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[VLS]

Guys, I felt like clearing with some of you the fact there are different types of hosting.

It all boils down to control of resources.

Shared hosting: no control over the server's software. Others control it for you. The pooled financial resources pay for the shared IT staff, all sites banded together (i.e. server modifications and upgrades affect all sites at once). Shared hosting IS NOT BAD PER SE. If you don't know how to manage a web server, it is ideal. Others control the software, so you just point & click on the control panel.

The downside is you are fighting for resources with -at times even hundreds!- of other sites and you're served with what's left at the moment. Or not served at all. Shared sites are known to throw the blank page error even when the machine is still running because other sites are consuming too much.

Dedicated resources: you have control on the server's software and services. You have the power. There are several levels of hiring, which you can control. You can hire anything from a full server to guaranteed "resource slices", on which -once bought- nobody messes with your disk, bandwidth or RAM allocation. It's all dedicated to your website and it's nobody else's, even if they're all idle, they're entirely yours thus guaranteeing a greater level of service as long as the machine is running.



Now the point.

Yes, there are $1 dollar/month hosting available out there (i.e. http://www.brainhost.com/dollar/), hell, there are even $0.50/mo hostings (i.e. http://www.hostblast.net/). It's obviously shared. That's how they can offer such prices.

Ramming 300 clients onto a single server sure makes wonders for cutting prices. If the server's actual monthly bill is $100 and you divide it among 300 then you can do $100/300 = $0.33 per site, and still make a volume gain with $1 or even $0.50.

Which brings the focus to us.

Sadly, after receiving some messages today, I got the impression there's the thought our betselection.cc site must be thrown in a server with hundreds of sites along and hence it's a fairy tale we're enjoying dedicated resources or it being a tale that I have full control of all of our web server / database server / and related services' software.

Good thing is there's a public, transparent way to get a taste of the sites pointing to the same server address. It's called reverse dns lookup.

There are plenty of pages to make it. You can find a plethora easily:

http://www.google.com/search?q=reverse+dns+lookup+service

Please feel free to reverse-lookup us.

Furthermore, here's a live, direct, reverse-lookup link for our betselection site via the reputable and accurate domaintools site:

http://reverseip.domaintools.com/search/?q=betselection.cc

You'll only find our place and hobbycode (programming language project). Not hundreds of other sites.

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Also, please try the same lookup services you use on us with other sites to check for differences. For instance, an openly shared hosting site in the community such as RouletteForum.net shows a different view:

http://reverseip.domaintools.com/search/?q=rouletteforum.net


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And chances are sites such as -say- Ford.com aren't quite the resource sharing type:

http://reverseip.domaintools.com/search/?q=ford.com


[attachimg=3]



The utmost point is: if I weren't honest and the reality was we're being crammed in a shared host I wouldn't give you this information and instead the big skeleton of us being on a crowded server at .50 cents/mo would be an utmost secret with me praying for you to never find out there's a possible way to see the other hosted sites via the reverse name lookup service I give you above or any of the others from the google search.

On the contrary, I'm providing you the information for you to check for yourself in any one of the reverse lookup services.

By the way, there's one being more open than domaintools at yougetsignal.com's "web sites on web server" page:

http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/web-sites-on-web-server/

(Manual input, but actually shows ALL the other sites' addresses. Interesting one to see for some webs).



As a final note, let me state this:

...When I dump us in a server with 1000+ other sites to save the bucks at expenses of giving a crappy service, I resign. (And do believe service on those El-Ultra-Cheapo "half-a-dollah" crowded spaces shows!!).

Cheers! & Enjoy our *fine* place; its resources are here to serve you.

Vic

[Chrisbis]

Hi Vic.


U told us the cost of the El Cheapo Eh Gringo, but U neglected to tell us what the cost of dedicated hosting
would be on a month by month basis.
Come on now, be straight with us, and also say what those messages were U had today.
Cheers.

