[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

I got an email from my ISP today saying that I've used 25 *gigabytes*
of bandwidth this month, and at this rate, I will end up owing $193 at
the end of the month. Of course, I assumed this was a mistake, because
I never use anywhere near that much. So I called them, and the guy I
talked to said that it certainly looked like a mistake. I do save a
bunch of files on my home directory and web space, but it comes to
maybe 50 megabytes, including some jpgs and wav files and lots of big
text files. Nowhere near 25 GB.

Tonight I got home and there was a phone message from them saying that
the big usage of bandwidth came from the fact that I got about 400K hits
on my webpage, because of those pictures of the scotch tape sculptures.
My father had sent me an email with the photos, and I'd created a little
HTML file that did nothing but display the pictures, and posted the link
on this newsgroup.

Well, somebody reading it here thought the pictures were extremely cool,
and posted my link onto stumbleonit.com, resulting in thousands and
thousands of people coming to look at the pictures on my site. Hey, it's
flattering, but very, very expensive flattery. All those downloads tap
the resources of the server, and someone's gotta pay for it. But, yikes!

At the end of the phone message, the guy said I should call him back
tomorrow and he'd "see what he could do for me". I really hope they'll
give me a break because this is the first time this has happened with
my site, in my many years of using their service. I was naive and stupid
and didn't realize what might happen. I also didn't realize that I would
be held responsible for all that bandwidth. Duh.

All I can say is, I'm never going to do that again! I'll probably put
stuff on my site, but I'm not going to post it publicly anymore. Too
bad, but I can't take that risk again.

Joyce - poorer but wiser

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

wrote:
I got an email from my ISP today saying that I've used 25 *gigabytes*
of bandwidth this month, and at this rate, I will end up owing $193 at
the end of the month. Of course, I assumed this was a mistake, because
I never use anywhere near that much. So I called them, and the guy I
talked to said that it certainly looked like a mistake. I do save a
bunch of files on my home directory and web space, but it comes to
maybe 50 megabytes, including some jpgs and wav files and lots of big
text files. Nowhere near 25 GB.

Tonight I got home and there was a phone message from them saying that
the big usage of bandwidth came from the fact that I got about 400K
hits on my webpage, because of those pictures of the scotch tape
sculptures. My father had sent me an email with the photos, and I'd
created a little HTML file that did nothing but display the pictures,
and posted the link on this newsgroup.

Well, somebody reading it here thought the pictures were extremely
cool, and posted my link onto stumbleonit.com, resulting in thousands
and thousands of people coming to look at the pictures on my site.
Hey, it's flattering, but very, very expensive flattery. All those
downloads tap the resources of the server, and someone's gotta pay
for it. But, yikes!

At the end of the phone message, the guy said I should call him back
tomorrow and he'd "see what he could do for me". I really hope they'll
give me a break because this is the first time this has happened with
my site, in my many years of using their service. I was naive and
stupid and didn't realize what might happen. I also didn't realize
that I would be held responsible for all that bandwidth. Duh.

All I can say is, I'm never going to do that again! I'll probably put
stuff on my site, but I'm not going to post it publicly anymore. Too
bad, but I can't take that risk again.

Joyce - poorer but wiser

Purrs that something can be sorted out.
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy and Bagheera)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart.
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

wrote in message
...
I got an email from my ISP today saying that I've used 25 *gigabytes*
of bandwidth this month, and at this rate, I will end up owing $193 at
the end of the month. Of course, I assumed this was a mistake, because
I never use anywhere near that much. So I called them, and the guy I
talked to said that it certainly looked like a mistake. I do save a
bunch of files on my home directory and web space, but it comes to
maybe 50 megabytes, including some jpgs and wav files and lots of big
text files. Nowhere near 25 GB.

Tonight I got home and there was a phone message from them saying that
the big usage of bandwidth came from the fact that I got about 400K hits
on my webpage, because of those pictures of the scotch tape sculptures.
My father had sent me an email with the photos, and I'd created a little
HTML file that did nothing but display the pictures, and posted the link
on this newsgroup.

Well, somebody reading it here thought the pictures were extremely cool,
and posted my link onto stumbleonit.com, resulting in thousands and
thousands of people coming to look at the pictures on my site. Hey, it's
flattering, but very, very expensive flattery. All those downloads tap
the resources of the server, and someone's gotta pay for it. But, yikes!

At the end of the phone message, the guy said I should call him back
tomorrow and he'd "see what he could do for me". I really hope they'll
give me a break because this is the first time this has happened with
my site, in my many years of using their service. I was naive and stupid
and didn't realize what might happen. I also didn't realize that I would
be held responsible for all that bandwidth. Duh.

All I can say is, I'm never going to do that again! I'll probably put
stuff on my site, but I'm not going to post it publicly anymore. Too
bad, but I can't take that risk again.

Joyce - poorer but wiser

In the meantime, can they give you a different posting link? You would have
to send the new link to anyone you wanted to have access, but it would
prevent all those thousands of hits from strangers.

MaryL

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

wrote

| the big usage of bandwidth came from the fact that I got about 400K hits
| on my webpage, because of those pictures of the scotch tape sculptures.

I hope they forgive you. And I hope you'll put the pics where I can see
them, I missed e'm the first time around!

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

On Mon, 21 May 2007 10:23:02 -0400, Pat wrote:


wrote

the big usage of bandwidth came from the fact that I got about 400K hits
on my webpage, because of those pictures of the scotch tape sculptures.

I hope they forgive you. And I hope you'll put the pics where I can see
them, I missed e'm the first time around!



I saved the web page to a PDF file (that way I could e-mail it and not have
to provide the original link.)

It's a file of slightly more than 1 MB, and I'll e-mail it to you if you
want.

--
Joey DoWop Dee
Remember: It is To Laugh

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

wrote:

All I can say is, I'm never going to do that again! I'll probably put
stuff on my site, but I'm not going to post it publicly anymore. Too
bad, but I can't take that risk again.

I don't understand how these things work, but couldn't you
just post the original link, instead of putting it on your
own website and posting the reference to that?

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

Have you considered putting things like that on a blog or something for
public access? You might go to Blogger - they won't charge for hits,
especially if you have the advertising on it. You might even make money:-)
Purrs for a good answer....
Kathy

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

Kathy wrote:

Have you considered putting things like that on a blog or something for
public access? You might go to Blogger - they won't charge for hits,
especially if you have the advertising on it. You might even make money:-)

That hasn't occurred to me before. My ISP provides space on their web
server as part of what you get with a regular user account, and I've
never had any big need for web hosting, so that works fine for me. Maybe
it's time for me to look into something like this.

Purrs for a good answer....

Thanks!

Joyce

[OT] YIKES! Bandwidth disaster
 

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:

I don't understand how these things work, but couldn't you
just post the original link, instead of putting it on your
own website and posting the reference to that?

It wasn't a link. It was an email that my father sent me. When I opened
the email, the pictures were downloaded to my PC, and I copied them to
the web page. So mine was the only link to post. I usually do this when
I get an email with a bunch of pictures that I want to share. I don't
like to forward huge files full of image files - they clog people's
inboxes and that annoys them. :) With a link, you only access it if you
want to.

Joyce