A new pool forum

[waste]

Sean, I meant no insult nor slur for the new sites, I think it's great to have different venues for the info. I'll support all (at this time) 3. There are quite a few different forums for pools out there (I couldn't stand the others that I joined, just because they don't have the BBB menality and are poorly 'topic-ed') I came to this site because I don't know all the answers I need to have for my boss' customers, and wanted to learn more about better serving/ servicing the pools I have to deal with in the course of my work. This doesn't make me a 'HERO', but I have, personally known 100s of 'pool dudes' and I'm the only one who cares enough to, at least try, do a better job of it by going on line and researching --- my payback is offering help/ advice when I think I can

I wish the other forums well, and will be a participating member of all of them as time allows. (though my time to be on line will be greatly reduced for the next few months, I will still check in on a ~regular basis to see if I can't be of assistance to the newbies on both sites)

[Poconos]

Canuck,
Yes, Ben, or somebody, does have to pay to keep the site alive. He did tell me a number one time and I think that was just for the bandwidth.....not cheap. Throw in the hardware and software and the cost only goes higher.
Al

[sevver]

Canuck,
Yes, Ben, or somebody, does have to pay to keep the site alive. He did tell me a number one time and I think that was just for the bandwidth.....not cheap. Throw in the hardware and software and the cost only goes higher.
Al

I would imagine that it is probably roughly $100 a year. A forum is basically a limited website, not alot of graphics, not alot of storage requirements, mostly text, all images are stored offsite, like at imageshack or photobucket. Hardware... meh... the provider, provides that, software is a one time investment, unless you upgrade that is. If he paid for like say two years at a time like I did when I had a computer repair forum, then it could be like this for an indeterminable amount of time. But as for a high cost of running this, I don't see it, all you have is a domain name and a host. This is a template, out of the box site with little to no additional tweaking.

[mammallama]

I run a forum much smaller than this and it's NOT cheap. There are NO ads on this site, to have an ad-free site costs $$. We have the ability to post attachments here. That also costs $$.

These things may not cost a lot individually, but if the fees are monthly (like they are on MY site), there is definitely costs involved that one may not have thought about.

I DO hope that life for Ben starts to settle down and that he can find his way back to his forum (and business). I've learned so much here and would hate to see it flounder into oblivion.

[SeanB.]

Just a quick bump. I've steadily been making changes to the site, including the ability to upload attachments.

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Site Owner
www.troublefreepool.com

[Poconos]

The $100 a year is way off base. That's less than the cost of a dialup connection. Keep in mind, all this stuff is hosted on Bens computers and under his total control. That means bandwidth has to be leased. If you look at the forum stats at the bottom of the home page, there are a lot of members, 20,000+, and 588 active whatever that means, and the number online at any one time can be quite high. Even with a bunch of people on at one time I have never seen an access slowdown.
Al

[SeanB.]

Just wanted to give a heads up to anyone who may be dropping by my site and may not have seen the announcement. As part of ongoing efforts to improve the hosting platform, the host company will be performing a full network upgrade on Saturday, April 14th. This will include moving networks which will result in a 12-24 hour downtime while our DNS Cache updates.

It will begin at approximately 12pm PST, and depending on your isp, could last anywhere from 2-24 hrs before the site is available again. On the bright side, performance and access will be MUCH improved.

Thanks for your patience,
Sean

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Site Owner
www.troublefreepool.com