OK thanks! I got notice of shipment of one today and one of the others is from a second hand dealer since it is out of print. However, the third might be redeemable. Not to worry; I will be buying a lot of books shortly. *;) More on that later.

Karen, could you e-mail me a listing of them as well? Thanks!

Liz, email you what????? I haven't a clue.

aren't there certain urls that one can go through to amazon so that spring gets a percentage of the purchase? or did i totally misunderstand that previous string of messages?

Yes, there's the general click-thru icon on the bottom of every topic here. I also have a page up at The Bucket, called The Boutique, which has all sorts of Firth and other items, specially listed so that you can click through on those. When you have a direct link (which you can make yourself if I don't have the item listed), then the rebate percentage is higher. Here's the Bucket page which explains it all: http://www.firth.com/boutiq.html especially the DIY section at the bottom. If you need assistance, just let me know. I'd be glad to help out.

great. Thank you!

The above link is for our UK friends who want to buy books on Amazon and allow their purchases to help the Spring, firth.com and austen.com with the expenses of running the site. So if you're in Great Britain, this is for you!

Will micropayments work here? http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1696 is a reference to a site doing this?

I received a current bill for $320 for our bandwidth provider due by the end of the month and I ordered a new server which will cost $1400, I have $750 in the kitty so I am about $970 short. I need to come up with all of this before the end of the month. The purpose of the new server is for immediate backup (we have one now) and to provide a safety net if we start incurring heavy bandwidth charges and need to change providers. That way, we'll have our own hardware ready to startup at a new location. The present server, which we rent and do not own, costs $320 a month and has 70 gb of disk space. The new server, which I have $750 set aside for, will have 320 gb of disk space, dual Pentium 1000 processors, RAID redundancy and 512 mb ram (one memory stick with room for more). Owning a server will allow me to shop around locally for a much better monthly deal and we'll have much more security in that we own the hardware. Please send donations to: Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Or use the paypal link on the main page at http://www.spring.net Thanks!!!

Terry, I can make a donation on payday (the 1st) due to some current unforeseen circumstances. Thanks for your efforts on keeping this place going.

Thanks wolfie. I got $25 in so far today via Paypal. So I'm sending $775 to the vendor that's building the system and he'll hold it till I pay the rest. So that's $625 more I need to raise for the system and $320 for the months bandwidth charge. That $750 was all I had so I'm hoping for some contributions to cover the rest!

Why don't you raise the money first and then buy the system. The bandwith charge is a constant. Just a thought....

I've been putting this off for so long, I don't like living dangerously and not having a decent backup if our rented system went down. At least I am able to get $750 in to the hands of the vendor that's building it today. The bandwidth charge varies, $320 is the *minimum* and we are starting to get bills for extra bandwidth. I want to be able to recover and switch over quickly if we get a bill for bandwidth that we can't afford or if something happens to our server. Right now, we have no backup and I'm very uncomfortable with this. I don't want to end up in the position of having to start all over from scratch and losing all our content! That would not be good.

I quite agree with Evelyn. You pay your bills first and then save for the extras.

I agree we need to pay our bandwidth bill and that will be the next expenditure. But I feel like it is essential we have a backup strategy in case this server is attacked or crashes. And the new server has redundant hard drives, something that would be cost prohibitive in a rental server like we currently have. If the system went down now, there would be no way to get back up and running quickly, it would take a week or more and we would lose most of our content. I like the idea of having a safety net!

This is the server: And this is the quote (not including a video card): Next Basic System............................$1253.00 P3tdde SC822I-300LP case Dual cpus Intel P3 1000 512mb pc133 sdram FD Slim cd rom Dual IBM 120 mb gb 7200rpm Assembly Insurance and handling........................$17.00 Grand total with TX sales tax..............$1374.78

This new system comes with two 120 gb IBM drives and I already have two 120 gb IBM drives. And it has room for two more. This would give us 960 gb storage with room for 240 gb more or a total of 1200 gb. We could partition this in to two "mirrors" so if the main drive crashed or was corrupted the mirror would be intact. Right now we have only a 40 gb and a 20 gb drive and we are rapidly running out of space. I am spending a lot of time daily cleaning up files and trying to keep the system from filling up. It also has two processors which would make it substantially faster.

