Spring Pledge Drive

For the first time ever, the Spring is asking it's users to help out. You don't have to, but do it if you can. It costs $1299.00 a quarter to host the Spring servers on a T-1. Jeff Kramers charges us $250 a month for system admin work, and there is a $100 a month software fee from Armidale Software for our conferencing software. So what's that all come to? Well, if you toss in about $250 a month for misc expenses, which is probably very convservative, it's about $2600 a quarter or $1033 per month. The only income we get comes from website developement and our only website currently paying is childrenstory/tvpc which pays about $600 - $1000 per quarter, some of which goes to a web authoress. So, if you can, sen dyour contibution to: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek, TX 78612 You can do it anonymous or opening. Contributors will be sent some kind of memonto like a Spring mug, a hat, or something to express our gratitude. I'll link this into drool also.

Our T-1 fee is due 7/31/98, so that's why I'm starting this now. No contribution will be too small or insignificant.

Terry, I shall be glad to contribute (tax deductible?...you are non-profit). However, I have no objection to adverts. Geocities pays a lot of the websites' real estate.If you polled the members, I doubt many would object;. and that would relieve the fund- raising.

We're not non-profit, yet. But I'll look in to this status. Obviously, we should qualify. And I'm open to adverts.

Will do as soon as my painting money comes in, Terry.

Thank you! Thank you!

This is the address that I read, Terry: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek, TX 78612 I just wanted to make sure that no letters got dropped. Glad to help.

I'd [refer to hand deliver mine... still working on that ticket... *growl*

Thanks Heide, that address is correct.

Ok, I give up. Why am I unable to forget this Topic? I have saved the Address and have no need to continue seeing new messages, but it won't let me Forget!

I don't know, honey :-( I'm having the same problem with other topics...and the mark everything as read...

OH goodie! I'm not braindead, after all! *kiss*

That sometimes happens when the system has a date glitch, like when the date changes to 2036 or something. I reset the date yesterday.

Will do.

From Jonathon Langley today, $486 for some web work I did for him on http://www.tvpc.com and http://www.childrenstory.com Does anyone have ideas for new children's stories or illustrations for existing, legendary children's story? What stories are we missing?

Pledge Address: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Checks made out to "The Spring"

Thanks so much to Evelyn for here most generous contribution which arrived in yesterday's mail! Thank you so much Evelyn. It really helps.

Thank you so much Evelyn My pleasure, Terry. We have a great gang on Drool. (Even when we're fighting) :-) Led by our outstanding host, Nan!! Thanks , Doll!

total to date $150 We're a fourth of the way to our goal of raising $600 to make our fourth quarter internet access payment. Send to: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek, TX 78612 payable to Paul Terry Walhus or The Spring And thanks to Karen for the note and check received yesterday!

We got some great contributions from some North Country folks, ya know. Ya! A very hearty Spring thank you to Ann Haker and to Kathleen Born for their very kind and generous donations to the pledge drive. Ann is from Minneapolis and Kathleen is from Eagan, MN.

Summary to date (9/1 - 11/30/98 budget) income 265.00 contributions 600.00 tvpc.com website 865.00 total income expense 1,299.00 ddc.net T-1 connection for our servers 750.00 Jeff Kramer system administration 300.00 Armidale Software Yapp software license 450.00 Hardware expenses 2,799.00 total expense (1,934.00) net operating loss

I haven't forgotten you either, Terry. Just still waiting for my money to come in, so I can send you a donation. Unfortunately my buyer has 3 months to pay, so just be patient.

No problem, and thanks! I have an idea on the domain name suggestions. If you make a suggestion, I'll co-register it in your name as the owner and if we sell it, the Spring will split the returns 50/50 with the person who is the name co-owner.

Not acceptable - that's not fair. What would be fair is if you told us all how to register, and we share our returns 50/50 with the Spring. And the names that are registered by the Spring should only earn money for the Spring. If we register names, splitting it 50/50 would still earn us money that we would not have had otherwise, plus it would earn the Spring extra money on top of the money it earns from registering its own names. Taking money from the Spring is unfair, as the Spring is working at a l ss, and is unemployed(!!) - unlike those who log in every day. If us users can't however register extra names ourselves, then coming up with them is the least we can do - the Spring should not have to split money with US to induce us to help. Because then we're a greedy bunch of parasites who should not be here, but pimping off people within our reach.

Fair enough. I was just trying to provide incentive for folks to help dream up some domain names. And website ideas. artcafe.com is gone. So is sportscafe.com.

It's enough incentive that we're allowed to be here in the first place. I think we would all like to keep the Spring going. And besides..... THE WALHUS IS OUR MASTER...WE HAVE BEEN CHOSEN

I AM THE WALHUS--KOOKOOAJOOB...

ha-ha!!!!

Can you charge to credit cards, terry? I was thinking of dumping my WELL account, which would mean that I could divert my $15 a month your direction. Let me know.

We sure can! That's awesome, Mike.

Hey Mike! When did you get back?

How does one do that, Terry? The thing with the credit card? Because I've also been trying to figure out how to send a contribution.

We'll set up a page for this as part of the Spring Store. We need to develop our commerce section so we can sell websites, local internet access and process contributions via credit card.

For now, the best way is to send a check made out to the Spring to: The Spring Rt 2 Box 56r Cedar Creek TX 78612

Didja get it yet, Terry??

