LPtP business discussion thread

[westofyou]

Roy and RFS62, Ochra and anyone else, I talked with GIK and have offered to help them try and set up a study to find the usage problems, I also think we can help get a mission statement together and a better payment setup that frees the principals from being the only ones involved.

What we need is the business acumen of the folks on this board and I'm hoping that you guys can lend a hand.

Gotta run to the airport (parents need a ride) I suggest we touch on this when I return.

[RFS62]

Roy and RFS62, Ochra and anyone else, I talked with GIK and have offered to help them try and set up a study to find the usage problems, I also think we can help get a mission statement together and a better payment setup that frees the principals from being the only ones involved.

What we need is the business acumen of the folks on this board and I'm hoping that you guys can lend a hand.

Gotta run to the airport (parents need a ride) I suggest we touch on this when I return.


I'm in for whatever you need.

Within reason.

If I have time.

As long as it doesn't cost anything.

This makes me management material.

[Roy Tucker]

Roy and RFS62, Ochra and anyone else, I talked with GIK and have offered to help them try and set up a study to find the usage problems, I also think we can help get a mission statement together and a better payment setup that frees the principals from being the only ones involved.

What we need is the business acumen of the folks on this board and I'm hoping that you guys can lend a hand.

Gotta run to the airport (parents need a ride) I suggest we touch on this when I return.
Okey-doke, works for me. I'll free up whatever time we need.

[Red Leader]

I'm busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest today, but whatever free time I have is yours.

[GIK]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate all the help I can get. BTW, this is the email I received yesterday which prompted many of my actions:

"This is an automated message notifying User reds that 81.2953% of his/her bandwidth and 14.555% of his/her allocated disk space has been used up.

It is estimated, at the current rate of use, that the account bandwidth will be used up in 4.14 days, at which time the account will be suspended for the remainder of the month.

The User should contact Support if this is an issue."

[GIK]

And, just so you know, we are alloted 73.242GB per month and right now we're at 61.654GB.

[RFS62]

Kinda like being in an airplane running out of fuel, and we're ditching the baggage.

[ochre]

Who is the host and which plan do we use?

73 GB is fairly low for a shared server these days.

Do they allow for people to "acquire" more bandwidth in these situations, or is upgrading the only immediate way to resolve this?

[ochre]

Kinda like being in an airplane running out of fuel, and we're ditching the baggage.
hey, watch it buddy, passengers are next :)

[Roy Tucker]

Kinda like being in an airplane running out of fuel, and we're ditching the baggage.
Bah, no problem. I've been in on thse kinds of efforts before.

The analogy that I've made is that we're on a 747 going from NYC to LA and we've got to swap out the engines in mid-flight.

No problem. Gulp.

[Puffy]

I'll help in way thats needed. Just let me know what you need and I'll lend a hand.

[RFS62]

Hey, I see you guys took down your avatars. Is that for bandwidth?

[Raisor]

And, just so you know, we are alloted 73.242GB per month and right now we're at 61.654GB.



Bluto: Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter: Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.
Bluto: And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough...
[thinks hard]
Bluto: the tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go!
[runs out, alone; then returns]
Bluto: What the [fudge] happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my [bum] from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer...
Otter: Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these [dopes]. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
Bluto: We're just the guys to do it.
D-Day: Let's do it.
Bluto: LET'S DO IT!

[Roy Tucker]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate all the help I can get. BTW, this is the email I received yesterday which prompted many of my actions:

"This is an automated message notifying User reds that 81.2953% of his/her bandwidth and 14.555% of his/her allocated disk space has been used up.

It is estimated, at the current rate of use, that the account bandwidth will be used up in 4.14 days, at which time the account will be suspended for the remainder of the month.

The User should contact Support if this is an issue."
Don't know if this is the forum you want to do this in GIK, but I'll start here.

So when you're saying bandwidth, are you talking about network traffic coming in and out of the site?

Or is it CPU % of the server getting consumed?

And it looks like we're OK for disk space for the time being?

Just trying to arrow in on what the real problem is.

[Red Leader]

Bah, no problem. I've been in on thse kinds of efforts before.

The analogy that I've made is that we're on a 747 going from NYC to LA and we've got to swap out the engines in mid-flight.

No problem. Gulp.

It would be better if we could fly from LA to NYC.

I'm going to begin taking some steps.

First, I'm going to ditch my avatar.

Second, I'm going to become a "lurker" for the rest of the day, only posting when I have something truly valuable to add.

Can we make a stickied announcement for others to do the same, or do we want the testing to take place under "normal" board conditions?

[ochre]

I'll help in way thats needed. Just let me know what you need and I'll lend a hand.
what are the legal/financial requirements for an organization like redszone that is bringing in cash to finance operations, but not seeking to make a profit?

Does redszone need to attain some "not for profit" status?

What are the accounting requirements?

Thought you might know some of those off the top of your head Puffy.

[ochre]

Hey, I see you guys took down your avatars. Is that for bandwidth?
Possibly. Its more just a statement of the sacrifice we are willing to make :)

[ochre]

Don't know if this is the forum you want to do this in GIK, but I'll start here.

So when you're saying bandwidth, are you talking about network traffic coming in and out of the site?

Or is it CPU % of the server getting consumed?

And it looks like we're OK for disk space for the time being?

Just trying to arrow in on what the real problem is.
Its typically raw data that comes in and goes out on the hosts wire from/to a particular site.

Most of these places do not stipulate cpu load. Its usually not a problem except in cases like this when one particular site on a shared server is hitting hard.

[GIK]

ochre, I sent this to TRF:

We are alloted 73.242GB per month and right now we're at 61.654GB.

HostPC.com is our host.

