skydivingmovies.com - think before you link!

[pilotdave 0]

Skydivingmovies.com users might find the site especially slow for a while. Someone put a link directly to a file (bypassing the login system) on a large non-skydiving website. Bandwidth use went through the roof, so the speed of the entire site had to be cut DRASTICALLY.

For those that don't know, hosting for skydivingmovies.com is provided free of charge by a dropzone.com member named Matt Crocker. This hosting is not cheap. And the site makes absolutely no money for anybody. Hosting is far too expensive to even try to cover costs with ads. So why does Matt do it? So WE can enjoy all those skydiving videos. That's all there is to it.

The reality is that the site depends on Matt's hosting. If he ever decides to pull the plug (which I wouldn't blame him for!), the site will be gone (for real this time).

Even at the reduced speed, the bandwidth the site is currently using costs Matt about 10 jumps per month. The site has over 3500 registered users at the moment. If just a few people bought Matt a jump or two, it wouldn't help pay for the site, but it sure would help keep him motivated to provide the hosting.

I also just found out Matt has a baby on the way. Those don't come cheap either! Buy the guy some jumps!

So if you'd like to buy him a jump, you've got a couple options. He does most of his jumping at Jumptown, in Orange, MA (800-890-JUMP). Or he could come down and jump with me at Connecticut Parachutists, 860, 871-0021. Call one (or both) of them up and tell them you want to buy a jump for Matt Crocker!

Dave

[pilotdave 0]

Wow... just realized how big that site must be. The 33 meg file was downloaded approximately 9000 times since yesterday. The next most downloaded file has a TOTAL of about 1900 downloads. That'll keep it at the top of the popularity list for a while!

Dave

[mr2mk1g 10]

Just curious, what was the site and why did they link to skydivingmovies.com?

[Clownburner 0]

I would suggest that you have Matt set up a paypal site to collect donations (or that you do it for him), a lot of people would donate if it was easy to do so.

Another thing you might consider is modifying your server setup to reject direct links to media that don't come from your login page using the REFERRER headers in your apache config. That should keep people who direct-link from eating your bandwidth. PM me if you want more info.

7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez
"I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

[turtlespeed 226]

. . . and can't you change the spelling or address just slightly?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[wildcard451 0]

He can cut the HELL out of the bandwidth.......I went to that site and yeah, no one is getting that file from that link anytime soon.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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I would suggest that you have Matt set up a paypal site to collect donations (or that you do it for him), a lot of people would donate if it was easy to do so.

Normally I'm somewhat reluctant to just give donations away. But for skydivingmovies.com I know I feel differently about donations as I have uploaded one special jump of mine (my wingsuit balloon jump over an urban environment) as well as several other older swoops when I was working my way up the food chain. So I do think people like me who upload stuff as well as people who download stuff really should donate to keep the sight open. If someone was to PM me Matts contact info I'd be happy to send him a donation and maybe he should think about setting up a PalPal donation link.

"dropzone.com" and "skydivingmovies.com" are two great skydiving related websites that many of us likely take for granted.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[catfishhunter 2]

as stated before.. if he sets up a paypal account they money will come

MAKE EVERY DAY COUNT
Life is Short and we never know how long we are going to have. We must live life to the fullest EVERY DAY. Everything we do should have a greater purpose.

[pilotdave 0]

Cash donations would be nice, but I think it would be much cooler for him to show up at the DZ with jumps on his account. As I said, a few donations don't make a dent in paying the bills, but a free jump is a free jump!

...and to canuck... Nobody OWES anything of course, but the people that upload cool videos have definitely done their part. The site would be pretty boring without any videos on it.
The "offending" site is http://www.fazed.net. I had never heard of em, but apparently they've got a few readers. I love their comments about the video. I gotta say it's one of the most amazing things I've seen too!

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1524

Dave

[marcandalysse 0]

heheheh....i tried to visit that link, my work websense blocked it as falling into the 'adult content' category....

mp

[pilotdave 0]

They were nice enough to remove the link a couple minutes ago anyway.

Dave

[Slappie 9]

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heheheh....i tried to visit that link, my work websense blocked it as falling into the 'adult content' category....

mp

Got the same thing.. Stupid IT people that have no life..

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them."

[marcandalysse 0]

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They were nice enough to remove the link a couple minutes ago

oh, okay...now I can download it!!
thanks guys!
btw, I took a look at your tunnel vids, dave....
how can I digitize a vhs to post on your site?
I have some very good tunnel videos (not of me of course! )

marc

"The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly." --GK Chesterton

[kelpdiver 2]

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Skydivingmovies.com users might find the site especially slow for a while. Someone put a link directly to a file (bypassing the login system) on a large non-skydiving website. Bandwidth use went through the roof, so the speed of the entire site had to be cut DRASTICALLY.

Going forward, can't the site be reengineered slightly to prohibit direct connections? My web site is low traffic and still occasionally some random site's forum has a hotlink to an image of mine. The image repositories on the search engines make this sort of thing common.

[mcrocker 0]

Thanks for all of the kind words.

I own an ISP so I have some bandwidth 'just lying around' Normally the site does 3-5mbps. I pay about $150/mbps for my upstream bandwidth so the site normally costs me $450-750/month. It isn't a direct out of my pocket expense, the $$ gets lost in the balance sheet. The problem this week was the direct linking caused the bandwidth to jump to a sustained 30mbps ($4500/month !). The result was it peaked one of my upstreams causing our BGP peering session to drop. For those that don't know what BGP peering is I can tell you it is BAD when it drops.

I'm currently rate limiting the site down to 3mbps (which it is filling 100%) so I can control my costs. More importantly I can control my service levels to my paying customers
Jump tickets are cool, With the new baby I'm not sure how much I'll get to jump this year. If there are jump tickets sitting on an account somewhere it will force me to go
I do have a paypal account. If you feel generous you can send paypal donations to 'matthew@crocker.com'

skydivingmovies.com will always have a home on my network. It might be fed through a straw sometimes but I won't kick it off. It is kinda fun pulling movies down at 100mbps when I'm in the office

Once the onslaught dies down a bit I'll open up the bandwidth again so all of you junkies out there can get your fix.

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