Not yet. I wonder what happened?

(*sigh*) Guess I'll have to do some detective work...

I don't have a check account. How embarrassing. I'll wait till the credit card thing is set up, and send a monthly contribution like Mike.

Hehhee...my financial situation is rather more dire than i had thought. how would $10 a month do for the moment? :)) if you want to sort this out, terry, call me: 6pm-11pm GMT (austin is 6/7 hours behind?) +44 1273 727157

That would be awesome, Mike! Anything anyone can do within their limits is a help. Or help with revenue generating projects can be something you can do, like helping with sysadmin work (like wer does), developing new sites, etc. I never want it to be where anyone feels obligated or where there's any barrier to entry. I want it to be free and open, but the bills still come in and we have to be innovative in figuring out ways to pay them.

yeah...like work at a restaurant and send him and/or his roomies gift certificates...

I'm happy to work on sysadm stuff, terry

Great, let's discuss it in depth in the projects conference. I posted some things there today.

It's Pledge Drive time again. I'm hustling real hard this week to raise $400 to pay ddc.net for our connection. I have had several balloon mortgage payments wihc have laid me flat, and the outlook is good around the beginning of next month, but right now I'm scrapping along. The folks of drool have been great about helping support this community and I'm very thankful for all the help you have given. I've been meaning to put together an appreciation page with acknowledgements and will do so someday soon. If you have it in your heart (and pocketbook) to contribute, please send donations to: Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 9011 Quail Creek Dr. Austin, TX 78758 Make checks out to either me or The Spring. And, by way of appreciation, I've opened a new http://www.jeremynorth.com domain and am looking for volunteers to help run it and build it!

Do not take plastic yet, Terry? If not, check is in the mail. Not a big sum, but one of several as I can. We need this place!!!

No plastic yet, it's coming, and thank you so much!

Ok, Terry, it is in the mail. Let me know when/if you get it =)

Thanks Marcia! Send in those contributions folks, in our hour of need. Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 9011 Quail Creek Dr Austin, TX 78758 make checks payable to me or to The Spring

Oh Terry - Must I stop payment on this check? I sent it to the other address you gave - Route whatever Box something. Will that get it to you?

It should get to me ok. Thanks again.

I think I am going to make a pointed comment on one of "my" two (or both) Drool topics. If I can spare the money surely they can too. If this shut down, there would be a whole group of clever ladies longing to exchange ideas with like-minded souls and have no place to go. I read where you are a one-man band in the financial department, and it should not be that way. Not from all of the enjoyment we get from your efforts. The least we can do is help support your efforts.

Terry, I'll drop a check in the mail tomorrow or Tuesday. Thanks for keeping the Spring going for all of us to enjoy!

Thanks so much Marcia and Jana!

Terry, it's 2036 again. Can you reset the date?

Ok Terry, I wrote 3 epistles to the devout in Springfolks (our private Droolian BBS) and asked them to please donate toward their own well-being. Thanks for all those who have given so far - I am not satisfied that all are doing their share.

We're back from the future. Peter, our peripatetic whiz kid from Georgia Tech is in town and is busily tweaking our server right now. We just went from 99.9% full on disk space to 78% full. It makes a huge performance difference. You can thank Peter by emailing him a kind word at peter@diff.net. He's a great volunteer helper. And again, much thanks for the donations and contributions sent to: Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 9011 Quail Creek Dr Austin, TX 78758

Sent him a Mahalo Nui Loa from Hilo. Thanks for telling us about it!

Terry, can you handle checks in foreign currency? I have a lady in Australia who wants to contribute.

Sure, we'll find a way. The Spring 9011 Quail Creek Dr Austin, TX 78758 Thanks. Thanks. Thanks!

Terry, your Email @spring.net has been bouncing for three days. Just to reassure potential donors, You will not and do not sell our Snail-mail addreses, do you? I said you did not.

Absolutely not!!! No way will I sell the emails of the members of this wonderful community. Not even an option. Nah gonna doit. I do, however, occasionally send out a groupmail to folks announcing a pledge drive or to try and drum up interest. This is available to conference hosts, if they like.

Never mind = it is my ISP. It bounces them and sends them at the same time. How very clever of them...

Thanks for the confirmation here in Drool. There are still some very sincere lurkers who have heard nightmare tales of spamming and worse but would like to contribute to Spring's continuation. Good Luck, Terry, and thanks to everyone who cares enough to do something to help!

Thanks! Send contributions to: Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 9011 Quail Creek Dr Austin, TX 78758

Thanks so much to the four folks who have sent a combined total of nearly $200.00. Our goal is $400 a quarter. Soon, we'll be putting up an appreciation page thanking all those who have contributed (unless, of course, they specify that they want to remain anonymous). These folks have done so much to help us along. Another way you can help is to sign up for your own "briefcase"; the Spring has just beomce an affiliate with Visto and they offer a wonderful web based application that let's you keep track of your calendar, files, photos. email, address book, tasks, bookmarks, events, family, friends and co-workers. It will be a great help to you and your group. And every time someone signs up, the Spring will get $2.00. So this is a way you can help yourself and help the community. Please sign up and make your contribution that way! You can click on this banner to get started.

