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Post by Karen on Oct 17, 2003 17:05:50 GMT -5
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Post by LeeHollins on Oct 17, 2003 17:10:28 GMT -5
That is my FAVORITE GH song!! Ohmigod, I absolutely, positively, completely, utterly adore that song. Y'all don't understand how many times I would rock out to that song in my room while growing up! God, I LOVE that song!!
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Oct 17, 2003 17:12:14 GMT -5
Anne, would you tell me if you can see sandyshores and John's nominated pictures? They are also being hosted on my site. If you can see them, but not this new one, I'll be even more puzzled. Is there anyone else who can not see eg's nomination now? Prepare to be puzzled, Patti - I can see them quite clearly, and fine pictures they are, too. If I'm the only one with a vision problem this time, just let it go - I already voted anyway.
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Post by Queen E on Oct 17, 2003 17:24:24 GMT -5
Welcome nmcil!
have been lurking most of the day, but wanted to say hi to one and all, now that the day is practically at a close. had to go get a tetanus shot this afternoon, and now that that's over, i feel all the more participatory!
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Post by Queen E on Oct 17, 2003 17:25:23 GMT -5
Her perkiness actually manages to be conveyed in words only! Amazing!
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Post by Queen E on Oct 17, 2003 17:26:11 GMT -5
Her perkiness actually manages to be conveyed in words only! Amazing! Except I just destroyed her post. Sorry.
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Post by Techno-bot on Oct 17, 2003 17:30:06 GMT -5
Now WE have a spook on our board! And not nearly as pretty as Spike! [/color] [/quote] I think I am very pretty! But you are right. Spike is much prettier!
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Post by Nan-S'cubie Mascot on Oct 17, 2003 17:32:30 GMT -5
I can see them all fine. And the NB one is MUCH sharper than the previous version. [/color]
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Post by Labrynth on Oct 17, 2003 17:54:46 GMT -5
First let me say thank you for the polite emails and PMs I recieved after posting. While I know that not everyone understands the problem, having dealt with it for many years leaves me incredibly frustrated. It's part of the reason I got out of the business professionally as well, and part of the reason Vamped was shut down for a time. I think the best explaination of bandwidth, and what the problem with it is, came from one of the Fan Forum boards by a poster named Cheryl. This is how she explained it: The term "bandwidth" generally refers to the amount of data that is transferred or downloaded from the website server to the end user, not the actual amount of data that is stored on the site.
For example, many people who post on this board have their own Fan Art or wallpaper websites. They may have 100 different wallpaper designs on their site, and let's say each wallpaper is 100 kb. That means their total data stored on their server is 10,000 kb or 10 mb. (Of course the total MB stored on the site would be more than that, with the html pages and thumbnails and banners, but I'm just using round numbers.)
The bandwidth, though, refers to how many wallpapers are actually viewed or downloaded by the site visitors, generally over a month's time. So if the site gets 100 visitors a day, and each person downloads (or views) 10 wallpapers per visit, then the bandwidth used per day is 100,000 kb or 100 mb. Then over a month, that would be approximately 30,000 mb or 30 GB per month. So that website uses 30 GB per month in bandwidth.
When you look at hosting plans offered by web hosts, the plan will usually have a storage limit AND a bandwidth limit. For example, a host may offer 100 mb storage and 20 GB of bandwidth transfer per month for a price of $19.95 per month or something like that. If your site uses more bandwidth than what your host allows, you can be socked with huge fees for exceeding your bandwidth allotment for the month.
When people use the term "stealing bandwidth," it means that you are sucking up a lot of extra bandwidth from that site. When somebody posts a picture on a FF message board, or any other site for that matter, you are basically forcing people to download that pic over and over, every time they load that thread, even if they don't want the pic or they've seen it a million times before. Imagine how many people view the "Cherishing" thread on the main Roswell board every day. Each person who downloads the thread is sucking up bandwidth from the website that is hosting all the pictures posted, because the picture is downloaded again and again and again by every person viewing the thread . . .
Does that make sense??
