Tue, January 25th, 2005 by Brandon Stone
Well... it looks like the Photoblogs.org server cannot continue to handle the amount of traffic that it's getting. We've basically hit the limit.
Now what?
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January 25th, 2005 at 11:10 am
Wow. Time for meatier servers? How much will it cost?
There are approximately 8000 blogs listed here. If you had a fund drive, I'm sure you could get one out of every four of us to donate a dollar or two. That's a pretty good chunk of change.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:10 am
I'd go here to ask, if I were you:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/
January 25th, 2005 at 11:12 am
Maybe split it into differnt servers?
I dont know, if its possible....
If not possible, maybe split it by continents?
I'm shure you will find some sponsors for extra webspace or an extra server.
Tell us, what you need, to fix the problem.
Here is a big community, waiting to help you
January 25th, 2005 at 11:21 am
i'm sure there are enough of us who would donate a dollar or two... especially if you would create an extra listing of those who contributed...? not really fair to those that can't afford the money, but if that's the way to go...
January 25th, 2005 at 11:22 am
Brandon, dude... I know that this has all been about passion and a love of the art but you are sitting on a gold mine here... start selling ad space to the likes of Adorama or BH Photo. A couple of banner ads never hurt anyone. These companies will jump all over it with the amount of traffic you are generating.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:22 am
What is the bottleneck? Is it server capacity? - in which case can we help out with more RAM or a faster box? Or more boxes?
Perhaps some functionality could be scaled back as a short term solution - like maybe not calculating the topsites on the fly, but instead hourly or something. That might be a big chunk of CPU time right there.
If bandwidth is an issue, perhaps you could host your images somewhere else. That is an easy way to share the load. Good idea for photobloggers hosting sites on slow connections too.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:25 am
Let's not start the ad debate here. I think it is a topic worthy of it's own post.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:28 am
I, for one would be more than willing to pay a dollar or two for this service if it comes to it.
Hope you get up and running again, soon
January 25th, 2005 at 11:34 am
Well, I think there could be a couple of things to do...
1. No matter what people think, I believe the ad banners are a good idea - so as long as they're photography/blogging related. With the amount of traffic you generate, you should be fine with hosting.
2. Make people host their own images. Most people use your buttons from your host as stated in the HTML you run. They may be small in size, but multiply this by 8000 folks, 365 days a year... it adds up.
3. Perhaps make a deal with your host. Some hosts give you more bandwidth/free months if you have a small text ad that reads, "Photoblogs.org hosted by ___" with a link to their site. Worth a shot.
4. Some kind of voting system that will be triggered by your server, but won't go crazy in loading every detail. I thought the move you made recently in having the voting list be a separate page was a great step.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:38 am
At some point you will need to move to bigger servers (assuming it is a server size problem) or a more expensive piece of bandwidth.
I guess the question really is how do I pay for all that additional expense? It seems to me there are just a couple of options that you can use individually or in combination:
(1) voluntary contributions by the individual members - perhaps adding some special mark or annotation for those who donate and those who donate above some level
(2) sell banner add space;
(3) set up a more exclusive arrangement with a sponsor
(4) look for a small group of people who are willing to split the cost of the upgrade and monthly fees and maintain the 'commercial free' nature of the site.
I think most people would prefer some combination of 1 and 4 but few will object to adding 2 and 3 as required.
Can you give us an idea of how much capacity you are using now and how fast it;s growing - maybe a small group could be easily found for an interim upgrade.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:44 am
pull the plug?
or ads, fund drive, etc.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:44 am
I don't think you need to put banner ads all over the place to collect money. The Mirror Project, for example, functions with one small ad on the front page....
http://www.mirrorproject.com/
which is done in good taste and is never obstrusive or ugly. More important, though, are the contributions from members, and not just a dollar or two.... though, that maybe all some could afford. Lots of people chipped in a lot more than a dollar.
When heather called for help, she got enough money from contributors to buy another server.
You can collect money through PayPal. They have a donation type system in place for this sort of thing.
Here's how The Mirror Project achieves this...
http://www.mirrorproject.com/support/
Good luck!