We are currently on shared hosting and that server has the following specs:

Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
1029760 kB Total Memory
8644 kB Free Memory
Apache 1.3.33
DirectAdmin 1.23.5
Exim 4.44
MySQL 4.0.16
Named 9.2.1
ProFTPd 1.2.9
sshd
vm-Pop3d 1.1.7f-DA-2

He recommended a few changes that I may try to implement shortly to get us down. A few ideas are to close the photo forums, suspend avatars and restruct photo uploads for the rest of the month.

[Puffy]

what are the legal/financial requirements for an organization like redszone that is bringing in cash to finance operations, but not seeking to make a profit?

Does redszone need to attain some "not for profit" status?

What are the accounting requirements?

Thought you might know some of those off the top of your head Puffy.

Well, I am not a corporate lawyer nor internet law (which is becoming an actual field of law nowadays), so my only real knowledge of these questions would be from law school.

However, here are the best answers I could give - first, Redszone doesn't need not for profit status. The owners aren't trying to make a profit and that is very clear from their mission statement. Second, as long as they are using one account to take in money and pay from that account the accounting should take care of itself - in other words, don't mix funds.

Like I said, I don't know this field of law well, and even less because if they wanted to make this a business it would be based on Ohio law, which has differences from Florida or NY law.

[GIK]

I'm going to "stick" this since it's extremely important we try and resolve any potential technical issues we can quickly. Anyone who has any advice or input is welcome to share that here. Thanks.

[ochre]

I have to go out for the day here shortly. I think it would be a decent idea to round up a lot of the suggestions and consolidate them in one spot. There really have been a lot of good ideas.

[Roy Tucker]

Its typically raw data that comes in and goes out on the hosts wire from/to a particular site.

Most of these places do not stipulate cpu load. Its usually not a problem except in cases like this when one particular site on a shared server is hitting hard.
Yep, that's what I usually assume too. However, when had a discussion about the big long last thread and the term bandwidth was used, it turned out to be CPU utilization.

So we're looking for ways to keep network packets from flying in and out of our server.

Closing the photo forums, suspending avatars and restricting photo uploads is a good place to start. I'll be a little surprised if it makes a measurable difference but starting with the easy stuff is the way to go.

[TeamDunn]

I still see "guests" did that change?

Also, on another large forum I am on that is using this same version as RZ, they limited the amount of searches that can be done by an individual to one every 60 seconds. The owner there said it takes a huge amount of bandwidth to do a search. Maybe to get through the end of April the search feature could even be temporarily turned off?

[GIK]

2 temporary actions have been taken to assist in the reduction of bandwidth for the remainder of the month. They are:

-The RedsZone Pictures forum is closed
-Avatars have been disabled

[TeamDunn]

Nevermind about the guest thing...I see now that they are just viewing the page that tells them they need to register. It also shows some registering. :)

[GIK]

Right, TD. And thanks for the search recommendation. I have heard the same comment from other webmasters. Can anyone confirm?

[Red Leader]

Also, on another large forum I am on that is using this same version as RZ, they limited the amount of searches that can be done by an individual to one every 60 seconds. The owner there said it takes a huge amount of bandwidth to do a search. Maybe to get through the end of April the search feature could even be temporarily turned off?

Do we know if doing a "search" causes a problem? If so, we should probably increase the length of time you can do one. I know I do a search about every 10-15 seconds now, it's just habit. I'll try to cut back on doing searches as much for now as well.

Thanks for mentioning that TD. I would have never thought about that.

Would a refresh of the page be better, or cause the same damage?

[Red Leader]

What about the additional skins, RedsAway, Black, etc? Do those take up more bandwidth to run?

[TeamDunn]

I just emailed the admin on the other forum I was talking about. There are over 7700 members on that board it has never had an unscheduled downtime on it. Only downtime or problems were when the forum was upgraded and then a couple of days after the upgrade as glitches were found.

I asked what other things they have run into over the years (it has been "open" for over nine years now) that eats up bandwidth. I also asked if it were on a shared server or dedicated one. I did ask about the search feature as well.

I'll let you know what I hear and if she is ok with it I can even put her in touch with you GIK.

[Roy Tucker]

So GIK, this search discussion has be confused...

What are we running out of? Network usage or CPU usage?

I would think a search is CPU (and IO) intensive. I would think it is not network intensive.

Addled Roy

[GIK]

I see your point, Roy.

I believe network usage is our problem, but I will connect with our host for clarification.

[TeamDunn]

Just thought about this and wondered...

When someone subscribes to a thread and gets an email telling them there has been a reply to the thread...does sending that email use bandwidth or is that just something built in that does its own little thing? (I have no idea what technical terms to use in case you can't tell) :p:

[westofyou]

I'm looking at the stats and this month has 100% more 404's than the next busy month (last July) meanwhile I note 6% of the sites usage is coming from an IT site in Australia.

The site itself is using as much as it did in June of 2004 but has been down way more (denial of service 16 K in June and 207 K now)


Month Daily Avg Monthly Totals



Hits Files Pages Visits Sites KBytes Visits Pages Files Hits

Apr 2005 416321 181032 6892 2053 14558 29570345 39019 130951 3439626 7910101
Mar 2005 264840 138575 5239 1966 16155 24223268 41295 110029 2910077 5561642
Dec 2004 263186 94373 4546 1650 15378 27559442 44554 122749 2548079 7106033
Nov 2004 198823 72125 3681 1266 12168 21221374 37998 110457 2163757 5964711
Oct 2004 191836 66800 3094 1169 12271 19927735 36241 95920 2070828 5946924
Sep 2004 232729 80072 4090 1233 12101 22186412 37007 122708 2402174 6981885
Aug 2004 313233 107511 4696 1649 17151 31635022 51120 145592 3332859 9710239
Jul 2004 382286 120377 4570 1756 19026 36878490 54458 141696 3731706 11850890
Jun 2004 485676 146301 4848 1768 17406 42375443 53052 145462 4389038 14570295
May 2004 346535 117068 4688 1613 15760 35305654 50008 145350 3629118 10742586

[pedro]

WOY, I did a little more research and it appears that we were using "whois" wrong, it only works if you put in the the domain name, not the IP address. Anyhow, I then did a google search looking for web pages with the IP address 133.9.238.74 in it. It showed up in the usages stats for hundreds of unrelated websites so I believe it must be some sort of BOT.

