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That’s one of the many unfixable bugs due to the board being programmed during a older version of PHP, of which is un-usable today.
However, it will soon be fixed with the forum upgrade.
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Just because the donations thing is up doesn't mean the site is about to crash. As of right now, I personally am locked in a 1Yr contract with this new server and after that one year have another year automatic renew. I wouldn't worry too much. Everything is paid for upfront for those contracts too, it’s just there are other expenses such as upgrading these forums to the latest which cost and I can't afford anything extra right now.
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It’s not just for member Blogs.
There is ALOT of new features & bugs which this will get us as well as life long upgrades.One feature I think many will like is the blocking feature. You simply click a button to block a particular poster
If only friends and family were like a light switch too!
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So far, as you can see the numbers are rolling quite nicely from at this point 9 separate contributors.
I hope by maybe next week at the latest we will be using the new software on the forums and have things working a bit smoother.
Thanks again!
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So far thanks for the donations!
Once the new forums are in place, we will have a page dedicated to our donors and contributors.
If you would like to remain an anonymous donor you can, if not everyone who donates over $5 will have their name on the page. For now it will be everyone who donates will be listed on the page and it will be broken into sections depending on your donation amounts.
Again, thanks to everyone who has made a donation and hopefully very soon we will see some major changes happening here. After the forum upgrade the Member Blogs will be added next.
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The Perpetual license as of right now will cost $185, I am working on getting this down some because I use to know the creator and Financial guy @ IPB.
The blogging system is $50 & $20 per year after that I think, however the only reason to pay yearly is for updates.
The Perpetual license is the first thing which will be bought with this money.
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Here are some ideas for a new addition to the forum.
A blogging system.
Every member would be allowed their own blog and so on, features are in the website above as well as pictures.
New Forum Features would include the following:
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I understand your concern and after coming to these forums more often after the move since so far 100% of the costs have been out of my pockets, I am embarrassed to see things run this way. Others please feel free to add your complaints, as this section is the "Site Feedback". I have received numerous e-mails, PM's and a few IM's about the poor moderating decisions, please feel free to elaborate here, so the Mods themselves can see as well as I.
Thanks for your opinion,
Mike - TSM Server Admin
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Sometimes older DVD drives won't read burned DVD disc.
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What all places online do you guys purchase things from? Maybe I can sign up for an affiliate program with buy.com or amazon.com or whatever you all use for the most part to help generate money for this cause. So far I have not received one donation, and the Google ads still have not even hit $10 mark since the 5th.
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Just an FYI:
I will be performing an upgrade to the main sites article manager tonight, and things may not appear correctly all the time. Please do not think it’s your computer and call 911 or Geek Squad as you will be wasting your money! Its not like GS is a waste of money anyways, just thought I’d warn you all.
Wish me luck!
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Well if someone never deleted my account over the summer, I would be member #1 and the official first member of these forums. But oh well. That doesn't matter, I have been here since before SK left, and even then, I was just the dude in the background (dark shadows) no body knew whom made sure everyone was happy by holding the two wires together to keep the server running. Sure I have slipped up on my job a few times and when the electricity get hot, I have to let go, what else can we blame outages on?
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I would also check out Packetnews.com
, only because a friend of a friend of my X's sister in law told me about it. Never use it personally. -
I would recommend the NEC, Plextor, or Lite-On drives. I have had great success with compatibility and over burning on DVDs with these and recommend the Verbatim DVD-R Media purchased from Sams @ 44.84per 100Pack.
Boy would you guys love to get your hands on the sites new server.
for the cost being almost ½ of the above computer and fitting in a pizza box 1.75" thick, it kicks ass. -
We have looked at and considered many alternatives, however due to the size of the database and size of the forums, converting would take around 12-16 hours, even on our new Xeon server. Also, we need to stick to something which is broadly used, stable, and well supported. In the long run, purchasing this license will offer the users of the forums many options which are in the new version such as "Lo-Fi" and more.
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Ok, where shall we start?
Everything in the world requires money. This site has ONLY remained around for so long because of great people like Dames who has a heart and a pocket for all of the users on this site. The time is here again, as it was a few years ago when we asked for money to purchase needed improvements and software. Currently the forums, ran on Invision Board v1.3.1, is no longer supported or developed and as server side software increases, the forums will lose more and more features. We are trying to raise money to purchase a "Perpetual license" of the forum software which will give us a life long license to run these forums with the latest software version legally. From donations(Popicks' for the most part) we were able to purchase the article manager software which cost $300 several years ago, this is one of many costs we had. The server it self recently was upgraded and moved to a co-location facility, and we won't experience as many slowdowns or outages at all compared to the old server.
Now that I have written an essay of why we need money and hopefully for what, any type of donation will be helpful. The simple, TEXT only based advertisements on this site have raised a few dollars and we are still debating rather to keep them or not, which mainly depends on the money we can raise through other methods. We ONLY make money on the ads when they are clicked, rather than by page views.
We have setup a PayPal donation fund, at the following e-mail address:
DO NOT send money to ANY other address advertised or seen, as this is the only official one.
