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

[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/tiff which had a name of image.tiff]
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
--------------------------------------


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 

[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/tiff which had a name of image.tiff]
  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. 

[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/tiff which had a name of image.tiff]
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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USDA zone 8/9 (coastal, bay)
Fremont, California, USA
Director, American Iris Society
Chairman, AIS Committee for Electronic Member Services

Online Iris Checklists at: http://www.irisregister.com

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