That IP address has consumed 6.08% of RZ's resources this month.

Perhaps specifically banning it would be a good idea.

[Bob Borkowski]

I'm looking at the stats and this month has 100% more 404's than the next busy month (last July) meanwhile I note 6% of the sites usage is coming from an IT site in Australia.

The site itself is using as much as it did in June of 2004 but has been down way more (denial of service 16 K in June and 207 K now)


Month Daily Avg Monthly Totals



Hits Files Pages Visits Sites KBytes Visits Pages Files Hits

Apr 2005 416321 181032 6892 2053 14558 29570345 39019 130951 3439626 7910101
Mar 2005 264840 138575 5239 1966 16155 24223268 41295 110029 2910077 5561642
Dec 2004 263186 94373 4546 1650 15378 27559442 44554 122749 2548079 7106033
Nov 2004 198823 72125 3681 1266 12168 21221374 37998 110457 2163757 5964711
Oct 2004 191836 66800 3094 1169 12271 19927735 36241 95920 2070828 5946924
Sep 2004 232729 80072 4090 1233 12101 22186412 37007 122708 2402174 6981885
Aug 2004 313233 107511 4696 1649 17151 31635022 51120 145592 3332859 9710239
Jul 2004 382286 120377 4570 1756 19026 36878490 54458 141696 3731706 11850890
Jun 2004 485676 146301 4848 1768 17406 42375443 53052 145462 4389038 14570295
May 2004 346535 117068 4688 1613 15760 35305654 50008 145350 3629118 10742586


Hey, I have no knowledge on all of this but...

I recall that poster 'Nugget' is from Australia. See post #6 in the 'Gammons: Keep the OF's, trade Casey' thread where he mentions that.

A clue maybe? ;)

[pedro]

Hey, I have no knowledge on all of this but...

I recall that poster 'Nugget' is from Australia. See post #6 in the 'Gammons: Keep the OF's, trade Casey' thread where he mentions that.

A clue maybe? ;)

Hi Bob, WOY and I were wrong about the Australia thing. Nugget's not the problem.

[Roy Tucker]

WOY, I did a little more research and it appears that we were using "whois" wrong, it only works if you put in the the domain name, not the IP address. Anyhow, I then did a google search looking for web pages with the IP address 133.9.238.74 in it. It showed up in the usages stats for hundreds of unrelated websites so I believe it must be some sort of BOT.

That IP address has consumed 6.08% of RZ's resources this month.

Perhaps specifically banning it would be a good idea.
From IP Routing tool at http://www.dnsstuff.com/ for 133.9.238.74



WHOIS results for 133.9.238.74
Generated by www.DNSstuff.com
Location: Japan [City: Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo]

Looking up 133.9.238.74 at whois.radb.net.

NOTE: More information appears to be available at AS17956.

Using 0 day old cached answer (or, you can get fresh results).
Hiding E-mail address (you can get results with the E-mail address).

route: 133.9.0.0/16
descr: Waseda University
origin: AS17956
notify: ***@noc.kddnet.ad.jp
mnt-by: MAINT-AS2516
changed: ***@noc.kddnet.ad.jp 20021015
source: RADB

route: 133.9.0.0/16
descr: Waseda University
origin: AS17956
remarks: * PROXY *
notify: ***@noc.kddnet.ad.jp
mnt-by: MAINT-AS2907
changed: **@sinet.ad.jp 20031226
source: SINET

[westofyou]

There are six domains that have been hitting RZ this month that have been eating up 12.34% of the sites resources. I'm going to check the other months for them before I send them to you Gik.

[westofyou]

The other five are hubs for providers in the tri state area, Ft Mitchell, 2 in Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus.

[KronoRed]

I'll help in any way needed, good luck guys :)

[TeamDunn]

The other five are hubs for providers in the tri state area, Ft Mitchell, 2 in Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus.

Could Ft Mitchell be insightbb.com (Northern Ky cable co high speed)?

The Cincinnati ones possibly Fuse/Zoomtown and Roadrunner?

[pedro]

Could Ft Mitchell be insightbb.com (Northern Ky cable co high speed)?

The Cincinnati ones possibly Fuse/Zoomtown and Roadrunner?

Likely. I don't think those are the problem though, as they probably service a large number of RZ's users.

[TeamDunn]

Can we still post pictures here if we use our own hosting site and the IMG tags for the pictures and not the attachment thing?

[pedro]

After looking at the resource logs with WOY I have the following thoughts/observations.

1. RZ is consuming roughly 10% more resources per day than the previous highest month which was June 2004.

2. 6.08% of the resource usage come from the IP Address 133.9.238.74 which is coming from Japan. A google search indicated that this IP address shows up in the usage logs of hundreds of other web sites. I believe it it a BOT. This IP address should be banned.

3. In June 2004 there were 16,379 error code 404's which indicate the server is too busy or could not be found. This month there have been 206,965 404's already. This to me indicates that the server load is reaching it's limit. As RZ shares server with many other sites, it is possible that the incremental growth of other sites on server coupled with the growth in usage by RZ is causing server overload. When we reached our high point last June it is possible that it was not as noticiable due to underutilization by other sites hosted on same server.

4. The user logs do not provide information about usage of specific forums or threads so it is not possible to to see from the usage logs what areas within RZ are using the most bandwidth. I think it is safe to say the "last thread" does use a bit of bandwidth as the there have been 70,000 + posts made in 1-12. As the issue is bandwidth I suggest that the "last thread" community try to police itself and do its' best not overtax Redszone, lest we be asked to stop completely.

