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PLEASE READ - re: YOUR NTF Members site

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Michael Offe

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Hi all,
Just an update on your NTF Members site...
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

Due to the increasing cost of running/hosting the site, I have finally relented and started placing some Affiliate advertising below the navigation bar throughout the site.

This something I wasn't planning to do, since it is a nice change to visit a site with out any banner ads etc... but to keep the site running, I felt it would be better to have some Affiliates, rather than no site! :-)

We have just become affiliates with Amazon.com, and we are waiting for approval from Ulead. We will only link to products that relate to your digital photography, and that we would be happy to use ourselves, so hopefully this is OK with you.

A part of the reason for incorporating the affiliates is do to the massive amount of extra traffic since the Challenges started, while this is great, it has tripled out hosting costs, hence our decision of affiliates. :-)

At the moment, I have just placed a link for Photoshop 7 upgrades, and the new Epson 2200 printer. Over the next few days I will add a few more as well.

So if you are about to purchase any new items for your digital photography, and enjoy the NTF Members site or the Challenge, we would most grateful if you could take a look at the NTF Members site and check prices and if they are good, then buy through our links.

Only thing is, we don't want to take business away from Phil's sponsors, so we will try not to offer conflicting items.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this, and if you have any questions, suggestions, comments please let me know.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
Administrator/developer, NTF Member's Site.
 
Hi Michael,

I have an idea I want to run by you, and everyone else that makes use of this forum.

As a reseller of web space for the sites we build for our clients, I can get a 500 megabyte space for $50 a year. Would people like to see an actual web site put up by members of this forum that everyone could use for a very low cost? The pros: no advertising needed. There could be galleries for all the members that participate. The server also offers a free shopping cart as part of the package. Unlimited free e-mail accounts. You can even put a script on the site to allow people to upload their own pictures. The cons: Someone would have to actually build and run it. I don't have any time at all. It would need an actual domain name.

It's a reliable hosting company and I've had my own site there for the past 18 months.

So we'll see if people are seriousy interested.

Larry Berman
Michael Offe said:
Hi all,
Just an update on your NTF Members site...
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

Due to the increasing cost of running/hosting the site, I have
finally relented and started placing some Affiliate advertising
below the navigation bar throughout the site.

This something I wasn't planning to do, since it is a nice change
to visit a site with out any banner ads etc... but to keep the
site running, I felt it would be better to have some Affiliates,
rather than no site! :-)
Click to expand...
--
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
 
What would the data costs (upload/download) be?

We currently run a server that is co-located, so we can have as much server space as we like (at the moment we have about 10Gb space), but we have shifted it to one of the top 2 co-location centres here in South Australia, and the data costs are higher than before (although connection speed and quality can't be faulted!).

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
South Australia.

P.S. Last month the NTF Members site uploaded over 1 Gb of data.
Larry Berman said:
I have an idea I want to run by you, and everyone else that makes
use of this forum.
As a reseller of web space for the sites we build for our clients,
I can get a 500 megabyte space for $50 a year. Would people like to
see an actual web site put up by members of this forum that
everyone could use for a very low cost? The pros: no advertising
needed. There could be galleries for all the members that
participate. The server also offers a free shopping cart as part of
the package. Unlimited free e-mail accounts. You can even put a
script on the site to allow people to upload their own pictures.
The cons: Someone would have to actually build and run it. I don't
have any time at all. It would need an actual domain name.

It's a reliable hosting company and I've had my own site there for
the past 18 months.

So we'll see if people are seriousy interested.

Larry Berman
Michael Offe said:
Hi all,
Just an update on your NTF Members site...
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

Due to the increasing cost of running/hosting the site, I have
finally relented and started placing some Affiliate advertising
below the navigation bar throughout the site.

This something I wasn't planning to do, since it is a nice change
to visit a site with out any banner ads etc... but to keep the
site running, I felt it would be better to have some Affiliates,
rather than no site! :-)
Click to expand...
--
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
Click to expand...
 