I've just put up a page thanking our contributors at http://www.spring.net/sponsors Thanks to all these folks who have donated a total of over $1,200 since January 1, 1999. Ann Haker Ann Whittle Barbara Farley Charlotte Clayton Claire Chan Eileen Green Evelyn Boake Genette Irlbeck Gisela Sardinha Heide Kalbach Jana Hendricks Kathleen Born Lizza Davies Maarit Helena Doinio Marcia Hemming Nancy Palmarini Stacey Vura T McAvoy Willem Friesema If I've left anyone off the list, my apologies. One or two letters were lost in the mails. Overall we're nearly on target to our goal of $4,800 a year which is the cost of colocating our three servers (barton, www and access) on a T-3 connection in downtown Austin. Thanks so much to everyone who's helping and to those who are signing up for Visto via our link.

THANKS!!!

Don't forget to sign up your dog and cat (and goldfish) for Visto too!

Terry, please fix whatever was messed up when the Visto icon was added to Drool's pages. We are seeing the date, time, poster's name and email within the body of the response. Very ugly. Disturbs my keen sense of esthetics! ;-D

good point...I'll ditch them and start over...

all better yet?

Must be, Dear! No one has complained in over a month. Droolians are not that tolerant, normally =)

I am not even taking that bait...*wink*

*smile* You are wise!

occasionally, I get lucky...

*smiling knowingly* I am glad to hear it.

Only now I read your message closely: (Terry) One or two letters were lost in the mails. Does that mean you never got a letter from me? Never got any kind of confirmation. Terry, I would like to know before I send off another one.

I got yours, fortunately, and I am getting them reliably now. I really appreciate your contribution!

Mine will be in the mail to you tomorrow as well as one for Stacey's efforts in the Honolulu Marathon for the Lukemia Society. These checks are my Christmas present to me from me...and to you *grin*

Thanks so much to all those folks who have contributed to our latest fund drive. We are now accepting contributions on Paypal on the site: http://www.spring.net/paypal This has been a great effort and I can't thank everyone enough. As a small token, I'm sending out a picture of the Spring's Cedar Creek location, a nature picture or something, to the next 13 folks who send in a $25 or more donation. I sent out two already today to the nice folks from Cinncinnati and Lansdale, PA who contributed via Paypal.

A huge thank you and lots of hugs for the wonderful people of drool who put up at least 80% of the funds we needed to keep our software running! This was a great effort and is very, very appreciated!

I just paid $199 to our host for extra bandwith for austen.com, if you're a supporter of austen.com and want to help in some way with this cost, please click on this link and send $5 automatically to spring.net just for signing up (it won't cost you anything). https://secure.paypal.com/refer/pal=terry%40spring.net Or you can send contributions the old fashioned way to: Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Don't worry about this though, I just cut a deal with our provider to charge (in the future months) for a flat $40 a month for this bandwidth. austen.com uses a lot of disk space, which is ok, and I've covered this for the future. Again, my hearty thanks for everyone who supported our recent drive to pay Kaylene Thaler. I fully understand if you haven't caught your breath from this effort, but am hoping just joining PayPal and getting $5 to the Spring will be an easy way to cover this disk charge. All I need is for 40 folks to sign up . . .

Most austen.com people don't come here, Terry. Ann has put a fund-raising notice up at her place with the PayPal clickthru.

Thanks, Karen. You have helped immeasurably in this effort.

I had nothing to do with Ann's action. She did it herself.

Time to renew our drive, I had over $1,000 in bills from our old provider last month, which is why I'm moving all the sites to a new provider where it will be less than $400 a month. Use the paypal link on http://www.spring.net or send checks to: Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Please indicate what you are supporting (eg. austen, firth, bjd, or spring). I got 3 great contributions this weekend. Thanks!

We need to do a mini-pledge drive right now to catch up on some isp charges and some consulting. So if you can, go to our main page at http://www.spring.net and chip in whatever you can! Thanks. You can contribute via paypal or mail to The Spring, 182 Clover Rd, Cedar Creek, TX 78612. Checks made out to the Spring.

In a normal month, I would have funds on the 15th to cover our server costs. This month is different because I have to pay property taxes on my house and all my salary and rental income etc. has to go to that. So I have to raise $300 pretty quickly to pay our server hosting fee. I need your help this month more than ever. After 60 days, the pressure will be off again, but now I particularly need your help and donations. Please use the Paypal donate button on our main page or mail checks to The Spring, 182 Clover Rd, Cedar Creek, TX 78612. I'm 5 days overdue on this server bill but I think they'll cut me a little more slack on it.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?return=http%3A//www.spring.net/paypal&item_name=Contribution+to+austen%2C+drool%0D%0Aor+Spring&submit.x=17&submit.y=17&business=terry%40spring.net&item_number=3&no_intl=1&cmd=_xclick

I'm sending you my check this afternoon, Terry. Pl. credit Drool, and check your email.

Terry, Drool's annual fund-raising drive will again be held in September. Evelyn and I will be helping Terry in the meantime. If people would like to contribute now, please contact me for instructions. I don't put my address up on public boards. However, I will be doing the collection again on behalf of this community, as Ann H did very recently with her austen.com group. In addition, I will be making arrangements for funds to be collected with the UK too as well as other countries. Thanks

Thanks so much Karen and Evelyn! I'm working on my end on getting some DVD prgograms going and trying as many ways as I can to alleviate the situation. In correspondence with KarenR!

