Future of the LBT Server

[landbeforetimelover]

Things have been getting really old and stale lately when it comes to my online works.  TheLandBeforeTime.org is in dire need of a redesign and the LBT Server needs to become more than what it currently is.  I've been thinking a lot about this and I've come up with some ideas.  I'll be blunt.  I don't want to run the LBT Server off my home server anymore.  It's such a huge pain in the ass to have to worry about that thing all the time.  In addition, too few people use it to justify keeping it up.  The LBT Server costs nearly $500 per year to run and the total revenue of the LBT Server is $0.  It's been up for nearly 4 years now, so that's $2,000 in the hole.  I've toyed with the idea of putting it on my master computer because it's on 24/7 anyway, but I don't want to have to deal with all the viruses and crap that gets uploaded, especially since my master computer is connected to my main network (the LBT Server is behind a second hardware firewall so no viruses can infect my network directly).

I'd really hate to see the LBT Server go.  It's so convenient to not have to deal with those horrible hosting companies.  But I have other ideas.  I could set up a private server in the Philippines (to avoid legal issues) for about $230/year.  Unfortunately the LBT Server is Windows based so the whole thing would have to be scrapped as it can't run on a remote webserver.  Then I could fund the LBT Server by selling premium packages to my clients (I would of course give out free premium packages to members here ).  The problem with this is, it's going to be an absolute shitload of work to code up the server from the ground up in PHP.  Despite this fact, I've already started.  The thing is a great big cluster f*** right now as I've only spent about 200 hours on it so far, but I can foresee this being an actual improvement to the current LBT Server.

So what will the new LBT Server be like?  Well, first of all if it's going to be funded by my clients, the name has gotta go.  You just can't remember it very well unless you know "LBT" stands for "Land Before Time."  In addition, it's going to be simplified drastically.  Most of my clients are completely computer illiterate.  Part of it being simple is looking simple.  The background has to be axed and replaced by a simple white or something.  I don't know exactly what's going to happen with the LBT Server, but things have got to change.  Once I get everything finished, I'll post a link up here and let you guys check it out.  Hopefully you'll think of it as an improvement.

[Petrie.]

I would never spend what you've spent to keep a site online.  LBT or not, you got to think about yourself first and foremost.  Right now it sounds like the stress and time of $500 a year and countless manhours aren't worth what is coming out of the server.  lbt.org is much more worth your time than a fileserver.

[landbeforetimelover]

^That's what I'm thinking, but if I can fund the server through my clients I should definitely keep it up.  I'm thinking of offering server space to clients for a low monthly fee and also offering them their own custom email addresses.  I've already begun to code the thing and I'm in too deep to stop now.  The only thing I need now is a name...a real catchy name that people will want an email address at.  I'll have to think about it.  For the moment the LBT Server will stay as it is.  I just have to think of what to do next.  I'll probably launch the new LBT Server alongside the old one and see if it's profitable with clients.  If it is I'll buy a larger package (100gb storage, 1tb monthly bandwidth) and offer it to my clients at a cheap rate $3 per gb or something.  I'd have to have to rent out a total of 21gb/month to cover the hosting cost and the other 79gb would be reserved to GOF and my personal friends.  The real issue is storage.  I need a good hosting company that I can purchase decent storage at for a reasonable price.  SharkSpace is just too expensive and they don't offer a large enough package for the LBT Server's needs.  GoDaddy is out of the question as they're a horrible host and would likely shut me down in an instant.  If anyone knows of a good host, I'd be open to suggestions.

[landbeforetimelover]

I've been shopping around and apparently I'm going to have to go with dedicated hosting.  Even though the webhosts say they provide 500gb of storage, they really don't because it has to be "content based" and not used for file storage.  What a rip.  A dedicated server for my needs is around $125/month.  Forget that.  I'm still coding up the PHP version of the LBT Server just in case I want to launch it off an Apache server here at home, but I doubt I'll want to.  Thousands upon thousands of hours have been put into the creation of the LBT Server, which is based on a software based framework.  That's one of the reasons it doesn't support PHP.  So I've decided to just suck it up and add more features to the current LBT Server.  

The changes are going to be pretty drastic and I'm sure you'll all like them.  But it's going to take a lot of time to implement all the features I want.  Remember the preview feature for photos and videos that existed on my old server system before I made it more Vista/7 like?  That's coming back only it's going to be better than ever as it's going to support .avi files with the proper codecs installed (DIVX is what I would recommend).  Also I'm going to try to make it more like the Windows filing system by getting rid of the checkboxes as a way to select files.  Maybe I can implement a dragging feature or something.  We'll just have to see how it goes.

I'm not going to lie.  Most downloads from the LBT Server are direct and aren't from browsing through the server UI (what you see when you go to lbtserver.co.cc).  Despite this fact, I want it to have a really nice usable UI that clients and people here can easily use.  I'll admit that the current system needs work.  I'm really not fond of the top part sliding down to reveal the member tools.  I'm going to work on that along with some other things.  We'll see how it goes.