This site hosting

[Admin aka Dan]

All,

The forum ticks over - in the past I have subsidised the cost as I gain so much and value the contributions, at the moment the income and costs are fairly evenly matched.

The combination of subscriptions and revenue from clicks on the adverts provide enough income to pay for hosting.

In short - don't panic!

Thanks

Dan

[Admin aka Dan]

[grawrc]

Bugloss....I was sipping a refreshment when I read your post...thankyou for showering my screen.

I too would like to know how to use Amazon to benefit this site.

Just click on the AllotmentsAmazon Shop link top right.

[Jeannine]

Dan while you around, can you plaese expaain my question about how Amazon works,, about half a dozen posts back. XX Jeannine

[Admin aka Dan]

Hi Jeannine,

Just click on the Shop button at the top of the page, this takes you to amazon and any purchases you make I get a small percentage of.

It really is that simple!

Thanks

Dan

[betula]

Well pleased to get that message from Dan ;D

[rosebud]

 I shall always help.

[Jeannine]

Dan, does it work with the US and Canada Amazons or just the UK ones and  if I start at the online shop here and then go to the different departments does it work with whatever I buy. I looked in the shop an only thought it was on what I saw there which was just a few gardening books.

Is there something visible that lets me know you have got a contribution.

XX Jeannine

[ceres]

Dan's away for a few days.

I have no idea about the North Amarican variants, my suspicion is that they won't work.

On the UK Amazon site, you aren't restricted to the books you can see on the page or even to the departments listed on the right.  You can use the search boxes or the Powered by Amazon.co.uk button to take you to the main Amazon site.  As long as you have clicked through from here, the purchase will track.  You can't see how much commission is earned for a particular purchase.  It's a small percentage of the sale price usually excluding VAT and delivery and usually varying by department.  The amounts are paid out to gthe referrer (Dan) months after the event.

[Jeannine]

 As you only know part of my answer I will wait for Dan  as I am on the point of buying a large purchase from Amazon Canada and want to be sure it works from this side and I do it right.

I don't need to know what he gets.

Thank you

XX Jeannine

[busy_lizzie]

Having been a member of this board since 2003, I find it one of the best I have ever taken part in. The service is great and apart from the very odd hiccup I have had no problems with it. Dan and his helpers do a brilliant job. busy_lizzie

[lincsyokel2]

Nothing, its technical slang meaning i have a seriously fast internet connection and therefore the lag isnt at my end.

Although you were complaining about latency, not bandwidth.

Very good, a valid point.

On the other hand, bandwidth and latency are connected. If the bandwidth is saturated then congestion occurs and latency is increased. However, if the bandwidth of a circuit is not at peak, the latency will not decrease. Bandwidth can always be increased but latency cannot be decreased except by shortening the circuit. Latency is the function of the electrical characteristics of the circuit, in this case 23 hops worth. Ergo if you host it closer the circuit has less hops and the latency decreases, my orginal point, but we may also be constrained by the atlantic pipes, of which there are fourteen and there all near capacity, thats why they  are laying three more.

I love this bandwidth/latency argument, somone always brings it up. Your serve   8)


(BTW, for statistics freaks like me, the total transatlantic capacity is currently 560 Gb/sec)

[tim]

Pumpkinlover - at the other side of the barn.

Apologies for cluttering the thread!

[BarriedaleNick]

Without wishing to get into an argument ( ;D) I wonder if it might not be bandwidth or hops but the actual Virtual Server that Dan is using.  Obviously I don't know the spec of the system but being virtual the server is bound to suffer, to some extent, the effects of the physical server getting pounded.  If the physical server hosts many sites then its memory/HD performance will be affected adversely when those sites get hammered. 
I recall when we here hit the front page of the news, our website hits went from 300/500 a day to 50,000 a day (BBC had a link to us on their home page) and we had to upgrade our VPS rapidly as the site awas unusable.

560 Gbs - now that is a stat!  Here is another!
I checked Alexa. A4A acounts for 0.00003% of internet traffic and ranks  12,755 in the UK.

"Allotments4all.co.uk's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 208,807. The typical visitor to this site is not markedly different from the overall internet population"