phpBB-TweakS

**aUsTiN**

As of this post, i have backed up the FTP for

phpbb-amod.com
phpbb-tweaks.com
phpbb-portal.com
austin-inc.net
brandis-realm.com

And sometime this week i will be backing up the database. My plan is to shut everything down. The domains are paid for, for another 8 months or so, so if i get time again, i will bring them back up. But for now, it seems as if i dont have the time & its beginning to cost me more money every month. With the lack of time comes the lack of freelance work, meaning more out of my pocket to pay for the server & my internet connection.

It takes roughly $300 a month for me to keep all my sites up, my internet connection & what not to provide all the free stuff ive given over the last 2 +/- years. With little to no donations, lack of freelance work time, i just dont see me continuing to do this.

I'm not 100% sure of the shutdown, but its a good 85% sure that sometime next week, the above listed sites will no longer be available for awhile or maybe indefinately.

I'm sure you have notice the lack of my presence over the last 2 months & lack of mod updates & what not. I just dont see paying that much every month to keep the sites online & provide all the free things i provide.

Feel free to comment, good or bad i guess. I will also be emailing this to all members of the sites wheni make my final decision, so there are no surprises.

**Spinebuster**

I would be willing to help you out with hosting, I wouldnt be able to do all of them but what if you turned tweaks into a one stop shop for all your mods?

Even if you dont have the time to offer support it would still be nice if people had somewhere to where they could at least download and use your mods.

**SAFFLEUR**

Ditto and I agree, it's sad 2 views only 2 replies. makes me a bit angry austins always been willing to help people.

I'd help any way i can austin.

**cane_cc72**

I agree also I would be willing to help out any way I can.

X

just let alive phpbb_tweaks, you can merge all things there, and also banrdis realm, with those 2 you will spend less money, give no online demo for amod and portal jut support in phpbb-tweaks.

Well thats my opinion.

**aUsTiN**

Brandis site, is brandis site. It would stay up. austin-inc i only use for a topsites now, so its not real important & doesn't use alot. Portal i could merge to tweaks, but amod i would need to keep seperate. I used to run one site will all my mods, if ya notice, tweaks is here now Wink

. It was to many posts about to many things & i was losing track.

I appreciate the offers, but these sites use alot of space & bandwidth, hence why i have to use a dedicated server, & i'd hate to crash other peoples servers.

**hexcode**

Itâ€™s unfortunate to hear youâ€™re thinking about closing up. You always offered great support, not just to me, but to everyone. And at least to me it was much appreciated, thank you. I also agree that combining your websites/forums would help with costs, you could also try more ads. Iâ€™m not sure how much it would help but it would be a start to lowering server costs.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, I would like to contact you for some paid work. What would be the best way to contact you if you do end up closing your websites/forums?

Thanks

volf

Sorry to hear that.
Adds are fine for insanely huge sites, usually 1 of 10.000 visitors will click them.

y0y0

@ austin, my suggestions are:

You have too many domains and webspace (I think). I would keep just one domain (http://phpbb-tweaks.com) and cancel the other domains + their webspace, before cancelling redirect the domains to phpbb-tweaks.com (it will for a while redirected, I canceled my domain 2 years ago and its still redirected Smile

)

And then I would take Google Ads to my forum (you would get good paid, and you earned it to get paid, because your work are good.)

Well, you won a position in our heart, so don't cancel this project. You will also get more visitors and users to your forum cuse of your work. And take the google ad, so you can pay the domain + webspace, maybe get some money more for yourself.

phpBB is used from many people and if you get a good position of it, like the Security, some MODs, etc. the ppl will like you and your forum will have success.

But why did you buy so many domains? Just 1 would had helped you.

But don't cancel this project, it goes good for now, it would be better if you released more security mods, believe me. And take a google ad

**aUsTiN**

If/when i shut the sites down, i am also shutting down my internet connection. So email will be the only way & i dont know how often i will be checking it either....

**Spinebuster**

I got a few free AOL disks I could send ya. Laughing

I have two different dedicated servers I could put one of your sites on. I personally like the idea of keeping tweaks and just having all your mods listed there so people can still download them. Maybe one of the game developers could pick up the amod site, idk. I can also tell you that this site alone doesnt get enough traffic to crash a dedicated server. All of them combined, possibly, thats why the sites are down so much. Laughing

**DragonMaster**

You might want to consider turning this or all/some of your sites into a PAID SERVICE where it might be basically viewable by all, but support areas are only for members. This would reduce the number of things you would have to deal with and also leave you more free time for your other things.