Hi Michael,

I'm offering to set up a site for my cost for forum members but if you're looking for yourself, the hosting server is: http://ReadyHosting.com

Larry Berman
Michael Offe said:
What would the data costs (upload/download) be?
We currently run a server that is co-located, so we can have as
much server space as we like (at the moment we have about 10Gb
space), but we have shifted it to one of the top 2 co-location
centres here in South Australia, and the data costs are higher than
before (although connection speed and quality can't be faulted!).
Click to expand...
--
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
 
Michael:

I have often found that the expectation that things on the Internet should be free is rather unreasonable. Clearly we could reach a balannce by contributions in kind, but the hard reality is that money is almost always involved. Clearly these resources are expensive not just in terms of equipment and bandwith but also in terms of the labor time required to maintain the sites. The value I extract from DP Review, Magic Bracket postings and other sites well exceeds my expense of viewing a little advertising. You guys (Phil Askey, and others) do a great job of your sites and I don't mind a little advertising.

Of course this is only one person's opinion, but feel free to go ahead with the ads. I appreciate your sensitivity to the subject and your careful planning about what to allow vis a vis DP Review.

Regards,
Brent Haydamack
Michael Offe said:
Hi all,
Just an update on your NTF Members site...
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

Due to the increasing cost of running/hosting the site, I have
finally relented and started placing some Affiliate advertising
below the navigation bar throughout the site.

This something I wasn't planning to do, since it is a nice change
to visit a site with out any banner ads etc... but to keep the
site running, I felt it would be better to have some Affiliates,
rather than no site! :-)

We have just become affiliates with Amazon.com, and we are waiting
for approval from Ulead. We will only link to products that relate
to your digital photography, and that we would be happy to use
ourselves, so hopefully this is OK with you.

A part of the reason for incorporating the affiliates is do to the
massive amount of extra traffic since the Challenges started, while
this is great, it has tripled out hosting costs, hence our decision
of affiliates. :-)

At the moment, I have just placed a link for Photoshop 7 upgrades,
and the new Epson 2200 printer. Over the next few days I will add
a few more as well.

So if you are about to purchase any new items for your digital
photography, and enjoy the NTF Members site or the Challenge, we
would most grateful if you could take a look at the NTF Members
site and check prices and if they are good, then buy through our
links.

Only thing is, we don't want to take business away from Phil's
sponsors, so we will try not to offer conflicting items.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this, and if you have any
questions, suggestions, comments please let me know.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
Administrator/developer, NTF Member's Site.
Click to expand...
--
Nikon Coolpix 995
http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~bhaydama
http://www.pbase.com/bhaydama
 
Many people confuse the cost of hosting with the fees associated with bandwidth. Image intensive sites have high bandwidth requirements and your site is image intensive. If you can cover your costs by simply redirecting peoples purchasing, I say go for it!
 
Hi Brent,

Thanks for your message. Glad you appreciate the site... I hope we can keep it up for a long time to come!

I am just a bit behind with updates in the Members Gallery, and Challenge Winners etc... I have been really busy and very short of time for a few months, and this last few days we have been shifting office - and house over the next couple weeks. I am just in my new (but almost empty) office today! :-)

Thanks for your 'OK' on some minimal advertising on the site... I will do my best to keep it to products that I know we would all be interested in.

Thankyou.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
South Australia.
Brent W Haydamack said:
Michael:

I have often found that the expectation that things on the Internet
should be free is rather unreasonable. Clearly we could reach a
balannce by contributions in kind, but the hard reality is that
money is almost always involved. Clearly these resources are
expensive not just in terms of equipment and bandwith but also in
terms of the labor time required to maintain the sites. The value
I extract from DP Review, Magic Bracket postings and other sites
well exceeds my expense of viewing a little advertising. You guys
(Phil Askey, and others) do a great job of your sites and I don't
mind a little advertising.

Of course this is only one person's opinion, but feel free to go
ahead with the ads. I appreciate your sensitivity to the subject
and your careful planning about what to allow vis a vis DP Review.

Regards,
Brent Haydamack
Click to expand...
 
Hi Robert,

Yes the big cost is the bandwidth/data requirements generated by the photo content on the site! Without the photos you could run a site 10 times larger with 20 times the number of visitors!
Now why do we all like photography? ;-)

Thanks, hopefully we will only display affiliate ads that you are all happy with... will be very nice if a few visitors can redirect some of their purchasing through our links and help support 'their' site.

All the best.

Michael Offe,
South Australia.
robert said:
Many people confuse the cost of hosting with the fees associated
with bandwidth. Image intensive sites have high bandwidth
requirements and your site is image intensive. If you can cover
your costs by simply redirecting peoples purchasing, I say go for
it!
Click to expand...
 
