# Recouping Temporary Site Costs



## Mike Bobbitt (16 Mar 2004)

Folks,

Because of the hardware failure last week, we‘re now operating off of my home connection until the new hardware can be put in place. Unfortunately, this is putting me *way* over my monthly traffic limit, and it may cost me up to $300 based on how things have been running so far.

I‘ve been tossing around a number of ideas, since I‘d like to avoid a $300 monthly bill. The obvious approach is to take down Army.ca for a while, to lower the usage. It‘s not my first choice, and would definitely be a temporary situation. (If we do happen to go off the air, don‘t panic - we‘ll be back!)

The other option is to try to raise a few bucks to cover the additional cost. Probably the best way to do this is to sell some Army.ca shirts, so at least you have something to show for your support. (I hate "flogging" them like this, but it seems to be the lesser of two evils.) You can go to the order form here:

 http://Army.ca/shirts 

There are only 15 left from the first lot, so it‘s possible we may sell them all. Thanks in advance for your support.


Cheers
Mike Bobbitt


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## tree hugger (16 Mar 2004)

What about advertisments from places like "wheelers"?  Dunno..it‘s an idea anyway!


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## Fishbone Jones (16 Mar 2004)

Mike,
How do we send you a straight donation?


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## girlfiredup (16 Mar 2004)

Good idea.  Just noticed the t-shirts don‘t come in small, so I‘m willing to make a donation.


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## Mike Bobbitt (16 Mar 2004)

Thanks for the quick response!

tree hugger: I have advertising from Wheelers already, though it doesn‘t "rotate in" very often. So far I‘ve made about $8 from that and just over $1 from the Amazon advertising here. It‘s probably because the ads are small, but I can‘t stand sites where 1/2 the page is flashing banner ads. I guess I need some marketing training...   

recceguy: There‘s a form for straight donations here:

 http://army.ca/donate/ 


Thanks!


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## girlfiredup (16 Mar 2004)

Huh?  What am I chopped liver?  My money is as green as everybody elses. Unless of course you only want a donation from recceguy.


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## Mike Bobbitt (16 Mar 2004)

Heheh, sorry, apparently we were typing our responses at the same time...

Here‘s a thought: If you donate $18, you get a free shirt, shipped to your door.


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## girlfiredup (16 Mar 2004)

hehe.. deal!


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## PTE Gruending (16 Mar 2004)

Why don‘t you check out paypal for possible donations? They offer a service where webusers can click a link on your site (ie; army.ca) to directly send a paypal/credit card payment, for donation purposes. With ease of transcaction like that, i am sure everyone could cough up a few bucks... anyways, check out the link here:
 https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext&leafid=2524&answer_id=3119609


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## Harris (16 Mar 2004)

Mike,

To recoup the $300 this month alone you‘d need to sell at least 100 shirts?  I think that people should step up to the plate and cough up $4 or $5 to help you out.  I‘ve done just that myself.


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## Infanteer (16 Mar 2004)

> Why don‘t you check out paypal for possible donations? They offer a service where webusers can click a link on your site (ie; army.ca) to directly send a paypal/credit card payment, for donation purposes. With ease of transcaction like that, i am sure everyone could cough up a few bucks... anyways, check out the link here:


If you followed his link, you would see that he has already done this.


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## Mike Bobbitt (16 Mar 2004)

Yep, already set up with PayPal... BTW I‘m not looking to completely cover the $300. Partly because that‘s an estimate and partly because I don‘t think it‘s reasonable to ask that much of the membership. So far though, folks have been very generous.


Thanks!


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## Lexi (16 Mar 2004)

I feel really, really bad because as much as I want to, I can‘t help out.
My parents just keep saying no, and I don‘t have money, nor a credit card of my own to donate with.

But I would if I could. Sorry guys, I feel I‘ve let you down when you really need me.


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## Grunt_031 (16 Mar 2004)

How about a classified ad section, you could charge a $1.00 or so per ad. Limit it to miltary items, Collectables and Surplus. Lots of traffic and there is alot of people that have extra stuff laying around that are not a business. More ambitious project would be a auction such as ebay or yahoo, Military collectables only.


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## 1feral1 (16 Mar 2004)

It would be good to have a members only ‘equipment exchange‘ on here. See www.ausmil.com, which is a site similar to this, and they ahve one there.

Hope this helps us all out.

