Hv20.com Down For The Day! (June 17 2008)

[1]

Sorry about that, guys and gals.

Looks like we outgrew shared hosting and will [VERY] soon move to our own server.

The host shut us down Tuesday afternoon, and I've manually enabled it again....but it's only temporary....they'll probably shut it down again until we sort the server out.


Not easy to get a handle on this right now.....I've been 3 continents in the last week, and another next week. Right now in a Hotel in Los Angeles.

THERE WILL BE INTERRUPTIONS UNTIL I CAN SORT IT OUT PROPERLY, SORRY IN ADVANCE!

:hv20-smilie51:

[Lunchbox]

I was suffering from separation anxiety. Pleaes don't let that happen again. I can't take it anymore!

anyway, welcome to Los Angeles. What will you be doing around here? Maybe you can host a gathering in your hotel :)

[anthonyt]

man i feel soo empty without it !!! f5 f5 f5 :D

[Mal]

Yeah, it was by cooincident I noticed, I must admit!

And I'm afraid it WILL happen again...probably tomorrow.

I'm scrambling right now to make a full backup....just in case.


LA; yeah, not much time. Some work tomorrow.....ooops....I mean, this morning, and then off to the East Coast at 2pm.

"They say the f'ing smog is the reason you have such beautiful f'ing sunsets!" :)

[1]

Thanks MAL for chiming in.
But I thought you couldn't log in as MAL when you're traveling, only as "1"?

[Cybix]

damn shared hosting! haha

I've got a couple of servers with superb internet www.superbhosting.net

You should check them out. Cheap. You won't need anything too fancy. Probably looking at around $50/m

You could maybe introduce some ads to monetize the site to help cover costs... or something

[Lunchbox]

Identity theft? Or split personality? You are talking to yourself 1/Mal

[Rikki]

Since this forum is now VERY busy why not put some google ads on the bottom to help with server costs?

[Mal]

That's right, 1.
That's why I used LogMeIn to log into the computer at home, so I can make a backup of the database.

Hope the backup works...

[1]

Okay cool. Hope the backup thing goes well.

See you at breakfast....I'm going to bed now....you can stay up and keep at it if you want.

[Vinney]

Thank goodness...I was getting worried. I'm really much happier and easier to get along when I have my therapy session visit. When can we expect to be up and running without interruption...a stable connection?

[Mal]

Thanks, ya'll for chiming in.

Yeah, we need dedicated servers. As is typical with hosts, what they claim they offer, and what they actuually offer are never the same. For ur instance we didn't reach our bandwidth by a long shot, but they are now saying we're using too much processing power of the CPU.

[Swissv2]

I have heard mixed reviews about Dreamhost, but I know there are some companies out there that have a bit better service. Good move with the dedicated hosting. 1and1, Serverbeach, and a few others have proven reliability for dedicated hosting. If you have any questions about reliability and performance issues for dedicated hosts, let me know.

Along with the advertisements, you could setup a small hv20 store, offer up video editing services, small tutorial group classes, etc.

my 2 cents.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

BTW, hv20.com is kinda wonky right now. Is there a problem with caching? The main page shows 0 replies, while there are 2 of mine. And when I tried to delete one of the two because it was a duplicate, the site just doesn't respond:
http://hv20.com/showthread.php?t=12543

[1]

Eugenia,
please read the posts below.

I basically rescued the site from having been shut down.

It's not good right now.

It's probably going to get worse before getting better.

It is what it is right now....I'm desperately trying to save the DB and settings so we can start with not many 'changes' on a dedicated server.

Anything that gets posted right now on (and from a few hours ago) might never make the move.

My guess is as soon as the host notices that I've reactivated the site, they'll close it again. I hope not, and am emailing them....but these things tend NOT to always go smoothly.

Sorry.

[Mal]

Thanks Swissv2,
much appreciated!