Starting today, we're going to have four quarterly fund raising drives to pay our isp bills, make improvements, do backups and expand and add new features (faster server with bigger hard drives, etc). The pledge drives will be held on October 1-15, 2001 January 1-15, 2002 April 1-15, 2002 July 1-15, 2002 The goal of the current pledge drive is to pay all or a good portion of the $900 per quarter hosting fees we pay, plus another $600 to initiate a schedule of full backups to our server and an emergency preparedness plan. This quarter 25% of all donations will go to the newly established college fund for children of the survivors of the World Trade Center attack. Send your checks to: The Spring 182 Clover Road Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Use these logos to sign up (if you aren't a Paypal member and to make donations):   If you want to send your donations to Ann or Karen directly, and have them forward them to me, that's fine. Ann has handled this extremely well in the past and that way I can track which site they're earmarked for. This pledge drive includes Spring, Drool, Firth and Austen. Thanks! Your contributions have been generous in the past and have kept this place rolling along. We hope to be secure, safe and more robust in the future as a website where you can freely express your thoughts and feelings and honor your heroes.

Resp 94 of 94: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) Mon, Oct 1, 2001 (10:09) 52 lines Starting today, we're going to have four quarterly fund raising drives to pay our isp bills, make improvements, do backups and expand and add new features (faster server with bigger hard drives, etc). The pledge drives will be held on October 1-15, 2001 January 1-15, 2002 April 1-15, 2002 July 1-15, 2002 The goal of the current pledge drive is to pay all or a good portion of the $900 per quarter hosting fees we pay, plus another $600 to initiate a schedule of full backups to our server and an emergency preparedness plan. This quarter 25% of all donations will go to the newly established college fund for children of the survivors of the World Trade Center attack. Send your checks to: The Spring 182 Clover Road Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Use these logos to sign up (if you aren't a Paypal member and to make donations): target="_blank">

Nothing in yet, my isp bill is overdue. I encourage folks to contribute someting, no matter how small. Thanks!

Still no donations on the current quarterly Pledge Drive, I'm going to get on the email and the phone and try to drum up some support.

Terry, I give yearly and send it to Karen. Would you like for me to break up my donation in quarters?That's a lot of trouble for her to handle the drive four times a year though.Esp with the friends in overseas. And how about letting us know the total amount that is collected by Drool? I know the Tea Room amount was posted last year.*Total* is not invading anybody's privacy. We need a little structure, IMO.

It's wonderful that you give annually, and I'm most appreciative. No need to split it up in quarters! I got the first donation of this drive today, $50, which is one sixth of the way to paying this months hosting charges of $296.00. That's a start! I'd like to see the load spread out among more folks, and not weighing so heavily on myself and a few others. I'm encouraged by today's Paypal contribution. If you would like to give, please click the Paypal button to "donate" at http://www.spring.net. Or send check payable to The Spring to: The Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 I sent a $12.50 check to the college fund for WTC survivors today, a fourth of the contribution I received.

Guess my donation from the summer counted toward last quarter. :-/

Yup, you're counted.

sent mine to Tracy. Hope it arrived.

I'll be checking with Tracy tomorrow to see how her collection effort is going.

I'll be sending something via PayPal shortly as well (as I'm in Canada) - depending on whether I've line up work in the next few weeks (fingers crossed). This site has been a great way to pass time while off and deserves all the support it can get.

Not doing too well this pledge drive. One $50 check received, another lost check in the mail, no paypal contributions yet. No where near the goal of paying the hosting fees for this month of $296, and no where close to the $888 hosting cost for the quarter, and I'm hoping to raise enough to start backing up this system as part of an emergency preparedness plan. Please mail contributions to The Spring (Firth, Drool and Austen) 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Or just click the Paypal Donate button at http://www.spring.net or any of the other sister websites.

Attention UK donators - just to let you know, and you know who you are, the final total is �120 and I've sent it off by PayPal this evening.

Thanks Tracy...good to hear from you; we miss you :-((( And thanks to the UK friends who are helping to make Spring possible:-)))

I got it, thanks so much Tracy! I got it via Paypal a few hours ago. I am most appreciative!

Hey Terry. I sent a donation through paypal the other day. Did you get it? Just want to make sure. Thanks, Liz oh, btw, I have changed email addresses. How do I change it here, so when you rollover my user name it gives the right one? I can't figure it out.

Got it Liz, thanks so much! It came through on November 8th, and big thank yous to Tuquyen, Trina, Hayoun, Philip, Annabella, Tracy T, Patricia, and Marcia!

Terry, those newest ones (beginning 5) are from austen.com. Either you should be thanking them personally or have Ann do it. Liz, to change your email address, click on Main Menu at the bottom of the screen here, then go to "View/Modify Preferences." It should be self-explanatory from that point on. When you hit submit, it may not look like the change has been taken because of the error notice you get, but it will be ok.

I will be sending out notes and be making some thank you calls. I'll have to look in to that error notice thing.

I'll have to look in to that error notice thing. No need. The changes go through. I'd rather have you work on that *other* thing.

great! glad you got it. I've felt very guilty about not giving till now. thanks, Karen! I'll do that right now.