5. The average KB per site Hit last June was 2.908. This April it has been 3.73. I don't know if that has to do more with the widespread usage of Avatars or with posting attached pictures, but it is significant. I think that usage of Avatars and attached pictures should be suspended.

6. There is the possibility that the continued use of the attached image of Cbus' giant head may be a causing the site overload.

[zombie-a-go-go]

6. There is the possibility the that the continued use of the attached image of Cbus giant head may be a causing the site overload.

:lol:

[RFS62]

6. There is the possibility the that the continued use of the attached image of Cbus giant head may be a causing the site overload.


Arrrrr, the Curse of the Sea Bass.

[Red Leader]

.

6. There is the possibility the that the continued use of the attached image of Cbus giant head may be a causing the site overload.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Absolutely, milk-through-the-nose, purple faced hilarious.

Thanks, woy and pedro, for all of your work in trying to get this situation resolved.

Question. I believe the last person threads 1-11 are archived. If those are simply deleted, will that help? If so, I'd say ditch 'em.

[pedro]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Absolutely, milk-through-the-nose, purple faced hilairous.

Thanks, woy and pedro, for all of your work in trying to get this situation resolved.

Question. I believe the last person threads 1-11 are archived. If those are simply deleted, will that help? If so, I'd say ditch 'em.

We dont have a resource utilization issue in terms of space used, just bandwidth, so the archives can stay.

[Red Leader]

We dont have a resource utilization issue in terms of space used, just bandwidth, so the archives can stay.

Alrighty then. :thumbup:

Can we get a stretchier bandwidth? :dunno:

My Dad has these pants he got at Sears...yea, nevermind.

[KronoRed]

Thanks woy, pedro

Policing the last thread and no more Cbus pictures sound easy enough to do ;)

[pedro]

Thanks woy, pedro

Policing the last thread and no more Cbus pictures sound easy enough to do ;)

I think with the number of page views that thread gets, that it might really help to just not attach pictures and get rid of our avatars.

Image links should be ok as they steal bandwith from other sites.

[Red Leader]

I think with the number of page views that thread gets, that it might really help to just not attach pictures and get rid of our avatars.

Image links should be ok as they steal bandwith from other sites.

Would it help if when we logged in we went into "the thread" and stayed in there, doing a refresh of the page, instead of doing a "search" at the top of the page? This would keep people from going in and out of "the thread". Again, I'm totally clueless about any of this, just asking questions that a 5 year old might think of...

[pedro]

Would it help if when we logged in we went into "the thread" and stayed in there, doing a refresh of the page, instead of doing a "search" at the top of the page? This would keep people from going in and out of "the thread". Again, I'm totally clueless about any of this, just asking questions that a 5 year old might think of...


I'm not sure but possibly. I don't know how the database is structured but my assumption is that when you view a page it is pulling a range of posts based on an indexed database column (post #) rather than doing a keyword search through entire posts. If so, then doing searches is going to use more CPU than refreshing, but not necessarily more bandwidth. So yes, I think minimizing the number of searches would be helpful to the overall speed of RZ, but I do not think it woudl help with the bandwidth issues.

[westofyou]

indexed database column (post #) that would be pulling from the last viewed post number next to your last visit. If you are sitting on the site I assume the "New Posts" button searches on your ID first as opposed to the site first, then pulls the number of posts since your last search.

If you left for 2 months and did it then it might cause a larger strain, but that would be a one time deal.

[pedro]

To clarify, I don't think using the "search for new posts" feature is that big a drag on resources. it's the key word searches that would really tax CPU.

[TeamCasey]

Re: Key word searches.

What if you made it so a search could only go back so far. (Perhaps by limiting it to 6 months, or lopping off old pages.)

Just brainstorming.

[pedro]

Re: Key word searches.

What if you made it so a search could only go back so far. (Perhaps by limiting it to 6 months, or lopping off old pages.)

Just brainstorming.

I don't think there is any big harm in doing key word searches, except during peak hours when lots of people on using site. During those times it could cause the site to slow down. Searches, if I am correct, do not cause an excessive use of bandwidth, which is the primary problem RZ is having right now.

[GoReds]

IIRC, wasn't there a suggestion to limit the number of posts displayed per page?

[SandyD]

I'll help anyway I can. Just let me know. I'll defer to those who know better on the tech stuff though.

[westofyou]

IIRC, wasn't there a suggestion to limit the number of posts displayed per page?

That's a capital idea, I suggest that be done.

The amount of pages that are viewed this month is on the way to 20K if the posts per page was reduced that should bring down some of the noise.

[Puffy]

Is the 30 per page default OK? Or do we need to go smaller?

[Red Leader]

Is the 30 per page default OK? Or do we need to go smaller?


I just changed mine to 10 in my user CP.

[pedro]

Is the 30 per page default OK? Or do we need to go smaller?

If you want to do a test to see what the difference is you can

1. load page with current post per page setting

2. go to View, Page Source.

3. Save source as a file on your desktop.

4. then see how big the file is.

change post per page setting, then repeat.

Honestly, I don't think it makes a big difference if you are going to read all the posts in a thread anyway. But it may have some impact in threads where 1) you are making lots of posts or 2) you are just look at end of thread.

Depending on what the size of the base page is, it may actually end up using more KB to read an entire thread with smaller post per page because of teh overhead of the page itself and the Redszone image (which is about 11 KB)

I've also been looking at the smilies, and they seem to be in between .75 and 1.25 KB on average. Decreasing use of smilies couldn't hurt.

[RFS62]

Great job, WOY and Pedro. I wish I could be some help, but you guys are the pros.

WOY, you are the Al Swearingen of this site. Does that make Pedro E.B. or Dan?

[westofyou]

Great job, WOY and Pedro. I wish I could be some help, but you guys are the pros.

WOY, you are the Al Swearingen of this site. Does that make Pedro E.B. or Dan?