**AYHJA**

You have helped me tremendously in my phpBB ventures, and I will always be grateful...While donating with cash was tight, I ALWAYS clicked the site ads to help out in whatever whay that I can...

I would also like to extend my services to help, you are a good person and a great phpBB guy, if you get out of the game, who the hell am I going to get to make all these cool hacks..? Very Happy

So, whether it be mirrors or what have you, or, like it was previously suggested paid support measures, I hope to continue to be able to support the great things you do...I do, however, understand financial woes and headaches to boot, so if you take some time off, Godspeed to you...

AYHJA,
http://www.AYHJA.com

aka_G

hi Austin,

what a bad day today when i saw this topic bcoz i like your sites and stuffs a lot.....you are really talent and kind enough to be my phpBB idol Wink

. i cant image what your life will be if you shut down internet connection but im sure you will be not happy.

However, if you are really busy, dont have enough time to do your works and spend for real life....so you should take some time off here then....

BUT if finance is the problem and you still love to develop phpBB, to contribute more great stuffs to the phpBB world and...more...so you should not leave. Everything we can work out together then!!!

Ok, honestly i would like to support you with all of my possible. Let me know if you are keen to stay online with us for longer (many many year longer Very Happy

).then tell me how much bandwidth(per month) and spaces will you need max???

we will find the best way to keep the best site online!!!
get back to me soon aye!!!

chrs

G Wink

PS: im just a beginners of phpBB and programming so far so i would like to learn from you everything hehe.... feel free to see your stuffs on my site www.camxucvn.com

**aUsTiN**

I have since emailed this to the members of phpbb-amod.com & have had many replies. So i will respond to all those here as well as a few of the suggestions.

Consolidate all sites into one.... Considering most of you where not around awhile ago, i started with just one. phpbb-amod.com. That had support for everything of mine. That got way out of hand & i couldn't keep up, for the simple fact that 3 of my mods are so popular that they over rode most of my smaller ones, hence i lost alot of posts.

So i made phpbb-portal.com for Blend. That mod however now runs its self since the last release. So that one i can actually shut down & redirect to phpbb-tweaks.com

I made phpbb-tweaks.com to take the load off of phpbb-amod.com because there where to many posts going in to many directions. As you see by looking at phpbb-amod.com it is a highly active site.

austin-inc.net used to be my only site, it was my first, it is however just used as a topsites site now that has 150 +/- sites in it & more daily. So its not to big of a burden.

brandis-realm.com is a site brandi runs for her friends & family, not a heavy burden, but her site none the less, so it cant be consolidated.

So as you see, almost all the sites serve a direct purpose. Joining them all will make no difference, it will just put all the load on 1 domain instead of the current i have which is alot more organized & easier to handle.

I have got lots of replies about people wanting to help. Some offered to donate, others offered hosting. Altho generous, most of the hosting packages that where offered would not stand up to the impact of the load these sites carry. Ive had to upgrade servers 4 times in 2 years before i finally got one that can withstand it.

People have asked what i need for hosting, how much of this & that. Well, on a good month, these sites can bury 100 GB's of bandwidth with no problem. On an average month, amod uses about 40 GB's, tweaks about 25 Gb's, portal/austin-inc/brandis dont use much at all. Webaspace, all of the sites backed up used up about 3 GB's.

As for selling the sites/domains, unless its some kinda killer offer, i just dont see it happening, my sites have always held a decent/good rep & even if i dont own them anymore, i'd rather keep it that way. Not saying anyone will ruin them, but it happens....

**Spinebuster**

**Seteo-Bloke**

**** aUsTiN. That sucks.

I really have apprieciated all the help you've given me with the ADR project. If you're losing your internet connection as well then I really do wish you all the very best.

phpBB will be losing the most helpful and motivated coder.

ShadowKnyght

Hmmm - If you dropped the demo side at amod so that people can download the mod but not play the games then your bandwidth usage would drop to a fraction of what it is now...

The Amod site is so slow to load anyway... due more than anything to people playing games I would say.

I know in the past I spent a good few months taking trophies when I was supposed to be working... Smile

(Even though you told me off for it at the time and hurt my feelings Rolling Eyes

I still consider your mods and your efforts to be about the best I have come across on the net so far! (Along with Seteo and ShadowTek))

All I can say is it will be a great loss and your work has been much appreciated. And if you ever want any of your mods mirrored let me know - will happily do so.