Michael Offe said:
Hi all,
Just an update on your NTF Members site...
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

Due to the increasing cost of running/hosting the site, I have
finally relented and started placing some Affiliate advertising
below the navigation bar throughout the site.

This something I wasn't planning to do, since it is a nice change
to visit a site with out any banner ads etc... but to keep the
site running, I felt it would be better to have some Affiliates,
rather than no site! :-)

We have just become affiliates with Amazon.com, and we are waiting
for approval from Ulead. We will only link to products that relate
to your digital photography, and that we would be happy to use
ourselves, so hopefully this is OK with you.

A part of the reason for incorporating the affiliates is do to the
massive amount of extra traffic since the Challenges started, while
this is great, it has tripled out hosting costs, hence our decision
of affiliates. :-)

At the moment, I have just placed a link for Photoshop 7 upgrades,
and the new Epson 2200 printer. Over the next few days I will add
a few more as well.

So if you are about to purchase any new items for your digital
photography, and enjoy the NTF Members site or the Challenge, we
would most grateful if you could take a look at the NTF Members
site and check prices and if they are good, then buy through our
links.

Only thing is, we don't want to take business away from Phil's
sponsors, so we will try not to offer conflicting items.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this, and if you have any
questions, suggestions, comments please let me know.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
Administrator/developer, NTF Member's Site.
Click to expand...
 
I was thinking the otherday that, if you were able to put a badge or a star next to the names of supporting members to constantly remind newbies and others that they are supporters, that it may push them to join in.

The information here and in DP Review is something that I turn to often, daily in fact. Adds are O.K. with me if It helps to maintain the quality that we have come to expect. I may even consider a reasonable fee for membership to post and use the forum. I will not loose as much money in the future thanks to the advice I find here. Advice I should have found sooner.

Thank You All
--
Michael... Olympus D-600L, FUJI 4900, Nikon 5700
 
Thanks for that.

Just a note though...
My message is referring to the NTF Members site
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

...and not this Forum or DPReview... although, the NTF Members site is built for you and I, the members/visitors of this Nikon Talk Forum - but it is still a 3rd party site.

Hope that makes sense, just didn't want anyone to get confused and think I was part of DPReview.

BTW, if you want to donate some money to Phil for running DPReview and this Forum, you can by going to this page...
http://www.dpreview.com/misc/supportus.asp

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
South Australia.
Austin316 said:
I was thinking the otherday that, if you were able to put a badge
or a star next to the names of supporting members to constantly
remind newbies and others that they are supporters, that it may
push them to join in.

The information here and in DP Review is something that I turn to
often, daily in fact. Adds are O.K. with me if It helps to maintain
the quality that we have come to expect. I may even consider a
reasonable fee for membership to post and use the forum. I will not
loose as much money in the future thanks to the advice I find here.
Advice I should have found sooner.

Thank You All
--
Michael... Olympus D-600L, FUJI 4900, Nikon 5700
Click to expand...
 
Michael Offe said:
Hi all,
Just an update on your NTF Members site...
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

Due to the increasing cost of running/hosting the site, I have
finally relented and started placing some Affiliate advertising
below the navigation bar throughout the site.

This something I wasn't planning to do, since it is a nice change
to visit a site with out any banner ads etc... but to keep the
site running, I felt it would be better to have some Affiliates,
rather than no site! :-)

We have just become affiliates with Amazon.com, and we are waiting
for approval from Ulead. We will only link to products that relate
to your digital photography, and that we would be happy to use
ourselves, so hopefully this is OK with you.

A part of the reason for incorporating the affiliates is do to the
massive amount of extra traffic since the Challenges started, while
this is great, it has tripled out hosting costs, hence our decision
of affiliates. :-)

At the moment, I have just placed a link for Photoshop 7 upgrades,
and the new Epson 2200 printer. Over the next few days I will add
a few more as well.

So if you are about to purchase any new items for your digital
photography, and enjoy the NTF Members site or the Challenge, we
would most grateful if you could take a look at the NTF Members
site and check prices and if they are good, then buy through our
links.

Only thing is, we don't want to take business away from Phil's
sponsors, so we will try not to offer conflicting items.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this, and if you have any
questions, suggestions, comments please let me know.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
Administrator/developer, NTF Member's Site.
Click to expand...
 
Michael:

I feel the banners are no problem.. and also can add value by providing a single point of contact to reach erticles you will need anyhow... Pop-ups... that's a different story!

