I've noticed that these message boards here are quite slow to reespond. I know that BOINC comes with a built-in message boards feature that works quite well on all the other projects that I've used it on; considering how the BOINC server seems quite snappy, why not simply use the BOINC message boards rather than external ones?

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Mhm, it was fine 2-3 days ago while I was testing it, maybe something is wrong with the server atm. I'll try to find another one. I can't use built-in forums, because my network bandwidth is limited (512k upload).

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M4 Project homepage
M4 Project wiki

Ah, I see now.

If you're looking for a cheap web host to use, I know that another (non-BOINC) distributed computing project was discussing in its message boards a fundraiser, and someone mentioned a nice-looking, inexpensive webhost that charges by exactly what you use for bandwidth and storage, and it might be the way to go. You can read the post right from the horse's mouth here :)
I checked out their web site, and they allow all kinds of scripts and whatnot on pages hosted with them, so a forum should be a piece of cake--and at their extremely low rates, you might be able to run the thing off of revenue generated by running a Google AdSense account to display ads on the forum pages (maybe just a small bar of text ads at the top and/or bottom of each page would do the trick). Since Google ads are quire unobtrusive, non-flashy, and are quick to load, I can't imagine them being a nuisance. And since they're relevant to the page content, they can sometimes be amusing too.

Just my two cents' worth. :)

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Thanks for the info, I've just moved forum there.

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M4 Project homepage
M4 Project wiki

Do we still use this address? Or will it change?

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Dublin, CA
Team SETI.USA

And if you don't want to pay anything, the best free hosting around (at least from what I know) is located at ovh.org 60 MB of disk-space and 4 MB of space for database (which should be quite sufficient for some time). I use their hosting and am really satisfied. Only issue might be a bit low CPU limit, but it's hard to see.

And one more thing: clean smf_log_errors table and disable error logging in SMF. It doesn't give You much and can become extremely big (on a board used by 20 users w/ 250 posts I got 6 MB in just this table in three weeks), and as You perfectly know, the bigger the db, the slower it works.

« Last Edit: September 18, 2007, 01:34:16 pm by jaskij »

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TJM wrote:

Thanks for the info, I've just moved forum there.

can tell the difference already! Definitely much snappier. :)

BTW, I think they offer free domain names for accounts there too--so maybe you could get something cooler like "www.enigmaathome.com" instead of "enigma.nfshost.com". 8-) Too bad you wouldn't be able to do that for the BOINC server because of the dynamic IP. (Actually, I guess you could, by setting a low TTL and changing the IP address listed whenever necessary, which I think is what dynamic DNS does, but the disadvantage of doing it with regular DNS is that you'd have to go in and change it manually :P).

Edit: Now that I think about it, I guess you might be able to do it for the BOINC server in a way: Set up a domain record with NFS (they allow free domain registration, with unlimited subdomains, and you can point a domain/subdomain record at your own server, or a site hosted by them), for, say, www.enigmaathome.com, and choose to have it redirect to enigma.no-ip.net:443/enigma. These existing forums could be pointed to with, say, forums.enigmaathome.com. The BOINC home page, of course, would still say on it to enter the engima.no-ip.net:443/enigma address into BOINC clients when attaching (I don't quite know if a BOINC client would work well with a redirected domain, but that wouldn't be a problem, as the only time users would have to use it would be in the initial copy/paste into the BOINC client)--but it would make the home page web address easier to remember.

Oh, and would it be possible to get rid of that dorky "Your site your slogan" thing at the top of the fourm pages? It looks like it was part of a template and meant to be replaced with a logo--but at the very least it would be nicer to simply have the name of the project there. :)

« Last Edit: September 18, 2007, 03:05:36 pm by Anonymous »

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Anonymous wrote:

I can tell the difference already! Definitely much snappier.

Yea I noticed that too... It's much faster now.

Anonymous wrote:

BTW, I think they offer free domain names for accounts there too--so maybe you could get something cooler like "www.enigmaathome.com" instead of "enigma.nfshost.com".