The motherboard: Target Segment High-end desktop, workstation, or internet applications Form Factor ATX with PC99 color-coded double-deck I/O Size: 11.6" x 11.2" (W x H) Processor Support Dual or single Intel 370-pin Pentium III 1.40GHz-500MHz processors Chipset VIA Apollo Pro 266T Front Side Bus 133/100MHz Memory Up to 4 GB of PC133 SDRAM memory I/O Expansion 5 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus mastering slots 1 4xAGP Pro 1 ACR Onboard Devices Dual Ultra DMA (UDMA/100) Promise ATA/100 onboard RAID 0, 1, 0+1 Burst data transfer rate supports UDMA Mode 5, PIO Mode 4, ATAPI Intel 82559 Ethernet controller onboard Up to Four USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse connectors Two fast UART 16550 compatible serial ports One ECP/EPP parallel port One Infrared header One floppy port Chassis Compatibility ATX chassis Fits SC822, SC811 chassis PC Health Monitoring Onboard voltage monitors for CPU core, +2.5V, +3.3V, + 5V and + 12V Fan status monitor CPU/chassis temperature monitoring CPU fan auto-off in sleep mode CPU overheat LED header LED and control for chassis intrusion detection System resource alert Support for system management software Auto-switching voltage regulator for CPU core, up to 20A of current Wake-on-LAN allows for remote network management and configuration of the PC, even in off-hours when the PC is turned off. This reduces the complexity of managing the network. Onboard auto-switching power regulator supports CPU core voltages from 1.3 ~ 3.5 volts Three tachometer fan connectors ( CPU, one chassis fan connector and one thermal control overheat fan connector) Keyboard wake-up from Soft-Off Overheat LED indication connector CPU frequency settings in BIOS setup Power-up mode control upon recovery from AC power loss Overheat backup fan connector for CPU protection BIOS Features Supports ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) and APM (Advanced Power Management) Slow blinking LED for Sleep State indicator Main switch override mechanism. Power-up mode control upon recovery from AC power loss PC Health Monitoring protects your system from problems even before they occur. DMI support ACPI/APM power management RTC (Real-Time Clock) wakeup External modem remote ring-on when system is in Soft-Off state BIOS rescue hot keys for rescuing BIOS chip from flash failure Hardware BIOS virus protection Award 2Mb Flash ROM Other Features ACPI/APM power management Internal/external modem ring-on Control of power-on mode for recovery from AC power loss One WOL (Wake-On-LAN) connector One chassis intrusion connector Standard Retail Package One SUPER P3TDDE mainboard One three-ended 40-pin IDE ribbon cable One floppy ribbon cable Two CPU cooling fans One backpanel I/O shield One BIOS/drivers CD

Wow!!!

Just in. $200 from geo. Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! Our monthly rental is covered. I have a $750 deposit in on the new server. And I'll be able to make another $150 payment toward the new server. So we'll be up to $900 on the server with another $500 to go, he'll ship it as soon as I get this payment in to him. We're very close to having a powerful server that will someday be the future of Spring, Firth and Austen. It's exciting as we draw nearer.

Another $50 in. That's $275 total, we're getting closer to the new server. Keep 'em coming, please!

I have put down $1,000 total on the server now and have a 412.66 balance due on the new server. We're very close indeed. To contribute, just go to Spring's main page at http://www.spring.net and click on the Paypal link. Or mail checks to: The Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 I am very excited about having a "safety net" for this community, call it lifeboat or whatever, it will give us a comfort zone that we have never had before. I believe this will benefit us all.

I have received $275 in contributions in the current effort so far. This almost covers our monthly rental payment. I'm making up the difference. So I could still use some help here to get this project off the ground. The Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 or Paypal on http://www.spring.net or http://www.spring.net/paypal

I made up the difference in the monthly server rent. I'm still hoping some folks can chip in on the new server, we're at 85% disk space utilization on our prsent server and climbing rapidly. I'd at least like to get things backed up and have a reserve in the ready in case our only current server goes down. Paypal on http://www.spring.net or by mail: The Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612

Our discussion forums were "down" yesterday for about an hour because we exceed our "license limit" for the software we use called Yapp. I called and got an extension from Kaylene, maintainer of the software. This occurred around 5 pm yesterday, give or take. The good news is that we had over 15,000 log ins in a 24 hour period, that's a lot! The flip side of this is that to get an unlimited license would cost us another $2300. The new server I'm working on his higher priority than this right now, because we need more hard drive capacity and better performance. But the extended license is something to keep in mind as we grow and have more folks logging in. It may be time to offer "subscriptions" to those who want expanded services from spring.net such as email, web space, and access to private forums. We'll always be free, but we may need to offer more services in order to support our operations. As always, I'm grateful for all the kind contributions via our Paypal link and though the mail. Keep 'em coming as every bit helps toward maintaining and expanding this web community of ours. Thanks all!

