TGO David

Back the subject at hand... the new site design looks excellent. Kudos to the design team.

Microsoft IIS will sometimes display that error when the server cannot respond to your request in a timely manner. i.e. It's overloaded with people checking it out. No, you need to think about what you're saying and how it's going to come across to the other people. If you're just jerking someone's chain, use some smilies to convey the proper attitude with your comments. I know from experience that it really blows to spend a ton of money and time on a project only to have someone point out an unexpected flaw. It's not so bad when they do it the right way. It's a real kick in the stomach when they do it the wrong way. Don't be that guy.

If we charged a membership fee for every single person who signed up for an account on TGO (like the NRA does for their membership, for example) then I might consider an incentive plan like refer 10 members, get one year free or whatever. Since we don't, I can't. Benefactor memberships help pay to keep the lights on.

No, they've been gone for a while now. Sorry.

I've decided not to run the store for now.

Folks, I'm getting out of the logo swag business for a while and am not going to license anyone else to produce it. I've had difficulty filling orders in a timely manner in the past, and now with my job requiring more of my time than it ever has before, I just don't want to take it on again. This may change in the future but for now I'm going to hold off on it.

As someone who deals with servers on a daily basis, I can honestly say that comments like that really suck. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

I'm not.

This thread shouldn't be revived from the dead. Closing it.

I guess it might be different if referring to a place as a "Smith & Wesson Dealer" meant that they were a SAW Company Owned store, a franchise, rather than just a privately owned shop that stocks Smith & Wesson firearms as a licensed dealer. Just sayin.

Zero problems out of my current M&Ps. The only problems I've had in the past were speedily taken care of 100% on Smith & Wesson's dime. Just because you are having a problem with one or with their customer service, it doesn't mean they are all bad nor should it mean that anyone else should avoid buying them. Sorry for your luck, though. I'm sure that given a reasonable amount of time, Smith & Wesson will make it right.

It's the tactical slippers he wears that make me happy to see him.

Didn't Churchill say that history is written by the victors? So, if the Confederacy lost... this is just late coming.

It would be much to your benefit to make sure you do read the rules before you go much further. Ignorance of the rules does not exempt you from following them, and we do enforce them here.

It's not that I don't appreciate the idea, it's just that they provide a balloon of funds that are finite rather than a steady flow of funds that you can more easily budget the operating expenses against accordingly. Kind of like the difference between your paycheck and a bonus. The bonus may be big and may be nice to have, but it's never a guaranteed thing and it's hard to depend on them to pay the bills from week to week. I feel more comfortable about TGO's continued existence (not that it is in jeopardy mind you) when I can see that there is equilibrium and that sudden emergency infusions of cash aren't necessary.

If you sell a few of them, no big deal. If it becomes a frequent thing that you are doing to make additional money, it becomes a business ... even in the eyes of the government.

Eh... those GlockTalk fundraisers really annoy me for some reason.

Generic ads suck. Further, GoogleAds won't touch us because we deal with firearms related topics. Google is hugely anti-firearm.

Thanks for the help guys. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a relief to see a few Benefactor memberships roll in as I'm looking at upgraded hosting packages. Most of them are $200-ish per month. I'll look into some sort of notification. I don't want the forum spamming you guys with email so it may just be a notice that you see on the forum home page or something. I remember my first modem was 300 baud Vic Modem. We thought we were kicking ass back in the day with we had CompuComm 17.9kbps modems that would only run that fast when talking to other CompuComm modems. We dispensed with the automated letters and started sending out singing stripper-grams. You didn't get yours?

As long as the site is self-sufficient the growth is not a problem. It doesn't become a big deal until we reach the point where the percentage of those financially supporting the site is critically smaller than the percentage who don't (we're heading that direction) or until some clown throws a fit that he can't post guns for sale without being a Benefactor. I'm sure people wonder why I don't have patience with people who try to cheat the system. There's the answer.

Thanks. Essentially the problem is that TGO is becoming a victim of its own success. The more we grow and the more people who pile on here at the same time, the more it pushes our current server setup to the limit. The changes that have to be made next were inevitable.

Absolutely would not make that trade. The KZ45 is Wilson's oddball mutant polymer 1911... thing... that went absolutely nowhere and never gained any sort of following. Your HK45C is a much better firearm than that.

I made a lot of changes to the server config yesterday that made significant improvements. It's not perfect, but it's the best I can do for the moment. Going to another hosting company is going to involve nearly double the monthly hosting fees that I pay now... but it's something we're going to have to end up doing.

Remington isn't exactly in the business of making firearms for one gun shop.