DNS is free, but domains are not

nearlyfreespeech.net wrote:

Our interface offers integrated registration and automatic setup in a variety of the most popular top-level domains at great prices:
$7.50/year .com .net .org
$7.50/year .biz .info .name

but anyway, $7.50 is not that much

Anonymous wrote:

Too bad you wouldn't be able to do that for the BOINC server because of the dynamic IP. (Actually, I guess you could, by setting a low TTL and changing the IP address listed whenever necessary, which I think is what dynamic DNS does, but the disadvantage of doing it with regular DNS is that you'd have to go in and change it manually :P).

Edit: Now that I think about it, I guess you might be able to do it for the BOINC server in a way: Set up a domain record with NFS (they allow free domain registration, with unlimited subdomains, and you can point a domain/subdomain record at your own server, or a site hosted by them), for, say, www.enigmaathome.com, and choose to have it redirect to enigma.no-ip.net:443/enigma. These existing forums could be pointed to with, say, forums.enigmaathome.com. The BOINC home page, of course, would still say on it to enter the engima.no-ip.net:443/enigma address into BOINC clients when attaching (I don't quite know if a BOINC client would work well with a redirected domain, but that wouldn't be a problem, as the only time users would have to use it would be in the initial copy/paste into the BOINC client)--but it would make the home page web address easier to remember.

This could be easily done by apache with mod_proxy and mod_rewrite, I haven't checked yet if they have mod_proxy installed on nfshost. It would also fix all problems caused by dynamic domain. I'll take a look at this tomorrow.

Anonymous wrote:

Oh, and would it be possible to get rid of that dorky "Your site your slogan" thing at the top of the fourm pages? It looks like it was part of a template and meant to be replaced with a logo--but at the very least it would be nicer to simply have the name of the project there. :)

Yea it's a part of template, I'll replace with project name tomorrow. Maybe someone could make a nice logo ? :P

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M4 Project homepage
M4 Project wiki

TJM wrote:

...
DNS is free, but domains are not
...
but anyway, $7.50 is not that much

Oops. Sorry, my bad for not researching then thinking I knew what I was talking about. I was just thinking that if domains were free, then there'd be no reason not to get one, but I guess if they cost money then it would open up a whole new can of worms, of whether people are willing to support it with donations and/or the costs can be covered with Google Adsense (or another ad company, though I personally find Google ads to be the least bothersome, and sometimes even amusing). It's probably not worth it unless the cost can be met using one of those methods.

TJM wrote:

This could be easily done by apache with mod_proxy and mod_rewrite, I haven't checked yet if they have mod_proxy installed on nfshost. It would also fix all problems caused by dynamic domain. I'll take a look at this tomorrow.
...
Yea it's a part of template, I'll replace with project name tomorrow. Maybe someone could make a nice logo ?

Hmm...maybe a logo contest would do the trick? Of course, you might want to first wait until the project has been around long enough to get a decent number of users, so the selection of entries would be good. :-)

P.S.: I've noticed that ever since the boards were moved to a new server, my avatar disappeared (yet I didn't notice anyone else's disappearing). I tried re-uploading it, but I got an error saying that "The attachments upload directory is not writable. Your attachment or avatar cannot be saved." Do you by any chance know what's going on?

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Anonymous wrote:

Hmm...maybe a logo contest would do the trick? Of course, you might want to first wait until the project has been around long enough to get a decent number of users, so the selection of entries would be good. :-)

I'll think about it. I asked a friend already, maybe he will make a logo, until then I removed default one.

Anonymous wrote:

P.S.: I've noticed that ever since the boards were moved to a new server, my avatar disappeared (yet I didn't notice anyone else's disappearing). I tried re-uploading it, but I got an error saying that "The attachments upload directory is not writable. Your attachment or avatar cannot be saved." Do you by any chance know what's going on?

Avatar upload path was incorrect, I forgot to change it after I restored db backup.

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M4 Project homepage
M4 Project wiki

TJM wrote:

Avatar upload path was incorrect, I forgot to change it after I restored db backup.

Okay, thanks! Seems to be working fine now.

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