January 25th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Bandwidth isn't an issue. Photoblogs.org doesn't really serve any graphics.
It's really just about CPU usage. I've tweaked the code as much as I have time to right now, but I'm still killing the machine.
I basically need to get onto a different server. I've been using Verio's VPS product up to this point, but they just can't handle the load anymore.
http://www.verio.com/hosting/shared/vmps/vps/v2pro.cfm
Verio's next package up is way too expensive.
http://www.verio.com/hosting/shared/vmps/mps/freebsd.cfm
I've talked to Rackspace... They're cheaper, but they're a little more expensive than I'd hoped.
I do like the idea of Managed Hosting versus Dedicated Hosting since that requires less personal attention from me.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:47 am
To clarify... I'd like to find some Managed Dedicated Hosting rather than just plain old Dedicated Hosting.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:48 am
Brandon -- have you considered changing hosting services? Send me an email -- I'd like to help out in some way -- this place is very important to our community -- it's our hub...
January 25th, 2005 at 11:49 am
Please... no ads...
In my opinion, a donation system is the best idea.
Jim
January 25th, 2005 at 11:50 am
I say go the donation/membership fee route rather than big ads. Also, I'm guessing that at least 20% of the blogs listed here are inactive. Perhaps you could ask for volunteers to help locate them and do some housekeeping? I'd be willing to help with anything you need, including devising a membership drive.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:50 am
A way to make the site more efficient would be to alter the site features so that they are less code/database intensive. Get rid of the "referrers" sidebar. Alter the code to make the profile and ranking pages published to the hard drive, rather than dynamically generated. That way there is no CPU craziness, and bandwidth is the only bottleneck.
Of course, this involves a lot of work...
January 25th, 2005 at 11:55 am
Brandon, have you checked out ViaVerio? They are the same as Verio, but for resellers. You would have a big enough of an account, I think, to qualify. You may need to gather up some money for this as it will cost more than what you're paying now. The tech support at ViaVerio is EXCELLENT and if you call them up they should be able to tell you exactly what you need to make this happen...
http://www.viaverio.com
January 25th, 2005 at 11:57 am
matt makes a really good pt. a large majority of these site are probably no longer in use. making profiles that have not been used for a declared period of time inactive, may help.
January 25th, 2005 at 11:58 am
This site is very important to the photoblogging community and I would be quite happy to contribute a small donation to keep the site going. I'm not an expert on the costs of hosting or the facilities you might need, but I'm sure enough people would contribute to cover the likely costs?
Creating a simple 'Friends of Photoblogs' section where members who contribute are listed (but not given any other preferential treatment) would be appropriate. I would prefer that over advertising - although I wouldn't have a problem with ads if they were necessary.
I wish you luck in resolving the issue!
January 25th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
Brandon, I think a small group of anon donors could allow you to make the transition to a managed server ( yes, managed is much better - dedicated is a hair shirt ).
You can then think about the longer term options and balance between donations vs sponsorship. It's an important decision an you may want to take your time making it.
I'm putting my hand up to help.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
I agree with rooks, all the list generating 'on demand' must be killing the CPU...
January 25th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
my first thought: this wonderful platform cannot remain free in the long run. it's just a consequence of success: costs are exploding.
my second thought: a problem might be, that photoblogs.org mainly provides just links, not webspace. that makes me wonder if new photobloggers would agree to pay a fee for a simple link referring to their site as a number 467 of the top 500...
for my site, photoblogs.org has become something like my "home", so personally i'm willing to pay for this great service and for being part of this precious community.
but then, i think, also some major changes would become indispensable. such as a renovation of the voting system for example, which has already reached an absurd level of disproportionalism.
maybe many thing should and could be done, and i think it's definitely positive to face crucial questions now.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
"We're gonna need a bigger boat!"
Outgrowing your box is a symtom of success. Congratulations! The serivce you are providing has real value, and I would gladly pony up something to help cover the cost of a faster server.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
Not to turn this into "me too" fest, but in a very short while I've also become quite attached to the photoblogs.org community. I'd certainly donate money to fund a server upgrade, and I suspect most would.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
I say kick out chromasia, it must be because of his popularity.