Our bandwidth is off the charts. Our current account with our bandwidth provider allows for 50GB of monthly data transfer. For the month of March, our bandwidth total was 165GB, which is an overage of 115GB. Our bandwidth provider's pricing for bandwidth overage is $3 per GB. Using this formula, an amount of $345 is owed on our account. I have negotiated this down to $50 this month, but in the future we may have to order one of these plans, probably the 100 gb or 200 gb extra, which means we may have to do a special pledge drive in about a month, based on our bandwidth usage. 100GB extra: $100 per month 200GB extra: $200 per month 300GB extra: $300 per month

This is turning in to an extremely tough time financially for me, since I invested heavily in backup systems and am facing increasing bandwidth costs due to the popularity of our site. So I need your help now more than ever before. Please send donations to: Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 182 Clover Rd. Cedar Creek, TX 78612 or Click on the "Paypal Donation" link in the left column of http://www.spring.net Or click directly here: Paypal Donation If you haven't signed up for PayPal, you have to sign up here: Sign up for Paypal Thanks! Your support is really needed at this time.

I hear ya' Terry...check's in the mail. Viva Drool!

Thanks so much Evelyn! This will really help.

Thanks for linking this to Geo. You will be hearing from me, as usual. Paypal is the least painful way to do it, and you don't even need to figure out the postage!

Lest anyone in Geo wonder, Terry created this space we use on the internet. For ages he supported it all by himself. That became burdensome quickly when the lot of us happened along to create our own conferences and so on which required added bandwidth and server capabilities. Contribute what you can, please! I think Geo is worth a little of your time and where-with-all. Mahalo nui loa.

Hi all What about from afar. I got some spare cash? I won't make it much because the exchange rate does not favour me (NZ$2.30 to US$1 - quite low for NZ).

Everything, near and far, helps! Thanks Rob.

I'd love to contribute a bit. It won't be much though. I have been helping my parents out because Dad got layed off from his job a few weeks ago for the second time.*sigh* But every little bit counts. I love Geo and we certainly can't let anything happen to it!

Thanks a bunch Julie!

Hang in there, students and struggling professionals. Don't feel guilty about being here - your present contributions of words is perfect. People like me will try to cover all of those who are where we were a long time ago.

Keep 'em coming, I'm just a wee bit shy of what I need to make this month's bandwidth payment. Paylink link at http://www.spring.net

am sending check - watch your mail... :-)

Thank you!!!

Our Paypal "bank" account is sitting at $253.62, thanks to a generous $100 contribution from Marci yesterday, so we're about $100 short of being able to make our $320 a month bandwidth payment. So, please, keep the Paypal contributions coming in so I can make this payment before the end of the month. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?return=http%3A//www.spring.net/paypal&item_name=Contribution+to+austen%2C+drool%0D%0Aor+Spring&submit.x=80&submit.y=32&business=terry%40spring.net&item_number=3&no_intl=1&cmd=_xclick or Mail to: Terry Walhus The Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Thanks to everyone who's made a contribution!

We're 76.38 away from being able to make our bandwidth payment! Three or four $25 Paypal contributions would do it. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?return=http%3A//www.spring.net/paypal&item_name=Contribution+to+austen%2C+drool%0D%0Aor+Spring&submit.x=80&submit.y=32&business=terry%40spring.net&item_number=3&no_intl=1&cmd=_xclick

Terry, I've just joined PayPal and sent a contribution (I hope). If it doesn't come through please let me know. I've been lurlking long enough that I feel I'm definitely responsible for some of that huge bandwidth usage. Although, now that I think of it, it's really ODB who's responsible. Who told him to be so fascinating anyway???

terry, i hope you received my donation too. please let me know if not. if you do, no need to post it here, thanks *HUGS*

I'll let both of you know as soon as I receive something, thanks!

I made this payment today to our bandwidth provider: Date Service/Transaction Description Amount Jun 16, 2002 Fast Start Server -- Ongoing fee from Jun 16, 2002 to Jul 15, 2002 295.00 Jun 16, 2002 Harddrive Upgrade -- Ongoing fee from Jun 16, 2002 to Jul 15, 2002 25.00 Previous balance: 0.00 Amount due: 320.00 So, we're good till July 15th and we have $215.33 in our account which we can use today the July August payment. Thanks a bunch to wolf, marci and Kathleen!

Just got this months bill for $320 for bandwidth. The overbilled us and didn't credit us for last month (which I paid), so I'm getting this straightened out. Send contributions, as usual, to Paul Terry Walhus The Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 You can also send them to KarenR or Ann H and they'll forward them to me. Or you can click the Paypal button and use this method, it's on the top left of http://www.spring.net If you're buying Colin Firth DVD's, please buy them via the new link at http://www.spring.net, you'll see it midway down in the left column. There are over 30 Firth DVDs to choose from on this Amazon affiliate page.

Buy Colin Firth DVDs

Make Paypal Donation Sign up for Paypal if you're not yet a member

Terry, Could I recommend that the link for buying the CF DVD's be put onto the Drool mainpage? I must admit, I go directly to that site when I come to The Spring and I bet a lot of others do too and will miss that as an opportunity to help raise some much needed funds.

I sent that to Karen R for possible incorporation. I wonder what the volume of dvd buying is among folks in this conference? There are about 30 Firth DVDs listed on this page. Direct contributions have always been our mainstay, a lot of the programs like amazon.com only payoff if large numbers of folks use them and we are able to meet minimum sales quotas.

