Pilots of America Operations Fundraiser! (Ended)

Done. Love having the ability to share my work with you guys. Thanks!
 
dmspilot said:
I'm not suggesting a dedicated server, just saying it shouldn't cost that much. Something is very poorly optimized somewhere. And don't you mean AWS? Not sure what AWC is.
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It's a pair of ec2 instances of decent size, storage at rest, a sprinkle of (AWS expensive) bandwidth and DNS. stuff adds up. Xenforo and plugin licensing is about 1/3 of the proposed budget IIRC. I don't think I'm telling secrets, but a mod is welcome to tell me to STFU and I will.

Luckily throwing tomatoes at the work of volunteers -- in their once-a-year brief fundraising thread -- is free.

I colo my own server for my stuff because I'm a cheapskate and don't like being nickeled and dimed for hosting and its ancillary costs. AWS is like 30% more than colo or leased instances, but it makes it easy to hand from one caretaker to the next. Dealing with AWS is becoming the common IT suffering. :D
 
dmspilot said:
I'm not suggesting a dedicated server, just saying it shouldn't cost that much.
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Many things today shouldn’t cost what they do, but here we are. AWS has also been affected by inflation…
 
RyanB said:
Many things today shouldn’t cost what they do, but here we are. AWS has also been affected by inflation…
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didn't mean to cause a thing.........I just hadn't really thought about it so I probably wasn't expecting any # you threw out there.....
 
eman1200 said:
didn't mean to cause a thing.........I just hadn't really thought about it so I probably wasn't expecting any # you threw out there.....
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It’s all good, I wouldn’t have thought it would cost what it does to keep things running either!
 
RyanB said:
Many things today shouldn’t cost what they do, but here we are. AWS has also been affected by inflation…
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You know that's not what I meant, and you conveniently cut out the context about poor optimization when you quoted my post.
 
dmspilot said:
You know that's not what I meant, and you conveniently cut out the context about poor optimization when you quoted my post.
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If you can determine a better solution, feel free to let us know. I do believe it’s a bit obtuse to suggest that our current system is being poorly optimized when you don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle.
 
RyanB said:
If you can determine a better solution, feel free to let us know. I do believe it’s a bit obtuse to suggest that our current system is being poorly optimized when you don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle.
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I had no idea how much it would cost to run the website, kind of like the hangar for sale on the other thread. But I think $2500 is on the low side and the hangar is on the high side. :D:D

If you ran your own server, any decent internet will run $1000/yr, plus software/licenses, domain, email, etc. Then you’ll have downtime, computer equipment upgrades needed now and then, etc.
 
RyanB said:
If you can determine a better solution, feel free to let us know. I do believe it’s a bit obtuse to suggest that our current system is being poorly optimized when you don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle.
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You are right that I don't know the details of how the site operates so I could be wrong in my assessment. It is based on general experience maintaining servers to run forums and other webapps with a similar amount of traffic. That same lack of detail makes it difficult to make suggestions, though.
 
dmspilot said:
You are right that I don't know the details of how the site operates so I could be wrong in my assessment. It is based on general experience maintaining servers to run forums and other webapps with a similar amount of traffic. That same lack of detail makes it difficult to make suggestions, though.
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Sounds like the fundraiser is working though, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. Especially in the IT world. You can save some money but you would still have some cost, it won’t be free.
 
mandm said:
Sounds like the fundraiser is working though, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. Especially in the IT world. You can save some money but you would still have some cost, it won’t be free.
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Touché
 
We are only $200 short of our goal! I’ll probably leave the fundraiser open til Friday, or we hit our goal, whichever comes first.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has donated so far! Your support is greatly appreciated!
 
…and the fundraiser has now concluded! In just over three days, we reached our goal of $2500!

We would like to thank everyone that donated and for your continued support!
 
Dave Theisen said:
Looking forward to your “Best Steak Dinner in Chattanooga” thread. :)
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Jokes aside, so there’s no questions — the funds go strictly toward the operation of the site and it’s really impressive to see such great support!
 
As an example of costs and level of effort. nyx.net has been around since the early 90s. It was, and still is, free. Started as a spare machine at a local university, we piggy-backed on the schools network/services/etc, didn't cost much other than the dial-up lines. About 15 yrs ago, the school told us to get lost (no problem), we had already shut down the dial-up lines. The hardware (2 full racks) migrated every few years to various locations (closets, basements, etc) of folks who were supporters. Admin operations were, and still are, global. The next location was to be my basement (I had room, and an extra phone line, and know how to reboot the systems). At that point the board decided this was getting ridiculus, trying to keep aging hardware and we moved to AWS. No more need to reboot at 3 am, no worries at all other than the monthly billing. We don't have chat or most of the goodies here, so it's a very low-cost, low-involvement environment.
 
Sorry I missed it. My CC got lost, and the new one was in the mail. Just arrived so I clicked here and . . . Missed it.

Appreciate all you guys do and the forum overall!
 
Just clicked the link and it looks like you guys shut it down. Never knew anyone unwilling to take money. Strange folks, our MC......
 
Darn. I was out of town. Next time.
 
Kritchlow said:
Right. The internet does not reach out of town.

I truly do not care, but don’t give stupid excuses. Better off staying mum.
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If you want serious, I have X dollars to donate each month and I was out of money for Dec. Next time.
 
Kritchlow said:
Yea, guess it went over mine.
But still don’t get it.
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It was a joke. Like when my Mother used to say that she was out sick the day they taught square roots in school. We knew that was just a joke too. She just didn't have a strong desire or motivation to learn square roots.

And I too was out of town (or maybe I was out sick) during the three days of the fund raiser.
 
Kritchlow said:
Right. The internet does not reach out of town.

I truly do not care, but don’t give stupid excuses. Better off staying mum.
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Lighten up, Francis!

When I'm out of town, I'm sometimes too busy to bother with sites like this. I work trade shows or customer visits during the day, than do e-mail in the evening. That doesn't leave much time for PoA. I've also recently been to places where internet is difficult to access- so sometimes, the internet doesn't reach out of town.
 
Half Fast said:
Just clicked the link and it looks like you guys shut it down. Never knew anyone unwilling to take money. Strange folks, our MC......
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We only collect enough money to cover costs for about a year to 18 months of operation. Once we reach that amount the fund drive is closed. :)
 
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