I'd send you some bucks; I don't have technical expertise to suggest anything else.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Brandon,
Before you look at changing hosting solutions and the like, I would suggest trying to optimise bottlenecks in the codebase. Where is it slowing down? I am assuming during dynamic interactions with the database. My advice (and I design enterprise software for banks) is to cache as much of the query results as you can.
Normally, we cache the result sets to memory or disk. Which option you take depends on what options your caching frameworks and/or hosting provider allow for. I'm figuring that in a managed hosting environment, disk caching might be easier for you to 'get away' with. A quick search in google has turned up http://pecl.php.net/package/APC and http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/php-caching.php but I'm not a PHP expert, so I don't know how hard or easy these things are to implement.
Obviously, CPU grunt is always going to help, but my experience dictates that a properly implemented caching architecture will cause you less grief in the long run.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Google ads never bother anyone..
January 25th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
I'm sorry, I haven't read all the replies, so this may have been suggested already, but why not ask for a "fund raiser" from members? I'm sure a lot of people are ready to donate what they can to keep the site running smoothly.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
where do i send my check??
seriously brandon, this place is the heart of the community. i for one, feel i owe you big time. without your hard work, i wouldn't have found such a marvelous group of people just as crazy and passionate as i am! put up a donation page, link, sign, banner, whatever. just do it.
er, please.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
brandon, i think you should figure out what ammount you need and then do a dropcash drive to raise that amount of money. do it annually and have the community support you.
http://www.dropcash.com/
i think it is a solution that makes the most sense given that you don't really want to take on ad management or hoping you hit your target figure each month with google ads.
when the mirror project was kicked off of dreamhost (well it was more of, we need to move you to this really expensive server or else), i had a funding drive to raise the $2,400 need to move to a new server -- in about 5 days.
http://mirrorproject.com/fundingdrive/
That was before the days of dropcash and I would have done it that way. You can ask Michael Buffington of WordPhoto of his experience with a recent similar drive.
About the ad on the Mirror Project -- I'm currently not doing the ad thing. the JPG Mag thing is me advertising another of the projects within the Heather Champ online empire. I had text ads for awhile but they were more trouble than they were worth and I'm still using the funding drive money.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
Hin, I agree fully about caching, but I realistically don't have the time to implement it at the moment.
My constant issue with the Verio VPS is that it's shared hosting... so if another user has a rogue process it slows down our site, then that creates a snowball effect of queued queries.
If I was on a dedicated server (which costs more money), that wouldn't be an issue and then I'd have time to deal with all the code optimizations that need to take place.
I'm actually working on a completely new architecture for Photoblogs.org, but since I can only work on it in my spare time, it's still a couple months away.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Dropcash may be where we're headed. Thanks Heather.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:49 pm
And thanks, everyone... for being so willing to offer assistance. I know we'll figure this out... It's just a matter of how exactly.
January 25th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
Something like dropcash would be great. I would certainly chip in. Google ads might not be the best solution simply because there is very little text content on the pages containing the ads, and therefore they will likely not be very relevant. So far 80 or 90 percent of the ads I have seen were about blog hosting or were public service announcements, meaning there is no applicable ad. Google ads might work well on blog.photoblogs.org though.
January 25th, 2005 at 1:06 pm
work it brandon. anything we can do to help we will. this site is not only a hub, but a sort of a community and home for a lot of us. I'll definitely contribute anything i can...
January 25th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
long term? Power users (people whose site has 50+ favourites) have to contribute $x a year. That or voluntary donation, both of which would work.
January 25th, 2005 at 1:33 pm
Dean Allen did a remarkable thing about a year or two ago. Drawing upon the strength and loyalty of the Textpattern community, he quickly marshalled founding members to help fund and help establish Textdrive.com, which provides hosting, and benefits for its founding members. I appreciate that this is not the focus of photoblogs.org, but perhaps there is a unique and valuable way to use this concept.
January 25th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
luke, or you pay $x for each favourite. popularity would have a price.