From Kaylene: I reset the license file so that it would work again. This means that your site received more than 15000 hits in a 24 hour period. When you upgrade to a new server you should probaby upgrade to an unlimited license. Right now you have paid for a license which is normally 64 unix users and and average of 6400 hits per day. Due to your mostly web usage I have it implemented this as at most 15,000 hits per day. You really should upgrade to an unlimited use license. It looks like Friday September 20 you got 11,003 hits, and then today you got more than 15000. You are now consistently averaging more that 6400 hits per day. You currently have a License worth $3,700.00. If you want to upgrade your license without adding additional hours of support it will costs $6,000 - $3,700 = $2,300.00. I would suggest you start saving for this. I did not increase the number of hits beyound 15000 hits per day. The next time you go above that limit you will experience this same problem again.

To contribute: http://www.spring.net/paypal or by mail: The Spring 182 Clover Road Cedar Creek, TX 78612 What will you contributions go toward? At present, toward a new server that will function as a backup and possible replacement for our current server if it passes muster. It will have 720 gb of hard drive storage as compared to our present 70 gb (which is 86% full!). Thanks so much to all those who have contributed so far this month!

Hmmmmm. Can I throw in a word that might be controversial...the "R" word. "Restricted" meaning only donors would be able to log on. Is that ever done on some sights? How many donors do we have??? With 15,000 hits over 24 hrs. Looks like a few people are paying for others;-)

I don't want to keep people out unless this is the consensus of the community. Specific conferences can be limited to those on a user list. I'd need more input on this from Karen et al before making any kind of move like this. The Spring gets over a million hits a month, as does austen.com and firth.com. We do get supported by a faithful few, and I'd like to see others who are able make whatever contribution they are able. Even if it's $10, $20, $50 a year.

Terry, you can use the web log data to look at hit rates by conference, right? Do you have a feel, on a conference-by-conference basis, for who's consuming the resources vs. who's contributing?

Sounds like it's time for me to get my annual fundraiser going. Rika, Drool is the conference responsible for the vast majority of the hits. The rest is insignificant. Usage on The Bucket/firth.com and austen.com doesn't affect the license, as they don't use the Yapp software. However, I've never been able to see storage and processor stats that combine all of Terry's domains.

Okay, another question. What constitutes a hit on Yapp? Is it the same as a page hit on a web server, or are they counted differently?

Same thing.

I believe they're the same, but I do have a question in to Kaylene about what her definition is, is it a login or is it any visit regardless of whether the person logs in or not. I'm waiting to hear from her on this.

"Hits are defined as anytime a page is displayed on a web machine" Kaylene

If it's counted the same as ordinary page hits, then it wouldn't be related to whether or not someone logged in (though the login, I suppose, might generate an extra hit). It would have to do with the number of page requests someone made, and that could be several per visit to a conference. So I would think if I visited Drool through the main page, read the new messages in four topics, and posted twice, that would be at least seven hits. One reason I'm asking these questions is because I've been thinking about the fund raising efforts. Speaking as someone who's fairly new here and who's enjoying it, I'd like to give my fair share to support Drool, and in fact I have contributed twice in the three months that I've been here. I'm even willing to give more than my fair share, since I recognize that some people are going to choose to take a free ride if they have the opportunity. But I haven't a clue what a fair share would be, because I don't have good information on the total monthly costs or on the number of people who hang out here. I realize that counting the number of unique lurkers is difficult if not impossible (unles Yapp creates cookies for that purpose and logs statistics), but I think it would be beneficial to try to quantify both the size of the community and the size of the financial obligation we jointly incur to whatever extent is possible.

Our base fixed cost is $320 per month for server rent. Hardware is another cost which varies, the machine I'm putting together is running about $1400 for the base machine and $900 for the hard drives. I already mentioned the Yapp software costs (licensing). Karen and I both put a lot of our time in to this project, as do Marcia and several other authors (Ann Haker to name one). But these costs haven't been compensated to date. It's rare that we bring in enough in a given month to cover all our costs, but what we do get is vital and there is never any extra or any "profit" per se. I don't know about the lurker thing, but I know the number is huge according to our web stats, see http://www.spring.net/webtrends and you'll get some clues. As to the size of the community, last time I looked there were about 1,000 unique people in the drool conference. That was 4-5 months ago, we've gained quite a bit since then. I think I have about 400 email addresses that are pretty reliable for users of the system.