Cheers,

WEs


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## Mike Bobbitt (16 Mar 2004)

Thanks for the ideas guys.

Lexi: Don‘t worry, not everyone is able to help out this way and I understand that. The response has been very positive, and we‘re looking pretty good.

I think an "equipment exchange" section might be a good idea, though it‘d be free. I don‘t want to charge for services as it then limits who can use them. It could also be very difficult to manage if it was a "pay to post" scenario. And most importantly, I‘m not out to make a buck, just trying to bridge things until the new hardware is in place.

Maybe we can start a new thread on the equipment idea to get a feel for how much it might be used.


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## alan_li_13 (16 Mar 2004)

You‘d know what would be kinda cool? If you made the shirts Olive green just like the issued combat T‘s, then us fellows in the militia and cadets can wear them under our combats


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## Mike Bobbitt (16 Mar 2004)

Not a bad idea... If this lot sells out maybe I‘ll order a 2nd batch... I‘ll probably post a poll first to get an idea of preferences for colour, size etc...


Thanks


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## brin11 (16 Mar 2004)

Mike,

email (mike@army.ca) was bounced back.  Please advise.....

Jill


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## girlfiredup (16 Mar 2004)

> Originally posted by Mike Bobbitt:
> [qb] Not a bad idea... If this lot sells out maybe I‘ll order a 2nd batch... I‘ll probably post a poll first to get an idea of preferences for colour, size etc...
> 
> 
> Thanks [/qb]


well you can count on me for one.. olive green, size small, please.


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## dano (16 Mar 2004)

Oh man. This is awful! 

I really wish I could help. I would transfur funds, but you have to be 18 right? 
(*note* I have CIBC online banking if that makes a diffrence...)

As for my input, perhapes you could close all forums except Canadian army or Off topic or something of that nature.


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## Lexi (16 Mar 2004)

As soon as I get my interac card and allowance that my mom and dad owe me from the past 2 years I swear to the gods I‘m going to buy a whole closet worth of T-Shirts and wear them out on the town.

And here‘s another idea. Instead of having a small logo on the left breast, how about a large logo, like my avatar image with "Army.ca" across it instead? Just an idea...


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## Pieman (16 Mar 2004)

Hi Mike, 

Another possible solution to this problems may be to  ‘simply‘ have a distributed server.  Many versions of forum software out there allow you do have your server act as the ‘mother‘ server, and other computers can act as secondary servers and take a load of the network traffic.

Some free forum software that does is can be found at:

www.invisionboard.com
www.phpbb.com 

I have not done this before, but I don‘t think it is too difficult to set up.

I would be willing to donate my linux platform as a secondary server, if there are a few other computer geeks out there on the forum willing to do the same, the amount of traffic on each network would be minimal.

It is not a easy solution, but I think it could work and would cost nothing.


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## girlfiredup (16 Mar 2004)

Another suggestion would be for some of the artists on here to come up with a logo of some sort. I‘m sure this forum has a lot of hidden talent.  Personally, I prefer a small logo as opposed to something in your face.  Just a suggestion.


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## Pieman (16 Mar 2004)

Silly me, there is an easier solution.

Don‘t know if you are aware of this, there are companies that will host your forum for about $5-10 a month that will allow for over 2G of network traffic. This one may be of bennifit:

 http://phpbb-host.org/ 

This sight will host your forum for free, but don‘t know if they will let you use the army.ca address without paying.


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## Mike Bobbitt (17 Mar 2004)

Thanks guys, that‘s all good info. We generate about 2-3Gb of traffic a day here, so it‘s a challenge to find a host that can handle it without breaking the bank.

Still, there may be some merit in the "secondary server" option, I‘ll check it out.

As a side note, while UBB (the forum software here) is commercial, we get it for free because this site is on the beta team. Means a bit more work to run through their test plans (and the odd hiccup for you guys) but cuts the cost, which is good.


Thanks to everyone for your support.


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## dano (17 Mar 2004)

Is it possible to use a computer as a server?
Like a dedicated server, or whatnot.


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## ErorZ (17 Mar 2004)

> Originally posted by rifle_team_captain_13:
> [qb] You‘d know what would be kinda cool? If you made the shirts Olive green just like the issued combat T‘s, then us fellows in the militia and cadets can wear them under our combats [/qb]


This is a great idea, I would go for a few of those, keeping the current style and logo.


