The Workermonkey

Friday, March 03, 2006

it would seem that the people want a server..... 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 3/03/2006 01:57:00 PM

if anyone has been paying attention to the sidebar and the comments of the poll, it would seem as though a few people are intreagued, to say the least, about the possibility of an upgrade to the working monkey. My feelings are, GREAT! its more then time we got a serious website under us with the ability to do what ever we want.  you could broadcast an internet radio show as often as you want from it, (it's easier then you think) we could all share files and pics, store video clips, create articals, write essays, show porn, do what ever we want.

catch: bandwidth.

if we do too much with the site, or get too much traffic, our bandwidth will skyrocket. if we use our own server (shitbox), as far as i know, we're stuck with the bandwidth limits imposed by our local service providers. If we use a hosting company, we pay more for higher bandwidth alotments and whatever the monthly fee is. i've see ndeal online for like 15 bucks a month we could get a good size limit for the bandwidth. registering a domain name cost like 10 bucks for a year so that would be minimal. Plus, who is going to design this thing? who's going to know how to make changes? designing the type of site we'd want is way over my head, i couldn't do it. Damon, i know you have more experience in this stuff than i do so your input is very much needed no this topic, ron i think you know more then you're letting on to also. i'd love to learn about this stuff but as it stands now, the workermonkey is the hieght of my webdesign skills. and all i did was alter a template.

i suggest we all start looking at how sites are built, spend sometime online looking at different services and asking around. there has to be a million sites selling services and designs, or just trying to teach webdesign. i'm sure howstuffworks.com has some sort of simple explaination of the basic elements of how this stuff works. I'd love for this to generate more discussion. opinions are welcome.

23 comments

damn it, i started writing this post before i saw the other one.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Friday, March 03, 2006 4:21:00 PM  

Ron or my excess computers could easily handle the load as most servers have weak processors but a decent amount of ram. Bandwidth is the problem, and since it's upload speed you need, regular broadband won't cut it. I would guess that a commerical hosting plan is much cheaper than just buying the necessary upload bandwidth. I have been out of this stuff since college, but there were a lot of decent plans under $10, it even seems serious hosting starts around $5 a month.

Ah now I've checked a host I was last interesting in: 1and1.com. Look at the details of their "Beginner Linux" plan: $2.99/mo with one domain registration (.com .net .org included) 5GB space, 250GB a month transfer, FrontPage server extensions, PHP, MySQL,500 email accounts, daily backup, etc. They do Windows hosting as well, basically the same thing without PHP or MySQL.

Before you pick a host, you need to think about the site and design. If Matt wants to stream (make him pay for the bandwidth) make sure the server can do that. If you will need cgi, check that, etc. Depending on how you code it, the server software makes a difference. This is actually the best reason to use your own pc, because when you realize you need some specific cgi script, you can just install it no hassle, rather than being forced to upgrade your hosting plan. Given the different software and requirements for streaming, I think that is usually hosted separately from websites.

I for one, am quite happy with the Monkey as is, as it does everything I need it to, so I am not anxious to get going with web design again, but it's really quite easy. I did very little by hand. If the server uses FrontPage extensions, you can do rather complicated things very easily with FrontPage. Dreamweaver is supposed to be great but I never really figured it out, I used Fusion mainly. If it's a page built like that, probably only one person will edit it, and you'd end up using an external forum or MoveableType to host a blog on it, so anyone could easily add content. That simplicity is what makes blogs so popular and makes us on here everyday, rather than dragging out the design software, editing, and doing an ftp update.

Oh and I don't like flash. Mainly because they refuse to do a 64-bit linux port, but also because it is generally distracting and annoying. There are some people that block it altogether, and my main browser does not use it. I used to have animated navigation menus without flash, I forgot what was used, but it's possible. Javascript maybe? Java itself likewise blows as it takes a little while to load (like long enough for a visitor to get bored and leave) and is then slow to update as well.

