Originally Posted by rehmbo
Damon-

First off - many thanks. I am super happy you stepped in.


Thanks, I hope I haven't taken on too much. I haven't even had time to really think about what happens going forward. My first priority was to make sure the site didn't go away.

It would have shut down completely on March 8th if nothing had been done.

Since I got full control about 36 hours ago I've spent most of those hours working on the site to find out what is there, cleaning up the spam, and fixing or removing (literally thousands) of broken links and old code that was lurking behind the scenes. I've contacted the UBB Threads people but haven't heard back to find out if this forum software has an up to date license so it can be upgraded.

Since the OnlineMarineStore.com is no more I removed hundreds of links and banners to it that just led to "not found" pages.

As far as I could tell all the advertisements on this site were for the OnlineMarineStore.com, if anyone knows about advertisers please let me know, that would be a big help. Ultimately for the site to pay for itself I'll need direct advertisers. I've put on a few Google Adsense ads for now but frankly the traffic on this site is extremely low right now, so I don't expect much from them.

It's understandable that the traffic was low with Rick's death, winter time, and the massive spam attack, but pleas spread the word to regulars that may not by visiting to stop by and check things out.

Originally Posted by rehmbo

You've probably already thought of this, but I'll come out and suggest consolidation of hosting. We can keep the catsailor.com domain, etc. but keeping commonly maintained accounts on multiple hosts is redundant.


Well yes, that is the plan, in fact it's a requirement. I've got until March 8th, maybe a few more days, because I paid the current server and email provider their past due monthly fees. They initially told me it would take $820 for them to give access (even with permission from the family) but they did negotiate it down to $432 which I paid them yesterday.

Anyway, hello to all the Catsailor.com folks who may not know me that well. I've posted a message on the front page of this site as well as a PayPal donate button. (Not a tax deductible donation, just helping out because you want to.)

If anyone is wondering what I've received so far, it's $10 via PayPal (Thanks Terry!) and two promised checks from Mike Fahle and northsea_junkie.

For any folks outside the USA that want to use wire transfer, please send me an email to damon at thebeachcats dot com and I'll supply anything you need.