That's a start.... I may e-mail you about this.

One approach might be to set up a "members only" area with discussions, content etc that were available to our contributors and subscribers. We could admit, naturally, everyone who's made significant contributions by default and create a "subscription" model where folks paid $5 a month or $50 a year for a username and password. Subscribers/contributors could also be offered premium email addresses such as mandy@firth.com or jane@austen.com, etc., web space on the new server, and we could produce a quarterly printed newsletter. Just ideas, I'm not saying I'm going to implement this yet. Just looking for feedback.

(Terry) Just ideas, I'm not saying I'm going to implement this yet. Just looking for feedback. All good potential good ideas. Which would cover the monthly expenses. And eliminate the end of the month money crunch. Of course it all depends on the response of the immininet fund drive , doesn't it? I mean, if we get a good enough response, things might go on as is. But 15,000 hits means a whole lot of folks are coming on free.

I'll second the proposals / ideas. we are always going to get "freeloaders" but I guess we should try and limit them;-)

I like the idea of having some "premium" features/content for subscribers. It's important to offer at least some access to content for free, because the way people get hooked is by being able to visit and read and find out what goes on before they have to make a commitment. A possible first step would be (if Yapp supports this) to require people to register and get a Drool user name in order to read some of the conferences. A registration requirement is a barrier, but only a small one, and it would give us a feeling for who's out there.

Another idea, and *all* of these ideas really need Karen's input, would be to set up a subscribers only area on the website, where subscribers could get premium content and information. Kind of like the news services do, they let you have the bulk of the news but save long premium stories for subscribers only areas. It's easy to set up a conference that is private and the host determines who gets access by maintaining a "ulist" or list of users. We've had conferences like these in the past. And we have a few now, you don't see them because they're private.

(Terry)And we have a few now, you don't see them because they're private. Ah Ha...Terry.You mean as a long time donor, I'm not welcomed at all the conferences;-) Shutting me out:-((((

Well, not exactly, the private conferences have *nothing* to do with drool, Firth, Austen or any of the things that probably interest you. And they're very inactive right now. I'm talking about creating something that would appeal to the interests of those actively supporting and creating the major content areas here such as Firth, Austen and Fan Fiction.

create a "subscription" model where folks paid $5 a month or $50 a year for a username and password this sounds like a great idea to me :-)

Oh dear. Most of my devout readers and posters (minimal by Drool's standards) are second or third world people or young students who are putting themselves through college. It would mean the end of Geo to make them pay for a subscription!

i don't know about a subscription either. a lot of us volunteer our spare time to make spring what it is today.....

I would never prevent someone from getting to the main areas of the Spring, like Geo. This is more in reference to getting to special subscriber only areas, and if someone was in one of the categories you describe, they could easily get a "comp" subscription, or complimentary subscription. Anyone who was a "devout poster" would automatically get a subscription. There will be no end to Geo! That would be unthinkable.

*whew*

Terry - Have you run the Webtrends report? Several people have indicated they'd like to see that stats.

I have published the webtrends report but my license expires on the 15th, you need an account to see but I'll give a username and password to anyone who wants one. The url is http://video.wholetech.com:1099 If anyone wants to login, use this generic account: username: stats password stats

These reports will only be abailable until the 15th of this month, when our Webtrends license expires. So download whatever stats you need to your local machine, or, KarenR, feel free to save them on our webserver. This reports are insancely complete., I wish I could afford this software but it's way out of our budget!

Personally I want to commend Terry for looking for ways to increase the funding. He gets to pay the bills, after all.I am sure he doesn't like to go out every month requesting funds. Wolfie we all appreciate all the effort you put in...as well as Marcia. Money couldn't pay for what you both do for Spring. I want to keep Spring free too...but as we know, it is public for viewing, but privately funded. And when there are 15,000 hits in one day(???)and only an infinitismal percent of those give any money, I feel there is something wrong with this picture.

The Annual Drool Fundraiser will kickoff tomorrow. I've made arrangements for a cheque collection point in the UK and if there are others who can have PayPal in other countries, let me know.

