ValueMD Users and Guests:

Hello all. I hope everyone is enjoying their ValueMD experience thus far. Some may have noticed some server delays and downtime over the last few days. Although we expect some similar delays for a little while longer, we will be working on a temporary solution until we can afford to move to our own dedicated server. The problem is that we’re continuing to grow at an astronomical pace which has been beyond any of our imaginations. Within our first couple of months, ValueMD beat out the #1 rated IMG site at the time (our own older Network54 version of this site) to become the #1 site on most search engines under many categories including “foreign medical schools”. Since then, we’ve been rapidly climbing up the charts in other categories as well, such as USMLE and Residency topics. In addition, our free downloads have been accessed by thousands of users. In total, our average numbers to-date (June 4, 2003) have been around 1000 unique visitors per day, 15,000 impressions per day, 100,000 total unique visitors, nearly 2500 registered users and over 10,000 posts….and rising. For a site which is just over 4 months old, these numbers are unbelievable.

Most websites that are fortunate enough to reach these numbers usually do so over a long period of time and, therefore, more easily adjust to the financial and technical issues involved with such growth. Although we started our banner campaign nearly two months ago, this relatively small income has not been enough to provide enough funds for our growing needs. In addition, because we are not about making profits, we absolutely refuse to sell out to “pop-up” advertisers, spammers and businesses unrelated to medical education. In fact, we only accept about 1 out of every 50 potential sponsors who request to advertise on ValueMD. We also refuse to require fees for the use of our services.

So where does the money come from? While a small percentage has come from our banner ad campaign, most funding to-date has come from the generous donations of the Site Administrators, especially Hanson. However, the desired server, which should take care of our growth for some time, is estimated to cost a significant amount of money, so we will need help in raising these funds. We have an idea of how to do this while still providing our services for free. So if you feel that ValueMD has been helpful and you’re interested in giving something back, you can help in any of the following ways:

• 1. If you were already planning to make a purchase from one of our sponsors, such as Amazon, Kaplan, Allheart, Palm, ExamMaster, Handspring, Travelocity, etc., please use our links to make the purchases. These particular sponsors pay a small percentage of the sales received from the links on our website. For example, Allheart is the largest and cheapest medical supply store. They give us $2.50 per sale regardless of whether it’s a $10 pair of scrubs or a $100 stethoscope. Many other companies give much higher commission, but Allheart offers the best prices for our users by far. So we’ll sacrifice the commission to provide you with the best sponsors available.
  
  2. If you’re interested in finding out about health insurance for international students, click on the link provided or the ISI banner to get information from our sponsor. This particular sponsor pays 10 cents per click (not much but it helps), and is the only sponsor right now which we have on a pay-per-click basis. Again, although other insurance sponsors offered more commission, we went with this company because they had the best prices and reputation and also were most recommended by users.
  
  3. Since one of our main goals is to sponsor deprived children in 3rd world countries (see our charity page for more info), we decided to take up this task before we even had the funds to pay for it. If you would like to help us sponsor this charity or would like to directly contribute to our site, you can make direct donations using credit cards, checks, etc. via PayPal. Just click on this link.
  
  4. And finally, as most of you have already done, the best way to help this site is by providing helpful information for our users. This can be done in a variety of ways including donating files to our free download library, answering questions of prospective students, becoming a moderator, asking your school officials to get involved, filling out some residency program reviews, etc. After all, the primary goal of ValueMD is to provide a FREE platform for the exchange of helpful information.

Most of our sponsors were recommended by the ValueMD users and were selected for their ability to provide the best prices for the relevant needs of our users. If you find better deals or would like to see a particular sponsor, let us know and we’ll try to set it up. But please understand that we’re not trying to get you to buy unnecessary items from our sponsors….we simply ask that if you were already going to make these purchases anyway, please use our links so that the site can get credit for the purchase. For example, almost everyone preparing for the USMLE will purchase QBank anyway, so why not purchase it via the link on our site?

Thanks to all of the Users, Moderators, Officials, Sponsors and Guests for helping to make ValueMD such a great success. Let us know if there’s anything that we can do to help you have a more enjoyable experience. Thanks and enjoy the site!

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Doc
Site Administrator

Attention Users:

Please note that we will be experiencing downtime over the weekend due to maintenance of our server and a possible upgrade. We're currently debating whether to perform a quicker temporary fix or a longer and much more expensive server upgrade. The latter will obviously ensure faster speeds and less future downtime. However, it will also mean more immediate downtime and a big financial investment . Any thoughts on this?

We apologize for the inconvenience that this maintenance might cause and we hope that everyone will understand. We will try to post server updates as they become available on this thread. Thanks to all for your continued support and patience.

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Doc
Site Administrator

Attention users:

We've obviously decided on the full server upgrade as the best long term solution to accommodate our current and future growth. This move to our new server should be complete sometime on Monday night. Therefore, we expect server delays, downtime, and bugs sporadically throughout the move as we perform this scheduled maintenance required for this move.

Again, we apologize for the inconvenience, but we feel that this move will prove to be beneficial for everyone in the long run. Thanks for your patience.

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Doc
Site Administrator

Attn Users:

Well it's Monday night and, as promised, we've completed our move to a much better server. This new server has 6 times more disk space, capacity for 3 times as much data transfer, and a 99.8% uptime guarentee.....of course it will cost us 7 times as much as our last upgrade , but I'm sure everyone will agree that the improved performance is well worth it . All that's left now is to figure out a way to pay for it .

Thanks in most part to Hanson's hard work throughout the weekend, we've had minimal downtime and delays throughout the move. And most of the bugs have been fixed very shortly after they've been reported. But if anyone notices any other bugs that may have occured during the upgrade, please let one of us know.

Thanks for your patience throughout this upgrade and we hope that you're enjoying your ValueMD experience!

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Doc
Site Administrator

Hello everyone,

The server upgrade is over. http://www.EZHostplace.com was really nice in helping us move our site over to their facility. They also promised to look after our website for possible server overload and take actions before it does happen.

Like Doc said, they are very reliable with 99.8% uptime and great support.

Thank you everyone for being patient during the moving process. We are in good hands with EZHostplace.com now.

Thank you,
Hanson

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Hanson Nguyen, MD
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