January 25th, 2005 at 1:35 pm
I'd avoid a major ad campaign except as a last resort. Start with a fund raising drive and see if that works. It sounds like it would. I for one would be willing to donate a print; perhaps others would, too.
January 25th, 2005 at 2:00 pm
I love the idea of a photoblogs.org print shop with members donating hi-res versions of their best images.
January 25th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
There's a great deal of help here Brandon. I can dontate a few $, some bandwidth (though I have little), and even some CPU on my own hosted server. The great part about this site is that you used seperate domains for each section, ie blog.phototblogs.org, wiki.photoblogs.org etc. Each of those can be migrated to a seperate server easily, code permitting. I'm also willing to work with the code if my spare time if it'll help. Keep us informed of the details. Whatever you need, I think this community can do.
January 25th, 2005 at 2:17 pm
"If I was on a dedicated server (which costs more money), that wouldn't be an issue"
Would have helped a lot to have put that in your original post. I mean really. The problem is you need $$$$, period. Suggestions have been made. Pick one and let us know where to fork over the $$, already.
January 25th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
"I love the idea of a photoblogs.org print shop with members donating hi-res versions of their best images."
It's a wondeful idea, but there's a high amount of overhead (time) in organizing sales, updating a sales site, shipping out, communicating with donators, buyers, etc. that someone would have to take on and lead time in getting it up and running and given the kind of numbers we're talking (i'm assuming thousands), i think it might be hard to reach a goal in any resonable time.
January 25th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
To Michal...
January 25th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Couldn't we use one of the pre-existing storefronts (like cafe press)?
January 25th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
Heather's right that the print shop idea would probably be too little too late to address this problem. However it's still a good idea and I'd hate to see it off the table. If a volunteer can be found who got the right organizational skills to manage it, I think it would be a wonderful thing for the site to get additional support through the photography of its members.
Perhaps if Brandon agrees with this, he could start a separate discussion on this topic after the smoke clears from his server room.
January 25th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
"Perhaps if Brandon agrees with this, he could start a separate discussion on this topic after the smoke clears from his server room."
Indeed, Joe. I like the idea... I see some interesting possibilities there. Well worth discussing further.
January 25th, 2005 at 3:02 pm
P.S. -- If anyone wants to start a new post in the blog about the aforementioned Photoblogs.org print thingy, that would be great...
January 25th, 2005 at 3:03 pm
Hi Brandon
Let me say, as my time is up tomorrow in the Top Newcomers, your forum has turned a passion into a hobby and a hobby into a passion. I've seen some dreadful photography and been inspired by some amazing work. To me the concept must continue into perpetuity and I hope others get the joy I have enjoyed, but you must also be rewarded for your outstanding selfless contribution and your attitude to allow anything, at a zero cost, to be displayed in all these open galleries.
My solution is to sell equity in your site, to allow the members to contribute through part ownership. Personally I would be happy to take a reasonable stake (if you are willing) to start the ball rolling.
What does everyone else think?
Charles
January 25th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Is there a real reason why a list of favorite voters needs to be shown? at all? does anyone really review a list of a site's voters voters and say gee, I've never heard of any of these 50 voters, I won't look?
For that matter, is there any practical reason why sites need to be ranked in terms of how many times they've been picked as a favourite? I should think that if a site has been picked 250+ times, that would be enough for any visitor to know... Or 100-249, or 50-99, and so on...
(I don't know if this simplifies things at all)
January 25th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
"My solution is to sell equity in your site, to allow the members to contribute through part ownership." -- Charles Bryant
Love it, up for it.
January 25th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
I'm with Charles. Outstanding idea.
January 25th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Happy to contribute. Count me in on Charles' idea.
January 25th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
Brandon, having this site has been an inspiration for me. It's given me the impetus to get out with my camera every day and hone my, albeit, amateur craft. To quote Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) in "Lawrence of Arabia," what I owe you is beyond estimation.
While Charles' idea of an equity stake is intriguing, you need cash ASAP. Just set up a link (Dropcash, PayPal, etc.) and I'll send you bucks, euros, rubles, pesos... you name it, you got it.
January 25th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
A lot of good ideas have been stated, I feel like I'm coming in a bit late on this.
