Bad news, folks. Those of you who have already mailed in a $50 or greater
donation will very likely not get it returned.
The good news, of course, is that the fund drive has gotten off to a good
start, and I fully expect sufficient contributions to get a dedicated
machine. So far I have plucked about 4 dozen checks out of the FCG PO box,
with contributions averaging about $20 or so. I've not yet opened up and
added it all together, so no firm figure yet. Hopefully contributions will
continue at a good rate in the near future, though after the initial rush
things taper off. But I am quite optimistic. One respondent did say that
the Z car list is trying to raise $8,000 for a server, wow! That much would
be nice, and anything is possible.
Thanks to all those who have mailed in a contribution so far, I will try to
acknowledge them all via email within a few days of arrival. But be warned,
my response may seem somewhat abrupt. I'm not meaning to be rude, a lot of
my style is habit and a perceived lack of free time for such things.
Your response once again points out the benefit that these mailing lists
provide for so many people, and encourage me to continue maintaining them,
as well as add new features when possible to increase the usefullness to you.
Again, thanks!
I do have a few notes to add though. First, while many of you have expressed
willingness to provide various parts and components to build a system, I think
that the best bet is to buy a new, fairly complete, *fully warranted* system.
If a "home-built" critter blew up after the first few weeks, I wouldn't want
to have to go through this again so soon.
Also, folks have suggested getting some commercial support, as in advertising
dollars, to add to the efforts. Perhaps in the future, but for now, being
piggybacked onto University facilities, I don't want to do that. But the day
may come when getting this lists, FTP access, and web service for free could
end. Then I'll seriously look for commercial support. But one step at a time.
And I know this may come as a surprise to some of you, but I rarely actually
read any postings to the list. What time I can spend on them involves getting
bad addresses off the lists, trying to put things back together after majordomo
zeros out a subscriber file, such as happened to the autocross list at the end
of last week, killing hung FTPs, manual intervention on subscription problems
and so on. So don't assume that comments or questions directed to me as a list
administrator will be seen if they are posted to the whole list. Of course,
you can't assume that if you DO post some nasty comments about me, I won't see
them. Not that anyne ever complains about the service, mind you. It is sort
of like getting a glass of water from the tap. You turn it on, water comes out.
No one thinks about the guy banging the pipes on the other end, they just assume
everything always works. Luckily, it usually does when it comes to email lists.
And oddly enough, the better I do my job, the less you realize I'm doing it!
Once again, my sincere thanks to those of you who have contributed to the fund,
I appreciate your trust and confidence in me and the future of this service.
mjb.
ps: In case you lost the address, send checks, made out to Fat Chance Garage,
to
Fat Chance Garage
PO Box 58333
Salt Lake City, UT 84158
pps: Those of you not in the United States can safely ignore the funding plea.
The hassles involved with getting funds converted likely aren't worth it.
If there's a group of you in some location that pool together several
small donations to make a one big one, that may worthwhile, though.
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