Server Upgrade in the works

Bonsai Nut

Bonsai Nut

Nuttier than your average Nut
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We're in the process of upgrading servers (again). The new server should be significantly faster, and it will double the amount of room we have for our image archives. Site downtime should be minimal.

This upgrade will increase our annual hosting costs $600, so please keep those ad-blockers turned off :) If you felt like tossing some beer money my way, I won't turn it down!

Support Bonsai Nut
 
I tried the link and I entered "bonsai nut" under donate, but a bunch of crazy stuff came up. Make it simple please.
 
@Bonsai Nut thanks for the upgrade!

the link wasn't working for me last time, and isn't working this time (because i'm in Canada?)

Do you have an email address that we can send donations to via paypal?
 
PayPal is so horrific... Now the link on this page isn't working FOR ME :mad:

See if you can click on the link on the home page.
 
This can't be that hard...I think if you have a paypal account and would post the name on that account, we could donate. An email address associated with the account will work also.
 
Peter44 said:
This can't be that hard...I think if you have a paypal account and would post the name on that account, we could donate
Click to expand...

The problem lies in how PayPal processes payments. If it is a business "payment" - they charge fees. If it is a donation - they don't charge fees. I don't charge people to use the site, and since all contributions are donations, they have to be handled in a very specific way.

Though it is never a good idea to post an email ANYWHERE on the Internet, you can send donations to this address: greg.peterson@adsira.com.
 
I tried that Greg...Seems like you have to register the charity with them
 
Can you believe that it is so hard to give money away? Click those interesting ads also!
 
Peter44 said:
I tried that Greg...Seems like you have to register the charity with them
Click to expand...

Bonsai Nut is not a charity... and any contributions you make to the site are not deductible on your taxes. As long as your giving does not exceed $14,000, no tax reporting is required by either giver or recipient. Bonsai Nut has not had the problem of approaching $14,000 in donations in any year :)

To make things even MORE complicated, I had to register a business name, so I used "Adsira" as the company name for filing taxes each year. So the donation should go to "Adsira" and the purpose would be "Bonsai Nut Web Site". I created all of that administrative bureaucracy to get the PayPal donation button to work... and now it only works part of the time.

To make matters worse - I keep getting spammed by PayPal, which is trying to get me to sign up for business financial services that I don't need.

Fortunately, I don't sell anything on the site. If we were to produce and sell something (for example Bonsai Nut t-shirts) I would set the t-shirt store up as a separate store-front under the Adsira business umbrella - but separate from Bonsai Nut. I need to do this to make sure that Bonsai Nut remains a separate "anonymous and free" web site that doesn't require personal information in order to register or use. Right now as I receive donations for Bonsai Nut I'm not even 100% certain which users are sending them unless I know who you are personally. For example I might get a donation from "John Smith" but there is nothing that would directly link that donation to user "bonsai boy" on the web site. This anonymity is really important for a number of reasons - first because I believe in your right to privacy and second because if I started asking for personal information (real name, address, phone, etc) it would make the site more appealing to hackers. Right now there is nothing significant to be gained from hacking the site - because I don't hold any of this information.
 
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I had to do a lot of this because I had underwritten the site to the tune of about $20,000 over the first ten years or so (not including personal time). I had never bothered to file taxes and just took the expense as a loss each year - to advance the world of bonsai :)

However things got a little crazy when we started receiving Google ad revenue - and Google reported that revenue to the IRS. The IRS wanted me to pay taxes on the Google ad revenue, and the idea of paying taxes on something that wasn't even paying for the site made me ill. So I had to create the business, track expenses, file taxes, etc... not to MAKE money, but to avoid LOSING even more money. If I can break even on the site each year, I am a happy man :)
 
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Carol 83 said:
Thanks for all you do @Bonsai Nut. We get all of the benefits, and you get all of the headaches and administrative red tape. :(
Click to expand...

There are good days... and bad. Right now we are migrating to the new server and there is a lot going on behind the scenes. It is a pretty significant upgrade and should make the site a lot faster.

But technology doesn't stand still. The site is very different today than it was even three years ago. Once we move to the new server I am going to go through another round of software updates that is going to improve functionality and make the site even friendlier for mobile platforms. My dream would be to one day add foreign language translation to make the site even more multi-national.
 
And Greg, where do I find that link as you mentioned above?
 
Bonsai Nut said:
We're in the process of upgrading servers (again). The new server should be significantly faster, and it will double the amount of room we have for our image archives. Site downtime should be minimal.

This upgrade will increase our annual hosting costs $600, so please keep those ad-blockers turned off :) If you felt like tossing some beer money my way, I won't turn it down!

Support Bonsai Nut
Click to expand...
☝ ☝ ☝ ☝
 
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