yes, cloud hosting saves you the capital expense of hardware/internet lines, but you pay as you go. sometimes it's more beneficial to "lease" the resources from the cloud, and sometimes, it's more beneficial to just host it yourself physically. I'd be interested to see what the current specs are on the existing server, how is it hosted, and how much egress traffic there is (ie, how much traffic does an end user pull by hitting the site). Most of the forums is text data, so it can't be that much and has probably dropped over the years. it could be a simple server box sitting in a basement or a spare server sitting in a business rack somewhere. I have several Dell PowerEdge servers sitting here doing nothing. I could easily donate a 5-7 year old PowerEdge 2850/2950 rack server to the cause.
Whoever continues the site or starts a new one might want to consider whether we need all of the current forums. Personally, I would be happy with just the sports forums--no interest at all in competing political diatribes--plenty of other places for that on the internet.
Personally, I think part of the appeal of Hornfans is the diversity of forums. If you don't like a certain one you’re free to avoid it, but others may really like it a lot. Kind of like the state of Oklahoma, or sushi.
I have an idea. Why don't we keep Hornfans, and all the posters, but not on the world wide web? We could do it like in real life! I haven't hammered out all the details, but we could meet in a parking lot and you just raise your hand if you want to start a "thread". The only setback is we would have to be mobile. You know, go from city to city but its doable, don't you think?
But seriously, I got nothing to offer except financial support. I'll help anyway I can. Please let me know, and good luck
If there is anyone who wants to contribute in taking some action to maintain a forum with the quality of this one, please email jayakris. His email address was given above. This website has too much history and is too valuable to the Longhorn faithful to let it disappear without something similar in its place.
I agree with Dionysus regarding the diversity of forums. Sports is the main thing that brings us all here, but the other forums are a great resource for information and/or debate and discussion. I would miss the non-sports forums greatly.
No serious update to the forum, but some 3-4 of us are in touch and trying to see what could be done. Will update everybody, if or when anything gets serious. But we are trying...
It is great that Jayakris, Bevo Beef and a few other IT wizards are doing the heavy lifting as far as potentially keeping this site alive in some way. Remember, many of us including me, agreed to do our part and kick in some $ to help with the transition and whatever else to make it happen. We are not talking about a lot of $$$ by any one person but everybody putting in a small amount that will add up to defray the cost(s). A new HF site may have to go to a pay site in some form.
As I said before, I can make small monetary contributions to keep the site going on another provider. I desperately want Hornfans to stay alive. I cry every time I think of life with no Hornfans. This site has meant something to me that most of you would not be able to understand.
Jay, let me know if you guys need hardware. I have several servers that I've decomissioned sitting around. mostly Dell's
Thanks Bayerithe. I am sure the couple of IT-savvy friends from among us looking at those details will keep that in mind, if we end up having to need hardware help. We all may need to wait, as Robert is traveling for a week or so, to talk again and see what we can do. Hope something will work out.
Thanks for all the $ help offers, friends. Keep them coming. We may not know for a few days what we will need, but something will be needed, I am sure
Added my email address to my profile if needed. I am seriously hoping we keep HF going in some form - I don't like my alternatives.
