Pleasantries and Bandwidth - Please Read

[genlisae]

*This has been updated here*

This is one of those icky posts I don't like making. I am sure none of you like reading them either. Read it anyway, K?

First, I love that you are enjoying Pleasantries. I even love that there are a few of you who are reading it several times through. Bandwidth is becoming an issue though.

I will do everything I can on my end to ensure you can continue reading when you want to as many times as you want to. What I won't be doing is upgrading my Photobucket account to "Pro". That is an expense I simply can not justify right now. That being the case we kind of need to work with what we've got.

There are a few things you can do to help, like not immediately refreshing the page if the images are loading a bit slow (Yeah, I can see when you do that :oP) give them time, there are a lot of images on some of the entries. Don't hotlink the images directly to other pages. (if you don't know what hotlinking is please read this. In general terms though, if you are directly displaying the image, NOT a text link to the image, and you haven't copied it to your own image host first, you are hotlinking. For the record, I would also appreciate if you didn't copy my images to your own image host either. If you think you have a legitimate reason for doing this talk to me first.)

Maybe try not re-reading quite so often? I can't believe I am saying that, but I kind of think I should. I really do love that there are a few of you that like the story that much (come on, admit it, you just like seeing Ripp and Tel making out!) and it blows my mind when I see that you have read through three, four and in that one case six times (Six??? You really need to drop me a message I have questions for you! Curious writer wants to pick your brain!). It will still be here tomorrow though! And it will still be here next week. Short of my having a nasty run in with a bus this story is not going anywhere.

I want to be extra clear on this. For most of you, carry on doing what you have been doing. Reading through once or even twice a day, if you really want to, is not going to hurt anything. However there is (were) a handful of people who were reading through over and over for several days. That adds up fast.


I also want to stress that I am no where near as worried about bandwidth today as I was yesterday or the day before as things seem to have settled out to a more normal level. I can tell you that at the current rate the bandwidth will run out before the month resets but I am not that worried about it as they should only be down for a few days at most. If that does happen, just be patient they will be back.

Admittedly when the bandwidth did run out the other day that was in large part my fault. I had some things hosted on Photobucket that really shouldn't have been if I had thought about it (layout related, etc). those have been moved elsewhere now, as have the images from the entries that get the most traffic (the picspam posts and similar). I will continue to look into ways to further optimize the images as well to make the file size as small as possible without any further quality loss which will reduce your load times and the bandwidth used to view them.

Okay, I am finished. Thank you for bearing with me through all of that. :D I am a little overwhelmed to be honest. I never expected anyone to actually read this thing. You can of course always contact me with any questions or comments. I'm not as scary as I seem I promise :D

*edited to clarify a point that was causing some concern*

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Does it say one has re-read the story when one clicks to the index page to check its status? Because I do that a lot with stories I have bookmarked . . .

[genlisae.livejournal.com]

Nope. These are actual read throughs. :)

[remisims.livejournal.com]

It's a good and bad feeling, running out of bandwidth. Part is "Oh wow, people must be actually/reading looking at my posts! *fuzzyness* and "Crap.. All my pictures are gone.. Crap!"

I have a couple of PB accounts, but stopped using them mainly due to the crapification of any JPEGs uploaded, and back then I didn't have an editor with batch functions. I switched over to LJ scrapbook, and I've been using that for most of my images. I'm not sure what space is allocated to plus accounts, but I haven't run out yet, and all of my JPEGs are nice and clear. :D Only downside is no automated URLs, so you have to get each URL separately (or if there is one, I can't find it..) Also, unlimited bandwidth.

I was just about to go back and comment on your picspams, but to save your bandwidth:

Awwww, Ripp. We shall forgive the complete inappropriateness of your smustle, just because of the epic win that is your smustle. :P I love reading posts like that in the mornings, makes my whole day that bit better. :D

[genlisae.livejournal.com]

:D Don't worry about the bandwidth. The picspam are now being hosted on LJ (which if I had thought about it I would have done in the first place! There are times I fail .. hard!)

It is the lack of automated URL's that is the main reason I really don't want to switch the chapters to LJ. That is a lot of mouse clicking :/ (My shoulder is aching at the thought of it.) But if it comes to that, I will.

I want people to keep doing what they are doing! I can't stress that enough. (Really, really! Read! Enjoy! Comment! Carry on!) For the few, and it IS only a few (like 8 people total!) who most of the above applies to, keep doing what they are doing too .. just maybe cut back just a tiny bit? :/

If not, well there might be a day or so where the images won't be available, and I guess that is okay too. Not ideal, but okay. :)

The smustle though and especially then, definite WIN!