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Smoaky.com Upgrade (January, 2011)


Smoaky

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Since Smoaky.com began in July of 2002, Perfect Presence has been our web host and although the name of the company won't be changing, Perfect Presence is merging with CyberLynk.

 

This will create some positive changes, which I'll get to later. But, it also means we might have some erratic behavior from our server during a changeover this Friday, January 21st---most likely at night and/or overnight.

 

This is a heads-up in case the forums start acting up on Friday. And, I can't resist this one, "some erratic behavior" has usually been reserved for some of our great membership, right?

 

These changes should allow us to make some subtle or not so subtle changes to the homepage and the response time to some of my demands should be much faster.

 

This process means the merger will create an even larger investment from their end and ours:

 

*New Server with hardware/software configuration changes.

 

*Lowering our TTL on our domain so the DNS changes propagate faster. "DNS" is a message you might have seen at times when the server was lagging behind when the load increased to 400+ members online at one time and in some cases, it would not only slow down the forums, but shut them down until our web host could respond. We changed to our own and separate server about a year ago to handle the increased traffic but there are still times when the server becomes overloaded, but based on stats, that occurred 6-times in 2010, and 56-times in 2009.

 

In the coming months...

 

*Smoaky.com will move to new Dell PowerEdge servers and Datacenter

 

*Faster responses from Tech Support

 

*Adding several sales, support and server engineers

 

In other words, it will give Smoaky.com more innovation, quality tools and superior service. We've changed some of Smoaky.com over the 8-plus years, but I'd like to add a few new bells and whistles and become even more interactive.

 

And, we're committed to adding more-and-more to our coverage area, including Central Texas.

 

A lot of these changes will be part of our monthly package with Perfect Presence and CyberLynk, but we are expecting some of the new changes to create a larger monthly financial commitment.

 

Our monthly server cost will remain about the same, but the "subtle or not-so-subtle" changes will cost more. I have been contacted by multiple businesses about advertising on Smoaky.com and I'm in discussions with a handful of them (most of them are websites promoting college prospects). That will help offset some of the increased costs.

 

While we have contemplated a "premium membership" to gain revenue, we have never demanded it and realize changing to that option has all but killed some websites. We will do everything possible to stay away from that option.

 

In fact, throughout our 8+-years, I've posted perhaps 1-2 threads discussing our PayPal options.

 

If you're interested in contributing to Smoaky.com, you can go to the bottom of basically every page on our site, from the homepage http://smoaky.com/ to the bottom of the forums pages http://www.smoaky.com/forum/index.php?act=idx and act accordingly.

If you'd rather contact me directly, my email is listed below.

 

We appreciate your time, interest and support.

 

Thank you.

 

David Smoak

[email protected]

[email protected]

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