He's Wu... He's running his own action

[RFS62]

He's Wu... He's running his own action


Wu, eh? A good man to not cross.

I had him figured for Cy, actually, if you two are anything like my brother and I.

Wu.... I can see him running into your office yelling "#$@%@$#" though, and drawing pictures of Cbus. And it does answer the question of what happens to banned posters.

[ochre]

The set of changes made already should have some impact on the bandwidth utilization. If possible see if daily averages are available. That way we can gauge the impact pretty quickly.

broad searches that return a lot of data would be the types that are going to cause problems.

[pedro]

The set of changes made already should have some impact on the bandwidth utilization. If possible see if daily averages are available. That way we can gauge the impact pretty quickly.

broad searches that return a lot of data would be the types that are going to cause problems.

Thanks Ochre, WOY and I will continue to monitor and let you guys know what we find.

[ochre]

The banner image should be disabled for the rest of the month in my opinion. It accounts for a fairly large amount of traffic too.

[westofyou]

The banner image should be disabled for the rest of the month in my opinion. It accounts for a fairly large amount of traffic too.

I sent an image to Gik yesterday that was 7K as oppossed to 10K.

But for the Reds of the month it would/will save a lot.

In fact I could make it smaller and about 4K if we need it to be.

[GIK]

woy, forgot to change that. Will do that now.

[ochre]

I'd just go with plain text for now. That would take it down to a couple of Bytes :)

[GIK]

woy, forgot to change that. Will do that now.

Just tried to DL from the PM and it's unavailable...FYI.

[westofyou]

http://www.deadballart.com/redszone/redszonelogo_little.gif

[westofyou]

139,082 page views are the estimated page views the site will see this month, roughly 20% more than last month. I attribute it to the Bot, Growth and the New Season.

Currently the logo is set to suck up 15% of the sites bandwidth this month.

That MUST be fixed.

[GAC]

If you want to do a test to see what the difference is you can

1. load page with current post per page setting

2. go to View, Page Source.

3. Save source as a file on your desktop.

4. then see how big the file is.

change post per page setting, then repeat.

Honestly, I don't think it makes a big difference if you are going to read all the posts in a thread anyway. But it may have some impact in threads where 1) you are making lots of posts or 2) you are just look at end of thread.

Depending on what the size of the base page is, it may actually end up using more KB to read an entire thread with smaller post per page because of teh overhead of the page itself and the Redszone image (which is about 11 KB)

I've also been looking at the smilies, and they seem to be in between .75 and 1.25 KB on average. Decreasing use of smilies couldn't hurt.

Wow! That does make a difference. I set mine at 10 pages, and it went down from 83 kbs to 18 kbs.

[GIK]

Should be changed now, woy.

[ochre]

we are in kind of a dire situation at the moment. I would disable smilies until we get through this month.

GIK,
Have you/Boss discusssed with the host the options for when we surpass the monthly bandwidth allocation?

[westofyou]

we are in kind of a dire situation at the moment. I would disable smilies until we get through this month.

GIK,
Have you/Boss discusssed with the host the options for when we surpass the monthly bandwidth allocation?

A row of 7 smileys can take up 5-7 K and if displayed 150 times take up over a MB of Bandwith.

We could host them elsewhere.

One idea in the future would be to get a cheap domain from one of the yahoo type of server farms. something like Redszone images. Store all the images and smilies there and link to them from Redszone.

I think I pay $9 a month for one of my domains that I'm not using now so I could do it until we figure it out.

[GIK]

we are in kind of a dire situation at the moment. I would disable smilies until we get through this month.

GIK,
Have you/Boss discusssed with the host the options for when we surpass the monthly bandwidth allocation?

ochre, I have been assured by HostPC that they will not turn off the site if we exceed our bandwidth allotted.

[Unassisted]

we are in kind of a dire situation at the moment. I would disable smilies until we get through this month.

GIK,
Have you/Boss discusssed with the host the options for when we surpass the monthly bandwidth allocation?I host there, too. The standard rate for bandwidth overages is $1.50/GB. As nysupport/Joe said in another thread, it's not that the site will go away when that number is hit, it will just exceed the fixed monthly operating cost. Think of it like exceeding the monthly minutes on your cellphone plan.

Still, it is a worthy goal to be considerate about breaking the budget.

[GIK]

Guys, I have also changed our Thread Display settings. The default max posts before the page split is now 20 (users can set this to 30, however, instead of the previous 40).

[ochre]

I have a shared server plan that I am not hardly using at all at the moment. I believe it has 70 GB monthly transfer and 7 GB storage. I can host stuff at least for a while.

[ochre]

ochre, I have been assured by HostPC that they will not turn off the site if we exceed our bandwidth allotted.

Cool. We should make plans on how to generate the cash to cover the overage. I'd be willing to contribute some money to that, but if the rate UA quoted is correct it shouldn't be too much money.

[GIK]

No, I think we'll be OK.

[TeamDunn]

What if someone creates a thread of "Tips to lower our bandwidth" and lists things such as changing the amount of posts to 10 per page. To lower the use of smileys...or whatever else has been thought of to help.

Then lock that thread so it does not turn into another discussion thread. :p:

[REDREAD]

Here's an idea.. When you hit "Post reply", it shows the 20 posts in the thread.

Is that necessary? I'm pretty sure that it reloads the posts, because when I reply to a thread with a lot of pictures in it, my slow dialup connection reloads all the gifs.

Maybe when you post a reply, it gives you just the reply box, and possibly a button saying "show thread".. Or maybe just give a reply box, and you can hit the back button if you want to see the thread.

EDIT: ok, I will use "Quick reply".. I've always gotten in the habit of pushing "post reply".. maybe we could remove the "post reply" button until the crisis is over?

[REDREAD]

Another small help would be to possibly disable sigs, if bandwidth is really tight.
Wouldn't make a huge difference though.