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## Mike Bobbitt (17 Mar 2004)

I have to take this opportunity to thank everyone. The support I have recieved in shirt sales, donations and good old fashioned notes of encouragement has been overwhelming. I certainly appreciate every bit of it.

A few of the regulars here have been generous to the point of embarassing me, but we are now well equipped to handle the extra traffic load until the new hardware is in place.

So at this point, please hold off on the donations. We‘ll watch and shoot to see how the traffic and billing works out, but I think we‘re in good hands now.

For those that want to still buy a shirt, feel free. I still need to sell 9 more to break even on that venture...   


Thanks again


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## corporal-cam (18 Mar 2004)

I haven‘t been here long but this site is really cool. And I‘m kinda in between jobs right now so I can‘t buy any t shirts, but I‘m there in spirit with my empty wallet    As soon as I get some money I‘m gonna buy a T shirt and wear it on my next cadet ex, expessially if they‘re od.


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## Devlin (19 Mar 2004)

Mike:

Paypal payment has been made. Look forward to getting the shirt, my unit is doing a Professional Development weekend (War Museum, DEW Engineering, perhaps a beer or three as well) in Ottawa at the end of this month. If any Army.ca members are around PM me and maybe we can all meet up for a pint. 

Hope all is going well with the sites recovery.


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## Mike Bobbitt (19 Mar 2004)

Thanks, your shirt will go out in the mail this weekned and you should have it by mid next week. Keep us posted on your timings, I may be able to make it out for a glass of beer.

As an update, I‘m in the process of obtaining a new connection which can handle more traffic for less money, so within a week or two we should be switched over.


Cheers


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## Jmacca (20 Mar 2004)

Mike - I sent ya 18$ paypal for a shirt. Thanks and good luck


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## Mike Bobbitt (20 Mar 2004)

Thanks!


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## bossi (20 Mar 2004)

Hmmm ... maybe you could do some free-lance consulting for another website (and thus get somebody else to underwrite/defray the costs of Army.ca)

I just visited Frank magazine, and their forum is slower than molassssssssssses ... but it‘s remarkably similar to here ... hmmm ... I sense an alliance ... ?

Frank magazine


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## Mike Bobbitt (20 Mar 2004)

I have actually done the odd bit of freelance work and it helps keep Army.ca afloat... For example the forums at www.ducims.com and (ironically) the virtual exhibition for www.politicalgraphics.org to name a couple.

I use "passive" advertising though - that is, I‘ve never approached anyone, I let them come to me. Probably not the most effective way to run things, but it keeps it low key.


Cheers


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## btk_joker (22 Mar 2004)

All I have is a St. Willibrord Credit Union bank card... The thing says I can use one but only if it has a visa or mastercard logo? well mine doesnt but Im not sure if I can use it to pay or not... help?

J. Lightfoot


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## Michael OLeary (22 Mar 2004)

T-shirt received, thanks Mike.


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## btk_joker (22 Mar 2004)

nevermind, I just used a cheque and mailed it, I hope I did it right...

J. Lightfoot


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## ErorZ (22 Mar 2004)

Received my shirt today too... pretty fast shipping there Mike    

Nice shirt !!


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## Mike Bobbitt (22 Mar 2004)

I‘m glad they arrived safe and sound.

Thanks for your support guys!


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## Jmacca (26 Mar 2004)

Oh mine arrived as well. Thanks Mike


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## btk_joker (29 Mar 2004)

can you tell me if I did everything right with the cheque I sent you and if my shirt is on the way? sorry to be a bother but im impatient. lol

thanks,

J. Lighfoot


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## Mike Bobbitt (29 Mar 2004)

Hi Hulk,

Yeah, you did everything right... I sent you an e-mail on Friday (when I recieved the cheque) but it may not have made it...

What it said is that all I have left are XLs, so I asked if you still want to go ahead or cancel.

Sorry for the delay!


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## btk_joker (30 Mar 2004)

****, I guess XL will have to do...I would say that I‘d use it as a nightie but...since I‘m in the army, I dont sleep...    

thanks,
J. Lightfoot


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## Mike Bobbitt (30 Mar 2004)

LOL

Ok, I‘ll pack it up and get it out to you...


Thanks


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## btk_joker (5 Apr 2004)

sweet, 3 sticker bonus with my order! thanks a lot


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## XHighlander (29 Apr 2004)

mike;

shirts arrvied........ thanks for the bonus

they look great........ i will tell everyone i meet about the shirts and the site


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