I'm willing to help do anything I can to keep photoblogs.org alive and going.
January 25th, 2005 at 3:55 pm
i don't mean to sound like i'm down on everyone's ideas, but i think getting some share of ownership through for a donation is asking too much.
if you appreciate and enjoy the site you should be willing to make a strings free donation (through dropcash or paypal) to keep it going wheter it be a dollar, $10, $20 or $100. if you're not, that's fine too. it's up to each person what a site like photoblogs.org is worth.
January 25th, 2005 at 3:56 pm
to them.
what a site like photoblogs.org is worth to them.
January 25th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
I agree, the equity shouldn't be in question unless someone wants to make a private offer to Brandon, but this is a more immediate problem that needs attention asap.
I love the idea of photoblogs.org having a print shop, but I think that's another issue, I'd start a separate topic for it but I don't have the ability!
Donations are where it's at right now. There have to be several hundred members of this site active enough to be made aware of a donation drive to get a dedicated server set up, we can perhaps increase that by adding donations buttons to our sites.
January 25th, 2005 at 4:15 pm
Perhaps Heather misses the point - no-one wants an equity share through a donation. By definition, a donation is only a temporary measure that can at best alleviate a temporary problem... and an eratic scource of income at that!
An equity stake involves a serious investment (even if there are no rewards) to some concerned members, who have the non contributing members' interests at heart - all in the interests of maintaining the status quo of the photoblogs.org community.
We only want to help preserve what Brandon has achieved on his own for 3 odd years!
January 25th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
My site wouldn't be where it is now without photoblogs.org, nor would my photography, so Brandon, tell me where to send the money, high-res images, or whatever else you need to get things sorted.
January 25th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
My recollection of what Dean Allen did to launch textdrive was to offer 200 spots to founders at $200 each. The founders got a spiffy logo with their forum name, the ability to support a worthy cause, and (generally speaking) a lifetime of hosting (I could have this wrong -- but alot of hosting --). By doing this, Dean raised $40k in a few days (no equity in the company, as far as I know). He bought servers, Textdrive, Inc. is a going concern. It should be a case study at Wharton.
Is this the right thing for photoblogs.org? Who knows, but if Brandon wanted to break new ground, people are already lining up to help.
January 25th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
Brandon,
What is your hesitation in collecting donations?
January 25th, 2005 at 5:03 pm
Brandon - send me an email and there'll be a cheque headed your way - seriously. As others have said, it's this site that's responsible for the visibility of most of our sites. We highly appreciate it.
And if you don't want a cheque (what??!), I can offer some help on the coding side (PHP) if you want. Do feel free to contact me!
January 25th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
I've read through the comments and think ... whatever you decide Brandon, there appear to be many who are willing to contribute in any way possible. I am happy with donating through paypal or dropcash or whatever you feel is appropriate for you. You offer an opening to a wonderful community and I have met so many amazing people that I consider friends - that is priceless and am willing to support in any way needed. : )
January 25th, 2005 at 5:15 pm
I like Heather's idea. . Figure out how much you need and then do a fund raiser. Are you going to be down until you switch hosts/plans? It would be good if you could get something back up, so that you could have a way of collecting money, but I guess you could do it from the blog. It would be nice if you could set a goal in a dollar amount and then keep us all updated on the progress you make from all the donations.
January 25th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
Having a some experience in managing server farms (both web and database) I can say that caching only floats the boat so far. Plus I enjoy the "real time" aspect of Photoblogs.org. Caching works for certain content but I'm not sure its all that attractive for a site like photoblogs.org. Throwing money into a pot for Brandon to use to invest in and enhance the infrastructure sounds good to me. In my experience it's only hardware resources that conquer such a server load problem permanently and anything else is a bandaid or workaround. I would think the last thing anyone who's site becomes so popular would want is to fundmentaly change popular core functionality for the sake of performance. If the resources are provided web server load balancing and database server clustering (or at least more processors or horsepower here) should adequately handle the traffic. Unfortunately I know this takes time and dough and perhaps more so, will and interest.
January 25th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
Here's how much Brandon needs ...
