WHEN will PPRUNE get a decent server?
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WHEN will PPRUNE get a decent server?
The performance has been dreadful and is getting worse.
This website already takes ages to browse. The whole crumbling edifice should be moved to Usenet. It takes 10 to 20 times longer to read a thread here than it would take on Usenet.
This website already takes ages to browse. The whole crumbling edifice should be moved to Usenet. It takes 10 to 20 times longer to read a thread here than it would take on Usenet.
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Usenet? No way!
Usenet in my experience is too full of spammers and idiots.
It's no use to man nor beast.
I'd rather have a slow and occasionally unavailable PPRuNe than one on Usenet. thank you very much
Usenet in my experience is too full of spammers and idiots.
It's no use to man nor beast.
I'd rather have a slow and occasionally unavailable PPRuNe than one on Usenet. thank you very much
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Dop
The whole internet is full of idiots; the extent to which you get them in Usenet depends on the quality of the general contributors in a given newsgroup. Some newsgroups are excellent.
Regards spam, most ISPs filter out 99% of usenet spam - it's easy to do so in an automated fashion.
Also Usenet is free so if you've got a fast connection you get the full benefit. This server is probably fast enough (any current-model PC is going to be fast enough) but I would guess is running on a 64k line
The whole internet is full of idiots; the extent to which you get them in Usenet depends on the quality of the general contributors in a given newsgroup. Some newsgroups are excellent.
Regards spam, most ISPs filter out 99% of usenet spam - it's easy to do so in an automated fashion.
Also Usenet is free so if you've got a fast connection you get the full benefit. This server is probably fast enough (any current-model PC is going to be fast enough) but I would guess is running on a 64k line
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IO540,
Over 250 posts so far. Perhaps you should click there and order a Personal Title.
Then Danny would have a bit more funding for server upgrades.
In the meantime, there are numerous Usenet aviation groups already. There is no obvious impediment to those who don't like PPRuNe's format or performance from confining themselves to those.
Personally I think a web-based board is far better for PPRuNe.
Over 250 posts so far. Perhaps you should click there and order a Personal Title.
Then Danny would have a bit more funding for server upgrades.
In the meantime, there are numerous Usenet aviation groups already. There is no obvious impediment to those who don't like PPRuNe's format or performance from confining themselves to those.
Personally I think a web-based board is far better for PPRuNe.
Sub Judice Angel Lovegod
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..perhaps when we see fewer statements like:
IO540
Over 250 posts so far. Perhaps I should
click here and order a Personal Title
....it's only a few pounds from each of us and then Danny could buy the fastest server in the world!
Will
IO540
Over 250 posts so far. Perhaps I should
click here and order a Personal Title
....it's only a few pounds from each of us and then Danny could buy the fastest server in the world!
Will
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Latest news from the top is here:
PPRuNe Server Speed
It is frustrating to us all, but then you get what you pay for in most cases
PPRuNe Server Speed
It is frustrating to us all, but then you get what you pay for in most cases
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Ah, the universal bandwidth-funding debate, and at the risk of the wrath of Danny...
On one hand, we get this great website for free - why shouldn't we pay a bit to keep it going?
On the other hand, maybe it's just a business. OK, internet-based businesses aren't worth much right now, but they were a few years ago and maybe they will be again - hell, after the last couple of years my pension isn't worth that much either but I keep paying into that in the hope things will improve. When the second coming of tech stock arrives (hopefully a bit more sensibly than last time) a website with seventy thousand demographically-impressive users is going to be worth a bit. Without the registered users posting things PPRuNe is nothing at all, so why should we pay anything? Do I get an IOU for the 5% of my output (if i'm lucky ) that's worth reading? No. Maybe all that bandwidth is an investment - risky, but potentially rewarding too - and, as the disclaimer goes, the value of your investment can go down as well as up.
Or on the other hand, maybe it's just a hobby? Expensive things
FWIW, I think Danny's got it about right. Subscriptions don't work if you expect the users to pay to provide the content - i think that the fact that a very financially-savvy webite like the UK Fool doesn't charge tells you something. You can pay a bit towards PPRuNe if you like (personally I prefer the PPRuNe fund for my guilt money, so no personal title). If not then fine, just don't moan about something you get for free.
edit: Maybe Danny should sell shares. I'd buy. Already own part of Southampton Football Club, and i'll never see anything back from that...!
On one hand, we get this great website for free - why shouldn't we pay a bit to keep it going?
