A Message from Robert. A thank you and a request for help

[themuffinman]

Finally been able to relax myself after a long day of running around and playing with my One, I just sent you a little "something something".

[gr8nuguy]

I am more then happy to help you when ever you need it

[leerage]

Any way we can send a 6 pack of your favorite brew? :-)

 

Funny story today. Went to go get my One and I already had $50 down from the day before for deposit. When she rang it up today she kept saying it's not showing the $50 deposit. She called up her manager and manager approved a $50 credit. Come to find out when it was all said and done the $50 deposit was actually on there so all and all I only paid $162 for my One.

 

I'll be passing that $50 along in the morning!

 

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[PDXmike]

Ask, and you shall receive!

 

Actually, this is quite timely, as a couple of my credit cards have slight negative balances due to overpayment from when I paid them off. Glad to put one of those to good use!

 

EDIT: Aww, heck...this place is worth using 'em both! I probably spend more time reading on this site than any others these days, anyway. What you and the S4GRU staff do for all of us here is truly appreciated!

Edited April 20, 2013 by PDXmike

[kineticman]

Sent in another donation. I figure I have used enough bandwidth hitting refresh on the Columbus forum. Now, send me some LTE!

 

 

[S4GRU]

Any way we can send a 6 pack of your favorite brew? :-)

 

Funny story today. Went to go get my One and I already had $50 down from the day before for deposit. When she rang it up today she kept saying it's not showing the $50 deposit. She called up her manager and manager approved a $50 credit. Come to find out when it was all said and done the $50 deposit was actually on there so all and all I only paid $162 for my One.

 

I'll be passing that $50 along in the morning!

 

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2

 

This is great. It's the first money Sprint has ever given to the site.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

[Wfmets45]

Just sent you some love from here in NYC!

[JimBob]

It is very arousing to be a S4GRU Premier Sponsor.

[MacinJosh]

Robert, I sent you another donation. Best I can do for right now.

[ericdabbs]

It is very arousing to be a S4GRU Premier Sponsor.

 

Please don't get an e-boner.

[xenadu]

Hey Robert, can you give a breakdown of the monthly charges and whatnot? I'm curious what these people are charging you for hosting a community site, if you have to pay for extra bandwidth, etc. If it is too ridiculous we might explore other options to save money.

 

Either way I sent in a few more bucks.

[PythonFanPA]

Its payday, so just made another donation myself.

[tommym65]

Hey Robert, can you give a breakdown of the monthly charges and whatnot?

 

Robert didn't answer, so here are some estimates:

 

Kentucky-Fried-Chicken-for-Robert Account: 56%

 

Jewelry-for-Robert's-wife-so-she-doesn't-take-away-all-his-phones-and-demand-he-spend-at-least-a-few-minutes-every-day-with-his-family Account: 34%

 

Bail-Bond-for-AJ Account: 9.4%

 

Operating Expenses: 0.6%

 

Value to Sprint LTE fanatics: Priceless!

[PythonFanPA]

Safe bet that you may be underestimating the 'Bail Bond for AJ' category percentage by a fair margin.

[MacinJosh]

Safe bet that you may be underestimating the 'Bail Bond for AJ' category percentage by a fair margin.

 

I've been estimating the bail bond account at 50% for a long time.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5 using Tapatalk 2

[Luuminator]

Jewelry-for-Robert's-wife-so-she-doesn't-take-away-all-his-phones-and-demand-he-spend-at-least-a-few-minutes-every-day-with-his-family Account: 34%

I thought this would be well over 50%

[S4GRU]

I thought this would be well over 50%

 

I'm married to a good woman. She is a simple woman with realistic expectations. She appreciates gifts when given, but does not have any expectation. She wants my time, more than anything.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

[Luuminator]

 

 

I'm married to a good woman. She is a simple woman with realistic expectations. She appreciates gifts when given, but does not have any expectation. She wants my time, more than anything.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

I hear you there Robert my wife is the same way

[Geekslayer]

Sounds like you have a great wife Robert, just like I do. Our children are the first generation of "our kind", to be born without a tail or webbed feet; we're pretty proud of that.

[bigzeto]

Threw a little more your way Robert.

[xenadu]

 

 

Robert didn't answer, so here are some estimates:

 

Kentucky-Fried-Chicken-for-Robert Account: 56%

 

Jewelry-for-Robert's-wife-so-she-doesn't-take-away-all-his-phones-and-demand-he-spend-at-least-a-few-minutes-every-day-with-his-family Account: 34%

 

Bail-Bond-for-AJ Account: 9.4%

 

Operating Expenses: 0.6%

 

Value to Sprint LTE fanatics: Priceless!

 

 

You joke, but Robert (and the site writers) do a lot of work, I have no opposition to them getting a paycheck of some kind.

 

I only ask because renting a server with a cloud hosting provider is relatively cheap; these guys charge for selling a pre-packaged solution but if it costs 500/month then we can do it for less than half that and easily support a thousand simultaneous users. If they are charging 100/month then it isn't worth the effort to look elsewhere.

[S4GRU]

 

 

You joke, but Robert (and the site writers) do a lot of work, I have no opposition to them getting a paycheck of some kind.

 

I only ask because renting a server with a cloud hosting provider is relatively cheap; these guys charge for selling a pre-packaged solution but if it costs 500/month then we can do it for less than half that and easily support a thousand simultaneous users. If they are charging 100/month then it isn't worth the effort to look elsewhere.

 

I agree with the concept. However, I do not have the time to manage a network, or manage members managing a network. Watching DSL Reports go offline as long as it did was a wakeup call for me. If S4GRU was down that long, it would be the end of the site.

 

A good man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

 

We get what we pay for from IP Board. They manage the network, the servers. I have dedicated 24 hour support. They handle all our software upgrades. It's a fair cost for what they do.

 

If the members cannot support the cost of the site, I would look at other options. The current model works. But given my technical experience and available time, it's the only solution so far that works.

 

Our members in the past have said they are more interested on me spending time on content, updates and forum posts than managing the network. Every hour I spend on other site management activities, is an hour less I can provide to the experience.

 

We initially had another host prior to IP Board, and it was a disaster. It was often slow, lots of downtime. Our members were very unhappy. Since then, we have all taken for granted how good IP Board has been for the whole S4GRU experience.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

[PythonFanPA]

Bumping this as a reminder to folks:   If you appreciate both the information as well as the community that are provided here by Robert, keep helping out on a regular basis if you're able.  Times are tough on alot of us these days, myself included, but its our donations that help keep this place going. 

 

And disclaimer:  I'm not directly tied to the site in saying this, I'm just an average member like most....but I know Robert ideally probably doesn't want to have to keep coming back when it slips more and more folks' minds over time and asking for help again.