benblee

All good points! I've been setting up my sites so that you can have photo albums galore...but you can also set your privacy level for photos to "Friends" only, then you can choose who sees them. I've also done that with the personal blog space there, you can set it to friends only and on that part, the friend doesn't have to confirm, it's more so you can set the permissions of who gets to see you blog (it starts out wide open, you have to set it to be private!). And, always double check your settings on sites like Facebook and stuff. When any large site goes through upgrades, mistakes can happen and your previous settings may have been reset. MySpace and Facebook have had a couple slip ups in the past and constantly have to revamp their systems. Just like any website, it needs constant attention and constant upgrades. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Which one?? I get it! Maybe they will find a way to put out matching T-Shirts too. Check SkyFestBoogie.com, but if you're 2 weeks late on everything, you can check...the other one too. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Can't argue with that point. If people have to remember something, they may shy away from doing it. ....buuuuuut, I can say that I think the vibe at the St. Patty's Day Boogie was pretty awesome due to social networking stuff. People who had previously never met but on the forums and on facebook were looking to meet up at the boogie and it seemed like people were introducing themselves to each other more so than normal. Spence throws boogies with good vibes anyways, but it seems like while the fuckery may seem like it's going down (you may be in the wrong tent ), the clickery may also be going down and people are hanging out in bigger and bigger groups again. Not making a statement for or against, just another angle to look at. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

From now on, maybe every person to post after Spence should include a sig line for him. Don't try to say you couldn't think of one, this guy is a walking one liner! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

What has a better ring to it: Carbone......zone or Car......Bonezone ? and am I the only one that had to smile like this for a Bounce Burger ! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

I will absolutely be at SkyFest and with stickers and give-aways in hand! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Spence, You threw another outstanding event! Had a great time seeing everyone and can't say enough about the great food either....Thanks to the Carbones! This was an Awesome Boogie! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Not sure how many of you know me, but I'm Ben Lee and I started and run CollegeSkydiving.com. To offer as much as possible to college skydivers from all over, I also work with Event promoters to enable more jumping with more people! The tough thing to swallow here is that part of my trade in help with people throwing boogies is that I do some website work for them. James seems to be lurking around the SkyFestBoogie.com website and taking every idea I use. This is frustrating because had he just wanted to listen to me months ago to begin with, he would have already had the info. It's not very cool to step on toes within the skydiving community and to pass over organizations looking to help out then rip off their ideas. Now with overwhelming feedback from users of CollegeSkydiving.com, I'm having to pull back support of this event. I hope everyone attending has a fun and safe time, but CollegeSkydiving.com will not be attending this event. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

To the creators of Dropzone.com: There are very few successful websites out there that can gather and help this magnitude of a group of users in one place. That in itself means the site is a success. Your work is greatly appreciated and I'm saying that as someone who has been in the sport for nearly 6 years when Dropzone.com was already a mainstay and standard in the industry. Thank you guys and my criticisms are not focused at the creators like Sangiro, this is how things go and what is involved in entities that grow this large. Either way...the info on this site better not ever be lost because it will never be recovered. There is a hell of a lot of history here and needs to be kept somewhere for the sake of the sport. Ben Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Dropzone.com charges in the vicinity of $700 - $1000 per advertiser per month. If you have 4 - 5 advertisers, that is right around $40,000/year. If you have different numbers...and think that the site what wanted to be purchased by a corporation because of lesser numbers, and think that the corporation has your best interest in mind...and think that money doesn't talk, then there is an arguement. My issues with dropzone are that it was started by skydivers for skydivers. It offered lots of cool stuff and now it doesn't so much. Part is because times have changed and technology changes with the times and part is just because the market is enticing (yes, it did sell because tracking a forum this large has to be exhausting on people doing this 100% of the time like Sangiro and partly because someone wanting to pay you to take it off you hands after this long of a run is a huge compliment). In the end, there is better technology out there and ways for the forum to continue...I however never receive any responses from "the powers that be" when it comes to issues of how to resolve bandwidth and hosting costs. Yes, I do work with sites larger then this in both bandwidth and server space and the sites offer more! Are there plenty of people out there that promise this, yes, can 99% of those people deliver on their promises...no. So, yes, I do understand for not having received a response. The bottom line is that this site can offer a hell of a lot more to is user base. Why don't they, it is a pain to run it and when it comes to hiring people...no, it's not worth hiring someone at the rate of $35,000 per year to run a site that makes $40,000 per year. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

