As I have hinted at before, Dan and I have decided that we will move the actual podcast files away from this server. Since we started the show, our bandwith usage has been steadily growing, including a quite dramatic jump around the time we released episode 7. To give you a feel for the numbers, here’s the raw bandwith we pushed since I set up the site:

• August (starting on the 25th): 17.2 MB
• September: 4.27 GB
• October: 65.63 GB
• November (at the time of writing): 21.28 GB

While we can comfortably support the current bandwith on this server, it isn’t hard to forsee that we will outgrow it quite quickly at this pace. I have therefore set up an account with Libsyn to host the media files for the podcast, starting with the next episode which I am in the process of editing right now. We are currently on the “Podcast Standard” plan, which will give us 250 MB of hosting per month with unlimited bandwith for $10 a month. This change will not affect the way you get the show at all. The show notes will still be here on the site along with a Flash player to stream the show directly. The address for the RSS feed will also not change. This stuff happens purely behind the scenes and shouldn’t concern you, the listeners, at all.

Since Dan is already donating time and his hosting space to produce this show and I am paying for Libsyn and also off-site backup for the production files, I will set up a PayPal account especially for Linux Outlaws and put a donation button on the site. I do not expect anyone to donate, but if you do enjoy the show and have one or two bucks to spare, Dan and I would appreciate it very much. I am being purposefully open with our expenses here and I do guarantee that the money we receive from donations will only be spend on the Libsyn fees and further down the road maybe on some hardware that is immediately used to produce the show (like a USB harddisk to back up the audio files in addition to the off-site solution). I hope you will agree that this is a fair arrangement since I really don’t want to put any advertising on the site or the show itself if I don’t absolutely have to.

I am really happy that the number of listeners seem to grow steadily and I think that this step is a very good sign. Outgrowing our cradle like this proves that there is definitely a lot of interest in this kind of show and as long as that holds true, Dan and I are more than happy to continue doing what we do. Please tell your friends and co-workers about the podcast (now that we have the Libsyn setup it’s gotta pay off, after all) and keep writing us encouraging feedback like we are getting on an almost daily basis now.