This is a busy place

The LED forum has exceeded 20,000 posts. The General forum isn't too far behind. The bandwidth usage floors some people when I tell them. I guess 20+ GB/month is a lot.

I started this thinking I could get maybe 500 of us together and talk a little bit. The info posted is now more than I can keep up with. I used to be able to read every single thread and every single post before bed time. Not any more!

I've probably bought more lights than I would have without the forum. This has been a great influence. And a great pastime for me just to read about what's new and what you guys are building.

I was surprised how important this forum is to some people. Not life critical. But for information and entertainment. Every change I've done to smooth things around here has been met with emails of "please don't shut the forum down".

There was a time I was going to fold up my tent and go home. The internet was taking too much of my time and interfered with family. I think I've found balance.

The 2nd possibility was handing it over to someone. There was a short list of 2 who I could trust to keep it going the way it was. I never approached anyone.

If improvements seem too slow coming around here, please understand I need time. I'm balancing between family, work and CPF. Some projects are an all day thing. The next one is switching servers. From Windows to Unix. I need a day. It will take about 10 minutes to switch. But getting the forum up and running again is a big question. I could only need a few minutes. I could need a day. I need to do this so I have more control over upgrades.

Right now, whenever I need to upgrade the forum I have to email or call the webhost. They set the permissions for me. Then I can upload and update the BB program files. This is a pain. That's why I need to change.

Any questions? Comments?

P.S. March is turning out to be the busiest month ever. There are over 400,000 pageviews in the forum. Unfortunately, besides me, only Brock can see this by logging onto the control panel. This is the most we've had since I've been keeping an eye on it.

David the Bossman. I am relatively new here but I find your website to be one of the most honest place to get info on anything that lights up. I am happy you didn't pack up the tent and call it quits. Almost all the members are give insight and are a pleasure to converse with. The one exception is that Darell fellow.

Wow David.

The amazing part about this forum is that even though it has grown rapidly, it hasn't disintegrated into the standard Flamefest of Losers that so many other sites suffer. You've done a truly great thing here, and please know that any of my complaining is supposed to be constructive criticism. I have no problem with slow change, as long as you don't mind me voicing opinions on where the change should be headed.

This is a great group of knowledgeable, nice, humorous people that you've managed to assemble. You should be proud of what you've accomplished in such a short time.

This is an editorial. The opinions expressed here may or may not coincide with those expressed by the majority. It is worth $0.02 and not a penny more.

Candlepower Forums: Don't put a lid on it.
This website is the first one I visit each morning, and the last one I visit before hanging it up for the night. I have the CPF home page up before the first drop of coffee falls out of the coffeemaker, and I'll have probably gone through several pages before the shower has gotten warm enough to get in or before I've even retrieved the morning newspaper off the front stoop.

Without CPF, I doubt I'd have a third of the flashlights you see on my website, and none of those cool mods with the pee-green Luxeon or the little baby Brinkmann, and I would have never thought of building "The Toylet" in a bit of friendly competition that would have never happened anywhere else. That project would have gotten me laughed right off any other BBS, along with Chris M's "Merferator" and some of the other outlandish projects that have graced CPF's pages over the last couple of years.

Without CPF I'd never have made so many friends & acquaintences who share a similar interest in flashlights (torches), LEDs, and other light-emitting devices. CPF'ers come from all walks of life. Some live in shacks, some in mansions, some in the "PJs", some in the typical American suburban home with the white picket fence out front. Some CPFers have just one or two flashlights, while others have literally hundreds of them. Some live "off the grid", some "on the grid". Some get 3 channels on a 32" TV, and others get 500 channels on a 13" set. Some have large families, while others have none at all. Some are on 9600BPS dial-ups, others have DSL or even faster. We've got flashlight makers (Arc Flashlight, Eternalight, Surefire, etc.) and flashlight users (that would be the rest of us). And this website brings them all together for one very basic reason: we're all looking for a better flashlight!!! Whether that means making your own, or having a manufacturer make it for you; eg. the Arc series, which would never have existed had it not been for Candlepower Forums. That is without a doubt "OUR" flashlight.

Today was kind of a bummer, because CPF was down. But I knew it wouldn't stay down forever, so here I am again. But it would be a very dark day indeed if Candlepower Forums ceased to exist. And no flashlight in the world could make up for its absence.

Thank you David, for devoting all the time and resources you do to keep Candlepower Forums operating at 681 lumens per watt.

$0.02

.... and I meant to add - what Craig said.

- Darell

Surely none of us are on a 9600BPS connection! Been there, done that. Yes, I get the point.

Without first Brock's site and then CPF, I would still be living in a land of mags because myself and most of us are just not exposed to the higher end flashlight's thru our local retail outlets. Nevermind owning them but not even knowing they exist.