On the other hand, maybe it's just a business. OK, internet-based businesses aren't worth much right now, but they were a few years ago and maybe they will be again - hell, after the last couple of years my pension isn't worth that much either but I keep paying into that in the hope things will improve. When the second coming of tech stock arrives (hopefully a bit more sensibly than last time) a website with seventy thousand demographically-impressive users is going to be worth a bit. Without the registered users posting things PPRuNe is nothing at all, so why should we pay anything? Do I get an IOU for the 5% of my output (if i'm lucky
) that's worth reading? No. Maybe all that bandwidth is an investment - risky, but potentially rewarding too - and, as the disclaimer goes, the value of your investment can go down as well as up. Or on the other hand, maybe it's just a hobby? Expensive things
FWIW, I think Danny's got it about right. Subscriptions don't work if you expect the users to pay to provide the content - i think that the fact that a very financially-savvy webite like the UK Fool doesn't charge tells you something. You can pay a bit towards PPRuNe if you like (personally I prefer the PPRuNe fund for my guilt money, so no personal title). If not then fine, just don't moan about something you get for free.
edit: Maybe Danny should sell shares. I'd buy. Already own part of Southampton Football Club, and i'll never see anything back from that...!
Last edited by Evo; 13th Jan 2004 at 01:33.
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Well, I just tried to give some money to PPRuNe, but it's not very easy.
(1) I tried buying a personal title, but got stuck at the point where I had to give the same email address I gave when registering. I haven't a clue what that was! - I usually make up different email addresses for each site I regsiter at, but I never bother to write them down. (Although if I were less lazy I could poke around and see if it's in an email somewhere.)
(2) I considered buying one of those badges that was being sold a while back, but can't find out how to.
So I have failed to give PPRuNe any money today.
(1) I tried buying a personal title, but got stuck at the point where I had to give the same email address I gave when registering. I haven't a clue what that was! - I usually make up different email addresses for each site I regsiter at, but I never bother to write them down. (Although if I were less lazy I could poke around and see if it's in an email somewhere.)
(2) I considered buying one of those badges that was being sold a while back, but can't find out how to.
So I have failed to give PPRuNe any money today.
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OK everyone, if everyone chipped in then the operator of this site could buy more bandwidth. But evidently I am not the only one who hasn't contributed, perhaps because this looks like a standard commercial site funded by popup adverts, like Fool and many others. The GA forum is just one of quite a number here and most likely most people just tolerate it, and then drop out.
But that's not the solution I was finally suggesting. Usenet is free, is very fast, it cannot be moderated but that just means people have to be more careful what they write, and one needs to be able to tolerate some jokers.
The only downside of Usenet is that it all gets archived into Google but since most people here use nicknames anyway, that doesn't matter.
Of course I cannot expect a commercial site to support my suggestion, so I won't say any more on the subject and I will now b****r off.
But that's not the solution I was finally suggesting. Usenet is free, is very fast, it cannot be moderated but that just means people have to be more careful what they write, and one needs to be able to tolerate some jokers.
The only downside of Usenet is that it all gets archived into Google but since most people here use nicknames anyway, that doesn't matter.
Of course I cannot expect a commercial site to support my suggestion, so I won't say any more on the subject and I will now b****r off.
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We've done this one before. The answers haven't changed.
(1) Yer average punter can just about cope with the web and email but really doesn't want to be bothered with finding out what newsgroups are and how to configure a newsreader. Sure you can use a web interface like Google ... if you don't mind a six hour delay until posts become visible. "Fast?" - not.
(2) If you want to use existing newsgroups, then feel free - just go and do it. If you want a new set of PPRuNe branded newsgroups then how many years do you think it takes to propogate them to all the current users' ISPs? OK, so that's easily solved - set up a private news server and it can carry any groups you want. But of course that costs hardware and bandwidth, so not free, plus even harder for the non-techie punter to set up.
(3) It is not true that newsgroups cannot be moderated. There are plenty of public moderated groups - search for groups with "moderated" in their names. You can set up private groups on your own server to be moderated. You can require authentication on your own server, so you can track who's posting. Spambots that try to post to a private server with authentication switched on (does this ever happen??) will fail. If you have a private server which doesn't propogate anywhere you can even delete posts after they've appeared.
(4) Putting advertisements into every post in a newsgroup is really really irritating. So, no adverts. So, no advertising income to pay for the service, so we all have to chip in even more.
Everybody still with me? - if not, then that proves point (1).
I'm afraid that next time this is suggested the answers will still be the same.
(Running a parallel news server to serve up the contents of the forums via NNTP might be helpful as it would reduce bandwidth ... except that the service isn't bandwidth limited. And you'd somehow have to advertise this to users in such a way that advertisers never discovered its existence.)
(1) Yer average punter can just about cope with the web and email but really doesn't want to be bothered with finding out what newsgroups are and how to configure a newsreader. Sure you can use a web interface like Google ... if you don't mind a six hour delay until posts become visible. "Fast?" - not.
