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Thread: An explanation about the board speed, downtime, etc. from our host

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  1. #1
    Administrator Boss-Hog's Avatar
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    Sounds good to me...I never even considered that. If anyone's good with graphics and wants to design a new logo that's smaller in file size (not necessarily dimensions, just the file size), go ahead

    Thanks again for your help, Ace...it's much appreciated.

    Boss

    Originally posted by Aceking
    Also, and this may be a small cut in bandwidth, but you might want to consider a new logo.

    The one you have now is almost 50kb. I know that isn't all that big, but consider that it is on every page of your site. So evertime anyone looks at anything on your site that's 50kb just for the logo at the top. The logo in the top right of my site is only 16kb.

    But on an average month, you gould serve as much as a 1GB or more just pushing through your logo.

    Pretty crazy, eh?

    I could try and optimize it a little in photoshop for you to bring the file size down if you like.

  2. #2
    Administrator Boss-Hog's Avatar
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    Thanks for the help guys.

    I changed the number of threads to display on each forum page from 50 to 35. I also dropped the maximum number of posts per page from 40 to 30. Hopefully this will help out some.

    Boss

  3. #3
    Administrator Boss-Hog's Avatar
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    An explanation about the board speed, downtime, etc. from our host

    Here's a series of emails between our host and I regarding the problems the board's had recently:

    "Hello,

    I've been a client of yours for some time now....you guys host
    redszone.com for me. When the site's up, the load time is quick and we have little complaints about the site's speed. However, the site goes down all the time....I don't know if it's a result of traffic or what but throughout the day, there are "outages" where the site is totally acceptable. Right now (8:15 EST) is one of those times. Can you please let me know what the problem is so that we can have it corrected? If it's a result of traffic, I'd be willing to listen to paying more if that will correct the problem. Thanks."

    Their response:

    "I saw this come through yesterday but was able to pull the site up during this time from my home connection. Checked the monitoring servers also and do not show the site was down.. Can verify this by sending you traffic excerts from the logs for this period in question.

    As far as site performance, the best think we can recommend is that you move the site to a private server. You are gonna want to do this anyway soon as the legacy platform you are on is going away and any shared sites will be monitored for resource over usage and bandwidth metered billing will be in place. We already know your site uses ALOT of resources
    and bandwidth guys, we have seen your site alone crash that server you are on from pure resources being used. Moving to a private server is the only real solution in the long term for your site. To be honest I have been told more then once that your site cost us more to host then we make by the system admins, upgrading to a private server would get the site into a more reasonable billing status for resources used."

    My response:

    "A few questions...
    1). How much would it cost to move to a private server?
    2). This would involve creating a mirror of the current site and then setting that back up on the new server, correct?
    Thanks."

    Finally, their latest response:

    "Your monthly fee would be 79.95 and yes we would give you plenty of time for migration before moving the DNS entry"

    Well, I'm not sure what our options are but I can tell you that paying $80 a month is not one of them. To anyone out that who's web saavy: we can find a better deal than this, can't we? It looks like we will eventually have to switch hosts - anyone have suggestions for hosting that can handle this amount of traffic but doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Thanks for your help.

    Boss

  4. #4
    Member GIK's Avatar
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    I really don't want to ask for funding from you all at this time. We should be fine for a few more months (especially in the offseason with reduced traffic). Thanks for the thought, though, GAC!

  5. #5
    Member GIK's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Aceking
    Also, and this may be a small cut in bandwidth, but you might want to consider a new logo.
    Good call, Ace.

    Originally posted by westofyou
    Boss, I'll send you a logo to try.
    Looking forward to it, WoY.


    Thanks, guys!

  6. #6

  7. #7
    Member GIK's Avatar
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    Our host does have an option to upgrade to 30GB for $34.95/mo. That might be an option as well.

    Keep any info/advice coming!