[Cybix]

shared hosts are so oversubscribed it's not funny... I found out the hard way and ended up commissioning some dedicated boxes of my own, they are only P4 2.6Ghz machines with 1Gig RAM each, but they work very well, one for clients, one for my sites. When my machines show any signs of stress I'll commission another one :)

I use some advertising to cover my costs (and it does, two fold, on one of my sites alone), it's probably the easiest way to make a passive income or at the very least cover the cost of running the site. A site like this must get a lot of traffic, I'd love to see some stats one day! hehe

I'd be happy to help in any way that I can (with server administration, web coding, monetizing, seo, anything).

If you are looking at a low cost, low spec machine that should manage this site, try superbhosting.net, in the dedicated servers section there is a 'clearance' list of hardware, the prices are monthly. I think $50 or $59/m is the min. they are bare bones boxes with P4 CPU's, half a gig of ram and 80Gig hard disks. Plenty of traffic a month (I think over 1T a month).

I think a site like this (at a guess) would need 1Gig ram min to host (apache and SQL on same box)

Anyway, just helping with suggestions, I'm sure you've got everything sussed, and I agree, having a fresh copy of the files/sql is probably the most important at this stage! Good luck, keep us posted :)

[RichieMoron]

If it matters, I love my dreamhost.com for my sites.

[tiny]

Yeah I love my dreamhost. The neat thing about dreamhost is that if you feel like you have outgrown shared hosting, you can buy a portion of one of their supercomputers, and then it charges you based off of how much you use. It is perfect for instances where you can't justify the cost of a dedicated server.

The most activity I ever had was like 30 people surfing/posting on my forums. So I never had an issue.

[CycleWriter]

I already started feeling withdrawl symptoms an hour after it went down.:eek:

I need help.:hv20-smilie119:

[previdman]

:eek::hv20-smilie152::eek:

mammam mammam mammam

:hv20-smilie102:

[VideJo]

It requires at least 431 postings to understand the cry above . . .

[John Painter]

Thank goodness for Starbucks.:hv20-smilie71:

[wiseguydigital]

Just to add my thoughts - maybe take a look at Media Temple, I have found them to be a great hosting company and they can seriously handle sites with large volumes of traffic, they have a great backend system, great support and they are not expensive...

If you are pulling in some serious traffic, then why not go to an ad network agency like Double-Click and see what they can offer. You may find that you make much more than the $50 per month for hosting!

Judging by your Alexa rating, things are hotting up constantly and hv20.com is in the esteemed Top 100,000: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/hv20.com

In fact why not speak to Canon and get them to pay for the hosting etc? I'm sure they would as it's great for them.

[DSvideo]

it would be good to get canon to sponsor the site. Because then that means they'd probably moniter it and could take many suggestions for the next model.

however, having canon sponsor the site wouldn't be good because then we might have them monitering the site and overdefending their product when someone dislikes something (always irritating).

[CycleWriter]

it would be good to get canon to sponsor the site. Because then that means they'd probably moniter it and could take many suggestions for the next model.

however, having canon sponsor the site wouldn't be good because then we might have them monitering the site and overdefending their product when someone dislikes something (always irritating).

Never happen. Canon is a very tight company. Everything they do is in-house and controlled. They might advertise here, but they would never agree to be a silent sponsor. They would want to control it.

[tiny]

Usually companies will not sponsor a third party forum, as they want as much control as possible. I'm guessing this is not even a realistic consideration. Always worth a try, but highly unlikely, even though it would be in their best interest.


Edit: You beat me to it cycle. :P

[Cybix]

pretty much a zero chance of Canon sponsoring this site. I'd be aiming for popular accessory brands like Raynox, Velbon, etc. Or a big store that sells such products. Get them in on a $100/m banner advert or something.

[wiseguydigital]

Take a look at the Vimeo pitch to Canon that they secured apparently: http://www.vimeo.com/213014

To be honest though, it was an off-the-cuff suggestion. I would suggest just growing the current site and start making some money from it to cover costs. Maybe add a bunch of subdomains and run a marketplace, a wiki, a kind of home page etc. I used to work for company that began as an online forum and we grew it into one of the biggest online magazines in the video games industry and even got invited to Nielsen's "most important websites" awards. Mighty oaks from little acorns...

OR just keep it as it and change hosting, which would suit me fine :)

[alanz]

In case it's at all useful to you, I use IntelligentHosting.com for 5 sites. A small outfit, but they get the job done.