As he mentions above he's currently using Verio's VPS product:
http://www.verio.com/hosting/shared/vmps/vps/v2pro.cfm
This costs him $2999.40 a year.
If he were to switch to the next package up:
http://www.verio.com/hosting/shared/vmps/mps/freebsd.cfm
It would cost $495.00 setup fee and $795.00 per month - a total of $10035.00 per annum. Which means that we'd need to raise $7035.60 to meet the shortfall for one year.
I would guess that with 8000 members that wouldn't be an unreachable target. Come on Brandon, post a PayPal link!!!!!!!
January 25th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
Brandon, you've created a wonderful community here and I'd be more than happy to contribute.
January 25th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
In the middle of a few things... Will respond when I have some time.
January 25th, 2005 at 5:43 pm
Donations are where its at. People who are serious about the site will contribute. Maybe a "Friends of Photoblog.org" for $ contributors, like musuems and galleries do..
I'll help in any way that I can.
January 25th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
Brandon,
I'll second that proposition of a deal a la Textdrive as Dean Allen did : allocate resources set the price and get x virtual shareholders in photoblogs.org : server paid, no ads no banners no paypal buttons, plain photoblogs.org supported by its most dedicated members.
January 25th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
I have re-read all the willing responses to your question ... Now what?
The community seems to have voted with their suggestions
The ball seems to be in your court now Brandon!
Look forward to your response
Brita
January 25th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
mickael, what about the people who might not have those kinds of funds, but would like to contribute? donations enable people to give what they can and let everyone feel like they've done some good.
just because it's donation driven doesn't mean that you couldn't set a dropcash for something like $10,000.
i'd like to find a way to raise enough $$$ to ensure that nothing is coming out of his pocket rather than just defray the difference of what he's currently spending and the new amount.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
Those are some expensive servers.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
I'd be willing to help this site with a donation. And I don't think members would mind a nicely placed ad or two if that's a solution. Do what you can, just keep this site running please!
January 25th, 2005 at 6:10 pm
Just to add another "I'll be happy to contribute" voice. Look at what happened when Chromogenic was down with similar issues. Quite a few of us chipped in and Justin was back up.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:11 pm
Verio's pricing for private servers seems awfully steep. We're using a server at The Planet (theplanet.com), and get our own Dual Xeon 2.8Ghz box with a big SCSI RAID with 150G usable space, 2G RAM, and 2000GB data transfer a month for $349/mo. They've got lots of different server options -- for what you're paying now a month with Verio, you could get the same thing I just described but without the RAID. You can choose Windows, FreeBSD, or Debian or Red Hat Linux. I've been extremely happy with the hosting since we switched to them, and would definitely recommend you check out their server plans.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:21 pm
Just wanted to add that I'd be another person prepared to make a contribution to keep this site up and on the go.
I had a site on fotolog and was sad to see how it went downhill when it got popular.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
I think the Verio dedicated servers are too expensive. I'm currently talking to someone at Rackspace. Hopefully, we can get a good deal, especially since this would be funded by all our donations.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
Eeps. I guess this is a double-edged sword for you. Good for you that you've become so successful.
My .02:
No ads, please. I think banner ads really cheapen a site.
I like the idea of a donation drive or a "special section" for people who contribute funds to the maintenance of this site.
Please don't get rid of the referrer section. I think it's an important tool for users to get some publicity for their site.
Oh... and I'm going to plug Protagonist Web Hosting. Their rates are exceedingly reasonable. Seriously.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
Brandon, I think you should check out the pricing at ViaVerio. Though, you do have to spend a certain amount and/or have more than one account, the pricing is cheaper if you do it as a reseller. It's actually possible to have just one account with them, if it's a VPS (virtual private server) account...
http://www.viaverio.com/index.cfm?page_id=11
I've never known a site on one of these servers to run slow, including sites with large databases and ecommerce.
I think you should call them up and just ask...
1.888.224.9346
ViaVerio, although part of Verio, offers different pricing and excellent technical support.
