The response to this thread has been amazing so far. Just want to say thank you to everyone that is helping keep this place alive. My monies will be sent after next paycheck.
When should donations be in by? I'd be happy to donate $60 after I find out for sure if I'm going to be working in a couple weeks and not put on furlough.
At this time we have no end date in mind. Many users have PMed saying they will donate when they are able and that's perfectly fine, as we don't want anyone who shouldn't be donating to donate. No one should donate money that needs to go to bills, etc. Thanks again everyone. NA Rocks because of the great community, aka all of you!
Not sure when I can drop the funds yet. Probably when I get the second part of my tax refund. Love yous. And also, Paul - one of the guys posted about alternate forms of payment since not everyone uses PayPal. How can we go about doing that?
For future years, I think we should all send dupes to Paul and have him auction them off. I volunteer Paul, cause it would be a lot of work, and the only carts he'd keep for himself would be crap.
Edit - I sent the donation as "payment for services". Is there a specific set of steps that should be followed. (Gift, etc..). I thought I remembered someone having problems before when they received too many gifts.
Originally posted by: albailey I sent the donation as "payment for services". Is there a specific set of steps that should be followed. (Gift, etc..). I thought I remembered someone having problems before when they received too many gifts.
Al
That's a good point. If Paypal caps you on the amount of gifts you can receive, how do we send the paypal payment then? As a regular payment (+30 cents + 3%) to ensure you guys get the full $60?
He has it set up so it takes the fee even if you send it as a gift. Just keep the box that says I agree to pay the fee and Dain will receive the full $60, while you will be charged slightly higher.
I doubt you get 100 concurrent user everytime (e.g. each second), that sound insane for only one server (especially if database driven, etc.), but you are probably meaning something else or my doubt are wrong! ;-) How many unique visitor and page hits you get a day?
And if you are currently running only one server, then separating the DB and the WEB should greatly improve performance. I don't know what kind of server you look for at 550$/month, but maybe there is a cheaper alternative? Look at iWeb price for example (http://iweb.com/dedicated/smart-servers/), hint: they also often have servers on "sale" if you keep your eyes open and I am sure there is other hosting company maybe cheaper, but it makes a while I have not shop for this, but http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ was one of the place to go to get some information back then. Any special needs? I see you guys run Coldfusion.
I doubt you get 100 concurrent user everytime (e.g. each second), that sound insane for only one server (especially if database driven, etc.), but you are probably meaning something else or my doubt are wrong! ;-) How many unique visitor and page hits you get a day?
And if you are currently running only one server, then separating the DB and the WEB should greatly improve performance. I don't know what kind of server you look for at 550$/month, but maybe there is a cheaper alternative? Look at iWeb price for example (http://iweb.com/dedicated/smart-servers/), hint: they also often have servers on "sale" if you keep your eyes open and I am sure there is other hosting company maybe cheaper, but it makes a while I have not shop for this, but http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ was one of the place to go to get some information back then. Any special needs? I see you guys run Coldfusion.
If you don't know what your talking about, I think the best thing to do is donate if you can and not question the architecture and how things are configured. Hosting quotes are more than likely determined by total bandwidth usage. So when you have NA and SA which are two unique domains, depending on the logical and physical configuration require 2 databases and some type of storage for file serving. I am willing to bet 550 a month is a good price for the SLA they sign with Dain.
I doubt you get 100 concurrent user everytime (e.g. each second), that sound insane for only one server (especially if database driven, etc.), but you are probably meaning something else or my doubt are wrong! ;-) How many unique visitor and page hits you get a day?
And if you are currently running only one server, then separating the DB and the WEB should greatly improve performance. I don't know what kind of server you look for at 550$/month, but maybe there is a cheaper alternative? Look at iWeb price for example (http://iweb.com/dedicated/smart-servers/), hint: they also often have servers on "sale" if you keep your eyes open and I am sure there is other hosting company maybe cheaper, but it makes a while I have not shop for this, but http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ was one of the place to go to get some information back then. Any special needs? I see you guys run Coldfusion.
You're correct that separating the 2 servers (one web, one db) will greatly improve performance. In fact, that's the initial goal of getting the second server. I broke the golden rule when I opened NA by not putting it on 2 servers, but we simply couldn't afford it and didn't know if anyone would actually show up to the party.
The 100 users is referring to concurrency as it relates to "within a 5 minute window". So during peak times, there are over 100 users within a 5 minute span actively requesting pages. The JRun server is configured to only process 10 concurrent requests to prevent bottlenecking. Any higher, and it would be crashing instead of timing out. Right now NA is getting between 1.4 and 2.2 million hits a month -- that's a decent amount for single machine with 2 GB of RAM.
The new server isn't $550 a month -- that's for both servers, so basically $200/mo. ea. + daily backups + memory upgrade on the db server. I can get servers for as low as $100/mo. by getting "outlet" equipment but the additional memory required for ColdFusion and SQL Server raises the costs monthly. The links you posted are about on-par with the company we use (SoftLayer). It's all the nickel and dime stuff that bring the cost up.