[westofyou]

Another small help would be to possibly disable sigs, if bandwidth is really tight.
Wouldn't make a huge difference though.

it does if they are smilies. -wink-

[pedro]

Another small help would be to possibly disable sigs, if bandwidth is really tight.
Wouldn't make a huge difference though.

You might want to consider getting rid of smilies as your sig, that's a lot of extra bandwidth.

[pedro]

that was quick. :)

[REDREAD]

it does if they are smilies. -wink-

ok, I removed it.. I only had it in there because my kids constantly nagged me to see that smile..

[Red Leader]

that was quick. :)

yea, just like life, your brother beat you to it.

haha.

[westofyou]

BTW I set my viewed posts at 10, it's not too bad.

[REDREAD]

Question though.. if you are going to read the entire thread anyhow, does the posts viewed really matter?

If you load two pages at 10 posts each, that might actually use slightly more bandwidth than viewing one page of 20 posts, as there's some overhead communication to load each page.

[pedro]

Question though.. if you are going to read the entire thread anyhow, does the posts viewed really matter?

If you load two pages at 10 posts each, that might actually use slightly more bandwidth than viewing one page of 20 posts, as there's some overhead communication to load each page.

I think you're correct.

[Unassisted]

Question though.. if you are going to read the entire thread anyhow, does the posts viewed really matter?

If you load two pages at 10 posts each, that might actually use slightly more bandwidth than viewing one page of 20 posts, as there's some overhead communication to load each page.Plus each page loaded leads to another load of the page header and footer.

[pedro]

I just checked the usage logs for yesterday. There was considerably less traffic but I think most of it can be attributed to 17,000 less "hits" to the site than the day before. The average KB per hit was also down slightly. Since many of the changes were enacted yesterday during the day, I think today will be the first full set of data that we can analyze. FWIW, things are pretty slow so far today. I'll continue to monitor.

[westofyou]

There is an afternoon game tomorrow, that will give a good idea of what heavy daytime traffic will be like.

[ochre]

average daily for april is ~1639966KB not counting today.

[westofyou]

average daily for april is ~1639966KB not counting today.

Could we mirror the site in text format and run a day to day comparison?

I wouldn't make it something that needs to be done yesterday, but a mirror could tell us alot.

[ochre]

Could we mirror the site in text format and run a day to day comparison?

I wouldn't make it something that needs to be done yesterday, but a mirror could tell us alot.
Would have to copy the database and redo the vBulletin config I think.

[Roy Tucker]

woy, ochre, and pedro, the sentinel guard dogs of RedsZone.

[ochre]

Would want to run that from a different server too I'd think.

[westofyou]

Would want to run that from a different server too I'd think.

Couldn't we just mirror it and replace it for day or 2 on the same server? I agree that another server would be a good test as well, but to see if the text based application was that much thinner than the current one on the same server is what I was getting at.

[ochre]

Yeah. That should be possible.

Really ought to be able to do that by copying the existing php files to a backup location and then modifying the "live" site. Monitor the impact on bandwidth and then restore the original files when ready. That would not require a whole lot of modifications. I misread your original post, thinking you wanted to see a parallel environment (simultaneous).

[TeamDunn]

Does the quick reply cause a heavy load on the server?

I don't know how many people use it, I never have...never thought about it! And on that note...could using the quick reply be better than using the regular reply feature? It would be one less page view right?

[ochre]

2 sides to that. Having the quick reply on each page increases the size of each page, but using the quick reply would use less bandwidth than clicking through to the advanced reply as it renders a new page.

[TeamDunn]

Thanks Ochre, As long as the Quick Reply is here I will use it then!

You guys are so good at this! (insert thumbs up smiley dude)

[westofyou]

I downloaded this page, it's on a 20 thread view. It came to 62 K.

There are 45 images tags in the page. The Post reply button and quote button are about 4 K together, each post has a quote button and a post reply button. They do the same thing and they account for 4 K per post per page.

[Red Leader]

What about edit, does that factor in there?

[ochre]

I downloaded this page, it's on a 20 thread view. It came to 62 K.

There are 45 images tags in the page. The Post reply button and quote button are about 4 K together, each post has a quote button and a post reply button. They do the same thing and they account for 4 K per post per page.
I think the browser only hits the server once for each of those images though. I think it caches the image and reuses the one from the cache.

[westofyou]

I think the browser only hits the server once for each of those images though. I think it caches the image and reuses the one from the cache.

Probably, however we could probably get them to 2 K as well as the submit and preview post (which I think I did anyway).

All of this doesn't have to be done asap either. But it's a good idea to get a laundry list of general site issues, image size reduction, defaults set to members that insure a constant measureable data output. Then perhaps schedlue a couple of test weeks for scenarios. Like "No HOF Board", "No NON Base", Non Base with no Last thread etc.

[westofyou]

What about edit, does that factor in there?

It leaves only in your own posts and all the buttons could stand to be reduced.

[pedro]

WOy, the usage stats aren't being update danymore. I sent a message to GIk about it.

[gonelong]

The HostPC.com logo on the bottom of each page is 4K! If they aren't paying for that, its got to go! ;) At least reduce the image or replace it with a text link.

Also, the report bad post (little triangle under the username on a post) could probably be replaced by single link in the header at the top of a page. Slightly less than 1K per.

I like the little button that tells me if another user is online or not, but maybe that could be replaced by a hover over their username or some other place on the site. Also slightly less than 1K per.

GL

/all for now

[Boss-Hog]

First off, I want to thank ochre, woy, pedro, and anyone else I missed for their help in lowering bandwidth. But I don't want everyone to have to think "Should I get rid of my signature?", "Should I use one less smiley?", "Can we reduce this graphic by another 1K?" in order to save bandwidth. I realize that cumulatively, these things add up, but I don't think these small things are the cause of the problem, nor do I want to disable core board functions. I'd rather just pay the cost to upgrade to a dedicated server, if we can't find a way to conserve bandwidth by disabling a drain.