Our current account with our bandwidth provider allows for 50GB of monthly data transfer.. For the month of May, our bandwidth total was 95GB, which is an overage of 42GB. Their pricing for bandwidth overage is $3 per GB. Using this formula, an amount of $126 is owed on our account. As a courtesy, they are only going to charge our account $50 for this overage. In the future, however, they will need to charge us for the bandwidth we use. We also have the option of pre-purchasing bandwidth at the following discounted rates. 100GB extra: $100 per month 200GB extra: $200 per month 300GB extra: $300 per month At present we owe the regular flat rate $320 plus this $50 or $370.00. I have about $100 in the account from last months contributions so I'm trying to raise about $270 for this month and some toward a potential bandwidth overage next month. I'd like to prepay to 100 gb extra and save something possibly.

Thanks for the $20 paypal contribution I just received. I won't mention the name because I haven't asked the contributor. But thanks! We really need contributions right now.

We are about $270 short of paying our bandwidth bill this month, so this is the amount I have to raise. I'm toying around with the idea of getting 12 people to commit to one month each during the year and insure the bandwidth payment for that month. I'm extremely strapped this month so I'm counting on contributions to make up our shortage in the bank to make the payment and keep the system alive. Ideas? Suggestions on fund raising? Again, the Paypal link is at the bottom of the spring's main page.

Keep those contributions coming, please. Your contributions make these pages possible, click the Paypal banner on Spring.net's main page.

I've put up (and linked all over the place) a new webpage at The Bucket called The Marketplace (or should it be called The Bucket Boutique???), where there are direct links for all of Colin's tapes, DVD, related books, etc. (plus related items) to purchase from Amazon. Using these links, Spring will earn some money. If there are other items you'd like added or would like me to create the direct link for you, just let me know. Now, start shopping!! ;-D

Thank you Karen. Will Spring get credit for *all* Amazon products purchased through The Marketplace? I just ordered a "non-Firth" book;-))

If they have the Spring code in the url (which you can do yourself very easily), then Spring gets the biggest cut. After the ASIN (the url), are a string of numbers/letters. After that backslash, get rid of the rest and put in spring-20. Hit "enter" and a new url is generated that will credit Spring. v. easy.

OK, I've changed the name and the link. We now have The Bucket's Boutique. Voila! http://www.firth.com/boutiq.html

Question: why is the website "firth.com" and not "colinfirth.com."?

It's either. If you type in colinfirth.com, you will get The Bucket.

Whew;-)

Thanks for the accreditation link to add for Amazon. I get a lot of stuff from there and I would like Spring to get credit for it! Aloha Y'all from the South.

What's your location today, Marci?

Louisville, KY

Wow, my old stomping grounds. I used to live on St. James Court just next to Central Park where they do the Shakespeare in the Park series in the summer. Wonder if this is still going?

I'll check. Lots going on here. Lots of stuff all around, too - not just hourses! I'm in downtown in the old part near Churchill Downs in a resotred row house. Loads of steps up and down to navigate will either give me coronary collapse or legs of steel.

I'm not used to heat without breezes, and I forgot how suddenly a thunderstorm can show up. My host arrived home yesterday soaked from one such little shower that did a bit of damage in Illinios just across the border. How funny it is to be in one of those colored states in those puzzles. I am still having problems with what order which states come in even though I was navigator on the last road trip!

Still at least $250 short of being able to pay this months bandwidth bill and I only have a few days to go before they turn us off, please send payments via paypal (click link on http://www.spring.net ) or mail to: Spring 182 Clover Rd Cedar Creek, TX 78612 Thanks!

Still 200+ short and only two days till our shutoff notice. Please donate via the Paypal logo at http://www.spring.net and help keep spring, firth and austen running. Thanks.

Just got a $50 contribution, we're about $150 short now. Please keep 'em rolling in, I'm facing a serious financial pinch this month and want to keep the system up and running. Thanks!!!

Another $50 just came in, keep 'em coming and we'll make it! Thanks so much! $100 in Paypals today so far, you are really coming through in a pinch!

terry, where do we stand today?

We are very, very close, about $50 away from having the total I need to pay on Monday! Thanks to everyone for the very kind contributions over the past few days.

terry, i just sent a contribution (hope it went through)...

Got it! Thanks so much, it puts us over the top!

We're going to try something different for our next months pledge drive, starting today. The Spring is an Ebay seller. We have a good rating. Do you have something in your garage or attic that you don't need that we could sell on ebay? If you do, list it here in this topic, the Spring will sell it and you'll have to ship it to the buyer. You can donate whatever percentage you like to the Spring and keep whatever you want for yourself, as long as you donate at least 25% of the sale of the item to the Spring. You can email me (terry@spring.net) with your listing if you don't want to do it through this topic. It will be imperative that you can ship the item to the buyer promptly and without fail so as to preserve the Spring's good seller rating. List your item here, in this topic and then I'll list it for sale on Ebay. Also, after you list, send an email to mailto://terry@spring.net and let me know your phone number and address so I can co-ordinate the shipping and sale and payment to you. It's an experiment, let's see if it works, maybe this will help keep us afloat. Remember, it costs at least $320 a month just for our basic expenses and we'd like to raise more to start doing more effective backups and keep up with any necessary hardware/software upgrades.

