Beechbrook.Com Upload Changes

[cottage]

Due to recent bandwidth issues, I have changed the guidelines for files uploaded to Beechbrook.Com.

Effective immediately, all files uploaded may remain online for a period of 3-months (90 days). This is a reduction from the previous availability period of 4-months. Files that are currently posted on Beechbrook.Com which are over this 90 day period will be removed soon. This does not include utilities, demos or tutorials (depending on their size) or files that are hosted from other sites but maintain a link on Beechbrook.Com.

Files may be removed prior to the 90-day period if I deem it necessary or if requested by the author. At this point file size is still not restricted however, this may change in the future depending on any reoccurring bandwidth issues.

Before your next upload please review the Upload Guidelines posted on the PTE Upload Utility page.

Thank you for your continued support and your cooperation.

Kind regards,

Bill

[cottage]

Maintenance has now been completed on Beechbrook.Com. I have reopened the upload area. I removed 17 files that were over 90 days old. Statistics show that these 17 files alone accounted for 204.87 megs of disk space and 4,568 downloads. PTE certainly is popular !!

Bill

[Rooskidiver]

Hi All! I just wanted to thank Bill for his past, present, and future efforts to keep his website available for us all to share and view our PTE presentations.

As Bill has stated he has had some bandwidth issues and I think there are things we all could do to help his situation. There have been several good posts in the past that directly relate to this issue and I'll try to touch on some of them.

First, I think it would help if folks could try to keep file sizes down by compressing the music in the shows, using smaller resolution jpegs or if using Photoshop by using the save for web setting for jpegs. Oleg posted a really good little slideshow that shows how to compress music. I used this on a show that had four songs and it cut the size from 32 Mb to 21 Mb and I couldn't tell a difference in the sound. Of course this is one I did not upload.

As I understand it, the more people downloading and uploading creates a problem with Bill's "bandwidth police". Especially if the files are large. I generally only send folks to his site that need examples of shows or for the tutorials. If hundreds and thousands of people start downloading from his site we could all be in trouble ... for that could cost Bill tons of extra money. So ... although I don't think his site should be kept a secret ... it might be wise to limit the referrals for awhile.

Which also brings me to donations. There were recent posts about this topic and I would just like to remind folks one more time that you can help by sending a donation to the Cottage. From the main page just click on "Click to Donate to PTE Housing Costs". Just think of the number of times you've downloaded shows ... or uploaded shows. A small donation from everyone might make the difference that the Cottage needs to keep going.

So ... these are just my thoughts for the evening. If anyone has any more suggestions I'm sure we'd all love to hear them.

Carol

[alrobin]

If I may add one more suggestion to the ones Carol has made, it would also help if those with web sites could post their shows on their own sites and send Bill the URL, along with a 120 x 80 - pixel jpeg. Then he can still post the show, without the drain on "bandwidth", and you will still see the statistics about the number of downloads.