[jtsg]

Would it help to scale back the number of files the hv20.info server is serving?

[oliew]

hiya,

can you give me how much bandwidth hv20 uses each month and how much space you are using currently for DB, files inc attachments

PM me if you want

cheers
Oli

[Mal]

Just to clarify some posts here: we're NOT exceeding bandwidth, nor storage space. We're using too much CPU power.

[CycleWriter]

Just to clarify some posts here: we're NOT exceeding bandwidth, nor storage space. We're using too much CPU power.

I believe that has to do with the size of the database. Another reason why redundant threads are bad for the forum. They make searches more processor intensive.

[tiny]

If you are looking for a temporary setup, perhaps permanent, I could give you unrestricted access to my dreamhost. I know people have gotten away with running some pretty busy forums on them. I am fairly sure dreamhost has a policy to not shut a person down, but to just throttle their CPU usage. So this means the site would stay up, and at worst, be a little slower at peak times. Also peak time processing power can be purchased starting at really low rates. So this may be a good transitional to even long term setup.

Of course bandwidth and disk space would be a non issue. Send me a pm if you are interested in this offer. I still have over a year of service pre-payed.

[Mal]

tiny, it WAS dreamhost that shut us down!

[Merric Reese]

Hi Mel,

Site post are taking ages - just accidentally posted twice due to performance issues.

I really love this forum - I know hosting is challenge - and your working to fix it.

Please let the community know if there is anything we can do to help.

Regards,

Merric

[tiny]

tiny, it WAS dreamhost that shut us down!

lol. Are you on the new server that supports personal server?

For example:

Slide the green bar to set your starting levels (you can re-adjust whenever!):
Guaranteed 343 MHz of CPU time* and 343 MB for $34.30/month**.
(Burstable to 2300 MHz / 686 MB)

It operates on a slider, the minimum amount being $15 a month. This may be a great way to stay in the game short term or even long term. It sure beats $50 a month or whatever other people were talking about.

[agp26]

it would be good to get canon to sponsor the site. Because then that means they'd probably moniter it and could take many suggestions for the next model.

however, having canon sponsor the site wouldn't be good because then we might have them monitering the site and overdefending their product when someone dislikes something (always irritating).

I would have to agree, having already been kicked off DVinfo one for mentioning Canon's appalling warranty policy..Just a minute...there's 2 guys fighting outside my window...will let you know how it goes...From Stavanger, Norway....ok looks like police or ambulance now...

[Mal]

IJust a minute...there's 2 guys fighting outside my window...will let you know how it goes...From Stavanger, Norway....ok looks like police or ambulance now...

YOU NEED TO RECORD THAT ON THE HV20 and POST THE FOOTAGE! :hv20-smilie77:

(PS: I listen to Radio Stavanger on the net quite often!)

[agp26]

So what happened to my in-deth criticism of Canon? Are you censoring me?!!!The website needs something like a 'my most recent posts' or similar tab (and since you listen to radio stavanger, and presumably speak norwegian, look at the fjellforum.net site for all things mountain/norway)...

goddammit mal, those were some long posts I put up that also cost me a lot of Warsteiner!!:hv20-smilie09: Otherwise, best of luck..

Edit 'jeg heter Squidman på de fleste forum da - CU grad student '07'....'

[Terrible]

I've been using www.pair.com for hosting for the last 7 years and have never had a complaint.

I have a shared hosting plan but they have really good dedicated hosting plans. Not cheap but good for the money.

Example:
- FreeBSD 6.2 Operating System
- Core 2 Duo E4400 (2GHz) CPU
- 800MHz Front Side Bus
- 1 GB DDR2 667 ECC RAM
- 120GB Hard Drive
- 1,000GB/month traffic (That's right 1 TeraByte)
- Daily back-ups
- Server monitored 24/7/365
- Fully supported managed service

For $249 a month.

They also have co-location packages (you provide the server)

Hope it helps... at least as a reference.

[booter]

After doing a lot of research, I settled on http://www.fusednetwork.com/
They are in the Toronto area, right near where a bunch of mainlines come together. Their customer service is excellent, and their prices decent.

booter