Admin Blog

Right!!!

Come on, this has been kept from the other members for long enough, and kept just between admin staff. Lets face it, the server we have is crap, and I for one have stopped sending e-mails to old members until this is sorted out. Honestly, it getting embaresing. I feel it is time this was posted in the Cafe, so all members could see that we are trying to sort it, and to give their views.I see Kippy has offered his server to us, is this not a practical thing to try? I have no idea, but I am sure Mike would know.

If not then I for one will be sending a donation straight to Pol to enable us to have our own server, and if Mike choses a poor one, and we have to change again, then I will send another donation until we get a good one

Good God , we need 8 members to pay £25 each, and get our own server for 2 years , its peanuts!!!

Come on, lets put it to the members, and see what they think, and if you need a volenteer to post it, I will gladly put my name forward.

We have put up with shit too long, and we have got a site that is as near to perfect, thanks to Mike. Lets make it perfect as it will be with a good server, then we will restart building the membership.

Garry

Allow me to reply later in more detail.
I'm not feeling great today.

Garry, This thread is viewable to all members but it is locked from posting.
I will unlock the thread for a few days and ask any members to voice their opinions.

The reason for the thread being locked is to just serve as a place for me to update members of the work i'm doing.

The thread is now unlocked.
could any members wishing to contribute please do so in here. We highly value your input.

hello
if the server is rubbish please change it.

i dont have much money but i would gladly contribute what i can to keep this great site running properly.

tony.

OK, I'm feeling a little better.

First, Thank you Klippy. That is a massively kind offer but I think for a number of reasons I would be forced not to accept. Firstly, our website is based upon a popular content management system, while this system is very comprehensive and flexible it can be quite server hungry. This could cause you own website to perform slowly.
The other issue is speed. There are two aspects to consider RE: speed.

1. Server Processing Speed (how fast can the server perform)
2. Network Speed (how good is the servers internet connection

You mentioned about waiting for the undersea cable for better speed, this would be number 2.
Let me provide an example of the consequence of going to a host with a slow speed.
The members would get frustrated with waiting for a page, and google would rank us MUCH lower. we would disappear from google.

Another issue is the ability to grow. We all would love model chat to grow and become a great asset to the model flying hobby. I believe we should set our selves up for this straight from the off. I would hate to accept your offer only to have model chat grow to the point were traffic is causing issues with your server and we would have to move again.

For the sake of something like £30 - £60 per year for a basic package that could be easily upgraded to a £200 per year (after modelchat growth) It would be easy for me to stick £2 per week away. It's the initial outlay that is the issue.

I am looking into various hosting options but it's a difficult process. I can't go by all their sales bollocks on their websites, I have to sift through reviews of each one. I also have to weigh up the pro's and cons of each choice.

I hope I have explained myself well. At the end of the day, I want the best for the website and it's members.

Thanks for the straight shooting Mike, it always saves time in the long run. What's the up front cost?

Sorry Mike, Dont know what I was thinking about saying this should be seen by the membership. I appreciate they can see it, and now they can express their views. Thanks, that is what i was asking for. Ok lads, the topic is open for a short time so please make your views heard.
I suggest the thread is left open for 72 hrs before being locked again
Garry

Ok guys.
Here's the deal. I called poly this evening and asked him to dust off the cobwebs from his wallet. :blink: I've purchased the 1st month of our new host. It's going to cost £6 per month and we're all ready to move. It should be pretty seamless.:woohoo:

that's just £1 per week :ohmy: that me and Pol are going to put away. My first interactions with the company (on the phone and Live Chat help) have been fantastic, it looks promising.

Garry, Tony, Klippy.... and everyone else,
We're extremely grateful of you're kind gestures. I hope you're not offended by me just going and purchasing the new server.
We're proud bastards and don't want to go around with the begging bowl. Don't worry though, if we really had no other option we wouldn't mind bleeding you dry :whistle:

The donation box is always there and anyone is welcome to use it.

anyway. down to business. This hosting has fantastic reviews especially from people that use the same content system as us.
we also get $100 worth of google ad credits and $25 yahoo ad credits.

the company boasts a 99.9% uptime and unlimited storage. It also gives us the ability to upgrade our servers even more if we grow.

We have one month to try these guys out and see what we think.
We still have the old host to fall back on as a fail safe. and klippy's kind offer could also be a further fail safe.

Everything should be almost instant but any issues we do have are likely to be human error on my part.... (missing a setting here and there) as you can imagine, there's a lot of shit to remember when moving.
Files, Forwarders, Databases, Email account. FTP settings.... it goes on.
I'm doing most of the work before the switch. and i plan to double check all of these.

I'm going to attempt the switch at approx 8:30pm tonight until 9pm. you are welcome to login but new posts between that time could disappear. I will post a notification on "the new" site until tomorrow so you know if you're on the new one or old.

SMALL issue with live chat...... working on it like a hot fire.

FIXED, let's see what surprises i face tomorrow.
I've already noticed one difference behind the scenes. Our old hosts server had 4CPU's
This one has 16

One plus comment, Mike - this site loads up a lot faster!

Well done Mike, you are a star.

Garry

Good move Mike, I've already noticed a huge difference in load times. I used to spend a lot of time looking at 'waiting for Modelchat' not any longer!

well faster now.

I don't think we've had any down time since the server change & I've only spotted a couple of minor faults.
The "crying man" smilie on "live chat" has died.

When you use the quote button, the cursor reverts to the start of the post (before the quote).... this is just a little annoying if you forget to move it to the next line before you type.

A couple of photobucket pictures have vanished in one thread but we'll re-link them.

In general I'd say the change has made a great difference in both speed & reliability .... Good choice Mike.

Ditto.