Oh, the Ruby on Rails wasn't a serious suggestion. It's something I might work on to teach myself but that's not this thread's business.

I think we might already have RoR on this box anyway. And I know I have it on my two main web hosts. But that's tangential.

We're wedged into a corner, and we're going to be wedged into a corner every time one of the versions of the legs of LAMP goes EOL. I'd at least like a shot to code out from behind that, to get a more flexible and forgiving data model working. For $10/month to start.

I can't really help on tech, but like megan, I can contribute a little to whatever expenses will help us get out from behind our current problems.

If I understand correctly, you're saying that our regular expenses will be going up, if we do what you're thinking of doing?

We're wedged into a corner, and we're going to be wedged into a corner every time one of the versions of the legs of LAMP goes EOL. I'd at least like a shot to code out from behind that, to get a more flexible and forgiving data model working. For $10/month to start.

does anyone else feel like they're watching Charlie Brown and the teacher is speaking?

Succinctly put, we're stuck at this version of the OS, PHP, and the database for this cost. Whether or not we ever change any code, this is so. Once these softwares go end-of-life there will be no more updates or patches, and our vulnerabilities will go unclosed.

ah, I see. So, we need money, to switch to something that will have more flexibility?

will a server for what we need ever get cheaper, like memory for PCs does?

If we need more money/month to do what we need to do, then that's that. what needs to make it official?

Not with a given provider, I don't think. I mean, technically there's no reason it should ever get more expensive to provide us with exactly the same horsepower

We currently have:

• 2.6 Ghz Celeron
• 512MB ECC Memory
• 80 GB
• CentOS 4.x

For $10/month more we can get:

• 2.4 Ghz P4
• 512MB ECC Memory
• 120 x 2 (hardware raid 1)
• CentOS 5.x/Plesk 8.x

Much of a muchness, pretty much. It's every time we have to change that last line, we have to change servers. And that will never be cheaper, and I doubt it will never not increase our monthly, as well as incur a once-off cost.

If we don't have our own server (I'm not saying for sure we can play well with others, but I don't see how our code is that crap, even though we've relaxed to take up the space allowed us) server version upgrades are not something we should have to chase or pay more for.

does anyone else feel like they're watching Charlie Brown and the teacher is speaking?

not really. ita is making a lot of sense. I would like to pitch in - where to send $?

I understand money is needed but that's about it.

where to send $?

this.

Money can always be sent to donations courtesy of buffistas.org.

I just want to make sure I'm not charging off down some geeky route with everyone else's money in hand. I get distracted by shiny things, see.