[pedro]

First off, I want to thank ochre, woy, pedro, and anyone else I missed for their help in lowering bandwidth. But I don't want everyone to have to think "Should I get rid of my signature?", "Should I use one less smiley?", "Can we reduce this graphic by another 1K?" in order to save bandwidth. I realize that cumulatively, these things add up, but I don't think these small things are the cause of the problem, nor do I want to disable core board functions. I'd rather just pay the cost to upgrade to a dedicated server, if we can't find a way to conserve bandwidth by disabling a drain.

We'll support whatever you want to do Boss. I do think it's instructive, at least for me, to get a grip on what the overhead issues straining bandwidth are, as I'm a software developer and have been doing mostly client server stuff and want to move more to the web environment.

In any event I'm confident that the community will support whatever it takes should we have to move to a dedicated server, which I feel we will have to do, probably sooner than later.

[Red Leader]

Can I ask a really stupid question now?

What does LPtP stand for?

[ochre]

the beginings of this thread were split out of the previous "last person to post" thread. I need a thread name. My imagination was exhausted at that moment.

[KronoRed]

Can I ask a really stupid question now?

What does LPtP stand for?

Last Person To Post

DUH ;)

[RFS62]

Can I ask a really stupid question now?

What does LPtP stand for?



There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people asking stupid questions. :p:

Could it be "Last Person to Post"? You've heard of that one, haven't you?

[Red Leader]

the beginings of this thread were split out of the previous "last person to post" thread. I need a thread name. My imagination was exhausted at that moment.


I thought perhaps that was it, but then I was thinking it was some super-smart tech savvy acronym I had never heard of.

Should have known better. :laugh:

[ochre]

Local Peer to Peer.

[pedro]

There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people asking stupid questions. :p:

Could it be "Last Person to Post"? You've heard of that one, haven't you?

No Kidding.

I had a guy who used to work for me who once gave me a phone message with only 9 digits.

Said he didn't want the guy to think he was "stupid" since he didn't get the number the first time.

[ochre]

No Kidding.

I had a guy who used to work for me who once gave me a phone message with only 9 digits.

Said he didn't want the guy to think he was "stupid" since he didn't get the number the first time.
rounded it off at the significant digit.

[KronoRed]

Local Peer to Peer.
SO...you and the other mods are using RZ to trade music?? THAT'S where all the space is going! ;)

[ochre]

nah. Was an attempt at humor. Peer to peer is usually considered a way to share files with remote computers (not on your local network). I intended local there to mean peer to peer on the same box. not so funny I guess :)


as puffy might say:


sorry.

[KronoRed]

Did you miss ;) ?


:D

[ochre]

I knew you were joking, just thought after reading what I wrote again that what I wrote failed to be funny on several levels :)

[ochre]

by the way, here is the japanese web crawler that was referenced earlier.
http://www.yama.info.waseda.ac.jp/~yamana/es/index_eng.htm

[gonelong]

First off, I want to thank ochre, woy, pedro, and anyone else I missed for their help in lowering bandwidth.

Here! Here! Those are some good boys doing good work. :)



But I don't want everyone to have to think "Should I get rid of my signature?", "Should I use one less smiley?", "Can we reduce this graphic by another 1K?" in order to save bandwidth. I realize that cumulatively, these things add up, but I don't think these small things are the cause of the problem, nor do I want to disable core board functions. I'd rather just pay the cost to upgrade to a dedicated server, if we can't find a way to conserve bandwidth by disabling a drain.

Glad you feel that way, however, it never hurts to trim the fat where you can easily do so.

GL

[westofyou]

Glad you feel that way, however, it never hurts to trim the fat where you can easily do so.

GL

Agreed a thin client is a happy client.. for all.

[gonelong]

Agreed a thin client is a happy client.. for all.

A few K here and there won't make much difference to those with DSL/Cable, but it very well could make a significant difference to those on dial-up.

Plus, this place is still growing, and likely will grow faster as time goes on as we have increased word-of-mouth through each new member.

GL

[RFS62]

A few K here and there won't make much difference to those with DSL/Cable, but it very well could make a significant difference to those on dial-up.

Plus, this place is still growing, and likely will grow faster as time goes on as we have increased word-of-mouth through each new member.

GL


Yeah, and we need to expect that growth with whatever moves we make here.

[TRF]

I'm just now seeing this thread, and here is my two cents.


Add noindex, nofollow to your metatags. this should reduce the number of bots.
change all graphical buttons to CSS based text with an image background. browsers will likely cache the image, and you will only pass the text. Makes loading initially a tad slower, but only that first time. then performance picks up.
Cap the total number of users online. This is a tough one, and the number should probably be determined during an average of a weeks worth of game threads. Cap it at 75. Give subscribers priority over members. Make the you can't get in message redirect viewers to the EZboard backup site. This will help a lot IMO.
When you turn avatars back on, and you likely will have a file size restriction of 2K.
If posting photos is turned back on, a limit of 1 per user per thread. Don't know how you enforce that. Also all photos should be sized and optimized before posting maybe 300px wide, and 9K. Something like that.
Just a few ideas.

[Reds Fanatic]

I just noticed the similiar threads that show up at the bottom of the page when you are looking at certain threads. I assume that some kind of search is being ran to show the similiar threads everytime you enter a thread. Would shutting down that search help in any way?

[westofyou]

I just noticed the similiar threads that show up at the bottom of the page when you are looking at certain threads. I assume that some kind of search is being ran to show the similiar threads everytime you enter a thread. Would shutting down that search help in any way?

No, it was just added last night so I assume that that was broached before it was live.

[TRF]

I like the feature. doesn't add a lot to the bandwidth, and allows for a focused discussion.

Also will show multiple randa bashing threads.