A few of you may have received an email from me in error, it was sent unintentionally and my apologies if you received and email with a long list, I sent a followup which was the email I intended to send out in the first place. The email is in reference to the Ebay idea.

I'd say that 90% of the people you emailed don't come here and wouldn't be reading your apology.

I emailed them an apology.

I am B.Com(Pass) from Delhi University from India and I have done a course in computer such as Desk top Publishing in Computer which includes Abode Photoshoppe, Scanning , Page Maker , Msoffice, freehand, Illustrate Coreldraw. I am now working in a SERC in India and handling Data Base work such 1. Data Entry 2. Generation of Tables 3. Obtain Charts from Data base 4. Preparing of Reports I had also working in a Printing Offset Company India's leading India's No. 1 Company Ajanta offset & Packaging Limited I also know the Knowlege of Printing

My email address rajanbagga@vsnl.net telephone : 91-110-5556645

Our first item for Ebay has been offered and will be listed soon. From today's correspondence: Yes, I have something I don't need any more. I have a champaign mink jacket with a fox collar. I paid $1,800. for it and I'll sell it for $800. with 30% going to The Spring. It's tuxedo length and quite a steal at this price. Ohhhhhhhhhhh - it's a size 10. All Ebay donors to remain anonymous unless, of course, they give permission to reveal their name. This is a most kind offering. Here's the actual ebay listing, the reserve price has been set at $800 so it won't sell until this reserve is met. If the donor requests, I may be able to revise the item listing. One very important thing I forgot to mention, is that we need a photograph if possible, or multiple photos of the item. Or at least point to a stock photo on the net. If it's a common consumer item then there's probably one we can find on google.com. Title: champaign mink jacket with fox collar Item # : The item number for your new listing is 941656544. URL: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=941656544

I posted a photo with a disclaimer that it's only an approximation, I hope to obtain an actual photo from the donor. Ebay recently announced that they are heavily promoting "power sellers" to find folks with items they want to sell in their communities. The Spring is my community. So, please, did though that attic or rummage through your garage and see if there is something you no longer have any use for that could benefit our community at Drool and the Spring.

http://www.spring.net/mink

It fits me Terry, but what on earth would I do with it? Aloha and good luck Rajan. Thank you for posting.

I put a real picture of it up instead to the ones I had. Hope it sells so we can get a headstart on next months server hosting/bandwidth charge, but then again, these things may not move in summertime. No bids yets.

I suspect that thr right buyer might like to get it now and set it aside for cooler weather. How about the cruise crowd? Alaska is good this time of year and it does get nippy onboard.

The auction ended and the coat didn't sell. I will relist it.

is it real fur? if so, maybe folks are resisting it....is it priced too high?

It's real. But it's summer! This is, after all, a coat. But I'll keep listing it and hope that some other folks dig some things out of the garages or attics!

how're the bills looking terry? are we doing ok this month?

We've got a good start. A couple of very nice contributions came in the past few days. So we're about a third of the way there to our $320 a month bill. The coat didn't sell. And there haven't been any other Ebay contributions (where folks contribute a discarded item for sale to benefit the Spring).

I have a hundred of these premium quality webcams to sell on ebay to raise money for spring.net, drool and Austen. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2042024744&rd=1 or http://www.spring.net/ebay/webcam

NCK27CZV - TeleCam LT w/ Zoom Notebook Videoconferencing Camera Buy this at our Spring Ebay Auction Now! This is an incredibly sensitive, high resolution camera ideal for security or web cam applications. It has a built in microphone and power supply. Slim, Lightweight Design for Portability Proper eye contact is the key to effective videoconferencing. This is why the NCK27CZV can be mounted anywhere on the notebook computer display with the provided TeleClip attachment. This makes it convenient for both right and left handed users as well as prevents problems of parallax. Further, the NCK27CZV's unique design allows the user the ability to detach and carry the the camera from the notebook to view documents, rooms or objects of interest. Varifocal Lens for wide angle, normal, or telephoto viewing of people, places and things Focus can be quickly adjusted from 50mm (2") to infinity on the Tamron varifocal lens. This allows the NCK27CZV to be used for document or close-up imaging. Also, this model can be adjusted for a wider viewing angle for group conferencing as well as personal conferencing.

You might want to post this info at austen.com's Tea Room

Will do! Thanks.

What kind of price is reasonable for this camera, Terry?

They retail for $299. $25 is reasonable. That's a $5 markup. I'm getting them for $20.00. I'm not sure what shipping will be, depends on your location. These do require a video capture board of some kind. I'm testing a video capture board that I could sell for $10 but I don't want to list it until I know that free drivers and software are readily available on the web. The mink coat hasn't sold and I'm relisting it for the third time. Ebay has a concept called power sellers, these are folks that find other people in their communities with rare or valuable collections of items they want to sell but they're not computer saavy themselves. So I'm looking at the potential for being a "power seller" as a means of supporting the Spring. That's why the call for folks to dig in to their closets, attics and basements.

The stuff I have is mostly not worth the trouble. Tropic do evil things to stored valuables. It is best to leave them in storage on the mainland. I am heartily tired of feeding my books to bugs!