(2) If you want to use existing newsgroups, then feel free - just go and do it. If you want a new set of PPRuNe branded newsgroups then how many years do you think it takes to propogate them to all the current users' ISPs? OK, so that's easily solved - set up a private news server and it can carry any groups you want. But of course that costs hardware and bandwidth, so not free, plus even harder for the non-techie punter to set up.
(3) It is not true that newsgroups cannot be moderated. There are plenty of public moderated groups - search for groups with "moderated" in their names. You can set up private groups on your own server to be moderated. You can require authentication on your own server, so you can track who's posting. Spambots that try to post to a private server with authentication switched on (does this ever happen??) will fail. If you have a private server which doesn't propogate anywhere you can even delete posts after they've appeared.
(4) Putting advertisements into every post in a newsgroup is really really irritating. So, no adverts. So, no advertising income to pay for the service, so we all have to chip in even more.
Everybody still with me? - if not, then that proves point (1).
I'm afraid that next time this is suggested the answers will still be the same.
(Running a parallel news server to serve up the contents of the forums via NNTP might be helpful as it would reduce bandwidth ... except that the service isn't bandwidth limited. And you'd somehow have to advertise this to users in such a way that advertisers never discovered its existence.)
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Im a sales administrator in one of the uks leading Webhosting Companys, its a family business with my mother as the CEO. (never work for your mom!!)
a website of this size is one hell of alot of money!
Just now theres 400 people browsing these forums, thats alot of CPU processing and data retrieval to be sent back over the internet.
Firstly, a site of this caliber would require a dedicated server with the latest specs on a extremely fast line.
For me to host this website i would budget it around £3400 per year for first year, this includes the price of the dedicated server.
This would get the website running super sonic speed! it then depends on what forum based software you use.
If the pprune admin would like me to try get a decent quote for him with some money off, im more than willing to investigate for him :-)
a website of this size is one hell of alot of money!
Just now theres 400 people browsing these forums, thats alot of CPU processing and data retrieval to be sent back over the internet.
Firstly, a site of this caliber would require a dedicated server with the latest specs on a extremely fast line.
For me to host this website i would budget it around £3400 per year for first year, this includes the price of the dedicated server.
This would get the website running super sonic speed! it then depends on what forum based software you use.
If the pprune admin would like me to try get a decent quote for him with some money off, im more than willing to investigate for him :-)
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I would pay £10 to £20 per year for a turbo pprune service, on a second server, and as part of the turbo pprune, there could be an option for all the web pages to loose the graphics and bright colours, so that it looked like I wasnt readling crap on the internet when i should be working!!!
In fact, I might evan be prepared to pay a monthly subscription service for this.... £3 a month by direct debit. I wouldnt notice the cash, but i would appreciate the extra speed.
Geoff
In fact, I might evan be prepared to pay a monthly subscription service for this.... £3 a month by direct debit. I wouldnt notice the cash, but i would appreciate the extra speed.
Geoff
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Pay for posting?
Don't think so....
Have you seen their advertising rates?
Plenty of cash coming in that way.
Oct 2002 issue of Flyer page 47-49 article on Capt.Pprune,
it's worth millions....
Maybe time for another upgrade.
Have you seen their advertising rates?
Plenty of cash coming in that way.
Oct 2002 issue of Flyer page 47-49 article on Capt.Pprune,
it's worth millions....
Maybe time for another upgrade.
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Will, how about giving the readers a genuine quote to supply a dedicated server and running costs per month - our present one not the upgraded one we're working on now.
Present spec: 1U rack server. 2 by 1ghz processors: 1 gig memory: 2 by 30 gig scsi raid hard disks: daily dat back up: 24/7 tech support for reboots etc - we do the rest by remote and finally 400 gigs of bandwidth per month over a dedicated T1 line.
PPRuNe has an unnaturally high proportion of IT pros on board. There is a correlation between that industry and an interest in aviation. However, I've asked for an open and honest quote at commercial rates from one of our pros 7 time over the past 5 years to no avail. No one in the industry has felt able to allow readers to get an honest idea of the scale and costs inherent to this monster.
Will and any others in the IT business reading.
Would you please let PPRuNers know just what they're getting for free and so they can make up their own minds as to the value they get from us. Let PPRuNers make an educated assessment of what running the site entails.
If you feel unable to quote for the hardware for commercial reasons please tell PPRuNers the cost of the 400 gigs of bandwidth per month along with the backup and T1 line. If you're still shy about that would you at least giver readers a direct comparison to the type and scale of company that would need this type of server and throughput.
As to Evo's investment plans, well I suspect he should stick to the Southampton shares
Think about it. PPRuNe's USP is the anonymity - especially for the pro aviators, Atcers and engineers it was set up for. Contracts and operations manuals have specific sections regarding this.
