
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| AudioFreak |
| We will go with a dedicated server for the next 12 months in which time I would like to acquire a suitable server and then colocate after the 12 month period is up. |
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| dimitri |
Dan,
I think if somebody could manage a diyaudio backup on CD collection, I will be the first to spend $20-50 for it. It is much convenient to search at local machine, and a small amount could go for hosting. |
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| AudioFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by dimitri
Dan,
I think if somebody could manage a diyaudio backup on CD collection, I will be the first to spend $20-50 for it. It is much convenient to search at local machine, and a small amount could go for hosting. |
I will consider coding things such as this once we are on a new server but in the mean time, the only thing I have time for is finding us a new server. |
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| Tensop |
| quote: | Originally posted by dimitri
Dan,
I think if somebody could manage a diyaudio backup on CD collection, I will be the first to spend $20-50 for it. It is much convenient to search at local machine, and a small amount could go for hosting. |
Why cd? diyaudios entire content would fit on a hdd considered average size in 1998 :) |
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| AudioFreak |
| There is approx. 1GB of content on the site so we are already well into a 2nd CD. |
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| dimitri |
Dan,
it is nice to hear about your plans. So make an announcement that the CDs would be ready later e.g. in summer and gather prepayment. I think that we all can wait, but to stimulate the prepayment you can make a price a little less for those who pay now, then later in summer. |
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| Christer |
| quote: | Originally posted by Tensop
Why cd? |
Of course, some of the members would probably prefer it
on vinyl. :) |
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| planet10 |
| quote: | Originally posted by dimitri
that the CDs would be ready later |
I'm gonna guess here that AF is talking about the number of CDs it takes to do a back-up of the database.... putting diyAudio on a CD to use on your home computer would be some effort, since being a database there would have to be aps to run it.
dave |
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| koolscooby |
| quote: | Originally posted by planet10
I'm gonna guess here that AF is talking about the number of CDs it takes to do a back-up of the database.... putting diyAudio on a CD to use on your home computer would be some effort, since being a database there would have to be aps to run it.
dave |
Right... and it'd have to be a 3rd party (probably) self-coded app, because of the vB licensing stuff... there may be issues there? (with the database structure that is issued) |
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| AudioFreak |
| I would infact have to export it all as pre-processed html files and probably a custom database, mess with the look of the thing a bit and then put those on cd. In other words, for me it'll be a big job, for the server, it'll be a really big job. |
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| culcanmar |
Dear diy-ers,
Maybe a friend of mine can help out. He has a server connected to the internet with 100mbit/s up- and downstream.
Presently he has a configuration with the following specs:
- AMD XP 1800+
- 1GB RAM
Apache with MySQL and PHP
He is willing to offer serverspace for a while, but there is only one problem, he doesn't have permission to directly connect a dns name or domain name to the ip-adress of the server.
If you're still interested you could please post a reply or send me a mail,
Regards,
Martin Straver
Tjeerd Hoogendijk |
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| Bakmeel |
You are probably talking about a connection on the University of Twente. (very probable looking at your IP).
Forget it. When the network managers (SNT - Students Network Twente) find out, you will immediately be cut from the network. Besides that, the traffic DIYaudio generates (30 GB per month) leaves you with little bandwith left for yourself (15 GB max per week)
We could try asking those SNT guys themself if the Uni wants to provide a colocation. If that works, there's no problem, but do not defeat the SNT. We could try to persuade SNT with the argument that DIYaudio holds a lot of knowledge and ketting that knowledge inside is already quite some prestige (and the Uni is quite fond of prestige)
We could also try to work it through the student union.
Bouke |
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| Vikash |
I can offer the following for £125 monthly or £1250 yearly.
P3 866
1GB RAM
2 x 9GB SCSI HW RAID
*50 GB per month
*100Mb/s switch port
*24/7 support
*99.9% SLA
Sign up for two years and the hardwarwe becomes yours on a rent-to-own scheme.
Choose the linux distro.
I know the cpu isn't much. I will see what else is lying around if you're interested... |
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