Thanks for the hard work setting-up the site and running it. I would say go ahead with the banners... and also perhaps some of us can contribute with a voluntary membership fee?

--
The pure and simple truth ... is rarely pure and seldom simple.
 
Hi, Thanks for your comments.
Icarusfree said:
Michael:
I feel the banners are no problem.. and also can add value by
providing a single point of contact to reach erticles you will need
anyhow...
Click to expand...
Have a look at the bottom of this page and see what you think... is this what you were thinking of?
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers/learn/101_articles/Exposure_Pt1.htm
I think I may try this at the end of some of the other Learn articles as well.
Icarusfree said:
Pop-ups... that's a different story!
Click to expand...
I would agree with that... especially those sites that have a pop-up, which when you close opens 2 more, and so on!
Icarusfree said:
Thanks for the hard work setting-up the site and running it. I
would say go ahead with the banners... and also perhaps some of us
can contribute with a voluntary membership fee?
Click to expand...
I had wondered about that... sort of in the way of a donation option? I just wasn't sure how people would like the idea. I could set it up, if people would be happy to have that option available. I would just run it as an extra product eg. "NTF Members site Donation" on our Business store (MagicBracket.com)... that way it would be a fully secure credit card transaction, and the donator could enter any amount they wish.

Thanks for your ideas... much appreciated.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe.
Icarusfree said:
--
The pure and simple truth ... is rarely pure and seldom simple.
Click to expand...
 
Jus to get this back on the front page so that all of you get a chance to see it.

Thanks.

Michael Offe.
Michael Offe said:
Hi all,
Just an update on your NTF Members site...
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

Due to the increasing cost of running/hosting the site, I have
finally relented and started placing some Affiliate advertising
below the navigation bar throughout the site.

This something I wasn't planning to do, since it is a nice change
to visit a site with out any banner ads etc... but to keep the
site running, I felt it would be better to have some Affiliates,
rather than no site! :-)

We have just become affiliates with Amazon.com, and we are waiting
for approval from Ulead. We will only link to products that relate
to your digital photography, and that we would be happy to use
ourselves, so hopefully this is OK with you.

A part of the reason for incorporating the affiliates is do to the
massive amount of extra traffic since the Challenges started, while
this is great, it has tripled out hosting costs, hence our decision
of affiliates. :-)

At the moment, I have just placed a link for Photoshop 7 upgrades,
and the new Epson 2200 printer. Over the next few days I will add
a few more as well.

So if you are about to purchase any new items for your digital
photography, and enjoy the NTF Members site or the Challenge, we
would most grateful if you could take a look at the NTF Members
site and check prices and if they are good, then buy through our
links.

Only thing is, we don't want to take business away from Phil's
sponsors, so we will try not to offer conflicting items.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this, and if you have any
questions, suggestions, comments please let me know.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
Administrator/developer, NTF Member's Site.
Click to expand...
 
Michael Offe said:
Thanks.

Michael Offe.
Michael Offe said:
Hi all,
Just an update on your NTF Members site...
http://www.magicbracket.com/ntfmembers

Due to the increasing cost of running/hosting the site, I have
finally relented and started placing some Affiliate advertising
below the navigation bar throughout the site.

This something I wasn't planning to do, since it is a nice change
to visit a site with out any banner ads etc... but to keep the
site running, I felt it would be better to have some Affiliates,
rather than no site! :-)

We have just become affiliates with Amazon.com, and we are waiting
for approval from Ulead. We will only link to products that relate
to your digital photography, and that we would be happy to use
ourselves, so hopefully this is OK with you.

A part of the reason for incorporating the affiliates is do to the
massive amount of extra traffic since the Challenges started, while
this is great, it has tripled out hosting costs, hence our decision
of affiliates. :-)

At the moment, I have just placed a link for Photoshop 7 upgrades,
and the new Epson 2200 printer. Over the next few days I will add
a few more as well.

So if you are about to purchase any new items for your digital
photography, and enjoy the NTF Members site or the Challenge, we
would most grateful if you could take a look at the NTF Members
site and check prices and if they are good, then buy through our
links.

Only thing is, we don't want to take business away from Phil's
sponsors, so we will try not to offer conflicting items.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this, and if you have any
questions, suggestions, comments please let me know.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Offe,
Administrator/developer, NTF Member's Site.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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