That is why posting pictures from a fansite, especially LARGE pictures like wallpaper, is very, very bad and can cost that website a lot of $$ in server fees. If the site is on a paid host, it really is stealing, and it's just not nice. Especially when the website specifically asks its visitors NOT to post the pictures anywhere else on the web. Whomever (Sorry, I read a lot of posts and thought I'd remember names by obviously didn't), said that the problem is twofold is correct. There is the bandwidth issue addressed above. One that my host helps deal with by blocking most off site linking, which is why the images in question did not show up when someone copied the URL and posted it so that the image should show up directly here. Like I said before, this causes problems for a LOT of sites. I remember when Buffy Cross & Stake shut down because of it, and that's a site that most of the older Buffy fans have been to a million times. The second issue is the image theft itself. Am I using images that *I* personally took? No. But for the most part I am using images that I spent a hell of a lot of money to obtain the source, not to mention the time and effort that gets put into scanning. Then there's the time it takes to actually make a wallpaper. Some of them are much simpler than others. After hearing from some people that all it looked like I ever did was crop well known images, I put up this page: vamped.darklabrynth.com/wallexample.htm to show how it was done a good portion of the time. So yes, you may find a smiliar picture on another site, but even if two people scan the same image, chances are there are going to be variations in the color tones, brightness, contrast, etc. Not to mention even if you crop the same image twice yourself, you most likely won't get the same dimensions both times. Not unless you're being way more precise than I am anyway! So when I ask not to post these images elsewhere it's because I've spent a great deal of time, effort and money into making them usable for Vamped visitors. Many people come to Vamped specifically BECAUSE of the quality of images I use, so when they are tossed around to every site, it pretty much makes Vamped pointless.
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Post by Techno-bot on Oct 17, 2003 17:56:37 GMT -5
People! Friends of mine!
The following website has locked us out for bandwidth theft. Many of you have this site bookmarked. Probably you will not be able to view their images any more. We have apologized to this website owner. We are very sorry.
darklabrynth.com
This has eliminated many of the pictures in our first Picture Picture thread. We are very sad.
But do not worry! All other websites are still available!
We must just be careful from now on to use the IMG function ONLY for pictures hosted on our sites which have given permission to link from them.
From this moment on....handle pictures on our message boards this way!
1. On the PICTURE PICTURE thread, post the link, not the image, unless the image is on your own site or is hosted by a member of the Soulful Spike Society.
2. For the PICTURE OF THE WEEK CONTEST, check the host site to see if they mind their picture being used. If they don't mind, IM the URL to PattiT OR to Rae. One of them will host the picture, and we will not be stealing bandwith except from them, which is not theft because they have given permission for OUR site to use their space. Betsy L. will also host pictures (I believe.)
If you have questions, please do not ask on the board. I may not see your question here, but you may IM me!
Thank you very much friends of mine!
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Post by Queen E on Oct 17, 2003 18:01:53 GMT -5
Just read your "Beneath the Moon and the Stars" entry regarding the "Tiger" personality. Thanks for posting that; I'm a tiger, so it was interesting to read what that was all about.
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Post by Techno-bot on Oct 17, 2003 18:05:08 GMT -5
First let me say thank you for the polite emails and PMs I recieved after posting. While I know that not everyone understands the problem, having dealt with it for many years leaves me incredibly frustrated. It's part of the reason I got out of the business professionally as well, and part of the reason Vamped was shut down for a time. I think the best explaination of bandwidth, and what the problem with it is, came from one of the Fan Forum boards by a poster named Cheryl. This is how she explained it: The term "bandwidth" generally refers to the amount of data that is transferred or downloaded from the website server to the end user, not the actual amount of data that is stored on the site.
For example, many people who post on this board have their own Fan Art or wallpaper websites. They may have 100 different wallpaper designs on their site, and let's say each wallpaper is 100 kb. That means their total data stored on their server is 10,000 kb or 10 mb. (Of course the total MB stored on the site would be more than that, with the html pages and thumbnails and banners, but I'm just using round numbers.)
The bandwidth, though, refers to how many wallpapers are actually viewed or downloaded by the site visitors, generally over a month's time. So if the site gets 100 visitors a day, and each person downloads (or views) 10 wallpapers per visit, then the bandwidth used per day is 100,000 kb or 100 mb. Then over a month, that would be approximately 30,000 mb or 30 GB per month. So that website uses 30 GB per month in bandwidth.
