elakdawalla
Sep 24 2012, 09:43 PM
Hi folks, it's been about two years since we last passed the hat to raise the money it takes to keep unmannedspaceflight.com going. We need to raise $5000 this time around.
You can donate here. For U.S. taxpayers, the entire amount of your donation is tax-deductible.
Our hosting costs about $1000 per six months. This fundraiser will cover 1.5 years of hosting that the Society has already paid for, plus our December bill, plus about $1000 worth of administration costs accumulated over those last two years. If we can manage to raise $6000 then we'll be able to go for a whole year before we run another fundraiser
But we're setting the goal of $5000 because that's all we need for now.
Thanks in advance for your support. To monitor how the fundraiser is going, there is a little thermometer gizmo on the
donation form.
Let's see if we can raise the money within a week!
nprev
Sep 24 2012, 10:55 PM
I'll be contributing this Friday. It's hard for a dishonest robot to pull a good heist on a Monday...
angel1801
Sep 25 2012, 01:56 AM
Despite being a lurker and reader of other people's comments much more than actually posting anything, I did give $50 USD for this site to continue.
lyford
Sep 25 2012, 02:33 AM
Ka-ching!
MahFL
Sep 25 2012, 10:22 AM
When I look at thos pages with Firefox all I see is a background grid.
abalone
Sep 25 2012, 10:50 AM
Pleasure to give, donation made!
pospa
Sep 25 2012, 10:55 AM
QUOTE (MahFL @ Sep 25 2012, 12:22 PM)
When I look at thos pages with Firefox all I see is a background grid.
Same for me using IE8.
Edit: I guess proxy here at work doesn't like secured http
s page. Will try from home.
vikingmars
Sep 25 2012, 12:02 PM
climber
Sep 25 2012, 01:22 PM
brianc
Sep 25 2012, 02:29 PM
Another lurker you do a fantastic job it's been my daily read since the Spirit landing
$50 contributed via Paypal
elakdawalla
Sep 25 2012, 04:04 PM
Thanks everyone for your generous contributions so far! We're already above $2000 after less than 24 hours!
Regarding the IE8 from work problems: I'm letting the people who do forms know about this -- we'll see if we can figure out a solution.
Climber -- fortunately, our website is not hosted from our office, so it (and my ability to work) are entirely unaffected by the leaky pipe. It's just the people who actually need to use paper -- the membership department and finance officer and so on -- who can't do much this week.
elakdawalla
Sep 25 2012, 04:34 PM
We're wondering if the problem is related to the thermometer, which we haven't used on our forms before. For those of you having trouble accessing it from work, can you see our regular donation form
here?
Holder of the Two Leashes
Sep 25 2012, 05:37 PM
No, just a greenish grid.
stevesliva
Sep 25 2012, 06:41 PM
FF on XP works, IE doesn't for me. IE appears to think the page's HTML is seriously terrible, with nothing in the body. And looking at the HTML, there are several linebreaks in the <body> tag. I saved the HTML from FF, and it's the same there. FF is just tolerating it better. For what it's worth, it appears that FF is highlighting the <body> stuff in red, probably indicating it realizes it's mangled, but is proceeding rather than abending.
elakdawalla
Sep 25 2012, 06:43 PM
We're looking at it and our IT guy says there's a jquery error that's breaking it on IE8. He's trying to fix it.
brellis
Sep 25 2012, 10:24 PM
I made the generous donation of the equivalent of a large pizza at Mama's Brick Oven. That's tangible sacrifice!
Gsnorgathon
Sep 26 2012, 04:50 AM
Should I have gotten an email confirmation? The thermometer went up by the right amount, but I haven't seen a confirming email yet.
Update: got it! It was from Bill Nye himself, so no wonder it was delayed. He's gotta be awfully busy.
jamescanvin
Sep 26 2012, 07:25 AM
50% Great work guys!
Harder
Sep 26 2012, 08:42 AM
Again I donated with pleasure for this truly worthwhile forum activity. After splurging mega-bucks for a 15" MacBook w Retina screen as pre-investment for all the Gale Goodies yet to come a donation of 100$ seemed a good investment anyway
vikingmars
Sep 26 2012, 09:52 PM
USD 100_ donated from home tonight.
Unfortunately the TPS "Donation" webpage shown on my computer at my office shows just a grey page with a fine blue grid... and nowhere to click on...
(please, see :
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...t&p=192078)Thanks Emily for your involvement in the UMSForum
elakdawalla
Sep 26 2012, 10:11 PM
That problem should now be resolved. Can anybody who was formerly having trouble confirm? It should've been confined to IE8. You may need to refresh a few times or shift-F5 to get rid of cached assets.
Astro0
Sep 26 2012, 10:41 PM
The secure page now appears on my screen!!
Thanks Emily.
Let's the donations roll in
nprev
Sep 27 2012, 01:21 AM
Hey, I made an early score! <ka-ching!!!>
vikingmars
Sep 27 2012, 05:53 AM
QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Sep 27 2012, 12:11 AM)
That problem should now be resolved.
Thanks Emily. Now it works from my office as well !
==> By the way, could you, please, be so kind to have the
TPS logo at the bottom of the UMSForum webpages be "clickable".
This would (i) be of a good marketing for visitors and (ii) save time when going to the TPS website...
Thanks a lot in advance and congratulations for your work both at the UMSF and at TPS
pospa
Sep 27 2012, 08:05 AM
QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Sep 27 2012, 12:11 AM)
That problem should now be resolved. Can anybody who was formerly having trouble confirm? It should've been confined to IE8.