January 25th, 2005 at 6:54 pm
I forgot to add in my last comment that aside from shared and dedicated hosting a relatively newer third option is clustered hosting (all hosted sites share all the hosts resources). Particlularly good idea for PHP/mySQL driven web applications. Not many ISPs have clustered hosting options at this time but there are some out ahead of the pack. One of my app. service providers uses this kind of setup. If you can afford dedicated hosting with our donations then cool but if you want to have the power of a "Google like" massive server farm but don't want to build it yourself check out something like http://www.concentric.com/hostingClustered.php. Or just Google "clustered hosting". Thanks for all your work Brandon and when that donate link is up I'll be throwing in.
January 25th, 2005 at 7:01 pm
Tara, I'm currently on a Verio VPS, which is being maxed out. I've talked to their tech support dozens of times and it looks like I just need to move to some kind of dedicated solution. Can I get a dedicated managed server through ViaVerio for less than what Verio quotes here?
http://www.verio.com/hosting/shared/vmps/mps/freebsd.cfm
January 25th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
wow, brandon. that's out of hand steep.
you may be able to talk to http://www.tilted.com or http://www.mediatemple.com and see if they will give you what you need in exchange for a "hosted by" plug on photoblogs.org. i know it worked that way back in the heyday and it's worth a shot.
even if not, a dedicated server with tilted runs about the same as your vps with verio.
January 25th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
http://www.godaddy.com/
January 25th, 2005 at 8:44 pm
Comment overload! 8-0...
January 25th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
Not to mention..if you do make a spot for paypal donations, be sure to make one of those grey buttons that says "donate" or "print shop" for people to use on their pages.
It might help.
January 25th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
Here is even a better hosting plan
http://www.resellerstoday.com/dedicated_servers.htm
January 25th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
I know that I would swing a check your way if you could move me to the #1 photoblog. Chromasia, do you remember what it was like to be any other number but #1?
But seriously, I would love to donate. This site has been one of the best photography learning tools I have ever had. It's a great community to be a part of.
By the way I am this close (holds fingers together really, really close) to catching up to Chromasia.
January 26th, 2005 at 7:00 am
Re hosting; I have a number of friends using pair.com dedicated servers: check them out (I'm sure they're open for negotiations) :
http://www.pair.com/services/dedicated/
http://www.pair.com/services/high_volume/
January 26th, 2005 at 8:13 am
We're a huge community. Can't we ask to be sponsored by a major camera manufacturer like Canon or Nikon?
I'm sure they'll be interested. We represent a very interesting market for digital cameras.
January 26th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Wow! I don't know if it's a good or a bad new. It's nice to know that photoblogs.org has such an amount of trafic but... I miss VERY MUCH the 'recently added' link... I like to 'discover' good photographers on my free time. Hope your problem will solve soon.
January 26th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
eigentlich habt ihr ja recht, alle 8000 photoblog-besitzer sollten doch einfach jeder 1 dollar spenden, oder auch mehr, davon wird halt was ordentliches an rechner gemietet. do tit now, ruft eine spendenaktion zum klassenerhalt der photoblogs auf...
January 26th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
I would check out the guys over at http://www.2advanced.net -- I'm pretty sure that they would be the most stable, and would be willing to bargain with the pricing if you had "hosted by" links. Not to mention, as it is, the price is cheaper than what you've already been quoted.
January 26th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
OK, so there's another Cameron around here now....(Hi Cameron!) I can dig it.
Did you know our name means "crooked nose"? (probably did, but I've been surprised by the number of Cameron's that don't know that - not that it's any big deal)
Sorry Brandon, the previous rambling is completely off topic...
Re: Sever Issues, like the others have said, let me know what I can do to help!
Cheers!
Cameron J. Stephen
:-)>
January 26th, 2005 at 3:02 pm
Now I'm just looking for the right host. After that we'll know what dollar amount to put into Dropcash.
January 26th, 2005 at 4:23 pm
hey brandon can you let me know what your hardware and bandwidth needs are, and i'll ask around among friends here. i host a lot of small websites myself and have friends/partners running managed hosting in toronto.
January 26th, 2005 at 9:19 pm
I just read this post! I owe too much to this site. Please let me know how I can help and I'll do it Brandon. Membership or donation, or any other plans you might have, count me in.