When you look at hosting plans offered by web hosts, the plan will usually have a storage limit AND a bandwidth limit. For example, a host may offer 100 mb storage and 20 GB of bandwidth transfer per month for a price of $19.95 per month or something like that. If your site uses more bandwidth than what your host allows, you can be socked with huge fees for exceeding your bandwidth allotment for the month.
When people use the term "stealing bandwidth," it means that you are sucking up a lot of extra bandwidth from that site. When somebody posts a picture on a FF message board, or any other site for that matter, you are basically forcing people to download that pic over and over, every time they load that thread, even if they don't want the pic or they've seen it a million times before. Imagine how many people view the "Cherishing" thread on the main Roswell board every day. Each person who downloads the thread is sucking up bandwidth from the website that is hosting all the pictures posted, because the picture is downloaded again and again and again by every person viewing the thread . . .
Does that make sense??
That is why posting pictures from a fansite, especially LARGE pictures like wallpaper, is very, very bad and can cost that website a lot of $$ in server fees. If the site is on a paid host, it really is stealing, and it's just not nice. Especially when the website specifically asks its visitors NOT to post the pictures anywhere else on the web. Whomever (Sorry, I read a lot of posts and thought I'd remember names by obviously didn't), said that the problem is twofold is correct. There is the bandwidth issue addressed above. One that my host helps deal with by blocking most off site linking, which is why the images in question did not show up when someone copied the URL and posted it so that the image should show up directly here. Like I said before, this causes problems for a LOT of sites. I remember when Buffy Cross & Stake shut down because of it, and that's a site that most of the older Buffy fans have been to a million times. The second issue is the image theft itself. Am I using images that *I* personally took? No. But for the most part I am using images that I spent a hell of a lot of money to obtain the source, not to mention the time and effort that gets put into scanning. Then there's the time it takes to actually make a wallpaper. Some of them are much simpler than others. After hearing from some people that all it looked like I ever did was crop well known images, I put up this page: vamped.darklabrynth.com/wallexample.htm to show how it was done a good portion of the time. So yes, you may find a smiliar picture on another site, but even if two people scan the same image, chances are there are going to be variations in the color tones, brightness, contrast, etc. Not to mention even if you crop the same image twice yourself, you most likely won't get the same dimensions both times. Not unless you're being way more precise than I am anyway! So when I ask not to post these images elsewhere it's because I've spent a great deal of time, effort and money into making them usable for Vamped visitors. Many people come to Vamped specifically BECAUSE of the quality of images I use, so when they are tossed around to every site, it pretty much makes Vamped pointless. Labyrinth, I have sent you an IM...
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Post by Queen E on Oct 17, 2003 18:12:47 GMT -5
Sorry to be dense, but who is Alex D? Alexis Denisof?
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Post by Betsy on Oct 17, 2003 18:14:59 GMT -5
Yes, I will host pictures also. I have a special directory set up on my server for the Pictures of the Week. We should also make sure that if we use artwork, that we didn't make, (like my last 2 entries), then make sure you send the URL and the site name of where you got it from so credit can be given. That way no one will assume that you are claiming credit for their artwork. If it is artwork you made yourself, then non is needed, but you might want to put a watermark on the artwork, like I do on a lot of my stuff. Just email to me at marinersgal69@msn.com, like you all do with your avatars. As long as I don't have to resize the image, then I can do the upload from work. I think we should also watch the size of the pics. I always try to cut them down when I post them. It makes the file size smaller and leaves more room on my server, but then I have tons of space anyway. But if you have a graphics program, it would also be beneficial to optimize the picture also. This will make it a smaller pic too. If you can't do this, then I'd be more than willing to do this also.
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Post by Nan-S'cubie Mascot on Oct 17, 2003 18:16:44 GMT -5
Just read your "Beneath the Moon and the Stars" entry regarding the "Tiger" personality. Thanks for posting that; I'm a tiger, so it was interesting to read what that was all about. Duh?
eg, I have not the least idea what you're talking about. Whence the "duh." [/color]
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