On Getting a new server .

[r6racer]

You mentioned the option of renting a server; well I currently rent a server from a place in Dallas, Texas called thePlanet. You can visit their website at www.theplanet.com
A couple of the largest websites/forums I know of are hosted there, I actually learned of this place from hardocp.com they have a very large forum (computer/technology related) which are hosted at theplanet.com. I have actually been to their facility and they offer co-location or you can rent servers from them.

To show an example I rent a server from them (totalcontrol) and host a couple gaming servers and a couple websites off the machine I rent from them. For $250 a month I get 2000gigabytes of data transfer a month plus that includes everything (server and bandwidth). The server i rent for that price is a dual 2.8ghz xeon with 2gigs of ram. A very strong computer for the price.

I've only been a member of these forums for less than 24hrs but the wealth of information here is amazing and I would be willing to become a paying member to help out.

Hope some of the stuff I posted helps out.

[also] I have no affiliation with theplanet, I just spend a good chunk of my money there haha!

 

[Bob Hubbard]

A few months back I rented a TC 2800i system from the Planet. It was a nice machine, great response time, excellent speed.
Unfortunately, to make a long nightmare short, the server wasn't setup to our specs, the backups were never properly configured, and other issues weren't resolved satisfactory. (We paid for additional security hardening, backups which took 17 days to install, an OS reload wasn't done for over a week, etc.)

They've been getting hammered on WHT the last few months as well...which is really a shame as like you indicated they have some solid hardware at great prices. Upto that point I'd only seen a few negative comments and alot of positive ones. Since then, I've seen alot of negative. I think when I tried them, they were at the 'too big, too fast' growth pain point. I've still got them on my short list of possible hosts though.

Right now, I've got a number of quote requests pending, but the front runner is Dinix. We're currently at Data393 (formerly Ventures Online) and I'm also giving them a chance too.

I'll check the hosting boards again and see if TP's reps swung back up since I last checked. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[r6racer]

Actually thats pretty interesting cause I have actually had some accounting issues there and I figured it was just my bad luck. They forgot to charge me for my server a couple months there and when we called to check on it they seemed pretty dis-organized. Good luck on your server hunt!!

 

[Rob Broad]

Any updates on the totals?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

$558 in donations and supporting memberships, $230 in rebilling sponsorships.
We may have a new sponsorship shortly as well.

 

[Rob Broad]

Anyone that signs up for a supporting membership between now Sunday Aug 8th 5:30 pm and 11:59 pm Monday Aug 9th 2004, I will send a Master set of sheets for a daily training log book. All you need to do is print off teh sheets as you need them and put them in a binder. Most log books are going for $15 - $20. For the price of the price of $12 for a supporting Membership you will get a log bok that you can customize and use with out having to buy a new on each year.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Update:
$570 in donations and supporting memberships,
$230 in rebilling sponsorships
$125 in new sponsorships - JKD Forum
====
$925 with $695 received to date.

 

[Rob Broad]

Kaith if you could send me the names of anyone signs up between yesterday and tonigth Midnight so I can contact them about their ebooks.

 

[Bester]

I sent mine in over the weekend.

You know, I just did some math here. Kaith said he got a check for $200. That leaves $370 in donations. Divided by 12 is only 31 people. We have over 3,000! members here.

Come on folks. It's only $12. A buck a month. Less than 4Cents a day!

If 100 people only sign up as Supporting Members, thats $1,200 to keep this board up, running and improving.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Rob,
I'll try n check and PM ya in the morning.


Status as of 8/11/04:
$570 in donations and supporting memberships,
$230 in rebilling sponsorships
$125 in new sponsorships - JKD Forum
====
$925 with $695 received to date.

 

[Rob Broad]

Any changes in the last couple days?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Tally as of 8-14-04:
Donations / Supporting Memberships / New Sponsorships = $717
Rebilling Sponsorships not received = $230

I've started getting firm quotes on leasing a server. Right now, I'm looking at $800 in setup fees with a monthly cost of $290 for the server. This gives us a P4 2.8Ghz box with 2 60GB harddrives (1 used solely as a backup drive) 2GB memory, as well as managed off-server backups, and 1TB of monthly transfer. Alternatively, we can start with just 1GB ram and add the second later. That brings the setup down to $350 with the monthly being the same.

I'm also checking out a few other companies as possibilities, though I'm limiting my search to the US and Canada as I can easily call if theres a problem.