January 27th, 2005 at 11:16 am
I am totally surprised the server was even on a shared host. Brandon, you will figure it out.
Like what Sam said, I also owe this site a lot (maybe not as much as Sam does).
Victor,
your fellow FreeBSD user
January 27th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Looks like Brandon has made a decision for now (just found the link when I tried to hit the site and it was down). Let's get over there and contribute:
http://www.dropcash.com/campaign/lbstone/photoblogsorg_fund_drive/
January 27th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
Just threw 15 dollars you way. Nothing much, but if more people do that it should work out. Enough talk, time for action, people. And it would be nice to see those top 100 folks chip in as well... This site probably generates a lot of traffic to your sites and compared to the amound of money we all spend on gear, this is peanuts.
Go people, go!
- Emil
January 27th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
bloody hell have you seen the rate that % bar is going up by? Shouldn't be long till we've hit 100% at this rate! Nice one everyone
January 27th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
The mirrorproject.com model (from Heather) is a good model to follow. I was the one who suggested to Heather during that time to have a dedicated server. There are Cobalt raq4 server hosting companies that are cheap ($99.00 bucks/mo). I am sure you will be able to cover three years (or more) from the initial donation period alone. I use tera-byte.com based in Canada for dedicated servers (I have three servers with them) - 10 gigs space, 500 gigs bandwidth (http://www.4webspace.com is sales site - they actually are offering $40.00/mo for this server for their current customers, so perhaps you can talk to them about it to get a lower fee if you have a long term contract or something). cobaltracks.com based in Virginia has also some special offers.
January 27th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Thanks, Brandon. Just got hit up also. Well worth it.
Gordon
January 27th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Damn, when I donated a couple of hours ago there was 40 dollars there, now we just hit 1.000! Good job.
January 27th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Three Christmas Trees
January 27th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
"I was the one who suggested to Heather during that time to have a dedicated server."
Actually, that prize belongs to Dreamhost. They began the ball rolling by the *suggesting* I move to their dedicated hosting solution which at that time was priced well above deals like rackshack and rackspace.
Brandon, bravo on starting the Drop Cash campaign. It should zoom to 100% in no time.
January 27th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
So there, $25 from me. It's worth every cent, and I am (deservedly) at the bottom of any rankings. I come here pretty much every day, it's my news.google.com for photos. This site has some amazing potential, without any ads. So, thanks to everyone here, and to Brandon in particular (where does he find the time???)!
January 27th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
Wow. I donated the first $30 and it's already hit $1500. Just goes to show that the blog/photoblog community is AWESOME.
January 27th, 2005 at 1:39 pm
Amazing response from what I can see: $1,500 already! This is going to be piece of cake. Well done, peeps.
January 27th, 2005 at 2:10 pm
Amazing - in the 40 minutes since I added my contribution, it's doubled to $1,500. Wow. What an amazing community!
January 27th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
It's incredible how quickly the people is responding to the photoblogs.org fund drive campaign. I'm very proud to be a part of this communty so I've just put my contribution to the project. We have $1,827 by now, and it doesn't seem to stop. Well done, guys!
January 27th, 2005 at 2:24 pm
towers at king
king and yonge, downtown toronto. after many gloomy days, it was refreshing to see the bright blue sky. on a a side note, apparently the bloggies site was down for the last few days and now it's up again....
January 27th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
This is really cool. I'm already thinking of setting up "Round Here's EOS 20D Fund Drive".
January 27th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
photoblogs.org in trouble
Most of you might know already, but photoblogs.org is in trouble. See how you can help Brandon to con...
January 27th, 2005 at 3:03 pm
what a great idea!
what_a_great_idea
January 27th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
I was thinking the same thing Pablo. Im thinking of using DropCash to fund the next party for my Internet Radio station!!!! This is wicked!
January 27th, 2005 at 5:21 pm
Doing really great -- we should be there in no time! ... That's what I love about this community... Great idea, Brandon...
January 27th, 2005 at 5:25 pm
I've passed on some info on your plight to the Web Consultants Association, webmasters and others across the globe.
Where is your sever located? What is it running?