Forum Traffic

[Admin]

Looks like we are going to have to up the hosting plan again - Just received the warning email again for this month saying that we have hit the 20gig a month of traffic limit - in one way but there goes an extra $500 a year in increased traffic costs

 

It is really great to see the forums used so much and please remember that if there is anything that you feel could be added here then just let me know - there must be ways we can make the greatest recreational flying forums even better :big_grin:

 

 

[vme]

Hi Ian ..

 

Have you thought of providing a PayPal donation facility to assist with forum costs?

 

Regards

 

..Vince

 

 

[Admin]

Always Vince - but the forums must always remain free and under no obligation to anyone. Besides why should some people donate and others who get exactly the same return from the forums not donate.

 

The Clear Prop shop is there for you to support that way you get something that you were going to get anyway and the forums costs are covered.

 

Perhaps I should start a Premium Service at say $40 a year and make all the features like Google Earth Airstrips, downloads, Flight Planner and some new ones etc only available to premium users - that way I could make a living from it but I would have to spend more hours working for the forums - problem is I don't have any more hours left in the day or night - in fact have a look at the time of this post and the time of the first post of the thread

 

Seriously now, Vince - thankyou for your kind suggestion! :big_grin:

 

 

[Guest disperse]

Ian, have a quick look at WEBCITY

 

They've pulled their finger out. And now offer great service, and EXCELLENT PRICING.

 

100gb of space and 500gb of traffic p/m for a mere $14.95 a month

 

I know this price is not for VPS. But it's a good indication..

 

Regards

 

Troy

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

Ian....I belong to a radio control scale aircraft forum in the USA and the costs for the chap who started that was becoming out of hand. I would be surprised if anyone thought you had to pocket the expense for this site. Last year they introduced a site supporters system where you can donate how ever much you want through paypal. You then come up with a little site supporter label above your Avatar. Most donate around the $10-$20 a year which is not too expensive considering what we get from the Forum. At this time there are around 2000 members here. Not all would be active I understand. Take half of those at a 1000 members. If each donated $5 that would be $5000 which would help a little im sure. No one is forced to pay. Then again maybe I should just shut my mouth.....

 

Scotty :big_grin:

 

 

[Admin]

Never shut your mouth here Scotty as long as it falls within the forums rules, policies and guidelines

 

All the old forum members would know so for the sake of new ones - 4.5 years ago I made the promise when I established these forums that they will ALWAYS remain FREE and at no obligation to anyone - I will always uphold that promise - after all, all a man has of any real value is his word.

 

I do however truly thank you for your comments and ideas

 

The problem with donations is only the decent and respectable people make them yet those that don't get exactly the same out of the forums as those that do so I have always felt it was unfair - if there was a way that the decent and respectable people were rewarded some way for it then that would be another matter - those that don't make a donation don't get rewarded or less of a service - that would be a better way to go.

 

Thanks again and oh, the reason why these forums will always remain free - because you can't expect someone to have to pay for some information that may save their life :big_grin:

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

Your call Ian....The other forum I mentioned in my previous post has a Site Supporter reward system. It is not a lot and doesnt really cost anything but offers things like a monthly photo walk around of a different aircraft. One of my goals is to build a Piper J3 Cub replica. At Natfly this year I was introduced to a very nice chap who had his Cub there. He allowed me to take a few hundred photos of every part of the plane and with his permission, I donated that to my other forum which he sells for $10 to support the site or alternatively offers as a monthly walkaround to site supporters. When building radio control models, sometimes with out plans, you need all the pictures you can get. probably doesnt sound like much to most on here but it is to us. The chap who started that forum also has a few companies on line that offer discounts etc only to site supporters. It doesnt have to be a lot. Everyone wins, even the misers who cant part with a few dollars, and that is all it is, a few dollars!

 

Scotty :big_grin:

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

Three ideas:

 

1. Contact Internode and see if they will do you a deal; Simon Hacket is an avid aviator I hear. (Soaring at Gawler)

 

2. Put some Google ads on the site. If I can make over $300/year on my personal website, you should be able to recoup some of your costs.