  8. #8
    Member GIK's Avatar
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    Basically...this is what we have:

    $19.95 per month

    200MB server space
    20GB monthly transfer

  9. #9
    Member TeamCasey's Avatar
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    Originally posted by GAC
    I understand that the cost for a private server is high (around $1,000/yr). But have you thought of putting it out there to the members and see what they think about it? This forum has grown in leaps and bounds, and it's obvious that we've outgrown this server.

    It would only take a modest investment from each of us to really cover that cost. The vast majority of people on this forum have been very generous when it's needed.

    IMHO, if it cost me $25/yr (and I'm not saying everyone has to put in that much....some may only afford less, while others more), then it's well worth what I get from this forum, and the services you guys provide.

    Put some "feelers" out
    I think your timing would be wrong, since the hat was passed not too long ago. I wouldn't try fund-raising until baseball season. You have more users. You'd get a better response.
    "Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women." - Nora Ephron

  10. #10
    Member TeamCasey's Avatar
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    If the Reds never made a trade again, we might be in good shape.
    "Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women." - Nora Ephron

  11. #11
    Member TeamCasey's Avatar
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    I don't know much about this kind of stuff.

    Would restricting the number of pages or the age of topics help?

    Not much you can do to reduce traffic, but you can reduce stored material.

    (If it will help, please kill and delete UnderDunn's word association thread in non-baseball chatter. It was fun and silly and a time killer before the start of games. UnderDunn didn't anticipate that it would take on such a life of it's own. UnderDunn is an idiot! )
    "Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women." - Nora Ephron

  12. #12
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    If you are looking for other sites to get tips from, be sure to check out the best fan run sports site on the web, IMO, one mentioned several times by ESPN.
    http://www.clutchcity.net/

    It is for the Houston Rockets, but they have 8600 registered members on their board and do it up right. They might have tips for you as they have experienced the growing pains you are.

    They also run something called a TipJar where people can donate money year around http://www.clutchcity.net/tipjar.cfm and there have several times been bets on the board with the proceeds going to the tipjar. For example, one member bet that Yao Ming would start the season as the Rockets center. So I thought Yao would sit the bench, I could donate 5$ to the tip jar, which he would match. And if I won, I would get a Just Shut Up I could use on him anytime where he would not post for an entire day (his norm was prolly 50 posts a day or so).

    Just a couple of thoughts for you, use them however you like. But as a sports fan website admin, I would recommend you drop clutch an email and talk to him a little.

  13. #13
    Goober GAC's Avatar
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    No problem. It just may be something we may want to look at just prior to the new season.

    I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to website formats, the amount of hard drive space it takes, servers, etc.

    Some of you know that I'm an avid Browns fan (no booing or hissing please :evilgrin: ).

    But I am thoroughly impressed with the way that forum is set up and it's format. And they have a huge member base also.

    You ought to take a peek at this forum and the way it's set up. It also uses the UBB threads, which is what we use isn't it?

    Set your biases aside for just a few, and take a peek. If nothing else, I could probably find out what server they are using.


    http://dawgtalk.clevelandbrowns.com/...reads.php?Cat=

  14. #14
    Goober GAC's Avatar
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    I understand that the cost for a private server is high (around $1,000/yr). But have you thought of putting it out there to the members and see what they think about it? This forum has grown in leaps and bounds, and it's obvious that we've outgrown this server.

    It would only take a modest investment from each of us to really cover that cost. The vast majority of people on this forum have been very generous when it's needed.

    IMHO, if it cost me $25/yr (and I'm not saying everyone has to put in that much....some may only afford less, while others more), then it's well worth what I get from this forum, and the services you guys provide.

    Put some "feelers" out

  15. #15
    You know his story Redsland's Avatar
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    Yeah, we're outside my area of expertise here, but it looks the server hasn't had to work as hard since the spike in July. From July to August, some key stats immediately dropped about 30%. IIRC, this coincides with the reprogramming of the site (or whatever you did) after the site crashed. I seem to recall that this happened at the same time as the Branyon trade (approx. late July??). So anyway, things look much better now than they did before, stat-wise.


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