Thank you again everyone...we're almost there!

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I've had a few people ask about becoming a supporting member, but remaining anonymous. To meet their request I've set up an "Anonymous Supporting Member" subscription. (Goto USERCP and look down the left side for "Paid Subscriptions". Click that and it should show up.)

It's the same perks, same low price ($12/yr).

Thank you again!

 

[Rob Broad]

I remebr when Kaith first started a poll a couple years ago about whether MT should be a pay site. The vote was a resounding NO! I admit I was one of the people that said no. Then there was then the idea of suporting memberships, which sounded cool to me but it wasn't really me thing. To make a long story short. I left the site, for about a year asked to have my membership cancelled. I came back and seen A LOT of positive changes. I saw the supporting memberships, and decided to get one. There are a few perks to having one. Larger avatar, ability to post polls, ability to post attachments, some hidden areas on the site.

The money coming in isn't going to someones pocket, it is to make teh site we all love even better thatit is. I know that Kaith has puts a lot of his own money out in the past and put in thousands and thousands of hours building MartialTalk into one of the premier martial arts sites on the web. A supporting membership is only $12 a year and if you spend only 1 hour a week here it is probably the cheapest entertainment you can find.

If you are not a supporting member ask yourself why not? It is worth the litle money.

 

[Mark Weiser]

Rob I hear ya! I have been in communication with Kaith via e-mail and I will be sponsoring a forum here.

I run a school and an e-commerce store so this is perfect for me. $125 a year for as much traffic as this site generates you can not do any better. I have done the research.

So look for my banner coming up soon lol. Oh by the way I am also going to be a supporting member as well.

COME GUYS AND GALS get with it!!! lol

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Special Offer - For MT Supporters
Martial Talk 75MB Plan
75 MegaBytes Disk Space
5 Gigabytes Monthly Transfer
25 Email Accounts

Free Setup
Regularly $10 / month* (*Annual payment $120)
Now only $99/yr (Must be a supporting member or Sponsor)
Save 17.5% off the normal annual rate. That is a savings of $21!

Offer ends August 31st.
Hosting from now until August 31st is FREE.
Offer is billed from 9/1/04-8/31/05 so the sooner you sign up, the more free hosting you get.

Please PM me for details on how to sign up.

 

[Mark Weiser]

Kaith do you mind if I put out some numbers for those whom have Businesses on the Internet.

Average Online Sale in the Martial Arts Business is about $100 per sale. Now if you take in account the number of members and the amount of guest traffic ( I am guessing here) of lets say about 50 per hour.

Avg percentage of visitors buying is around 1% along with members

$100 x .50 Visitors per hour (12 sales per month) = $1200 per month in possible revenue this is from guest traffic.

$100 x 1% of members (3000 x 1% = 30 sales) per month = $3000 per month

TOTAL POSSIBLE REVENUE INCOME = $4200 per month

This is MARVELOUS

This is for a business person is too good of an offer to pass up. ALL YOU BUSINESS PEOPLE get on the wagon.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Hi Mark,
Nope, not at all.

Here's the stats from the July 2004 MT Logs.

Time Period July 01, 2004, 12:00:16 AM to August 01, 2004, 12:00:12 AM
Total Visiting Users 144,215
Average Users per Day 4,652.10
Each user has visited approximately 3.93 times
Average time spent by a single user of the web site 12 minutes, 49 seconds
Hits on Pages 1,075,895 (average per day = 34,706)


Total Data Transferred 34.17 gigabytes
Average Data Transferred per Day 1.10 gigabytes
/forum/ 1,022,786 hits 17.58 gigabytes

The Premium Banner currently running for KarateDepot.com is averaging 23,000-24,000 displays per day. So far, it's had 1.5 Million displays in the 8 weeks it's been running.

Standard Disclaimer: This is our traffic. Your milage may vary.

 

[Mark Weiser]

Kaith I appreciate the numbers and they are better than I thought LOL!!

Taking those numbers of 23,000 @ 1% = 230 visits to a business site with 1% of them buying = 2 per day x $100 = $200 day x 30 days = $6000 in possible revenue!! so 1% of 1% is extremely on the low side. Think about it if it went up to the industry standard of 3% lol ($18,000)

Oh by the way I will be getting those funds to ya lol!

 

[Seig]

Don't forget, you can also host your own private forum here at Martial Talk!