Hello all,

Some of you who I have spoken to on MSN might already know most of this, but for those of you who don't, I have secured myself a 1 bedroomed flat just round the corner from my mothers house I just heard that I move in on Friday 1st Oct, which incidentally is 1 week before my 22nd birthday. What better birthday present (to himself) could a guy want than his own flat?!

Yesterday I did a 350mi round trip from my Dads to gather my belongings and a fridge kindly donated by my Dad. Boy was that a long day... 7 hours driving and lots of 2 1/2 men on the netbook in the car (Note, I didn't watch it, my friend who came with me did, but I could still hear it through the stereo )

So finally the time is getting close where I can have my own place, with my rules and my way of life. So what does this mean for BA? Hopefully lots. It will give me more space and time to work on new aspects of the site that myself and mrpijey have been planning for some time now. I won't go into detail as it will spoil the surprise, but we have a lot in the works to make BA a better place.

It will be some weeks before I have Internet in my flat, so until then I will be making do with 3g in various forms (phone and 3g stick). With any luck I will be able to get 12/1.3Mbps ADSL24, which is a damn sight better than what I have been using recently. I also plan to revamp my server with some extra drives for BA backups, as we have recently exceeded the capacity of the assigned 1.5TB drive by quite a wide margin. The revamp won't just include new drives, I also hope to build a new cabinet for future upgrades too.

Now I assume you will all want pictures of my new flat, and pictures you shall have once I move in. I have some pictures already but they're poor quality and won't reflect the true nature of the flat. For those who want to see them, they're on my personal site in the gallery under the name "Potential New Flat".

It's not easy getting a flat (as many of you may already know, and some younger people may not). Just finding a flat to get a viewing on is hard enough, let alone finding one you like. I think I was lucky, as the 4th flat I saw was one I liked and decided to apply for. However at a cost of £375/month it's not going to be easy to pay for! Not only that though, I also have to pay a whole range of bills, which after my pay cheque has been filed leaves me with a paltry £80/month remaining.

So what does this mean for BA? Well guys, I'll be relying on donations once again to pay for the server. Once I move into the flat, I can no longer pay for the BA server myself any more. We do have 2 months worth in the bank, but that's not an excuse not to donate. We need to keep that reserve topped up so if anything should happen one month we will be safe. And remember, 32 people out of a community of 1000 donating just £2 a month will pay for the server. So please dig deep and donate anything you can.

I think this post has probably gone on too long already, but one final thing. I have decided to do something very few sites do, and that is give out a mobile number. But, this is not my personal number just so you know. This is for BA members to contact me in case anything should happen to the site. It will be on 24/7 when I move into my new flat so you can SMS it. Calls will be rejected, and will accept SMS only. I will also not reply to SMS's as it will cost money to do so. If this service is abused, it will be stopped. Simple as that. It's just a means for you to contact me should anything happen on the site (spam, the site goes down, ftp goes down, other errors, etc).

As always, please post comments, questions, etc, and I'll be happy to answer them.

And one final thing, wish me good luck with the move!

Its been awhile since i donated to BA , Not much but i suppose every little bit counts

having your flat is indeed great
if the owner doesn't make it hard on you

when i was moving for college, i had nasty experiences
can't believe what people exist it until you feel it on your skin

good luck

I'll see if I can scrape something together for a donation.

Anyways, congrats on the flat.
(And good luck with the move)

Good luck with your new flat and life!

Congrats & good luck Andy.

I remeber my first apartment/ pad awhile ago but no pictures sadly.
Photos are great for looking back after some years have gone by.

Is that a good price per month where you live?
Here by the beach/ocean the rate is $900.+ USD for a single BR.

Nice, have fun with your new flat Andy! Does this mean that the website will go down for awhile when you are moving the servers or something?

No the main server is in a datacenter in france, not Andy's house.
IIRC, the backup server is at Andy's place, though i'm not 100% sure

Okay, gotcha, so I suppose the backup server will be going down.

The site is in a DC, the backup server will be down for a max of 1 hour, not enough to cause disruption to backups.

When i'm home for Christmas, I could prolly put a day's wages towards BA (It's prolly worth that much, if not more, though... $80 is a tad high in my parent's eyes (2 months of data for my smartphone))
Either way, I plan to finally donate since I"ve got some $$ (I can go without a box or two of poptarts in my dorm)

Well I'm now moved into my flat Broadband is proving an issue and I won't even get a phone line until 25th of this month For now I have a very unreliable Three 3g broadband modem and 7GB of data allowance (cost £25). Best stable speed I can get out of it is 128Kbps and that's only because that's the best it will do in a place it doesn't lose signal. Roll on next month so I can have proper broadband!!!

i hope you get another, better offer. 25 pounds is really expensive for 3000 and 7gb. anyway, good to see that the moving is finished. congrats and good luck!

When I get my proper broadband it will be unlimited for £18/month. I'm expecting 12Mbps down and 1.3Mbps up.

What's the provider?

I'll be going with Be*There for my broadband.

My 3g is with Three, but not by choice. I'd use T-Mobile if the SIM worked, but it didn't. Signal for both T-Mobile and Three is crap around here. 1 bar at best, and the dongle couldn't hold a signal. I had to use my INQ1 phone to do it instead.

Be/O2. Very good choice. Damnsight better than TalkTalk or BT.

Do have fun, and don't get bankrupt.

Heh don't worry, I always do my research before I jump into something. I planned Be* months ago. And I hope I don't go bankrupt! I have been very fortunate that my family and friends are so generous. I couldn't have done the move without them.

By the way, pictures:

http://www.andrewwhyman.co.uk/gallery.p ... ew%20Flat/

I made a donation just after I joined, but I'm sure I could see my way to another small contribution in a time of need

Sorry If I'm 1 day out for replying, but do as the rules say, use the image uploader!

I'm the admin, you're 10. You're also banned. Good bye.

I lol'd.

Also how's a month living in solitude.

It's cool. My rules are always nicer to live by than others Just starting to get the bills now and watching my funds fade...

Lived in my own place since I was 16 and never looked back, 31 now, I can not stand living by other peoples rules either, being told to do the housework is not the same as deciding to do it in 15 minute sessions over the course of a week lol

I don't think you have enough locks on the front door

Looking good so far though!