By  Damon, at Friday, March 03, 2006 5:24:00 PM  

Oh yeah, and when you are thinking of making money on it, do you have an idea how many people visit this site? Do you have ideas for the new site that are unique, that people are searching for on the web and not finding? I thought this site was for us, and I think we are our own main audience.

My previous sites had only a handful of quite interested people and that was it. Except when I uploaded some CAD software from PSU and got 15k hits in a day before they took it down.

By  Damon, at Friday, March 03, 2006 5:28:00 PM  

We'll make enough money on porn between the regular visitors of this site (except you of course), I pormise.

By  NoBrainRequired, at Friday, March 03, 2006 7:18:00 PM  

Who says I don't enjoy some good porn now and then?

By  Damon, at Saturday, March 04, 2006 1:06:00 AM  

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By  Brancibeer, at Sunday, March 05, 2006 1:03:00 AM  

That's a great idea to start it on the shitbox so you'll better know what your needs are (and learn tons about SSI, cgi, etc, try apache2 for the server) and bandwidth probably won't be a factor initially (ever?) I don't know anything about buying templates, didn't know you could, all I do know about that is when someone uses a common theme out of FrontPage (the most common offender) and it looks like a million other pages, that shows imcompetance from the designer. Oh and with a title like "senior consultant" that gets me about $300/hr right? So far I think I can bill you 10 minutes.

By  Damon, at Sunday, March 05, 2006 1:14:00 AM  

I don't think any one here expects this to turn a profit. However, I also don't think anyone here wants to foot the bill. So it's only natural to consider how we could fund this thing, with the least inconvinience to any of us.

That's why I suggest hosting some porn. Although I don't know how much that would net a low traffic site, something is better than nothing. Porn is probably easiest, because it is so ubiquitous. would probly be easy to find other sponsors that wouldn't impose any kind of "moral" restriction some other BS clause that would ultimately limit the nature of our content. At least with porn, we not dealing with a bunch of uptight assholes (although I suppose they could be assholes, but I imagine not very uptight ones).

Another way to go might be to get pay pal compatibility and collect donations. I can't say what their terms of use are, but it's probably secure and would come with some kind of call/tech support. It might even come with instructions to set it up on the site. Just something we should look into.

We can use all the power of our brains. Our "intelligent enough to launch monkeys into to space", Our highly educated, highly trained occasionally high, brains.

Matt's talking about hosting his music. If he is giving it up for free (that slut) it could draw some considerable donations. If he is looking at selling it (that whore), maybe we could sell extra space to other independent musicians. Another revenue stream, another set of band with issues. We will always have issues to deal with if we do try do more than the forum thing. It might be worth it though, to take it to the next level.

By  NoBrainRequired, at Monday, March 06, 2006 5:17:00 PM  

unless mo is willing to let us take pictures i don't think we'll be doing other then advertising porn. they pay well because people won't advertise it on popular sites. i'm not expecting to make a profit, just collect a little money occationally to offset a little cost.

paypal is going to be used if/when i start to collect money. you'll see one of those little paypal donation buttons below the blogger one.

i did a little research over the weekend, hosting options were a little cheaper then i thought, a good one for 6-7 dollars a months isn't hard to find. our problem again will be design. i found a few website template factories but we'd have to understand the code behind it to alter it good enough. Plus we'd still be starting from scratch since there are so many different things at play. we all want to keep blogger i nthe loop because it's easy for people to use/post/contribute. blogger makes it easy to set up posting to an external source like a different website. We could get a cheep site template that we could alter for like 30$, someing sweet and flash based for 70$. I found some nice ones but i have no idea how i'd integrate some of the stuf we need. if someone knows how to build a forum or knows a good site for it let me. thats where i'd start.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 06, 2006 7:16:00 PM  

I'm at the exact point Matt's at. Our best bet is buying a bitchin' flash template, at about $70. That's the easy part, of course. As Matt said, figuring out how to alter the template to add forums, etc. without mutilating it is the hard part. I been practicing some HTML but if I were to make a site it would look like it's from 1995 at best. I'm currently trying to "get" Dreamweaver, which could make code-scripting a breeze (maybe?)