Drool is kicking off its Annual Fund-Raising Drive. Spring needs money in order to operate and we appreciate whatever people can send to help keep this place online every single day of the week. For this year's campaign, I'm hoping that the contributions will cover our operating expenses through the end of the year. As Terry has explained in the past, it costs approximately $300 a month to run Spring, which includes the conferences, The Bucket (firth.com) and austen.com, home to the Derbyshire Writers' Guild. Also, when we exceed our contractual allowance for bandwidth, there are variable charges for the excess. From our usage statistics, we all know Drool is very popular but is financially supported by a small fraction of those who visit. Whether you have registered or read the boards in a public mode, it costs Spring money. We prefer to keep Drool open to the public and can only do so through your generosity and giving whatever you can to keep this wonderful place open. This year, I've made arrangements with Lizza in the UK to collect cheques, which she can then send on to me. For other countries, we have alternatives that have worked fine in the past. Our Drool boards are a source of enjoyment for many people, participants and lurkers alike. So if you'd like to make a contribution, please contact me at nomdedrool@yahoo.com for information, as no addresses will be posted on this board.

Cute , boss.Love the "Mom send $$$"LOL. Think Colin could join in with a PSA for Spring? Thanks Lizza for being the UK Money Bag;-) (no pun intended)

None taken;-)

karen, you are so creative! luv the pics!!!

Terry, FTP is still not possible to Geo's hosts and files are having to be accessed from other net sources. For John's research this is NOT acceptable. Please help!

I'll fix this today, email me and I'll respond right away with some tests. I need some more detailed information from you.

I spent quite a bit of time on this and set up an automated procedure to reset your file permissions. Let's continue this discussion in topic 25 of the unix conference though, as it's more related to unix file permissions than to the current pledge drive. Got a $50 contrib last night. Thanks! I won't mention or publish any contributors publicly unless otherwise requested by the donor. One of our recent contributors asked for, and received a firth.com email address and webspace. Remember, if you contribute, there are all kinds of "perks"; all you have to do is ask if you've been a contributor.

(Terry) One of our recent contributors asked for, and received a firth.com email address and webspace. Remember, if you contribute, there are all kinds of "perks"; all you have to do is ask if you've been a contributor. Fantastic, Terry. Can you list the perks...or are they a secret;-)

The primary ones are email and webspace and private conferences (if any one wants them as a group). Also, there's "shell access" for the more unix saavy which gives you lightning fast text only access to the conferences. You have "live" phone support from me whenever you need it. I'll think of more.

You'd better cost some of those options out.

Email and webspace won't cost much. Same with private conferences. Shell access is already enabled and uses less system resources than the web. A unix system like ours handles additional options pretty well. We could support a couple of thousand web/email/shell users pretty easily and we're only supporting a handful now.

I know email doesn't.

The only thing that hits us hard is disk space usage, and I'm building a solution for that and increasing vigilence in cleaning up what we have now (eg. compressing the logs more). So I would qualify supporting those kinds of numbers only if we limited personal disk space, but that wouldn't be as much of an issue with the new system.

I would strongly suggest that those perks have a quantified amount attached. The email addy is one many Firth fans would covet....I would put say a minimum of $50. on that. Hey...that's less than 50 cents a day for Drool. That's ludicrous. The same with the other perks...(some of which I don't even know what they are;-)

Sounds good, Evelyn.

I don't even remember how to access my spring.net email since I lost the ability to login on telnet. I'll have to learn it all over again, soon!

You can use pop mail or ssh and use pine or elm.

2002 Fund Raising Status!! I want to thank all the wonderful people who have come forward, contacted me about making donations, and followed through with checks, money orders or PayPal transfers. So far we've collected $440, slightly less than half of our goal from the following: What truly amazes me is that about a third of that amount is from our wonderful community of lurkers, who tell me how much they love it here at Drool and that it has become a fixture in their day. With the number of hits we get here, I know it is a daily *must visit* for many more who rely on Drool for current information on Colin and for the lively banter amongst die-hard Firthettes, with nothing better to do than paint their nails a deep crimson. So, let's keep this fund drive rolling and I hope to hear from more of you soon. If you're in another country and want to make a contribution, please email me at nomdedrool@yahoo.com to discuss your options. Don't be among the other noncontributors in our Hall of Shame: BTW, Evelyn, where's your check? *tap tap* BTW2, if you haven't received an email from me, then I haven't received your contribution or notice of it.

*LAUGH* karen, you crack me up!! love the graphics!!!!!

Annual Fund Raising Newsflash for Australian Springites We're making it easier and easier to make international donations. For those who haven't availed themselves of PayPal, we now have new Country Rep for Australia. Jane Scott has volunteered to collect funds on our behalf and will be able to transmit them to us when this drive is through. You may contact her directly at gaea@mailcity.com for her mailing address or other questions.

