We had a serious database problem this morning involving four stories that got corrupted. We rescued the text of the four stories, though we had to repost Badasses of the Multiverse 14 which got lost somewhere between here and Miraz (which is a star in the Big Dipper).
Anyway, the problem may have been caused by a DOS attack, we're not sure.
But Paul Cousins, Shauna, Louise Anne, and Taralyn should check their stories to be sure they have been restored properly. I'm sorry but if anyone had made comments on those four stories or left kudos, those are gone.
There's been a snag in Piper's plans to move this weekend. The deal has been hung up by a glitch in the space being ready to rent and she can't move in as planned. The move had been pretty much financed but the snag is going to cost a few days in a motel, and boarding for Penny, the Labrador, an unexpected expense. I can loan her the money but it would be a lot less stress on me if I know that we have met our contribution goals in the Hatbox for the month.
We just paid about $2000 in bills and we have another $600 due next week. To top it up, Piper is moving this weekend and will need an advance to help with paying deposits and such. We're down to the last $300 in our company bank accounts right now.
We had a small database problem this morning which has been cleared up. We will be working on a permanent solution to this later this month with adding two more database servers. If you had problems posting this morning it was likely due to the database timing out while trying to update tables.
Let us know via email, PM, or status message if you are still having problems.
We're asking for more this month, $3000, because we are just not quite making all our payments on the debts owed by the site and the extra money is coming from me.
We're also developing at least one other site for the BCTS community and we have someone helping us with the expenses for that. More news on that development later in the month.
Many thanks to everyone who makes a gift to keep BC working.
Hugs to all,
Erin, Piper, Cat, Katie, Sephrena and all the volunteers
Please, if you can, help us keep BC alive and kicking. All the bills this week added up to about $1400, including internet connectivity, hosting and various software licenses we had to renew. It doesn't have to be a big check or a big gift, every little bit helps.
It's that time of month again. The server bills are due, payments on the debts we owe, and some money to keep Piper from having to look for other work.
Anything you can spare will be appreciated, and if you can't give, well, we know that that happens.
Electronic giving can be done through the Hatbox or through Janglewood or send me a PM for a snail mail address.
It's the beginning of a new year and we are still a bit short on our goals. It's always a bit difficult at this time of year since there are so many other things to put money into.
We've added some more stories to the Hatbox, so if you have the passwords, you can check them out. If you've donated in the past year and DON'T have the passwords, let me know in a PM. :)
If you haven't donated, now would be a good time. :)
If you donate through Amazon, the thank you screen will show you the passwords. If you donate some other way, you can PM me and I will send them.
I'm back home after most of a week spent with Piper and Cat (and Becky and Amy and Liam) in the wilds of South Jersey. I had a lot of fun and we had our BC meeting in a Chinese restaurant in Glassboro. It was pouring down rain so that may have affected our turnout but we did have two more people show up for the meeting.
More later it is late in the early morning and I'm pooped. :)
We've gotten a lot of contributions so far this month and thanks to everyone who has chipped in. After paying hundreds in bills this month, we are current on all but one of them. We've got some more bills coming at the end of the week and early next month, and we're a bit short of our goal with less than a week to go, so whatever any one can do will be greatly appreciated.
Someone wanted a breakdown of expenses. I've done this before but it gets complicated and lately I haven't been doing it. But here it is in round numbers.
It's that time of month again. We've already paid several hundred in bills this month and we will be paying about more hosting fees and software fees later in the month, plus the amount we pay Piper for being available for all the work she does.
As always, these gifts are greatly appreciated and go for more than just keeping BC online since we host several other community sites and are getting involved with several more.
Since the recent upgrade, the module "Ignore User" has been throwing errors in the logs for the site. It appears that the module was not properly updated for the newest version of the coding language used in the rest of the software; it's out of step. Accordingly, we have turned it off temporarily.
We hope that the maintainer of the IU module will release a new version soon, but if he doesn't, we will step up and hack the code to fix the problem. IU is part of what helps keep the peace around here and gets a lot of use. We will restore it to use as quickly as practicable.
This month is a particularly heavy one for bills. We have over $1000 in bills for hosting due before the end of the month, this is because several annual payment contracts are expiring. Others will expire next month and in November.
Donations are our major way to fund BCTS, not to slight our advertisers who help us out enormously but advertising is less than 25% of our revenue. We've only received about 1/3 of the amount we need for the month, so far.
In memory of Holly Hart, today is a good day to announce the upcoming BigCloset picnic. I will be in New Jersey the weekend of November 1, this year. Piper lives there and Cat will be visiting from Old Blighty. November 1 is a Saturday.
Holly organized the meetings in Northern California two and three years ago and they went very well. I hope we can do as well.
We're a bit over $1000 short of our goal for this month and the bills are coming due. The big one, $528 for hosting is due at the end of the week. We've already paid bills for cloud connectivity, ISP, renewal of domain names and bought a switch to replace one our network has outgrown.
Income from Janglewood/QnEZ/Cyberbrats so far just goes to expenses directly related to services offered to our clients and to expanding our access to new services, donations at BigCloset are more than 80% of what we bring in to keep all our TG websites operating.
We have several bills coming due at the end of the month, ISP service, domain renewals, paying off the loans we took out for equipment and personal bills like rent. If you can help, it will be appreciated.
A lot of our bills have come due and we almost got caught short. Right now we have about $580 in the bank with one check for $100 waiting to be deposited and a $528 bill due at the end of the week.
Ran across this quote today: "I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. - Oscar Wilde"
The ad above the quickcuts box is an attempt to find someone of interest to BC readers that would like to help sponsor the site. It's not an attempt to cash in, we really don't need to do that. If you are logged in, you can turn the ad off in your MyAccount settings. Right now, the ad will take you to the Doppler Press page at Lulu where most of the stories in The Hatbox are available, individually priced.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