The current PayPal fees for accepting a payment on a business account is 2.9% of the donation plus an additional $0.30. The fee is assessed for each and every payment accepted. Here's a chart of what this means:
Donation Tax Table
($) --- Fee ---- ($)Net ---- ($) %Lost
1 ----- 0.33 ----- 0.67 ----- 33.00%
2 ----- 0.36 ----- 1.64 ----- 18.00%
3 ----- 0.39 ----- 2.61 ----- 10.10%
5 ----- 0.45 ----- 4.55 ----- 9.00%
10 ---- 0.59 ----- 9.41 ----- 5.90%
15 ---- 0.74 ---- 14.26 ---- 4.93%
20 ---- 0.88 ---- 19.12 ---- 4.40%
25 ---- 1.03 ---- 23.97 ---- 4.12%
50 ---- 1.75 ---- 48.25 ---- 3.50%
75 ---- 2.48 ---- 72.52 ---- 3.31%
100 --- 3.20 ---- 96.80 ---- 3.20%
This means that if the site were to receive 1000 five dollar donations ($5000 total donated) through PayPal, it would cost the site $450 in "PayPal Tax" fees. On the other hand, if the site were to receive 50 one-hundred dollar donations ($5000 total donated), it would only cost the site $160 in fees. 5000 one dollar donations would cost a whopping $1650!!
So please consider making a donation. We are working on maybe offering an auction on eBay of something more worth while and physical for money.
Also the new server has PLENTY of bandwidth and space, waiting to be leased out, if you have ANY type of LEGAL hosting needs, please let us know via E-Mail or PM on the forums.
Yes, Porn sites are legal, as long as the appropriate disclaimers and copyrights are abided by.
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Please keep unneeded comments out of this topic and place them into the general "Site Feedback" folder. Yes, the unnecessary post so far has been removed and future ones will be too. There is no need to ramble on about things in here.
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Question by: MrRant
Answer: The forums as of right now will remain IPB based because of their features. PHPBB has been considered strongly, but the conversion to any other forums will never copy over everything (function wise) from these forums.
Also, you can only go so far with "free" stuff.
Question by: alfdogg
Answer: The Donation Bucket is currently ONLY going towards purchasing a life time license. Currently the monthly server cost is being taken care of by Dames and my self at this point, as well as a few websites which we have hosted on the same server. Every cent collected will go towards the purchase of the new forums software which comes with support.
Question by: The Max
Answer: I personally NEVER want to see a POP-Up AD on this site on ANY page, I hate them and I know forum readers would hate them even more. I think being that forceful and using holes in Internet Explorer or other browsers to advertise is just as bad as these Spam Bots which browse websites finding e-mails and adding them to a spam list. It’s outrageous and while I am here the member’s privacy and site it self will never stoop that low. As for those sport ads, I will check into them, I would prefer to even stay away from picture ads, however if revenue from the Goooooogle Text based ads don't increase then they may be next, but that’s the end of the road in advertising.
BTW. Let me or someone know when you find you PayPal address
Question by: Stephen Joseph
Answer: From what I recall a few years ago, through asking donations, we raised about $400 which bought the article manager (For life) & the first month on the server. Yes, I beleive $300 of that was your generous donation.
Question by: Some Guy
Answer: There is no need to close it because some people may have legitimate questions. Other comments, just extend the length of this topic and make it multiple pages, which is unneeded if valid questions or comments are left.
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Pics of the server? or the setup? or of me?
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I will be adding another CPU fan & heat sink in the server tonight (May 12th, 2005) at around 2-5am. The server will be down for 30 minutes approximately.
This fan is for the dual Xeon processors, so in the future when I add another CPU it will only be down for 5 minutes to place just the CPU in and not have to bother installing the complicated 1U heat sink and fan.
TSM Server Admin
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THE LSD folder has been set to members only, because that section causes the site to be black listed by search engines because we "have content for 21+ audiences" so by making it members only, causes search engine bots which browse the site randomly NOT to see that section or the “bad” words from there.
The Google ads are ONLY a test right now, however could remain permanent, but currently we have only raised a few dollars, which is not worth it. We ONLY get paid when they are clicked on and having them at the bottom of the forums. We would NOT have any Ads if we had enough generous donors to the site…
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Not making you pay, but ask for donations to keep the site ad free.
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Yes, everything is ok; NO Google ads are NOT SPYWARE or ADWARE. You have nothing to worry about. The more you click the more we make, and this all goes towards funding the server and keeping things running smoothly.
This is an alternative to asking for donations.
We are still testing over the next week if advertising can even make enough money to be worth keeping it.
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We are testing them, to see if they are profitable, because the server cost are needing additional funding.
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Maybe I should say "Upgrading" the hard drives.
No, nothing will be lost, because all the data will be mirrored on to the new drives.Mike,
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The server could be down between 2am-4am at the most for server maintenance. I am replacing the hard drives with larger ones, for anyone who cares.
Mike
TheSmartMarks.com Donation Bucket
in Site Feedback
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*Just to clarify*
The ignore feature is something every member gets. The Mod’s or Admin's don't click ignore and then all your post are turned off to everyone else but you and then your wondering why no one is responding. It’s someone every member gets to block certain posters. So if someone blocks you ONLY that person doesn't see you. I am sure there are more details on that, we will soon find out.