Administrators gav240z Posted March 29, 2020 Administrators Share Posted March 29, 2020 Hi folks, I so recently quit my long term employment after 11.5 years at Google. Of course this was a couple of weeks before the Corona Virus hit global economies. My timing is excellent. In a bid to reduce my expenses I've been going over my recurring bills. 1 of them is this website. Unfortunately the fall in $AUD has hurt because the website is currently costing $175 USD per month. I've looked at migrating to Amazon cloud (S3) a while ago but got stuck on the set up part of the configuration. But even so I'm not sure I can trim much off the operating costs because it's likely to remain an expense in $USD. Advertising has always helped and donations with it to keep the site up and running. The short fall I've always covered out of my own pocket, but now that I don't know when I'll find employment again I'm asking if folks who are in a position to donate can, then I'd really appreciate it. Especially for these next couple of months. Thanks and a big thank you to all who have donated over the years. It's very much appreciated. Gavin. Ponyo240z and brent012 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PB260Z Posted March 29, 2020 Moderators Share Posted March 29, 2020 No worries Gav, appreciate all you do, this forum made my Z experience possible. Donation made. (PS : I have pinned this post ) gav240z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted March 29, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted March 29, 2020 Thanks for the donation Peter! PB260Z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilltech Posted March 29, 2020 Share Posted March 29, 2020 Quote No worries Gav, appreciate all you do, this forum made my Z experience possible. Donation made. Ditto. Not much $$$ I'm afraid as work has dried up for me. But I'll appreciate your site even the more as I sit out the next weeks/months based at home. gav240z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.A.R. Posted March 29, 2020 Share Posted March 29, 2020 Donation sent Gav Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HS30-H Posted March 29, 2020 Share Posted March 29, 2020 Sent something. Not much, but I'll try to make it monthly. Thanks and Good Luck! PB260Z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groundhog Posted March 29, 2020 Share Posted March 29, 2020 Done. Keep up the good work. PB260Z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmd Posted March 29, 2020 Share Posted March 29, 2020 Done. PB260Z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponyo240z Posted March 29, 2020 Share Posted March 29, 2020 Done. All the best PB260Z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatoKid Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 Done and thanks for everything you do Gav! PB260Z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 Hi Gav, if you you can - DM me some details on the hosting stats (size of the site, size of the SQL, monthly bandwidth). Happy to look at what I can do investigating cheaper hosting options and assisting in migrating. Thanks gav240z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted March 30, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted March 30, 2020 Thanks all, very much appreciated. I am currently interviewing for a job in my existing field. But each day things are changing. So I am just planning for worst case scenario. brent012 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brent012 Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 1 hour ago, Kirby said: Hi Gav, if you you can - DM me some details on the hosting stats (size of the site, size of the SQL, monthly bandwidth). Happy to look at what I can do investigating cheaper hosting options and assisting in migrating. Thanks Agreed, happy to help here too. Have you looked into using a VPS like DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, RackSpace over AWS? It would increase some of the maintenance hassles (probably can be partially mitigated by Dockerizing the site) but should be more affordable. gav240z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redrbzed Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 Done, hope all goes well. gav240z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riceburner Posted April 4, 2020 Share Posted April 4, 2020 Small donation made. Thanks for all you efforts and all the best going forward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted April 6, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted April 6, 2020 Hey everyone thanks for all your donations. I haven't updated everyone's status to donating member yet. I'll do it in bulk when I get a new laptop (handed in the work 1) and new Macbooks have a 2 week wait on delivery. Yikes! Hard to do from my phone because admin section is best suited to desktop PC. Anyway, thanks again. I have had a couple of job interviews so may have work again soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linton Posted April 6, 2020 Share Posted April 6, 2020 (edited) a donation from me also, good luck with your new work Edited April 23, 2020 by Linton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted April 8, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted April 8, 2020 On 3/30/2020 at 2:45 PM, Kirby said: Hi Gav, if you you can - DM me some details on the hosting stats (size of the site, size of the SQL, monthly bandwidth). Happy to look at what I can do investigating cheaper hosting options and assisting in migrating. Thanks On 3/30/2020 at 4:41 PM, brent012 said: Agreed, happy to help here too. Have you looked into using a VPS like DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, RackSpace over AWS? It would increase some of the maintenance hassles (probably can be partially mitigated by Dockerizing the site) but should be more affordable. Hey guys, So current plan is that I'm moving a lot of the static storage to Amazon AWS (S3). I got stuck previously because the guide was outdated and the UI had changed and I wasn't familar with Amazon's terminology. Now it looks like I've configured it. Once everything is copied across and away from the current hosting in that regard, I'm going to look at moving the core forum over to Invision Power hosting itself. This is because they will then handle the software updates. I used to want more control to do some custom things with the older software but these days I keep it pretty vanilla due to time constraints. It's a little tricky to determine pricing because I'm not sure how many "Active Users" we actually have over a given 24 hour period. According to the way they calculate things. But you can get a look at how they have structured pricing here: https://invisioncommunity.com/buy In terms of space I think we have about 20gig now (database from memory is about 2gb) and media storage is up around 20 gigs+. So the core hosting service will be via InvisionPower I think we will fall into the 100 visitors plan. The hosting of static images and media will be done via Amazon AWS - which I think costs are very modest.(even at 20+ gigs). So I am hoping this will trim down costs a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted April 8, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted April 8, 2020 Just an fyi, but I've gone through all the recent donations and updated the member status to reflect donating member status. Please let me know if I've missed anyone, since not everyone's paypal details and email matches their member profile. Thanks everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted April 9, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted April 9, 2020 By the way I started moving site assets (common files etc..) to Amazon S3 storage, which is based in Sydney (data centre) this means each request for a file no longer needs to go all the way across the globe to the US hosting firm and back. My observation since enabling this is that the site has picked up a lot of responsiveness and speed. I have no yet moved all attachments or gallery images across to Amazon yet. That will take some time, but once it's done things should be a lot more scalable in terms of space and costings and backup should be easier too. Please let me know if you have observed any site performance improvements or decreases lately. Feedback helps me know if I'm moving things in the right direction (I think I am, but your feedback helps me confirm). Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestoZ Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 Hi Gav, Another small donation from me. Only been on for a week or so but benefits far outweigh. Cheers Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted April 16, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted April 16, 2020 Thank you Paul, I'm glad you find the site useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted April 23, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted April 23, 2020 Thank for the latest donation and ongoing support Craig. @Gtv240z - I can only update members to donating status once. But want to say thanks for the continuous support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators gav240z Posted April 23, 2020 Author Administrators Share Posted April 23, 2020 Likewise @RAP260 and @600Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeZ Posted April 23, 2020 Share Posted April 23, 2020 Done Gav, keep up the good work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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