How is somewhere in the midst of $40,000 per year not enough to keep a forum going? Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Pre-Registration is now open! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

This link will go right to the article. Still working with J on some of the specifics , hahaha! http://skyfreaks.com/news/Our-evening-of-history-just-keeps-growing-.html Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Thanks a ton guys!!! I've had a quite a bit of input from a hell of a lot of people to be able to grow the site to that much content, so a HUGE thanks to all of you that offer up your help! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

The site looks great. As for the drop down menus, they save too much space and open up the rest of the page too much to get rid of them. They are a plus in my book. Also, you are on a system that can allow for "brushing-up" so in the future the site will only get better. I like it a lot and think you guys did a great job!!! As far as search engine stuff, just have an xml site map that you can submit to Google that will assist their crawlers and then after about 3 months things will start panning out again. This was too much of a good improvement to worry about some of these details. Sometimes an huge overhaul is needed. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

If you're looking to post your SkyFest pics for everyone to see, we've opened up a section of the website to give everyone their own album. You can also register and post a link to your other albums. Hopefully this will give everyone a central place to find pictures of the event: http://www.skyfestboogie.com/gallery/main.php Register it will create an album for you automatically. The upload limit is 7 MB at a time, but you can pretty much have unlimited space on their. Use the "Upload Applet" to beat the 7 MB limit (requires that you have Java installed). If you need help, email me at [email protected]. Show us how much fun you had! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Well, that was one great Boogie to go to. Now it's time to post your pictures. As part of the website, I've added a gallery that you can all join and it will give you your own album to post whatever you want. There is an upload limit of 7 MB at a time, but pretty much unlimited space for you. It resizes the pictures and makes the thumbs for you so it takes a minute or two, but it works pretty well. If you use the "Upload Applet" you can get around that limit pretty easily. Click on "Add Items" then click on the "Upload Applet" tab. It's a Java plugin so make sure you have Java installed. Check it out and start posting. http://www.skyfestboogie.com/gallery/main.php When you register it will send you an email to confirm things. After you click the confirmation url, just login and go nuts. Let me know if you have any trouble: [email protected] This should allow video too, but please use the upload applet for that. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

That make sense. While I was setting this up, the sign-ups for special jumps was going through the dropzone and registration is going through SkyFest. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Yeah, I've started to notice that idiot proofing things really just makes for bigger idiots. My friends tell me I'm one too, so I guess that's something we can all drink to! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

That can work. I'll check with J because I'm not sure that paying by check for registration is open to everyone (I know he would be wise to not take one from me). I can make a note that the payment online is done through PayPal and to expect that. Would that help everyone here? Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

The only think idiot proofing does is makes for bigger idiots! I just thought of this one tonight and thought it fit what I was working on pretty well. It did prove to be true. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

OK guys, I didn't hear too much website advice any of those other times I've been down to The Farm. That's right, I know who you are and you didn't know it was me that was doing www.SkyFestBoogie.com. The whole story is that this is a CMS that allows the website to be able to grow. It's also set up so that J can make updates when he needs to and doesn't have to rely on someone elses time scale. It works pretty damn well and offers a lot. I know there's other solutions out there, but if you aren't going to be on call and on the phone with J for an hour or two a night trying to figure out what he wants, be careful about offering up your website help! J, you're kickin ass and it's not your fault skydivers can't read! Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

I'm curious. I do a little bit of website development and there are times here and there when I could use some help. I'd like to see what everyone can do as well. My work is more centered around CMS, but graphics can make the page! What is it you saw that nothing else looked like? Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

You take a band like Led Zepplin and it's easy to recal that Jimmy Page was one of the best guitarists of all time and John Bonham was one of the best Drummers (if not the absolute best) of all time, it becomes easy to forget that Robert Plant was one of the best vocalists. Not a lot of people expect to hear that but if you talk to the ones that know vocals and the dynamics of it, there are few people out there that can match what Robert Plant is capable of. Allison Krauss is incredibly talented herself. Pretty cool to see two generations come together like that. On a side note, I'm drinking a lot and updating my website, so I'm not sure what I have to offer the world right now and it's kind of making me depressed. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com

Here's a slightly more direct link to the forum. I'm still waiting on Spence to send me some info for the main site: http://www.collegeskydiving.com/roamingdz/forum/ Post away and make me sorry I helped him set it up. Ben Lee www.CollegeSkydiving.com