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Letter From the Publisher I AM JJ JAMESON!
Last night I upgraded this site to Movable Type 2.6.2. There is a couple of little changes and I am using a test site to figure out what changes in the template I want to implement on the main site.
I also have about 70% of my available server space taken up. I have a recent back up of this entire site downloaded and burned to a CD but I need to reduce the image files and will be going through the past archives and tidying up un-essential images and compressing large files. I know one of Rebecca Blood's ethical guidelines of blogging is to never remove or edit a post once it has gone live
4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
Post deliberately. If you invest each entry with intent, you will ensure your personal and professional integrity.
Changing or deleting entries destroys the integrity of the network. The Web is designed to be connected; indeed, the weblog permalink is an invitation for others to link. Anyone who comments on or cites a document on the Web relies on that document (or entry) to remain unchanged. A prominent addendum is the preferred way to correct any information anywhere on the Web. If an addendum is impractical, as in the case of an essay that contains numerous inaccuracies, changes must be noted with the date and a brief description of the nature of the change.
But I feel that I just have to do some editing for an aesthetic work flow. Currently it is costing me $15 to $20 a month to run this site and I am pre-paid until May. but I just want to tidy up some of the older images that I put on the site before I started being conservative about file sizes. Also there is no way I am going to take off BBQ created artwork of anything spiffy like that. I am going to be moving my portfolio section off line and then moving it to it's own domain someday.
I also am going to be reusing a lot more graphics like these ones. Goddamn it is am still upset that no one got my "France Surrenders" joke.
Any who for most readers you will never notice the change and I assure that the changes will be painless and minor. But what the hell it is my Goddamn site and you cheap bastards are not paying me a dime ;).
Update:Well it is not like this site is putting me in the poor house I just don't want to let it get out of control. Personal web sites are a lot like web comics where you have a success tax. Your bandwidth usage and file space can exceed the revenue coming in from ad banners. I do not have ad banners and never want to use them. While I have a good job there is no reason for me to ask for donations but should I find my self out of work and going back to school I guess what I would do is ask for a tip jar of a buck or two. I have over 30,000 monthly readers according to my site stats.
So what I would do is offer some monthly desktop patterns and desk top designs to any donors to support this site as I went back to school for two years or so. But that is getting ahead of myself and I am just being anal about having a Plan B.
Also worth reading is Scott McCloud's Visual essay Coin of the Realm. Part 1 and Part 2
Penny-Arcade has a similar thing to help keep their site running called Club PA
And Digital Sweeties has The Clango Club.
Update take 2: Most website donation use Pay Pal because currently it is the closest thing we have to an actual Micropayment system. But I am not going to set one up until I am a starving artist again if I go back to school. Currently fortune is smiling on me and my bank statement is written in black ink.
Game Girl Advance on the other hand had a story that got so popular that it earned them a $1,500 bill for the bandwidth. That scares the hell out of me. And that is why i don't post any nude pictures of myself online.
I think the people who blog in an attempt to make a profit are truly insane. But it was not my intention to start to ask for donations just to start trimming the file size of my archives. Websites like Wired and The BBC News archive the text articles but they do not serve the images and multimedia on past archived items. That seems a bit radical to me but I just want to trim the monster bush a bit.
Jake at February 18, 2003 
WebDev
Comments
Why dont you put out a donate/share paypal link? I will gladly help out if you want! If you want that would be superplusgood. Then we would be more like real contributors to the site.
Posted by: pete at February 18, 2003 3:32 PM
I would even go so far as to help out on a monthly basis.
Posted by: pete at February 18, 2003 3:33 PM
hehehehe... I'd be willing to pay for you Jake. ;o)
Posted by: Judy at February 18, 2003 3:49 PM
maybe just have contributions from those of us who post to it regularly like me. Like I said i wouldn't mind a bit.
Posted by: pete at February 18, 2003 4:00 PM
It costs me $24.95NZ a month to host my site - I was going to divvy up the space between friends to cut costs, but it all got complicated and I shelved the idea.
I personally would donate if it wasn't for stupid methods of payment (only way I can really do it is Cheque and it takes 7 weeks to clear).
Posted by: l33t k1w1 at February 18, 2003 4:05 PM
Wow. I don't know who you buy your web server space through, but it seems like you are spending an awful lot. Not that I'm really a spendthrift, if you saw my video game collection you would know I am most certainly not, but I only pay $10 a month for my web space and I have 'unlimited web space' and 'unlimited bandwidth' My server is not slow. And it supports .cgi, PHP4 and all of the things I need for my site. So, I think with a little shopping around, you could probably find something a little more suited to your needs without destroying your savings.
Posted by: Mici at February 18, 2003 4:20 PM
Doesn't it only cost you $10 a month? That's not bad at all, barely worth a tip jar. Or do you end up paying more for bandwidth? Oh it's so tough having a popular site :) I still haven't read Rebecca's book but those bits from it confirms my opinion that I've had all along, she's a huge crock of shit.
Posted by: Carla at February 19, 2003 10:19 AM
I just got my weekly statement from my hosting ISP
Domain name: 8bitjoystick.com
Disk usage: 147980288
Disk space limit: 209715200
Traffic: 1761247625
Traffic limit: 1048576000
Every Gig I go over a Gig of monthly traffic they charge me 4 bucks. That works out to about 4 to 8 extra a month over my pre-paid 10. I just don't want to have to pay for extra storage space because I have 75% used up. I like my hosting ISP.
Hey I gave you a copy of her book and I like it. She is a little to overtly righteous and brainy but she is mostly good . She is a bit like the Jakob Nielson of weblogs.
Posted by: Jake at February 19, 2003 10:28 AM
HA! trim the monster bush!
Posted by: pete at February 19, 2003 11:06 AM
I don't know what version of PHP you have installed, but I know that with 4.3 you can write a real simple script that will allow all your images and whatever else you want to be gzipped and when someone requests it, it gets uncompressed and sent to them. You can also save bandwidth by sending pages gzipped to the browser if the browser supports it. All you have to do is check the browser, then write the page to the output buffer compressed. There's examples on the http://www.php.net/ manual. All you should have to do is search for "gzip" on php.net or look at the improvements in 4.3.0/4.3.1. Hope this helps...
Posted by: Kyle Thompson at February 21, 2003 12:12 PM
