Just got off the phone with the "billing dept" for http://hostica.com and they cannot do anyting for me. The "tech support dept" can but has not returned my calls or e-mail just yet.

The billing dept was able to tell me this: It seems that there server has a saftey feature that shuts the site down when we reach over 50GB of traffic (thinking that something is wrong for that kind of traffic). Today, we reached 52.1 GB (in just a few weeks, I might add). For those that don't know, that's A WHOLE LOT OF FRICKIN DOWNLOADS!

So a mixed blessing so to speak.

What to do? When I hear something, I'll post it here. In the mean time, consider the NFO pretty popular for that kinda traffic. Our billing cycle ends on the 18th and the counter will be set back to zero. I'm not saying that it will be down until the 18th, but until I can work out some sort of resolution with tech support, we are down.

I appologize for the poop but it's out of my hands.



...
[This message was edited Wed Jan 7 9:26:38 PST 2004 by NFO]

Should we make an anouncement over here or just start a new thread in GD. It is kinda great news, we are too popular!!!

VinaBlue said:

LOL that's cool. Like Vina said, we should do a soundclick page 4 now just in case, but that will take long. (musicwise)

This site is still open: http://www.cafeshops.com/newfunkorder

They don't list any traffic limit!

We're back up!

Hey NFO,

Perhaps we may have more luck with my current web host at http://www.powweb.com. They offer 1000mb of storage and 150gb of bandwidth per month for $7.77. I host all my websites with them and they are the cheapest host Ive found since Ive been on the internet! Dunno what your already paying or how long you have paid for but its worth considering, I pay $23.31 every 3 months & I barely feel it plus since signing up with them the hosting package I recieve for my money has gone from 700mb storage & 45gb of bandwidth to 1000mb storage & 150gb of bandwidth!

Its a shame we're gettin charged extra but kinda cool at the same time. 50gb is the size of the average hard drive & we've transfered over that in a month!! WOW! Trouble is, we dont wanna try to decrease the traffic to reduce the costs after we've come so far. It would be great to find an alternative that costs MR NFO less & gives the project more

Also, NFO look into google adsense at http://www.google.com/adsense we can earn money back from the site just by someone clicking these ads. It certainly supports my site when my CDs aint sellin so well lol . We dont even have to keep the ads there for long, just enough to earn some cash back

Hope this helps. Let me know if I can help anymore

Lewis

http://www.powweb.com/webhosting.html

Does this mean we could move the PHP message board over as it is?

Lewis!

I spoke with http://www.powweb.com 1-877-476-9932

Two problems:
only 5 GB per day. (65 GB per month)
If we go over that, the site shuts down like it did yesterday. Good news is that it just shuts down for the remainder of the 24 hours and they don't charge me extra though to turn it back on.

PHP board.
To move that over requires both server admin's help and will be a lengthy process. My server admin has to make a "dump file" for the data base so the board will have it's info when it's re-installed on the new server. I would REALLY HATE to start over on the board. We worked hard on that over the past several months. Will they be willing to work together on that? we can see, I guess.

ok we averaged 169333 KB per day
maxed out at 9437483 in one day. (on the 19th)

What's that in GB?

NFO said:

A Gb is 1000 Mb. Uuuuhhh, I can't do anymore math this morning.

The 19th is the day the ad went up. Amazing, huh?

Ok, 169,000 Kb is 169 Mb.
9,437,000 is 9437 Mb, so 9.4 Gb.

Am I right? Am I right?


[This message was edited Tue Jan 6 8:43:18 PST 2004 by VinaBlue]

Lewis,
I signed up for this thing: http://www.google.com/adsense

Is that what's on your message board?

also, if we all click on those ads, that means $$?

I can really see now why prince.org has almost NO graphics.