THANKS, KAREN... FOR ORGANIZING THIS FUNDRAISING. BUT FOR YOU, WE WOULDN'T BE HERE

How creative Droolians are ! Evelyn, I love your Thanx graphics. I may just borrow them... Karen outdoes us all. She is sooooooo devoted and so good at what she does. Evelyn's right. *Applause*

I expect to get a paypal to you shortly, Terry..... again!

thank you!

You are right Evelyn, Karen is "The Bees Knees!!!"

I'm about to send out a bunch of checks for $640 from the folks at Austen.com. They've also donated approximately $300 by Paypal.

That's wonderful Ann.Congrats...Thanks for all your efforts. I am overwhelmed at the tremendous support.

That's wonderful, what a great group of folks! This is indeed, as Evelyn says, overwhelming. Thank you so much!

Here they are! These donors have been very generous in supporting Spring and helping us reach our goal. However, there are still pledges outstanding and, if I have not personally emailed you, then I haven't received it or notice of it. Please keep those donations coming in. If you don't know how to do so, contact me at nomdedrool@yahoo.com. Even Colin knows a good thing when he sees it!

Latest inductee to the Drool Hall of Shame This individual took the time from his very important celebrity schedule to write and say he was making a donation to Drool, his favorite fan club. But weeks later, a check has yet to arrive. Much as I hate to do this to such a talented guy and obviously busy person, I feel I must. As the fund-raising drive nears an end (not yet though as I'm waiting for some stragglers), I want to remind people it is not too late to show your appreciation for Drool by making a donation. Every little bit helps insure that Terry will not have to make his monthly appeals or when his property taxes are due. ;-) If I have not personally thanked you by email, then I haven't received your donation or notification of it from Terry. Please contact me at nomdedrool@yahoo.com for instructions or addresses. In addition, I can take Paypal donations myself at my other email address which can expedite things. Thanks again to everyone for their continuing generosity. BTW, this was your Halloween trick. ;-)

(Karen)BTW, this was your Halloween trick. ;-) Does this mean a treat is in store, later, perhaps?

We've raised enough for two full payments at least.

On Thanksgiving, it seems very appropriate to close out the 2002 Fund Raiser and give one more round of thanks to all those who have so generously given their support to Drool. Here's the latest batch of Drool Darlings: Together, with these fine people listed below, Drool has raised $2,200 this year. With the $880 raised by austen.com's latest fund-raising drive, this should keep Spring in operation all the way through June of next year. Excellent results and very much appreciated. Thank you so much. *smooch*

What a terrific result! Thanks, Karen, for doing such a great job of coordinating the campaign.

Thanks, Boss.

Yes thank you Karen!.

Evelyn, I love your smooching smileys!

(Sorry for the MIA message...) Thank you, Wolfie... You know what they say..."A picture says...."

The *complete* list (hopefully!) and alphabetized for your reading pleasure:

Pretty impressive. A Great Big Smooch To all who are keeping Drool alive and banner-free. Thanks Karen and Terry PS We sure have lotta Kathys!

Thanks, in part, to the contributions received though our pledge drive I was able to ship a new server off to our hosting facility yesterday. It's a Supermicro server with twin PIII 933 MHz processors, 512 mb ram, 720 gbs of hard drive space or six 120 gb hard drives. We presently have a 40 gb and a 30 gb drive or 70 gigabytes. The new server is a 2U rackmount box with twin ethernet connections, 2 pci slots and an agp slot. It has hardware RAID for data security and backup. It should arrive at our hosting facility next Tuesday and it will take about two weeks to get it up and running and get all our data moved from this system to the new system. I'm hoping we can put it online on January 1st. All the data from the old system will be archived on the new system and I may even purchase the old drives from the hosting company and put them on a shelf for an emergency although the new system will have plenty of built in safeguards. I've been testing it for two months and it should be fairly stable. I was talking to Ann Haker yesterday, and the new administration system we're going to install on it will be much more useful for content people like her and Karen. We're installing something called EZ Admin which gives authors far more control over their web sites and allows them the ability to create their own users and manage things more effectively. One giant step for the Spring, thanks to everyones super efforts!

Generous Geoites are unknown to mebutI suspect it is only me plusa few others. My audience/posters are students mostly from far poorer countries than the North American ones. *sigh* but I did get a post by a grateful mom whose son had used Geo to research a paper for school. That was very nice! Terry, I'll send my donation as soon as I get home and can get the banking figured out. Someone NOT of my acquaintance is charging things to my debit card on AOL. *fume*

That's debit card thing sounds like identity theft. Not cool! Thanks for the thoughts.