Great info! I was just tyring to help out. I know my vps probably can’t handle the traffic this site gets, but I figured it would be first step at least. I realize that a dedicated VPS is probably a better idea, but currently, my vps hosts basically nothing. The traffic is next to nothing.

Anyways you posted up some great ideas there, and Mike would do well to think hard about them.

First: the Coral Cache. http://www.coralcdn.org add “.nyud.net:8090″ after the .com and before everything else after the .com

Second: media files on a distrubuted host. I would recommend CacheFly but there are others. Have the mp3’s hosted there, so the site doesn’t run slow.

About hosting. I’ll just post some links. Think about it.

http://www.tektonic.net/dedicated.php
Dedicated, more costly

http://www.tektonic.net/vds.php?op=budget_plans
Virtual, un-managed (Mine is UM1)

Been following your posts at dKos, and sent you some love.

Another 2 cents on the hosting thing - I use Fatcow (fatcow.com) for $99/year. Look at their specs to see if they can handle your load.

I understand your loyalty to your current ISP. But do youj really need your own server?

Anywho, keep it up.

Best, RubDMC

I respect you wanting to stay with your ISP. And I’m not an ISP or carrying other vested interest. But I’ve seen people *reamed* by over-bandwidth fees, I about choked when I saw someone offer to split-host you on a $15 VPS account (far far far too inadequate for numbers you’ve just seen and could see), and I only know about (pinches fingers together) THIS much about running a major website facing large traffic loads.

But I do know a bit.

So here we go…

Have forward-minded plans that’ll let you dish bandwidth via an OC-3 or better and having your own dedicated server. Major sites grow quickly, server setup takes week(s).

From what I’ve been quoted, raw bandwidth’s current market price is 50 cents a gig, down to 20 or 30 cents for a data-only fat pipe working in predictable larger buys. I’ve seen ISP’s charge $6 or more for that bandwidth, which is absurd or criminal when you face a 70 gig surprise.

You also should get quality-of-service negotiations in place so you can, at the least, get assistance from your ISP quickly in a pinch. This will likely RAISE your per-gig price, but they should be reasonable if you’re reasonable. Don’t demand half-hour service at 3am on a sunday unless you’re willing to pay for it. 99.999% uptime!? Hardly. This is WHY you want to work with someone that you respect, like your current ISP.

If your ISP says they’re just not up to the task, split-host. Put all your fat data files somewhere else and just host the blog with ‘em. There are half measures possible when it comes to web hosting.

Use alternate sources to pull some of the traffic down. Coralcache is an incredibly easy way to temporarily release bandwidth pressure (you just change URL’s by adding .nyud.net:8080 to the domain-name part of your URL, and suddenly you get a distributed cache system to relieve content… it’s what slashdot junkies do when a site gets slashdotted). Likewise, there are a *few* political types that know bittorrent, so you should include torrent links to let us share the burden.

That above bit… coralcache… is the MOST important thing you can do immediately to get rid of your site crashing repeatedly. Since coralcache doesn’t care what it is cacheing, you can even practice RIGHT NOW by experimenting with sites you usually visit. Pick a site you know, mangle the URL, google up ‘coral-cache’ for more info.

In a serious storm, take your hot 2 or 3 pages and replace them with static HTML, rather than interpreted code. If that’s not enough, look back at coralcache, splitting your media files onto a data-only server, or starting to build a distributed host. Ask for some expert help here (that ain’t me).

Find some blog software that knows how to throttle for traffic. When traffic gets heavy, minor side-stuff is turned off to make pages go out faster. As for bandwidth throttling, I know CivicSpace or Drupal does this built-in, but the worst I’ve ever directly experienced are some DoS attacks (mildly distributed, not massive ones) and getting traffic storms from AOL or other news sites linking to our content… and none of our overloads were due to media files being downloaded by a thousand simultaneous users.

Collect email addresses and treat them (the addresses and the addressees) with respect. Having push capability to 50,000 fans can be immensely powerful.

Use ads. Don’t just do it for the money. Advertise stuff you love, like your ISP. They can’t BUY advertising like you’ll give them if they prove their supportiveness and talent. That sort of endorsement is how I found the ISP I currently use.

Remix, repackage, rerelease. Make the audiofiles self-contained with info about your blog and the content, then package them up to allow folks to email them to friends. Presuming that your goal isn’t counting page-clicks, you accomplish it cheaper: you get your message out to a wider audience without paying for the bandwidth.

Keep up the good work. Oh, and check out spreadshirt.com rather than cafepress if you go THAT route for funding.

Please, please, PLEASE … Fox Security T-shirts and mugs.

Here they are, Fox Security, listening to Bill O’Really, waiting for His Serene Instructions to restore calm, maintain order, keep the peace …

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bd/KeystoneKops.jpg

I’d buy one. You know you’d buy one too.

Kind regards,
Dog, etc.
searching for home

Restraining order….

Now that would really drive him nuts if you put the shoe on the other foot….