[VLS]

I can't commit to an exact price per month Chris as what I rent varies, and I even hire a tiny backup server which changes IPs each month.
I can only happily say what was near $100 7 years ago is around ~$35 now

That's why even as it varies, if you check the "thank you's" for the latest months, only a few fellows have been paying for us, latest months 4/5 kind folks averaging fivers and tenners pay and there's been even leftover.

Thanks to leftovers, work from yours truly and a generous soul today, we're only cents away to be cleared for the month (yipee!!)

Note: I do expect the bills to rise when the framework is up and there is the ability to add connectivity and start dedicated testing batches on the server, but it'll be another tune (i.e. already paid service). Hopefully it's eventually a hit to support us for the long run.

Hey! Don't bet against us, I'm not done yet 

Cheers!

[Chrisbis]

Could we back to having a discussion about advertising again then?
I am happy to at least have the conversation about it, long term.

[VLS]

Come on now, be straight with us, and also say what those messages were U had today.

Not much, but felt piercing to me. One from a long-time fellow member renting shared hosting space pointing at how cheap they are a year (and he's right, but still comparing apples to oranges), and a much appreciated fellow of mine sadly asking if the money for the thread was for me, where my intention was clearly stated as to work some fivers and donate the proceedings towards maintenance, hence I took the thread down and wrote this one thread clearing it. It's not worth to being accused.

[VLS]

Could we back to having a discussion about advertising again then?

I'll try to retake coding the framework for next month. It is way more advantageous for the community than ads and can finally mean a sustainable business outlet to sponsor further development for our place. Opening a market for the many coders in the community, creating healthy competition and a tasty "et cetera".

The main goal is to ultimately become the standard software for tracking and betting (pretty much like RX is today), but being open i.e. open formats, openly sharing the program's source code, open interaction protocols so other programmers can easily re-use what's already coded for the framework and so on.

The potential to become the standard is there. (As usual, the "limp" is the time but there we go, there we go...)

[VLS]

On behalf of one of the members messaging me:

YOU, THE MEMBERS, HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW A DECENT PROVIDER FOR FORUM WITH DOMAIN CAN TAKE 100/150 EACH YEAR FOR THE SERVICE.



And on behalf of me:

For the N'th time... I'm not and I don't deserve the implications of me actually taking hundreds upon hundreds of dollars each month and hiring a $0.50/mo shared server cramming us along with 10,000+ sites  .
Do we even run?     




P.S. It's all good "S", I know your message is good-meaning, but it's the wording mate, the WORDING!!

Same for you "M".

Again, it's all good guys. I just feel like I don't deserve to be told "it's wrong" when I explicitly stated it was for the forum and not for me and the proposed price for the consulting/coding were fivers.
Now I'll just do some private works and give silently. Thread's already gone, hope we can go on, always better

[VLS]

P.S: host is cleared by now, even with some left towards next month

[Chrisbis]

Now I'll just do some private works and give silently. Thread's already gone, hope we can go on, always better

it's a difficult tightrope U walk my friend.
Shoes/Coding fingers I would not like to be in just now.........


But I'm learning the craft, and hope to help U one day. 
cheers

[Priyanka]

Well done Vic.    You are doing a great job of supporting the community!

What worked for me in one of the similar forums that I hosted was being very transparent to a select set of moderators, who has a view of the exact monthly costs, exact donations received and posting a chart of accounts on a monthly basis. But its up to you as you are already doing a great job and how you perceive this. Its not about people mistrusting the great job you are doing, it is also about you making people believe in what you are doing

PS : Sorry, if am waking up old threads, as am just going through the enormous task of going through the posts in this forum. Promise, will post only if it is absolutely necessary.

[VLS]

Well done Vic /FORUM/ .    You are doing a great job of supporting the community!

Hopefully "this year" we can be self-supporting via sold programs


(When in the year, that's the mystery LoL)