Imagine the bandwidth if it was like the NFO site. Smart man, that ben!
[This message was edited Tue Jan 6 12:47:03 PST 2004 by NFO]

NFO said:

yup, and on my promo page, webdesign portfolio & my html version of the site. Basically, all the pages that google will allow me to put ads on (they dont like flash pages, over use of images & some javascript)

Beware, google use ip addresses & other identification techniques to prevent you from clicking your own ads & bumoing your cash up. Having said that, they can tell who the owner of the site is & whether he is trying to fool google but they probably cant tell that the members of the NFO are involved.

Not sure if your host is the same but I have the option to add billing details for more than one person - eg. if theres two people that run a site together, they can both add their billing details & the cost of the site will be split between them.

Just thinking maybe this could be a way of taking some of the stress away from Mr NFO's wallet & for us to also help fund the project. Whats the hosts bill per month split between 18 people, it would be a very small amount.

Just a suggestion

Damn, we're down again.


[This message was edited Wed Jan 7 8:52:22 PST 2004 by VinaBlue]

I'm Telling YOU! it's the RIAA!

Always keeping a man down.

Read more here: http://www.prince.org/msg/100/75429
Thanks Vina!

NFO said:

LOL, QUIT THINKIN LIKE ME!

Still Down...

This is what I don't understand.

Take your power company, phone company, etc. If you use more power in a month than usual, they don't shut you off. If you use more minutes on your cell phone than your plan calls for, they don't shut you off.

You get extra on your bill at the end of the month. Fine. I can deal with that.

The power company doesn't just shut your power off and say "Now pay us" half way through your billing cycle. I just don't get it.

I'm tempted to take all my customers and move them over to that company Lewis suggested. Only problem is most of them paid for the year instead of monthly.

NFO said:

Hey don't worry man. Think of how much DEMAND this is gonna produce!

I miss the message board though. I feel all lonely and lost without it.

they're not intelligent, instead of charging more they cut we off, how stupid is that?

7salles said:

They are charging more, WAY more, a little over 10 times more. I think they just want to make sure they get their payment. I don't blame them.

Still feels more like a shake down. If I had a customer that was getting successful because I helped him/her, I would want to keep them satisfied.

i still think it's a stupid way to deal, and if it was my site and i paied for it i would look to another company to host it and i would yell, fuck off jerks.

just kidding

RIAA! lol. You never know. Well, Tim, I did plenty for years with free sites.

Many marketing analysts need to stop judging what people do or don't like. They base these things on bullcrap focus groups and polling that really doesn't matter. The kind of focus groups that say "well, if you don't direct link, then people will be discouraged and not visit your site". SCREW THAT! First of all, in my experience, that is a false observation. Second of all, if a person can't learn to deal with a couple of pop up banners and clicking one extra hyperlink, then they really aren't that interested in the first place or are too impatient. These are the kind of people standing at a microwave tapping their foot for something to take 20 seconds. GET A CLUE.

Free sites and hosting need to exist! The internet was supposed to be FREE!


Peace,
JD

NFO said:

Thats a good one NFO. I put this one to my webdesign guru friend. He taught me most of what I know about design & programming. As some of your know, the linux operating system is free (linux is a common computer system for web hosts - windows for websites) so asked my friend 'if linux is free, why do I have to pay for a linux webhost??'. He said that they dont charge for the machine or the hosting space itself because its free, so therefore they charge for bandwidth & thats all your actually getting for the money you pay a webhost. Strange huh??

So I guess that NFO's host has disabled our site because we could still access the other features of our site (storage, mysql etc) without paying the bandwidth. They reactivate all services once the bandwidth charge has been paid.

At least thats my theory anyways. I checked out hostica.com & they dont seem that great for the money they charge. A lot of the special features they are charging extra for come free with a powweb package eg. email, ssl certificates, shopping carts & site tool boxs.

I think the idea of limiting the amount of bandwidth on powweb to 5gb per day rather than a larger monthly limit is that most popular sites dont exceed a daily limit but it can build up over a monthly basis.

God bless

Lewis

We did do 9.4 GB in one day though.

NFO said:

I see, impressive! But powwebs limit started at 45gb & is now 65bg 3 months later. I have a feeling that it will get larger still as it has been increasing since I signed up with them