Therefore we have a mail list with a demographic advertisers and researchers would kill for. That's also why every e-mail address for PPRuNers is encrypted - IT pro's pull up the page source code and check for yourself - and that's the catch 22. Looking after our readers with a religous zeal is our strength and flogging the mail list would kill the site within days.
One last point - any of you can set up a website or newsgroup. Other than registering a domain it won't cost you a penny. There is nothing to stop any of you building a better mousetrap - have a go. PPRuNe started exactly the same way - through discontent at what was out there. There is no written law that we are the best, will remain that way or that you can't do better. Just bear this in mind PPRuNe is where it is through Danny and I putting in 5 hour days while working and 11 hour days when we're not. That's gone on for 8 unpaid years to get where we are now. Other than that it's a doddle
Regards
Rob Lloyd
Present spec: 1U rack server. 2 by 1ghz processors: 1 gig memory: 2 by 30 gig scsi raid hard disks: daily dat back up: 24/7 tech support for reboots etc - we do the rest by remote and finally 400 gigs of bandwidth per month over a dedicated T1 line.
PPRuNe has an unnaturally high proportion of IT pros on board. There is a correlation between that industry and an interest in aviation. However, I've asked for an open and honest quote at commercial rates from one of our pros 7 time over the past 5 years to no avail. No one in the industry has felt able to allow readers to get an honest idea of the scale and costs inherent to this monster.
Will and any others in the IT business reading.
Would you please let PPRuNers know just what they're getting for free and so they can make up their own minds as to the value they get from us. Let PPRuNers make an educated assessment of what running the site entails.
If you feel unable to quote for the hardware for commercial reasons please tell PPRuNers the cost of the 400 gigs of bandwidth per month along with the backup and T1 line. If you're still shy about that would you at least giver readers a direct comparison to the type and scale of company that would need this type of server and throughput.
As to Evo's investment plans, well I suspect he should stick to the Southampton shares
Think about it. PPRuNe's USP is the anonymity - especially for the pro aviators, Atcers and engineers it was set up for. Contracts and operations manuals have specific sections regarding this.Therefore we have a mail list with a demographic advertisers and researchers would kill for. That's also why every e-mail address for PPRuNers is encrypted - IT pro's pull up the page source code and check for yourself - and that's the catch 22. Looking after our readers with a religous zeal is our strength and flogging the mail list would kill the site within days.
One last point - any of you can set up a website or newsgroup. Other than registering a domain it won't cost you a penny. There is nothing to stop any of you building a better mousetrap - have a go. PPRuNe started exactly the same way - through discontent at what was out there. There is no written law that we are the best, will remain that way or that you can't do better. Just bear this in mind PPRuNe is where it is through Danny and I putting in 5 hour days while working and 11 hour days when we're not. That's gone on for 8 unpaid years to get where we are now. Other than that it's a doddle
Regards
Rob Lloyd
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Is it one or 2 T's in 'bitterness', Rob??!
A heartfelt post and I think you know that the aviating world is a greater place for what you and Danny have achieved.
PS I was determined before Xmas to order a personal title, but only got around to setting up a PayPal account on Monday and am still waiting for the initial 4 digit code to activate the account. Once I have that, I will be ordering a title. Until now, I have always given PayPal a wide berth, preferring to use NoChex - unfortunately, PPRuNe only accepts PayPal.
Rob - you and Danny will get your rewards somewhere, but maybe Danny will not get his from above if some of the GatBash rumours / pictures from previous years are to be believed!!
A heartfelt post and I think you know that the aviating world is a greater place for what you and Danny have achieved.
PS I was determined before Xmas to order a personal title, but only got around to setting up a PayPal account on Monday and am still waiting for the initial 4 digit code to activate the account. Once I have that, I will be ordering a title. Until now, I have always given PayPal a wide berth, preferring to use NoChex - unfortunately, PPRuNe only accepts PayPal.
Rob - you and Danny will get your rewards somewhere, but maybe Danny will not get his from above if some of the GatBash rumours / pictures from previous years are to be believed!!
1U rack server.
tiny!
2 by 1ghz processors:
flimsy!
1 gig memory:
cramped!
2 by 30 gig scsi raid hard disks:
puny!
and finally 400 gigs of bandwidth per month over a dedicated T1 line.
Ah. Er, yes, er, hmm. Did I, er, mention the, er, processors?...
Seriously, that's a huge commitment of resource, to provide a great facility for us all, free at the point of delivery. Keep up the good work!
tiny!
2 by 1ghz processors:
flimsy!
1 gig memory:
cramped!
2 by 30 gig scsi raid hard disks:
puny!
and finally 400 gigs of bandwidth per month over a dedicated T1 line.
Ah. Er, yes, er, hmm. Did I, er, mention the, er, processors?...
Seriously, that's a huge commitment of resource, to provide a great facility for us all, free at the point of delivery. Keep up the good work!