The issue we had today

[notoptoy]

I'm upping my monthly donation automatically made through PayPal! Thanks Steve!

[S Allen]

Thanks to all whom have donated. I have asked for additional disk space to be added so we should be in good shape going forward. Thanks again to all.

Steve

[Alvin]

Thanks to all whom have donated. I have asked for additional disk space to be added so we should be in good shape going forward. Thanks again to all.

Steve

Steve,
For those that are not savvy on back-end stuff required to run websites (like myself), what eats up disk space and how much does it cost to maintain monthly?

[S Allen]

Since we moved to this host provider monthly costs are roughly $65 a month. We have our own virtual private server with now 60 gig of disk space. In addition to that we pay for domain name registration as well as an SSL Certificate yearly. I love having the full control over the server. That is how I figured out what had gone south pretty quickly. For the Phpbb3 forum software to work there is a database server running in the background which contains all the posts and pictures as data in tables on the database. There are other applications running on WordPress that cost money as well. The application I used to create the Roadster Registry database cost funds as well not included in the monthly costs. $65 x 12 = $780 plus the other software licenses gives us a rough estimate of yearly cost. I don't ask anything for my time. Hope that helps you see the costs for running 311s.org.

Steve

[Alvin]

Since we moved to this host provider monthly costs are roughly $65 a month. We have our own virtual private server with now 60 gig of disk space. In addition to that we pay for domain name registration as well as an SSL Certificate yearly. I love having the full control over the server. That is how I figured out what had gone south pretty quickly. For the Phpbb3 forum software to work there is a database server running in the background which contains all the posts and pictures as data in tables on the database. There are other applications running on WordPress that cost money as well. The application I used to create the Roadster Registry database cost funds as well not included in the monthly costs. $65 x 12 = $780 plus the other software licenses gives us a rough estimate of yearly cost. I don't ask anything for my time. Hope that helps you see the costs for running 311s.org.

Steve

Steve,
Thanks for sharing this information. I can appreciate the costs involved, not including your time. I hope others will as well, and pitch in. I did not consider software licenses and Wordpress costs, it adds up quickly.

[GeoffM]

Hey Steve, another forum that I'm on (nodeBB...new hotness) automatically compresses images that users upload...that way, users don't have to edit a 5MB picture down to below 500k, the software does it for them. Is that a feature in phpBB that's even available or that you can enable?

[S Allen]

Not that I am aware of. I will look into it though. Thanks. I found an extension that would do this but it has not been supported in over a year and no guarantees it would work and not break something else. The problem with phpbb is it being opensource and people come and go. Updates usually break the extensions and the original authors of the extension lose interest and flat out quit supporting them. I had several installed when I first started this forum. Back then they were called mods and you had to hand edit a bunch of files to make them work. I realize this is a big turnoff for many technically challenged folks whom have no clue how to resize the mega-pixel phone camera pictures. So, a solution needs to be found. Will keep looking.

Steve

[Nissanman]

Hi Steve,
received a couple of emails this morning on a topic that have a strange message title: -
=?US-ASCII?Q?Reply in "How to split leaf springs?"?=

I think something is amiss.
Regards,
Nissanman

[S Allen]

I noticed that as well on replies. Definitely something to do with the last update. I ran into a couple of issues. Not a show stopper and I will look into it. Thanks.

Steve

[S Allen]

Nissanman,

I found a fix and applied it just now. Let me know if you see the error again. I will watch for it as well. This is a known bug in the latest update. Thanks.

Steve

[Nissanman]

Well done and thank you for you dedicated effort with our Forum

[S Allen]

Np's. Glad to be able to do it. Stay safe down there.

Steve

[70-1600]

Steve: your continued dedication to keeping the site up and running is very much appreciated. Donation sent!

[S Allen]

Donation very much appreciated. Thank you.

Steve