New Theme proposal & other stuff

["Aaron D. Turner" <aturner@best.com>]

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My friend Mike has been doing the art thing again...

"My last final is Monday, the 21st.  After that I would be happy to work
on a new, brighter theme.  ...  [This one] Might still be a bit dark
though. I envision a logo of some sort above the navigation text on the
right side."

The proportioning on this one needs work IMHO, but it might give people
some ideas what they'd like.  As always, feel free to email Mike any
suggestions/idea you might have.

http://www.best.com/~aturner/LKB/rhlufaq5.jpg

- -- Roger, you may want to stop reading at this point ;-) --

Hold on while I get into my flame-proof suit....  ok.

On thing I should add is we need to decide on a non-popular subject that
will impact the design.  Ad banners or no ad banners?  I know no one
*likes* banners, but $$$ is a good thing when you want more hardware.  
VAR and other corporate supporters won't always be so ready to give
something for virutally nothing. Having $$$ in the bank *before* we need
it is a good thing.  I for one don't have extra cash laying around that I
can dontate to the site.  Setting up a not for profit org isn't that
difficult.  Also, a lot of Linux/OSS related sites now have ads: lwn.net,
Linux Today, Linux World, slashdot.org etc.

No ad banners means we have to make space on the site for a VA Research
logo and a NaviSite logo on the main page- neither of which we will make
any $$$ on.

While I'm on the money subject, Computer Literacy has a nice deal going
where web sites like ours can get $$$ off of referals.  I mentioned having
book reviews (many people ask what is a good book on ...).  An easy way to
make $$$ would be to link to CL so people after reading our review could
purchase a copy.

http://www1.clbooks.com/affiliates/home.cl

for more info.  One thing to consider about this is that it is far less
intrusive than ads and less likely to turn people off.  

Another way we can help offset costs of the site is to charge compaines a
nominal fee to list in the BizFinder.  25 to $100/year/company isn't much
to ask even from one guy working out of his garage, but multiplied by X =
plenty of $$$.  And it doesn't alienate our users.

Remember if the site is sucessful, we will have a powerful way to make
money for the good of Linux/OSS.  We would be able to purchase hardware so
we could mirror/host other projects which need server space/bandwidth.  
There seems to be an enormous need right now for this sort of thing.
(kernel.org and the GGI-project are two examples in the past two days)

Also, I would not expect that NaviSite will give us unlimited bandwidth
forever.  If we start using significant bandwidth they will expect us to
help offset their costs in the matter- my wheeling and dealing can only
get us so far for so long. 

Later...

- -- 
Aaron Turner           | Either which way, one half dozen or another. 
aturner@pobox.com      | Check out the Red Hat Linux User's FAQ Online!
www.pobox.com/~aturner | http://www.pobox.com/~aturner/RedHat-FAQ/
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