Hello all,

As you may have noticed recently BA has been going offline or has periodic times where it is very slow. This is either down to my ISP being unreliable or so much traffic hitting the server we utilise 100% of the upload bandwidth.

Because of this I think it might be worth moving to a dedicated server permanently, but this time WE or rather I will be paying for this server and not someone else, meaning I have full control and I will know if its going to go offline for whatever reason.

The only problem is paying for it. I have just started work but I am on minimum wage, which isn't much, and after tax, national insurance, paying for my lodging, car insurance and fuel, doesn't leave me with much (about £40 a week) of which I have to live off.

I have found a server which is suitable, and is the same as the last server we had.

AMD Athlon XP 2800
1GMB DDRAM Memory
120GB EIDE Hard Drive
1,000GB Data Transfer
100Mbit port
Windows 2003 Web Edition
No Contract
Free Set-up
$115/month (thats about £60/month)

I could pay for this on my own but it will stretch my budget a lot. What I am asking is if anyone could donate on a regular basis to help pay for the server. It doesn't have to be much, even if its just $5 or something like that, it will all go into the kitty for paying for the server.

A friend of mine said he might be able to pay something towards it because I host his website at the moment for free. Unfortunately he is still in school and only gets £20 a week.

I am able to pay half of this guaranteed per month, but that is all. I will have to find the money for the other half somewhere else which is why I am asking you if you can donate towards it.

So what will you get out of helping to pay for it? Well you'll enjoy faster speeds including the pages and images as well, and you'll also enjoy the fact you have helped the community to stay alive.

So a summary:

$115 (£60) a month
or
$28.75 (£15) a week

What do you guys (and girls) say? Do you think you could help out?

Questions and comments welcome.

I think I could donate bout 10€per month... but i am not sure...

Anything at all is better than nothing.

I sent a quid

Now, we need all 362 members to do that... BANG you can afford the server!

Yeah but not for long!

I dunno if I could do it monthly but I'd be happy to chip in every now and again.

umm i wish i can help by my own but im under age and mom is steallin my pay check so i rly cant

but....
i think i can help in a difrent way.

me works for a world-wide company known as ARD Corporation (it workd underground for GOVs arrund the world for 3 yes)

Now its commming out with a new service calld Saturn Liberty High Definition Services

and well we need service resellers arrund the world.

ARD Corp Mexico (the one im in) is in charge of collecting service resellers world-wide

money is rly go0d

example :

one 6 month contract for a 24/7 (live/recorded) HD Radio Station is:
$10,000 USD per month
from 10 up to 30% of the final contract price will be for you (each month)

here is the partner web site with more info about each service.

http://demo.ardcorp.tv

and well maybe i cant help my self but i think i can help in a diff way

if u get min 5 or 6 contracts i dont remebr u will get the 30% of each 1

u can sell HD Radio and presell HDTV and Digital TV channels

pm is u need more info

and i hope this can help you out

i don't know about monthly, but i could from time to time. if i get a credit card

You don't actually need a credit card for paypal. As long as you have a bank account you can link that into paypal and have it take money from your account. Thats the great thing about it.

Every little helps, even if you can't do it regularly its better than not at all.

I've had many people complaining about timeouts today, this is down to the extreme bandwidth we are now using. Opening the Wiki at this time was not the best of ideas as it is putting further strain on the bandwidth we have left.

If you get a timeout, please keep retrying the site. We won't have gone down, you just hit the link when everyone else did.

It looks like we definately need this server now. Even Craig (my friend) has agreed we need it and he will be contributing his share towards it.

I am debating whether to purchase the server today or not. I will have talks with some people and let you know.

Thanks Craig. It will really help.

OK, the server has been purchased. It is the specs as above.

I will take the site down when it is needed to set up the new server, however it is being commissioned so it will be 24-48 hours before it is online.

I'm not donating anything, it's bad enough paying for my own dedicated server ...

I am contributing by letting you all use the SillyProject FTP though, so my concience is clear, lolz!

The server is in the order queue and should be activated in the next 5 hours (according to sales).

Tomorrow, if it is active, I will take the site down while I transfer BetaArchive to the new server. This should take around 5 hours at most.

BA itself will be back online fairly quickly but the screenshots will be back online slowly as I upload them. Other websites I host will come back online as and when they are uploaded.

I think that there should be more "perks" for people that donate. e.g. have a "donator" status under their name and maybe have access to a protected/hidden forum which only donators have access where they can talk about anything. This will encourage more people to donate.

The other alternative is to bring back the adverts to raise a bit of revenue

Like apache said, people would be more likely to donate if there is a reward (like a private forum). Anyways, I look forward to the new server.

The site won't go off tonight. It will go off tomorrow after 8am GMT.

Cry.... anyways thanks for the new server

I *might* be able to donate, but unfortunately donating monthly is out of the question. I make nothing after school starts, so funds will be low.

Thanks fireware. Anything is helpful.

We're on the new dedicated now by the way in case anybody hadn't noticed

##Referring to post below due to stupid time correcting thingy##

Totally correct. Just ran a fix script as well otherwise you'd get a flood error

I think the time zone's wrong, or a clock's off or somethin', 'cos this message was written at 16:29 BST 28th August 2007 (15:29 GMT/UTC 28/08/07) but the forum says 00:29 BST 29th August 2007 (23:29 GMT/UTC, 28/08/07)

(My profile's time zone is set to GMT+1, which is where I am.)

* Moonlit guesses that the fact the forum was moved 7 hours west might've had something to do with it...