Looney: you're an idea-man. And I like all of them. If Kristen gives me pictures they're for my eyes only, though. She told me.

Once we bang these technical issues out of the way, our goal shall simply be to make a website that performs the functions that this one does. Step two is to make it better - then perhaps we'll have the grand switch-over.
The rest is easy after that:
3)money
4)power
5)women

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Monday, March 06, 2006 9:08:00 PM  

6) sugar

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 06, 2006 9:19:00 PM  

http://www.hypertemplates.com/templates/9526.html
i bet you saw this one. damon, any good ideas about frontpage? i'm sure it's easy enough, is it good enough to use for what we want? i have no idea.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Monday, March 06, 2006 9:35:00 PM  

I can't see the flash preview of that because well, I don't have flash, but the other previews look really unusual. Navigation in the four corners? What if someone's screeen cuts off the bottom or right side? Well make it small enough to avoid that? Then when someone comes with a high res 19" or 21" it only covers 1/4 their screen. Cool that its unconventional, but there is a reason that layout is unconventional.

FrontPage can do whatever you need it to (especially if the host uses extensions then it can do more than you think you can) you just have to make an effort to avoid the tempting easy ways to do things. Go out of your way to use custom graphics and themes and layouts and you avoid the cookie cutter look. But sure if Matt can get Dreamweaver going, that is a program that I think many pro websites are done in. Really either program is meant to build full fledged sites and can do it, just a matter of which you prefer and the learning curve.

Someone stole my credit card number! Now let's see if they stole any other info, maybe you'll see "me" post about the glories of Windows and Internet Explorer and how we should use nifty ActiveX controls and how safe they are.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:35:00 AM  

Sucks to be Damon for once? Ha!
Makes me glad I have no money and mediocre credit. No, actually....I'm not glad.

Success! I got Dreamweaver but not Frontpage yet. Perhaps I'll demo it anyway. I'll be working on some Dreamweaver tutorials for the next few days.

Cool looking template - keep looking and just make notes of the best-suited ones for us; I also will. I'm tempted towards one of those architectural-looking ones just because they look ill, but it would be unfortunate if the entire theme was incongruous.
I think I'll make another lil' project of making a monkey with a coffee cup in photoshop or something.

By  DJ Booze Piñata, at Tuesday, March 07, 2006 10:49:00 AM  

Cool Matt cool, it sounds cool so I hope it'll look cool and more importantly function cool.

Anyway, it doesn't suck too much to be me (well maybe it does but not because of stolen credit) because that "zero liability for unauthorized purchases" is important, true, easy, and a relief. It was just 8 minutes on the phone (when it was 4am in the US and it was a collect call) no holding at all:
"peoplesearch.com for $24.95?"
"no."
"online department store for $85?"
"no."
....
"ok the total was $171.79, so just igonre that on your next statement and we'll have it settled in one or two cycles."

I mean really, how cool is it that they noticed the activity of a card I used almost daily, online and in stores, called me within that day, shut off the card, and have a new one on the way to my foreign address that I'll get by the end of the week? No problems, just twice before they have shut it off when there was no fraud, like when I moved here, but overall, I think they are doing really well. They didn't ask me if I knew how my card info got stolen (I don't,) but I certainly hope they work with the merchants on the other end to try to find the person doing it. I am sure they do, not like the credit card company just wants to take a loss.

By  Damon, at Tuesday, March 07, 2006 3:46:00 PM  

Damon, both MBNA and Discover (my 2 cards) offer a service that generates a number that expires after a specified period. I swear by it. Then again I'm sure you are very careful.

This post/comments is a good example of why a thread forum format would suit us better.

As for my involvement...... not right now.

By  ron, at Tuesday, March 07, 2006 7:36:00 PM  

Ah yes, we are back to finance, an inescapable topic. I am aware of MBNA and another card I used to have (Citi?) generating temp numbers. I used to use them, just last I knew (ca. 2003) MBNA used a Windows program. 1. I don't use Windows. 2. Windows users don't need another program running all the time when they only need it once a month. Maybe this has changed and the other one just required a website visit. I will see what MBNA's is like now, as that is my only card for the moment.

