As some of you are well aware, the forum and web site gets less and less visitors as each year goes by. As I gain no profit from this site this is becoming a drain on my finances and associated costs to maintain the site. The site is hosted on a Windows platform which generally is a lot more expensive than Linux / Unix. This gives me a few options. I'd be grateful if anyone can provide any feedback.
1) introduce advertising
Pros - I get money to pay for the site
Cons - Adverts are annoying. Not many visitors = not much money.
2) Move to a Unix Host
Pros - cheap and a LOT more features
Cons - will require forum to be scrapped and PHPBB used instead. Web site will have to be re-written in PHP instead of ASP.
3) Move to a cheaper Windows host
Pros - will not need to make any changes to the site and forum. I will be able to use an MS SQL database instead of Access.
Cons - None in the UK that offer this cheaper than my current host. Conversion from an Access database to SQLserver has a potential for completely bolloxing up.
Currently my best option is to move to another host. I have already got the rest of the site re-written & working on a test server running UNIX with PHP 5 installed and it works well. The forum is the only issue. I'd like to dump Snitz and use PHPBB but this would mean loosing all posts which I don't really want to do.
I will be experimenting for a while as I have renewed for another year with my current host but I have a feeling they might drop Windows hosting altogether. I'm looking at kiwihosting.net in New Zealand as they are offering the perfect solution to all my problems. I will be in contact with them also to possibly move to them next year.
So for at least a year this site will be here but after that there will be some changes. I do not intend to scrap the site altogether.
Future changes to the web site & forum
1) introduce advertising
- I think there is way too little traffic to make this really meaningful option. Plus, aggressive ads may scare away newcomers
2.) Move to a Unix Host
- If you could convert forum database to PhpBB than why not? But loosing all post would be really pain in the ass, so if this have to be price than don't do it
Plus I think it would require a lot of work to rewrite and reimport all content of your site.
3) Move to a cheaper Windows host
- These seems most reasonable. I would definitely search for cheaper hosting outside of UK And as for conversion, backup before converting usually do the trick (so you can reconvert with different settings if something gets corrupted)
- I think there is way too little traffic to make this really meaningful option. Plus, aggressive ads may scare away newcomers
2.) Move to a Unix Host
- If you could convert forum database to PhpBB than why not? But loosing all post would be really pain in the ass, so if this have to be price than don't do it
Plus I think it would require a lot of work to rewrite and reimport all content of your site.3) Move to a cheaper Windows host
- These seems most reasonable. I would definitely search for cheaper hosting outside of UK
And as for conversion, backup before converting usually do the trick (so you can reconvert with different settings if something gets corrupted)Converting the forum to PHPBB without loosing data will not be easy. There is a converter for MYSQL so I'd have to convert the database to MYSQL then install PHPBB and import the data. I'm going to try this on my test server to see how difficult it is - with it being a shared server rather than dedicated this may be a problem. Will see.
If not, Ill probably be moving the site to another host unless my current host can offer anything - I have been with them since this site was launched. Might get a discount. I read up on continuing with Windows server 2008 / SQL server 2008 but in order to convert the database from access to MSSQL would require direct access to the server desktop. What I want to do cannot be done from the control panel application the ISP offers.
The options now are
1) leave everything as-is either on current host or move to new (Windows 2008) one continuing with Access 2000 database,
2) Move to a UNIX server and make the move to PHPBB with MYSQL database server as back-end but only if data from current forum can be imported.
If not, Ill probably be moving the site to another host unless my current host can offer anything - I have been with them since this site was launched. Might get a discount. I read up on continuing with Windows server 2008 / SQL server 2008 but in order to convert the database from access to MSSQL would require direct access to the server desktop. What I want to do cannot be done from the control panel application the ISP offers.
The options now are
1) leave everything as-is either on current host or move to new (Windows 2008) one continuing with Access 2000 database,
2) Move to a UNIX server and make the move to PHPBB with MYSQL database server as back-end but only if data from current forum can be imported.
I finally got the damn thing working!!! At least now I know I can move the site to UNIX either next year or sooner if the need arises.
Test forum at http://www.adrian-smith31.co.uk/bbs with all users and data intact.
Feel free to give it a whirl (you will have to request a new password as they have all been reset) due to encyryption and hence could not be imported.
Test forum at http://www.adrian-smith31.co.uk/bbs with all users and data intact.
Feel free to give it a whirl (you will have to request a new password as they have all been reset) due to encyryption and hence could not be imported.