 

3. Traffic shouldn't be priced this way. Boycot Australian ISPs that do so and move your business elsewhere, probably the US. This is an australian site with the majority of its traffic being inside Australia. Yet ISPs charge you as if you are paying for expensive transit. The irony is that by moving to the US, the ISPs lose hosting fees and incur increased traffic costs. What are they thinking?

 

I share a server with some friends in the UK, in Telehouse. (and it is blindingly fast to Australia. Latency? What latency!) The guy that runs the co-location is one of the smartest Cisco/Networking guys you will meet, peers with tons of ISPs and he recently introduced virtual servers. 1GB RAM and 80GB disk for GBP250/year. Included bandwidth is 1mbps at 95th percentile, i.e.: you get full speed to the internet, and no traffic cost ever as long as your usage remains less that 1mbps 95% of the time, so spikes don't count. A forum such as this will never see a bandwidth charge that way and you will have server + bandwidth for the same annual amount as you are increasing your bill with now.

 

Just a thought.

 

 

[Admin]

A lot of the longer forum members will know the disaster that I had when I was tempted by the grass being greener scenario once before - one of the worst weeks of both mine and this site's life

 

I spoke to webcity and their servers are Australian and they own them but they don't have VPS and nor do they offer any type of hosting where I can have Red5

 

Perhaps it may be worth setting up a test site there and get you all to hammer it and see what happens - I could always get Red5 hosting as a stand alone plan elsewhere

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

Some other thoughts:

 

You cleverly already serve all your PHP generated pages using gzip, but the stylesheets and js files are not. You could install an Apache module that compresses those also.

 

Static images are served without any cache-control or Expires headers. They never change, but probably get loaded too often. You could set up apache to serve .gif and .jpg files with long Expires: headers.

 

Every generated page is now set to Cache-Control: private. This means that even if you use the back button, it gets reloaded. So if I do one "today's posts" and then look at a thread, hit back, look at another thread, etc. and do this 10 times, I have just transfered 260kb instead of just 26kb! I would imagine many people look at the forums this way and you could make a big savings if you don't.

 

I would not put any cache-control directive on any forum pages at all. In fact, I have never done this on any website I have implemented (except once for one paranoid client) and it works just fine. Browsers are smart that way and users know how to hit refresh if they thing the page is stale...

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

nor do they offer any type of hosting where I can have Red5

Red5? You mean the open source flash server thingy? What is that used for here?

 

 

[slartibartfast]

Red5? You mean the open source flash server thingy? What is that used for here?

When I can find a decent Webchat client - video conferencing, webchat and webseminars.

Any suggestions?

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

When I can find a decent Webchat client - video conferencing, webchat and webseminars.Any suggestions?

I am afraid not. If you just want chat rooms, you could do worse than use http://www.meebo.com/rooms/foryoursite/

 

 

[Admin]

I am afraid not. If you just want chat rooms, you could do worse than use http://www.meebo.com/rooms/foryoursite/

No it needs to be a video conferencing facility to have interactive presentations by video - we use to use and still have the software licence for Flashcoms (http://flashcoms.com) but we need something better

 

 

[Admin]

Some other thoughts:You cleverly already serve all your PHP generated pages using gzip, but the stylesheets and js files are not. You could install an Apache module that compresses those also.

 

Static images are served without any cache-control or Expires headers. They never change, but probably get loaded too often. You could set up apache to serve .gif and .jpg files with long Expires: headers.

 

Every generated page is now set to Cache-Control: private. This means that even if you use the back button, it gets reloaded. So if I do one "today's posts" and then look at a thread, hit back, look at another thread, etc. and do this 10 times, I have just transfered 260kb instead of just 26kb! I would imagine many people look at the forums this way and you could make a big savings if you don't.

 

I would not put any cache-control directive on any forum pages at all. In fact, I have never done this on any website I have implemented (except once for one paranoid client) and it works just fine. Browsers are smart that way and users know how to hit refresh if they thing the page is stale...

Try that now mate!

I have shaved some off the loading time in the css and images