Lots of new stuff!

[Scott Greczkowski]

Hey guys, as you might have noticed over the past few days we have added a bunch of new things to SatelliteGuys, and I would like to take a moment to tell you about them all.

First and foremost we now have a new HDNet forum and are also proud to have Mark Cuban from HDNet dropping in from time to time letting us know whats going on at HDNet. I find it amazing that Mark has already taken up a lot of his time answering you questions about him, HDTV and HDNet!

Secondly today we added a new forum for members to talk about their favorite electronic gizmos, this forum is called the Gadget Corner. This looks like it will be a fun forum so come on by and let us know what you new favorite electronic toy is!

As you might have noticed we have added a new electronic ticker at the top of the screen, we will use this from time to time to let you know important things going on at SatelliteGuys, since not everyone reads the front page regularly. The ticker is a work in progress, so if you have any ideas or suggestions please let us know.

We have added a pager service here at SatelliteGuys which lets you instant message other members and have real time conversations just like you would on an instant messanger. A number of users have been using it and they seem to enjoy it. If you would rather not have people IM you on SatelliteGuys you can turn off the pager feature from the options menu in the user control panel.

We have recently made the Blog feature available to EVERYONE, so here is your chance to have your own little slice of the web! You can start you own Blog by clicking on the Members Blog Icon in the navigation menu.

Another feature we added is one that a few people have asked me about and that was the ability to give gifts of SatelliteGuys pub memberships to other members. Now you can give a gift pub membership subscription to any SatelliteGuys member! To do this just look at the members profile and click on the link to give a gift pub membership.

I should note that all gift memberships are anonymous so if you want the recipiant to know that you gave them the pub membership you should PM them with the news.

We feel this is a great way to get a friend in to see all the great stuff we have in the pub and it also helps us keep the lights on.

We are working on some more things as well so as always... STAY TUNED!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

[pie]By the way, if you have any suggestions or ideas for us, we would LOVE to hear them![/pie]

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Hey I got a question for you guys. I have had a number of people want to donate to the site but do not want to use Paypal.

I can understand that and respect it.

I was just offered from my bank a credit card terminal for $20 a month and a 2% processing fee which means I could directly take credit cards.

Do you think its worth me getting one of these units?

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[BrianMis]

Scott, I know a little about this area as it is one of the services my company offers to it's clients.

The terminal fee is standard for the industry. The processing fees take a little more looking at. The 2% is probably the Visa interchange rate, this again is standard in the industry. But there are other fees associated with credit card processing. There are transaction fees, per transaction fees, settlement fees. Also since you will not be swiping the majority or any of the cards, (I am taking this for granted) the transaction fees will be higher than if you were swiping them. You would be classified as MOTO (Mail Order/Telephone Order) these types of merchants always pay a higher rate.

One of my clients, with 40 retail locations plus a mail order operation pays total fees of 2.35% for swipped transactions, and fees of 3.57% for non swipped transactions.

Don't get me wrong it is a good idea, as it gives us another way to support the site.

Just know what you are getting into, accepting credit cards opens up a whole new world of possibilities. But it can also open up a whole world of potential problems and liability.

 

[Ilya]

Scott, Paypal now offers credit card processing too. It no longer requires Paypal account to make any paments (just the credit card number, which is entered through their secure site). And there are no setup or monthly fees - only transaction fees.

 

[korsjs]

i think people want somewhere to mail a money order or check.

 

[philhu]

[pie]By the way, if you have any suggestions or ideas for us, we would LOVE to hear them![/pie]

what happenned to Satellite guys RADIO?

I loved it!

 

[Foxbat]

i think people want somewhere to mail a money order or check.

That's how I paid, I PM'd Scott and sent him a Cashier's Check made out to SatelliteGuys.US...

 

[navy8ball]

[pie]By the way, if you have any suggestions or ideas for us, we would LOVE to hear them![/pie]

i use mozilla browser and when your page loads up i then click on the new posts button and then i use the scroll button on my mouse to click any additional pages that are there. if you could put a mark all forums read button at the bottom of the page i wouldnt have to scroll back to the top of the page to the quick links section to use the mark forums read button thats located there. thanks bj

 

[philhu]

Ahem.....

Satellite Guys Radio?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I don't believe SatelliteGuys radio will be coming back anytime soon. I enjoyed doing it but the real reason it went away is bandwidth. When we were going it we were paying for 1.5 terrabytes of data transfer a month.

The site at that time was only transfering 30 gig a month so we had lots of extra bandwidth available to do the Radio Station. Now we are using almost all of that 1.5 terabytes of data transfer each month, so that's why it is gone.

With that said it may be possible in the future it could come back as we continue to grow and we will be forced to buy more blocks of bandwidth.

So never say never.

 

[Jamey K]

That's how I paid, I PM'd Scott and sent him a Cashier's Check made out to SatelliteGuys.US...

I did PayPal. I LOVE Paypal

 

[navychop]

Well, I think you would not find it worth your while to go the credit card route. Too few transactions at too low a dollar amount. We do maybe a couple of credit payments per week at my company, using computer software, not a terminal. We do this only because some customers demand it.

I did not join the pub earlier because I did not want to use PayPal, with all the security concerns. Well, I finally broke down and signed up with PayPal and then joined the Pub. But I would have joined earlier if you had an address where I could send a check. So you may be losing money by not having that method of payment.

Between PayPal and checks, I think you'll be covered.

 

[BobMurdoch]

Could you bring back the "New Dish Network Posts" button (you had it via the the drop down menu on New Posts).

50% of the posts are on D* issues or cable companies that don't interest me. Instead of manually going through every forum, can you bring back that filter?

 

[timmy1376]

As you might have noticed we have added a new electronic ticker at the top of the screen, we will use this from time to time to let you know important things going on at SatelliteGuys, since not everyone reads the front page regularly. The ticker is a work in progress, so if you have any ideas or suggestions please let us know.

I am not a paying member, so I have NO right to complain, but if you want feedback, I personally do not like the ticker at all.

 

[Mr Tony]

Could you bring back the "New Dish Network Posts" button (you had it via the the drop down menu on New Posts).
50% of the posts are on D* issues or cable companies that don't interest me. Instead of manually going through every forum, can you bring back that filter?

yes please add that. It was nice to find Dish, FTA, and whatever one you wanted without navigating through every forum

 

[n0qcu]

Could you bring back the "New Dish Network Posts" button (you had it via the the drop down menu on New Posts).
50% of the posts are on D* issues or cable companies that don't interest me. Instead of manually going through every forum, can you bring back that filter?

You can go to the bottom of the options page and exclude all the forums you do not want to see.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/profile.php?do=editoptions

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I will try my best to do all of them if I can as soon as possible.

I have fixed the SatelliteGuys Site Update so it resizes properly (Thanks to SImpleSimon for that fix)

 

[KimmiKat]

I agree. Only reason I have a screen reader on my computer and it throws it in a loop. I had to tweak FireFox to filter it out like the green underline stuff.

I am not a paying member, so I have NO right to complain, but if you want feedback, I personally do not like the ticker at all.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I will try my best to do all of them if I can as soon as possible.

I have fixed the SatelliteGuys Site Update so it resizes properly (Thanks to SImpleSimon for that fix)

Well, not quite - I missed this:

<code>&lt;marquee direction="left" width="820" scrolldelay="140"></code>

I think it'll be fine once that 820 is gone.

Thanks!