To everyone who bought up a storm at amazon!!! We just got our first quarterly report from amazon and, in the one month since Le Boutique came into existence, there was a huge response from all you and Spring actually earned some money. We really appreciate it. :)

Karen, why don't you post again the formula for giving Spring credit when one is ordering non-Colin items.

Thanks Ev, that's a great idea, as I lost it and wanted to buy some other, non-CF related stuff. Karen, can you put it somewhere permanently????? :))))

wait a sec...how do we make sure spring gets donations from amazon? i buy stuff from them--is it just via a click-thru?

I have setup a page at The Bucket that has links to specific products that contain Spring's code. However, anyone can change the product url to ensure that Spring gets the maximum rebate. A general click-thru isn't worth much. Lisa, I'll put instructions on the Boutique page for changing the url, but essentially it goes like this... very simple. Here's the url for Tom Clancy's new book (featured on amazon's main page) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0399148701/ref=pd_gw_tst_1/002-2311145-9832001 (1) In the location bar at the top of your browser, remove all the coding after the number set following the ASIN and keep the last slash. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0399148701/ (2) Type in spring-20 after the slash and hit Enter. You will get a new product page that has coding for spring. In this case, I got: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0399148701/spring-20/002-2311145-9832001 but it will be different for each person who does it. BTW, items have different percentages for rebates. Books, directly linked, have by the highest reimbursement.

I was really glad you set up the Amazon affiliate link. I had to buy a lot of books for school and I often shop through Amazon anyway.... so it was a painless way to donate.

The response has been wonderful and I am most grateful for this support. Amazon, Ebay and Paypal have been very helpful partners in our pledge drives. And I am most appreciative of the direct contributions that I still continue to receive. Any one who has made a contribution is most welcome to web space at firth.com, austen.com, spring.net, email address, etc. If there is anything I can do to return the favor, please contact me!

As the holidays approach, I think we should publicize the Amazon -Spring connection more. Has it been posted on austen.com? This is an easy way to get funding for Spring.I've bought all the Colin items I wish to buy at this point, but I order other items from Amazon monthly. About to order the Possession sound track...and in November the DVD.

I've contacted Ann and she's just returning from vacation. She's indicated she will create a "shop" at austen.com too and will be fixing Spring's main page after she contacts Terry to get the new passwords.

I have updated the Bucket's Boutique with instructions for DIY code changes, plus added some other items, including a couple of P&P sequels (the diary one isn't bad at all!): http://www.firth.com/boutiq.html

Thanks, all. I just bought three books as birthday presents but did not know the formula. Next time, Spring will get the credit!

Cancel them and I will give you the codes.

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.

Not cool at all. It happened to my son. As soon as I get back to Hilo I will have the card replaced with a new one.

You should have heard from me via PayPal today, Terry.

I did! Thank you so much!!!

Happy to be able to assist!

To all of Spring's supporters. On Spring's main page there's a new item labeled " ads by google". If you click on these ads, it will help pay our bills.

Goodle Ad Revenue partway through the first day was very good, although google does not allow me to discuss specific stats. But thanks for your support and please keep on clicking.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll go straigh away!

We've been in a steady decline since day one. But I'm figuring out wayxs to boost traffic through the other websites, expecially http://adsenses.com which is also http://www.adsensible.com.

It seems to go through seasonal fluctuations - at least as far as Geo is concerned. Summer comes and everyone goes outdoors on vacations or picnics. When school and the fall season begins, they pick up again.

That will be good.

... when things pick up. That will be good. Because we're in a long dry spell now.

Over the several years I have been active here both in Drool and on the rest of Spring, summer is the worst time for hits. Hang in there. Things will pick up with the cooler wetter weather coming.

i owe a good old donation (maybe when my pay raise comes in at the end of the month)

I need help picking which colored google ad is the most pleasing. Will you please help me out by visiting this page and clicking on the ad which has the color scheme that you find to be most pleasing? You would make my day and make me very, very happy if you would do this, please. http://www.spring.net/adsense Just click on the ad with the color scheme you find most pleasing and I'll announce the results based on my page stats. Thanks in advance for helping with this!

Go Raspberry Smoothie

Put the Droolback3 background on your test page, Terry, then it would be easier to choose.

I will do it. I'll put droolback3 as the background on the test page. Then folks can go to vote by clicking on the one they like best at http://www.spring.net/adsense I'll count the votes and let you know which one is most popular.

Drooleurs: Please pick the color scheme you like the best on this page: http://www.spring.net/drool I put the drool background on this page.

Against the Drool background, I think fresh mint is most pleasing, though it does sort of seem to blend in and could seem to disappear. Melancholy blue and raspberry smoothie are also nice and stand out more.

Good to have confirmation about "fresh mint" from another computer. I always worry that nonconforming colors. I vote for fresh mint as well.

Terry -- love the google ad for "springs." Was that a conscious choice or random? Very humorous!

Shoshana, I have no say over which ad google places. On one site, I heard this story. Yep, they're still tweaking: The technology is not yet foolproof. The online edition of The New York Post, which is owned by the News Corporation, ran an article last month about a murder in which the victim's body parts were packed in a suitcase, and Google served up an ad for a luggage dealer. from the above NYT piece

(Terry)and Google served up an ad for a luggage dealer. Shoshana, I had the same question! Very funny Terry.

i have finally seen the light (colors, that is) and i like cut grass the best! though raspberry smoothie comes in a tight second.