Always Great To Hear From Forum Viewers - Thanks Larry

[Henry]

Hi All,

From time to time, I get notes from some of our young people from around the country and it is always great to hear from them.  Of course I always have to go back and ask them a few questions, which they always very politely answer.  Just about all of them tell me that they visit my web site quite often to keep up with what is going on in town and many miss the rural atmosphere here, but have to go where the jobs are.

Larry Ward has done a fantastic job for me in providing me the space as well as designing the web site and maintaining it whenever problems occur since January 2004 - ALL FOR FREE.  The number of visitors has grown tremendously, thus increasing the activity and it was getting to be quite a burden on Larry's Server, causing him some downtime and effecting his paying customers who rely on their websites for business.

I received the following note from Larry several weeks ago:

"Hi Henry,

As you noticed over the last week and a half the server has had some reliability issues. These are issues caused by the data center that the server is housed in.

Most of my clients are paying clients that rely on their website to be up all the time to make them money.

Because of this I need to move my sites to a more reliable company.
 
The price of this extra reliability is you get less space and resources for more money. Unfortunately because of this every bit of space I have on the server is extremely important and cost money.

Since your website was created it has become extremely popular, among one of the more popular sites on the server. Your site has one of the heaviest amounts of traffic and uses the most amount of space on the server.

I will, VERY unfortunately, no longer be able to host the site under my account. We will need to move your site over to an independent account.  There will be a charge for this, through a different company besides myself. The fee is small however. The company I'm moving from has an account that has more than enough space for $9 a month, or $99 a year. This is a very good price.

I will be more than happy to move the site over and make things run smooth. I can also help you down the road if you ever run into issues.

I feel really bad about this, but as you probably understand, my paying customers and their site reliability needs to be at the top of my list.

I can point you to the page to order the new hosting account. After it is ordered I will be more than happy to work with the data center to move the site.

You will not have any issues or downtime with your server.

Thank You,
Larry Ward"

As you can see, Larry is a truly wonderful young man and I understand his position completely.  I know of several people in business who have their websites with Larry's company and he certainly did not leave me high and dry.  Like with anything else, there have been a few gliches in the transfer, but Larry has been working on getting them to work smoothly free of charge and is tackling them one at a time.  Eventually everything will be back to normal and as far as the programs go, I don't change them, so they should continue to run smoothly.

Olivia, Lisa & Larry Ward

For those of you that don't know Larry, he is a 1997 graduate of BFA-Fairfax and only in his late 20s, just another example of one of our young people heading off to earn their living, but remembering his time here in Fairfax - Many Thanks Larry.

Oh and by the way - The $99, my family gives me in gifts for my Birthday, Fathers Day, etc., so I still get a free website and a great hobby to boot.

[fletchtb]

Henry -

It looks like Larry Ward has been more than fair with you and has done an excellent job assisting you with this site.

Even though your family is willing to support the hosting fee for the website through gifts to you, I wonder if there are other ways you could fund the site.

1. Even though this site reaches more than just residents of Fairfax (I am a resident of Fletcher), maybe the town would be willing to foot the $100 a year to host the site. Clearly the town and its residents benefit from all the information you post.

2. Maybe there is grant money from the state that could be obtained to fund the hosting of this valuable site?

3. Have you considered placing ads in the forum? I believe companies like Google would be very happy to place text ads on the site for which you would be paid a fee. Many of the forums I visit have ads that do not detract from the site.

[Henry]

Todd,

Guys like Larry have brought a lot of enjoyment into my life.  I receive many e-mails from people across the country that get a lot of enjoyment out of coming to the forum and reading what is going on in town and I personally get a lot of satisfaction out of it.  I believe that everybody has to do something for somebody else in order to be satisfied with who we are.  My wife and kids get a lot of satisfaction in doing this for me, so it is kind of a never ending bit of satisfaction by all.

I'm not sure how many years I will be able to do this - We never know what is in the future for us as far as our minds or bodies are concerned, but as long as I am able, I would like to do this without advertisements or charges to anybody.  If Larry was charging me for his maintenance, then I most likely would not be able to afford to do this.

One other thing that is certainly very important is the participation of the people in the community with their contributions in either news or items of interest.  Also I am more than happy to put up notices of people who are undertaking some new interests, which might be considered as advertising, but I look at it as just plain news of what is happening in the community.

[Mike Raburn]

Henry,

Look into PayPal.
It is easily set up so people with PayPal accounts can donate to you.
It is just a few clicks and a few days wait and it is set!

I have taken on the management of 5 game servers for a game I and a large number of friends play online.
I set up PayPal and so all could donate.

You'd be surprised how many people will donate for this website.