One interesting note, I don't usually log off my banking websites if I am using my own computer. Yeah you can press back and get back into my account, but who cares, the pc is in my flat. However, I have just read you should log off before going to other websites. I know that websites know where you were last even if you didn't link there. Like you're at this site, then type www.google.com and the Google server can see blogspot.com I don't know why that is, but maybe this was a way it got lost. Then again with the myriad reports of massive stolen data at many credit issuers, I am certain my stuff was in there somewhere. The credit report I got after I filed a fraud alert shows 17 credit accounts! Damn, thing is, it's right, I have had that many. Oh yeah, and I used totally unsecured wifi for two months in the fall, and then for another month later when our own DSL went down and we used someone elses. That's just giving away my info isn't it? Having an unencrypted wifi connection could be a trap, and am I going to be quick to mention it when a problem comes up? After all, I was stealing their bandwidth.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 5:07:00 AM  

Maybe soon it will really suck to be me when I am dead. The bird flu has killed 94 people so far and recently has been found in several birds in Sweden, now just 120km from Sthlm.

Maybe I am sick, but I find all the doomsday talk more interesting and fascinating than scary. That is until they break the death toll predictions into ratios. I have recently heard between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 20 are predicted to die from it. 1 in 20? Wow, when we are sitting around thinking how crazy things are and toasting to life, there will be a few of us missing. But of course they 1 in 20 is not equally distributed so isolated America should do well.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 6:08:00 AM  

Damon do you eat out alot? I have heard about waiters and such having Credit Card Scanners in their pockets and they just scan them each time someone pays with a credit card. It was a big problem in the Chinese Resturants in New York(or some other big city) for awhile. Im sure "hi-tech" Sweden has these devices floating around in the cities?

If we did not eat birds, there would be no worrying about The Bird Flu. FREE THE CHICKENS!!!! Its funny people dont ever talk about this fact.

By  wyldshaman, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 8:59:00 AM  

freeing the chickens would woork but i think in the long run it might make the problem worse. people will be forced to raise thier own chickens, and part of the problems is that all these shitty little third world farms are spreading the desease because they just don't know any better, and i'm sure this is how it started. could you see every red neck in america trying to raise thier own chickens? it'd be a nightmare and i'm sure we'd have more problems.

you take my chickens away and i'll choke you with alfalfa you damn hippie.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 9:29:00 AM  

I rarely eat out as it's such a waste of money, and when I do it's places that are so cheap cards probably aren't allowed. In fact I don't think I've used my card at a restuarant here.

I rarely eat chicken, but eggs are a regular feature. I eat more beef, so maybe Sweden's fresh cases of Mad Cow should be more of a concern.

Ah it doesn't matter, just being an American abroad is more trouble, especially should I get into Turkey and Russia like I want to, and if I pass as Swedish then (gotta remember to get a little flag, though I don't think they wear them like Canadians) well at some point the nuclear holocaust seems to be becoming more of an issue than it had been since the 70's.

Ah nevermind, maybe in this season's melt freeze daily cycle I will just fall and split my head open and bleed to death in the courtyard of my apartment building.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 1:28:00 PM  

Oh and I usually ask every vegetarian I meet why they don't eat meat. I don't argue with their answers, though in general they seem weak. One I liked was (only doesn't eat beef) "It's not sustainable, beacuse the amount of grain required to feed the....[a few minutes of figures and sources omitted]" But I laugh when people just want the cows and whatnot let loose to be free and wild. Then they would become extinct because animals without a few thousand years of human caretaking would chow down like a fat family at McD's except for the "smart" former-domestics that hang out around people for protection. So we'd have cows strolling the streets like pigeons.

By  Damon, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 3:01:00 PM  

...right along side of deer and bears.

By  Supreme Monkey Overlord, at Wednesday, March 08, 2006 10:25:00 PM  

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