Damo

heya austin first thing i would like to say whatcha gotta do is whatcha gotta do.

also whenever i go to www.phpbb-portal.com i get this error

Billy2423

Maybe this will help. U need your own dedicated server and this server should work for you.
https://www.server4you.de/de/d/showplan.php?products=2

This is under $100 per month instead of paying $300

If you need anymore info or to translate, then email me as my friend from Germany is here with me now until the 29th.

Also I hope that more people will donate as you are a great author. Thanks for all your hard work and your great mods.

Ex0dus

My suggestions (as uneducated or as stupid as they may sound, and yeah some of these have been stated before)

1. Take off the activity mod at phpbb-amod (bandwidth goes down like crazy)

2. Consolidate portal and tweaks and inc (saves on yearly domain registration)

3. For mod downloads, use sourceforge (people with much less work have stuff in there, no doubt you can have an account there) once again, bandwidth is slashed and im pretty sure a good deal of the spaced used would be too.

4. If you still arent going to be able to stay afloat, then make sure to name someone to be an official caretaker of your various mods. I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue if you just suddenly left without leaving someone else "in charge"

Ill continue to think of ways to help cut resources used. In these ways, your sites requirements will be cut drastically and thus you (or whoever ends up taking over) can have an easier time of it.

I too will offer hosting, but i cant host more domains yet >_< Ill be getting a new server in december, then maybe i could do something.

-Ex0dus

X

also if you want to abandon the dedicated server you could move to the one im hosted it offers:

10 GB of Disk Space
300 GB of Bandwidth!
Host up to 10 domains

Only $29.99 / Month

and with all you have and want:

* nlimited E-Mail Accounts
* POP3/IMAP/Webmail Access
* Unlimited FTP Accounts
* Unlimited Subdomains
* E-Mail Forwarding
* Mailman Mailing Lists

* Cpanel 10 Control Panel
* PHP & Perl Scripting
* Unlimited mySQL Databases
* Frontpage Extensions
* Shared 128-bit SSL Access
* Fantastico Installer

and lots of things, just send me an MP to tell ya the adress of tha web.

Or search an a shared hosting service with this kinda capacities so you just will spend yearly cost from domains and 29.99 or less (depending on your preferences) for 300GB bandwith, also if you need more bandwith it only costs like 1dolas by GB.

Greets.

**sippenhaft**

We all know that sometimes real life takes over. I hope a solution will be found as I enjoy your mods and site. I use a hosting company called IPOWER and they just revamped what your get for your $7.95 a month!
Check here http://www.ipowerweb.com/products/webhosting/index.html#1

10,000 mb hard disk space
2000 emails
250gb of transfer
100 free SUBDOMAINS! (maybe merger all your sites to one and make up sibdoamins!)

I definetly think if you do decided to shut'er down, a great idea was to have someone appointed to hold and give some help for your mods.
Good luck in whatever you do decide to do!

I sent ya a donation, maybe too little too late, but if anything else, have a nice night out on me...THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP!

mm3guy

Oh No

Can someone offer him space to put a read only archive? we CAN NOT lose this site!

eXcursus

I agree with the pay-for MODs.

Look at Martin & JSL's sites...they're a classic example of making money for scripts that folks love. Hell, even Martin uses phpBBSecurity!

If you have to go though, then my best wishes go out to you.

Carter

Man, this is such bad news. Austin is one of the few expert coders who actively help people, I should know, he built stuff on my site. Smile

Dude, you have all of our respect and certainly if you need help you will get it. I'd hate to see a person who brought so much good stuff to the community have to leave it for good.

aka_G

hi Austin,

as i have proposed, if you can manage your time and still love to develop phpBB, to support and leading us...so i of course will try to solve out the moonah prob with you... i would love to offer you 3G space and 100G bandwidth per month for free. i have a dedicated server with 80G space and 1000G bandwidth. the main purpose of this server is storing music video clips for my site.....it spends quite a lot of bandwidth each day (around 20-30G). but anyway we can control it......let's think about that and get back to me (my email is: wwwcamxucvncom@yahoo.com)

chrs

**hexcode**

I just want to add that I also offer to hosting. I don't mind mirroring some/all of your mods.