As I told Paul the other day, we have a few options that can drop the price per month, but that leaves very little room for growth, and we'd be back again at square one in no time, especially with some of the new features I'm working on (marketplace). And let me tell you that migrating servers isn't exactly a lot of fun and it's very time-consuming, and frankly, I don't want to have to do it every year. If we end up not raising enough for 1 year, we'll probably go the cheap route again and just hope it works out.
I want to say thanks to everyone who has donated or plans to. I was very reluctant to hold a fundraiser of any sort as it's always an uncomfortable place to be, asking for handouts. When donations and affiliate money get low, I always pay out-of-pocket to keep NA open, but if we jump to this new price tier, I simply can't do it -- I need help. The only alternative I saw was to chop one feature at a time in order to improve performance, or close shop, and I really don't want that.
I want to say thanks to everyone who has donated or plans to. I was very reluctant to hold a fundraiser of any sort as it's always an uncomfortable place to be, asking for handouts. When donations and affiliate money get low, I always pay out-of-pocket to keep NA open, but if we jump to this new price tier, I simply can't do it -- I need help. The only alternative I saw was to chop one feature at a time in order to improve performance, or close shop, and I really don't want that.
I wouldn't consider this asking for handouts. I would consider this asking for help from a group of folks for which you've put in countless hours of work (and your own cash) to provide an incredible service. When I saw this thread, I didn't even think twice. I immediately sent over $75. Since I've been here (almost two years), I don't think I've seen a thread asking for money. Meanwhile, other free services hold annual drives to raise cash so they can thrive. I just got done listening to a week's worth of donation requests on NPR. If you use the service, and you know someone else is breaking their back to provide it for you, I feel like it's your obligation to donate a little bit of cash to help keep it going. I speak only for myself here. I'm not trying to put words in the mouths of others. Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate this site, and it only made sense to help support it.
That being said, I think we should have some sort of "counter" in the OP so we know how close we're getting. Don't want to have to go the "cheap" route here and hope for the best
Comments
20 sent!
Do you need some kind of confirmation to prove we donated?
I was so fricken bored last night without Nintendoage. I'd pay $5/month in a heartbeat! Hell, I'd pay $5 a month just to get another icon
Do you need some kind of confirmation to prove we donated?
No, I'll work with Dain on getting a list together of all who donated.
Thanks everyone for all the support.
Go Team NA or something.
Donation sent! No NA = No friends
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=marketing_us/send_money
For future years, I think we should all send dupes to Paul and have him auction them off. I volunteer Paul, cause it would be a lot of work, and the only carts he'd keep for himself would be crap.
Al
I sent the donation as "payment for services". Is there a specific set of steps that should be followed. (Gift, etc..). I thought I remembered someone having problems before when they received too many gifts.
Al
That's a good point. If Paypal caps you on the amount of gifts you can receive, how do we send the paypal payment then? As a regular payment (+30 cents + 3%) to ensure you guys get the full $60?
good luck with your fundraiser!
Rick
money sent, thanks for all the hard work behind the scenes guys.
60.00 sent from the Portland Retro Gaming Expo.
good luck with your fundraiser!
Rick
Indeed, all of us at PRGE hope you hit your goal and we look forward to seeing some of you at the Expo in Portland!
Chuck
If you don't know what your talking about, I think the best thing to do is donate if you can and not question the architecture and how things are configured. Hosting quotes are more than likely determined by total bandwidth usage. So when you have NA and SA which are two unique domains, depending on the logical and physical configuration require 2 databases and some type of storage for file serving. I am willing to bet 550 a month is a good price for the SLA they sign with Dain.
You're correct that separating the 2 servers (one web, one db) will greatly improve performance. In fact, that's the initial goal of getting the second server. I broke the golden rule when I opened NA by not putting it on 2 servers, but we simply couldn't afford it and didn't know if anyone would actually show up to the party.
I want to say thanks to everyone who has donated or plans to. I was very reluctant to hold a fundraiser of any sort as it's always an uncomfortable place to be, asking for handouts. When donations and affiliate money get low, I always pay out-of-pocket to keep NA open, but if we jump to this new price tier, I simply can't do it -- I need help. The only alternative I saw was to chop one feature at a time in order to improve performance, or close shop, and I really don't want that.
I wouldn't consider this asking for handouts. I would consider this asking for help from a group of folks for which you've put in countless hours of work (and your own cash) to provide an incredible service. When I saw this thread, I didn't even think twice. I immediately sent over $75. Since I've been here (almost two years), I don't think I've seen a thread asking for money. Meanwhile, other free services hold annual drives to raise cash so they can thrive. I just got done listening to a week's worth of donation requests on NPR. If you use the service, and you know someone else is breaking their back to provide it for you, I feel like it's your obligation to donate a little bit of cash to help keep it going. I speak only for myself here. I'm not trying to put words in the mouths of others. Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate this site, and it only made sense to help support it.