It is a lot to expect from David to keep this forum going by his own efforts amongst it's seemingly mindboggling exponential expansion. If he decided he no longer wanted to own and lead this great forum, hopefully there would be the will and technical knowledge to keep it going. I think financially there appears to be enough interest (at least from some people who can afford an EV ha, ha).

So whatever happens, long live CPF!

I have to admit, this is one of very few sites I visit daily and this is the only site I actively participate in on a regular basis.

Great job David

Wow! After reading Craig's post I don't think I could ever dream of shutting this place down.

Don't sweat it guys. I'll do what I can from now on to keep it going.

David...

Be sure to do whatever is necessary to protect your sanity and your private life, but please don`t ever lose sight of the real joy that you have brought to those of us who truly look forward to visiting your site each and every day.

Our world, as we know it, would instantly become a very drab and bleak place to live if we couldn`t visit the CPF.

SO...we owe you much for this gift known as the CPF. Please let us know what we can now do to help you.

Long live your...and our...CPF!

Best wishes to you.

Hey David I can see that? I am missing out on all the cool stuff I could be seeing I bet

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geepondy:
(at least from some people who can afford an EV ha, ha).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey! I heard that.

Ironically, it is mostly due to the inexpensive lease and operating cost of my $million EV that allows me to afford my flashlight addiction, and to donate small amounts to the CPF. The EV is the cheapest car I've EVER driven, and the highest performance. But I digress (as usual).

Just reading what Carpe wrote there made me imagine what it would be like around here without the CPF. Where the heck would I get ten new light ideas per day? Where would I find somebody on the other side of the world to split money-saving orders with me? Where would I find manufacturers and dealers to become friends with? Where would I find somebody to put my head on a cow? I can't believe how much I've gotten out of this site. The generosity of the active members of this site is astonishing (you know who you are, and I thank you again!)

Dang - I'm feeling a group-hug creeping up on me again...

As far as I know and correct me if I am wrong but this is the only flaslight BB (not including SF) that is open to suggestions of all makes and models. I also was like geepondy just living in a land of mags and then I found this site and within a few months I already have 5 SF lights and numerous Arc's and would feel empty without my CPF. All because you had the forsight to have a place where fellow people like yourself can say we are addicted and have people understand.

Gee, I have mixed feelings about this- If CPF were closed down, I might actually get something done--- On a slow day I probably average an hour here.... sometimes double that.

But then with my hermit-like tendancies, if it were not for CPF my only contact with other people would be the store clerk and the UPS man.

Thank you very much David. Whatever it takes, please keep this thing running.

Wow, 20gb! I guestimate that your bill is equal to several expensive flashlights a month.

Thank you David for your constant gift to us.

Peter Gransee

Brock, go here and login using your BB name and password. It will be listed in the "Current Status of CandlePowerForums" info box. Right now we're at 412,986 page views for the forum.

Peter, I would have a lot more ARCs if I didn't have this monthly bill to pay. Wait a minute... I probably wouldn't know about your lights without CPF.

I just noticed that on the login page, I never noticed it before. How do you keep track of how much is used, ie 20 gig. Or do you just rely on the ISP for that?

as ifinger my new arc ls i try to think of life without cpf -and cant or dont want to i dont know which .
thank you for all you do. please pm me your address and ill send a free uv p3 mod and 4"x4" of extreme glo your way. I'm serious- with out this forum i would be lost.

Shortly after I got Internet access, I entered some torch-related terms in a search engine.
Eventually, that led me to Brock's site.
And then on to CPF.

It seemed like a World of Wonder.
I couldn't believe it.
There were about 259 other people in the world who knew about flashlights, and were happy to share their knowledge. It was a new dimension.

Since then, I've found out more about the subject than I thought there was to know, puzzled over some posts that needed real concentration to understand, and also, spluttered coffee over the keyboard with a few jokes I've read here.

I know I've still just begun to learn.

Our field of interest is perhaps small, but nonetheless has quite a few Eminents.
When *The Book* is written, Great Leader, your name will feature in it as a True Pioneer.

Fanks from the UK, Guv'ner,

lightlover

Thanks for the kind words and offers. Aragorn I've been thinking about getting a UV light to check for funny money.

Brock, that is only the pageviews of this forum. It does not cover the flashlight links or frontpage. I have to get the bandwidth from my webhost. But everytime I ask they seem to match very closely. Meaning high pageviews equals high bandwidth for the month. As much hits as the links gets it's nothing compared to the forum itself.

I was signed up for a stats page. But I have to do the upkeep myself. By deleting the old files and such. It's not something I can remember to do so I took it off. Because it was taking up my allotted disk space when the files built up from neglect.