Well folks...the popularity of this place is booming. We're at the point where we need to upgrade - we've simply outgrown our current digs.
The good news is, we'll be moving to a semi-dedicated hosting plan. In a nutshell, this means we get more storage, and more data transfer every month.
Additionally, we'll be sharing a server with far fewer web sites. This should translate to better performance and reliability; many of you have noticed things slowing down from time to time, and there have been a couple unplanned outages lately. Under our current plan, there's no set number of web sites we share a server with, but it's probably in excess of 100. With the semi-dedicated plan, we'll be in much more exclusive company - probably around 5 other web sites will share the server.
A move of this magnitude almost always causes a few hiccups...hopefully the outage will be brief, but it could be half a day or more. I'm attempting to make the move in the next 24 hours. During the outage, you should see a generic page asking you to come back later.
This upgrade comes at a price. The plan we are moving to is no longer dirt cheap - currently, Mike and I split the bill every year, and it's peanuts. The new plan is not terribly expensive, but if things keep up at their current pace, we'll need to move yet again in another year or so, to an even more expensive plan.
So...Mike and I have agreed on a way to let folks help support the C-Brat community, by offering something very cool in return for a very modest donation. However, before I go into the details, let me assure everyone:
This site will always be 100% free, with no restrictions, to everyone. It is also our intent that we never clutter the place with ads - we don't want any commercial support.
The idea - C-Brat vanity email accounts. Yes...you can have a fully functioning email account in the form of xxx@c-brats.com. We'll make these available for the outrageous amount of $10 a year. All proceeds will go towards the site. Anything left over will go into my Tomcat fund (that's a joke, folks...:lol: )
We should be able to start making these available in the next week or so - watch here for details.
The good news is, we'll be moving to a semi-dedicated hosting plan. In a nutshell, this means we get more storage, and more data transfer every month.
Additionally, we'll be sharing a server with far fewer web sites. This should translate to better performance and reliability; many of you have noticed things slowing down from time to time, and there have been a couple unplanned outages lately. Under our current plan, there's no set number of web sites we share a server with, but it's probably in excess of 100. With the semi-dedicated plan, we'll be in much more exclusive company - probably around 5 other web sites will share the server.
A move of this magnitude almost always causes a few hiccups...hopefully the outage will be brief, but it could be half a day or more. I'm attempting to make the move in the next 24 hours. During the outage, you should see a generic page asking you to come back later.
This upgrade comes at a price. The plan we are moving to is no longer dirt cheap - currently, Mike and I split the bill every year, and it's peanuts. The new plan is not terribly expensive, but if things keep up at their current pace, we'll need to move yet again in another year or so, to an even more expensive plan.
So...Mike and I have agreed on a way to let folks help support the C-Brat community, by offering something very cool in return for a very modest donation. However, before I go into the details, let me assure everyone:
This site will always be 100% free, with no restrictions, to everyone. It is also our intent that we never clutter the place with ads - we don't want any commercial support.
The idea - C-Brat vanity email accounts. Yes...you can have a fully functioning email account in the form of xxx@c-brats.com. We'll make these available for the outrageous amount of $10 a year. All proceeds will go towards the site. Anything left over will go into my Tomcat fund (that's a joke, folks...:lol: )
We should be able to start making these available in the next week or so - watch here for details.