Thank you Emily & IT guys, donation page works fine also in IE8 now even with all restriction at my work.
50$ added into purse for this beloved portal - happy to support it.
Thanks to UMSF admins and all contributors for this wonderful place to be still so good and worth of visiting every day!
MahFL
Sep 27 2012, 10:58 AM
I tried to make a donation but the page said my address was not a correct billing address, which is kind of odd.
centsworth_II
Sep 27 2012, 01:39 PM
QUOTE (MahFL @ Sep 27 2012, 06:58 AM)
...page said my address was not a correct billing address...
Same thing happened to me. Turned out the line to enter your state of residence was not marked as required when in fact it is required.
elakdawalla
Sep 27 2012, 04:20 PM
Olivier: done.
MahFL and centsworth: Glad we have you guys to debug our forms! I've sent your comments onward.
We're at 65%! Thanks everyone!
Bjorn Jonsson
Sep 28 2012, 12:46 AM
Donated using IE8 without problems.
elakdawalla
Sep 28 2012, 12:57 AM
And we've passed the 2/3 mark! Hooray!
vikingmars
Sep 28 2012, 05:26 AM
gpurcell
Sep 28 2012, 07:28 PM
Done. Best money I've spent in awhile.
elakdawalla
Sep 29 2012, 06:30 PM
Okay folks, just under $1000 to go. Let's get this done by the end of the weekend! Thanks to all who have donated already.
Gsnorgathon
Sep 29 2012, 06:49 PM
And just to make it easy,
here's the donation link.
nprev
Sep 30 2012, 04:43 PM
And here's a bump: We're at 85%, people, not too far to go. Let's get it done!
Put it to you this way: If we can top the goal by midnight GMT, I'll kick in another $50 just to seal the deal. (If you all knew how cheap I am in real life, you would be truly flabbergasted by this challenge!!!
)
Heck, I'll go one better: If we can reach $6000 by 0001 GMT 2 Oct I'll change my icon to a ballerina in a tutu for a full week!
So, if you can, please donate, if for no other reason than to make a heartless robot cry. I'll both love and hate you for it...
MizarKey
Sep 30 2012, 04:58 PM
I get calls all the time from Firemen, Policemen, Children's hospitals...all good charities and I've had to turn them all down. The last 3-4 years have been very tough on me, government job with no raise in pay but everything else going up up up. Still, I love this forum, so I have added my meager contribution. Long live UMSF!
nprev
Sep 30 2012, 05:45 PM
Thanks very much, Mizar. I'm not a rich guy either, by any means...but UMSF is
so worth it, in so many ways.
elakdawalla
Sep 30 2012, 07:03 PM
"Meager" or "large" is only meaningful in proportion to one's means -- even a dollar or two gets us closer to the goal, but more importantly it helps to show how many people think UMSF is a valuable resource. I don't mind seeing 10, 5, even 1-dollar donations come in -- quite the reverse.
Ordinarily I don't approve of animated gif avatars, but nprev's challenge proved irresistible. If we make the $6000 goal by 0001 GMT on October 2, nprev's avatar will have to be this for the week:
Click to view attachment(Pretty proud of my handiwork there...)
Eyesonmars
Sep 30 2012, 08:09 PM
Emily
The two youngsters in your avatar. Are they yours? If so, when was it taken?
elakdawalla
Sep 30 2012, 08:31 PM
nprev
Sep 30 2012, 08:59 PM
Ant103
Oct 1 2012, 02:05 AM
I would really
love to donate, but I'm traversing hard times
(I'm hosting and feeding by a friend and always looking for a job).
elakdawalla
Oct 1 2012, 02:08 AM
Ant103, you contribute to this forum in the form of your panorama production! Most of the rest of us are here to support people like *you*.
nprev
Oct 1 2012, 02:25 AM
Ant103, what Emily said & more: It's gonna get better; I been there too.
Emily, well done indeed! Open question is if you guys are gonna make me put that thing on my profile??? That might take me down a peg, perhaps even two!!!
elakdawalla
Oct 1 2012, 02:52 AM
Woo! We made the $5000! Thanks everyone! Any extra at this point will go to pay our June bill (another $1000) and support there not being an annoying fundraising drive until a year from now. And if we raise that in 24 hours, bring on the dancing robot.
nprev
Oct 1 2012, 03:04 AM
First off, VERY well done, you guys!!! And even though it's currently almost 0300 GMT 1 Oct, fair is fair; I'm kicking in another $50.
(Sigh)...Joined the Air Force. Went to college. And here I am praying that my avatar on the most respected space exploration forum on the entire Internet will be a dancing robot in a tutu...okay, so yeah, that was TOTALLY the objective all along!!!
Let's just do it.
Eyesonmars
Oct 1 2012, 03:36 AM
And a pink one at that
Way to go npev
djellison
Oct 1 2012, 04:14 AM
Count me down for some pink Tutu action
nprev
Oct 1 2012, 04:40 AM
<fake Italian accent al a Alan Harper from Two And A Half Men>...I'm a-so screwed! </end>
nprev
Oct 1 2012, 07:19 AM
...and, as promised, I kicked in an extra $50 which is now (as an ancillary consequence) gonna put me into pink tutu starting 2 Oct.
Damn...the things I do for UMSF...are never nearly enough.
Please donate if you can.
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