[westofyou]

I like the feature. doesn't add a lot to the bandwidth, and allows for a focused discussion.

Also will show multiple randa bashing threads.

Wait until a strikeout thread comes up, that could crash the board.

[GAC]

I deeply appreciate all that everyone on here has done and contributed. It gets more involved and aware of our situation, instead of Boss and GIK having to try and bear this burden alone.

Boss/GIK - what is the current situation on finding/going to a dedicated server? Is it an issue of getting the money together, or finding a suitable one for the demands of this site? Or both?

Because after seeing all that has gone on over the last week, and the problems we have been having and may be facing, and everyone seeing it, I think it won't be hard to raise the funds from those on here to go to that server.

[ochre]

My dad has been a lurker here for a while. He finally registered today since guest access is gone. He indicated that finding the spot to go to for registration was not all that easy to locate from the login screen one gets now.

Maybe we should put a registration link on the login page too?

**edit. Just checked it myself. There is a standard link there that says register. He was probably looking for a button. Still, its customer feedback of a sort :)

[Boss-Hog]

My dad has been a lurker here for a while. He finally registered today since guest access is gone. He indicated that finding the spot to go to for registration was not all that easy to locate from the login screen one gets now.

Maybe we should put a registration link on the login page too?

**edit. Just checked it myself. There is a standard link there that says register. He was probably looking for a button. Still, its customer feedback of a sort :) Ideally, we want to allow guests to view the site...I think we may start running our next bandwidth test in the next day or so once we get the numbers for how this test has affected them.

[pedro]

I just check the usage stats from yesterday and the average KB per Hit is back down to 2.9 from 3.68.

[smith288]

change all graphical buttons to CSS based text with an image background. browsers will likely cache the image, and you will only pass the text. Makes loading initially a tad slower, but only that first time. then performance picks up.



This would be very hard as each Vbulletin skin would need to be modified and the work involved in that would be insane. The skins we are using now arent all that heavy on the images compared to other vbulletin boards I have seen so Im not so sure the changes would make a big enough impact on the total bandwidth. Good idea though.

I think the biggest image, size wise, is the header images.

In Black Redszone, the header img is 41kb.
In Away Redszone the header img is 30kb
In Redzone (default) the header is is 11kb
and in the vbulletin skin, its 11kb

Those are the biggest images on average each thread/post is showing.

Maybe another idea is to max out the posts per thread you can view. Has that been tried?

[TRF]

I'm not overly familiar with vBulletin, but what would be that hard about it? Find the image, replace with text link. add external css page. add style statement. yeah it might take a few hours, but really not a big deal.

Heck, I'll do it.

But you are right about the headers... they are killers. None should be more than 10k

[TRF]

I counted around 8k total for buttons. Now multiply that by 80 users in a game thread. all hitting refresh. Add that to the header graphic, and i see how quickly the bandwidth goes bye-bye.

Also, and this is just a thought, but is there a community for vBulletin that designs themes/skins? and is it possible to go tableless altogether for one?

While this wouldn't save all that much in bandwidth, every little bit helps. maybe not as a main theme, but an alternate one?

[smith288]

I have looked into vbulletin design and the way it is done is extremely difficult with a big learning curve. Basically, you have sections of a page and tokens in those pages that are place markers for the functionality like the quote button and signin area and what not. The sections are then taken from an XML file and inserted into a table. So the whol website is actually contructed through a call to the skin table that hold the design information for each page or section you are viewing. Pretty cool, but VERY complex.

The skins I did were really a skin i found for free (most skins are $$$$$) and I just sorta hacked it with my work.

Vbulletin is a table's heavy application. I think a css only version of it was attempted by the folks over at vbulletin but was scrapped because of the browser issues across all platforms.

The 80 users hitting refresh could make an impact on the server, however the button images are cached and reloaded from the client side for a certain amount of time depending on the server, web browser and a user that makes changes to their cache settings (like removing cache altogether).

[TRF]

Agreed on the caching to a a point. But if the user doesn't hit reload, and leaves the thread, then comes back, I think the images are called like a hard refresh. pulling them from the server instead of using a cached image. Not completely sure this is true, but my browser acts like it is.

With the advent of firefox, and IE 7 due out in a few months, a css version might be worth a try.

I'd be willing to do it, if i could get copies of the necessary files.

[smith288]

Agreed on the caching to a a point. But if the user doesn't hit reload, and leaves the thread, then comes back, I think the images are called like a hard refresh. pulling them from the server instead of using a cached image. Not completely sure this is true, but my browser acts like it is.

With the advent of firefox, and IE 7 due out in a few months, a css version might be worth a try.

I'd be willing to do it, if i could get copies of the necessary files.

Here is an example of vbulletin skinning... Its an xml file and you then must include all the images to go along with it...if I had some sort of tutorial on the subject, i could be alot better at it but nobody has bothered to set forth on such a huge project since it can get so complex.

[smith288]

The caching point you make is a valid one because a server can set a certain time period when caching timeouts for the client thus telling the browser to request it again but im sure Boss and them have already addressed that (i would assume). The client can also set a time for all images to be redownloaded or to compare the cached copy with the server copy (with filesize I assume) and redownload if different.

[ochre]

I think most of what TRF was talking about though, was setting the images as <td background=*> elements rather than <img> tags.

[smith288]

I think most of what TRF was talking about though, was setting the images as <td background=*> elements rather than <img> tags.

Im not sure how that would help limit the bandwidth the images would take though. The image would still need to be downloaded at first impression and when the cache is renewed. Taking the verbeage off the image and making it css positioned text wont make a very big dent overall.

I just dont think its the forums images that is causing the increase in bandwidth.. maybe some, but nothing that would give Boss huge breathing room.

Just my humble opinion. :cool:

[ochre]

I think it had to do with how browsers handle background images. They only pull them once for the entive page and then cache them. He didn't say it would definitely make a difference, just threw it out there as something to try.