[PHOTO] ADMIN: Help For Hort.net

Since July of 1998, Chris Lindsey at Mallorn Computing has hosted the archives for both iris-talk and iris-photos. The service provides a search engine that is, and was always, better than the one provided by yahoo.

Then in November of 2002 Mallorn (hort.net) became the host for the iris-talk list when Yahoo became unbearable. Mallorn provides this service also at no cost.

Mallorn also provides the special programming for the irisregister.com site.

Well as the saying goes, "there is no such thing as a free lunch", and it is time for us to help support hort.net. Please read the message below the Chris has posted on the hort.net site.

Chris has always been helpful and very responsive to our needs, especially considering he holds another full time job.

I am sure you want the list to continue at the great level of service we have become accustomed to.

Please send a donation, even if it is only a few dollars, Chris will appreciate it and every little bit helps. Please do it now! Instructions are below.

Thanks for your support.

John

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hort.net was created on July 29, 1997 as an online horticulture reference for professional gardeners and hobbyists on the Internet.

Within the past six years, it has grown from nothing to a collection of thousands of plant images, hundreds of Internet links, and an online archive for horticulture-oriented mailing lists containing over 675,000 messages. More importantly, hort.net has been a place for gardeners to meet one another, share ideas, and forge friendships. It also provides free services for a number of important Web sites like the American Community Gardening Association, a permanent archive of Tom Clothier's Garden Walk and Talk site, and a home for the mailing list archiving software,MHonArc.

Most of the necessary funding (hardware, bandwidth, software) has been provided by Mallorn Computing, Inc., an Internet service provider geared towards the horticulture industry and Christopher Lindsey, Mallorn Computing's founder and CEO. However, hort.net's tremendous popularity (generating half a million page views per month) has required greater bandwidth, and subsequently, more costs. In order for hort.net to continue operating, it needs to acquire additional funds.

Chris's message
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Letter to our visitors and contributors
by Christopher Lindsey, hort.net founder
December 29, 2003


Dear Friends,

hort.net is a tremendously valuable resource for the Internet gardening community. It contains a large gallery of plant photos, hundreds of links other Web sites, and mailing lists where people can share their gardening experiences, meet new friends, and just 'hang out'.

As you may have noticed, development of hort.net has slowed tremendously. The image galleries haven't been updated regularly, mailing lists are slow, and new features haven't appeared on the site for a while. That's not to say that it isn't a great resource

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it's just not as good a resource as it could be.

There's a reason for this. As many of you know, I'm the sole maintainer of hort.net and use any income from Mallorn Computing, Inc. to keep hort.net running. It's great that hort.net's popularity has been increasing, but it's a double-edged sword. The income that Mallorn is generating is no longer sufficient to keep hort.net going. I've been doing extra work and have paid about $4000 out of my own pocket for equipment and bandwidth this year, but it's obvious that I can't keep doing this. hort.net is no longer fun; instead, it has become a moneypit and timesink.

If we can get money from other sources I'll have more time to work on hort.net and make the site better. I won't have to worry about money and it will become fun again! To continue operating, hort.net needs about $2000 per year. If we raise $10,000 we will have enough to keep hort.net operating for another five years if Mallorn maintains the same level of income. If we raise $15,000 we will be able to upgrade our server hardware to add new services, speed up the site, and fix equipment as it breaks or becomes outdated. If we raise $20,000 or more we could add extra servers.

Remember, even small donations can help us reach our goal! $20, $10, or even $5 is appreciated and can be used. Of course, larger amounts will help us get there faster.

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I will post daily updates on this Web page. Thank you for all of your help.

Sincerely,

Christopher Lindsey

How to donate


If you wish to make a donation, you may do so via PayPal or through the mail at Mallorn's offices. Mail is preferred since PayPal takes a portion of all money that goes through their system, but PayPal will let you donate via credit card.

Click this button to make a USD donation via PayPal / credit card:


You can send donations via US mail to the official public record address of Mallorn Computing, Inc.

Mallorn Computing, Inc.
702 W Vermont
Urbana IL 61801


Mallorn Computing is a for-profit organization, so any donations are nottax-deductible. The purpose of these donations is to help offset the high costs of hort.net (which is owned by Mallorn) so that we can continue providing quality services to the Internet gardening public. Every penny that Mallorn has ever made has gone back into hort.net.

Please do not send currency through the mail. Also, sending any foreign drafts, checks or other negotiable instruments may entail significant collection costs, an international postal money order or a check drawn on a US banking institution will make sure your complete donation goes to Mallorn (otherwise foreign collection costs will be deducted by Mallorn's bank from your contribution). Sending a foreign check to the United States may involve fees in excess of $50 for the processing of the check (or any other kind of draft) if it is drawn on a foreign bank outside the United States. International postal money orders payable in the United States are acceptable and available in post offices in many countries.

Questions or comments


If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to ask Chris. You can reach him via email at lindsey@mallorn.com. He'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thanks!
John | "There be dragons here"
| Annotation used by ancient cartographers
| to indicate the edge of the known world.

List owner iris@hort.net and iris-photos@yahoogroups.com
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