I have some comments about this, maybe the site could be redesigned better? Like not having frames, and killing the refresh on the 'Who's Online' bit. Then have a 'flat' page, and use just CSS to accomplish your design. And then you can have 'Who's online' as a purely flat list, without JavaScript and such. A similar thing goes for the views/challenges/users/online inidcator in the upper right corner. Also if you must have JavaScript in pages (apart from on the JavaScript challenges), keep it in a common .js file, so that every time a page is loaded we do not have to wait for the same code to be downloaded.

With regards to CSS, try looking at other sites, see how they are done (like every single MovableType blog with the standard layout can show you this) and then you won't have lots of table code cluttering the site: tables should be used for tabular data only! Also keep your CSS in a common file too.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you can save on your bandwidth somewhat with a redesign.

Hello
[align=left]
thank you for your hints
Of course we have a css file (http://www.bright-shadows.net/styles.css) which is included in every page and saves a large amount of traffic. And in my opinion the frames are even good because the header and the menu don't have to be reloaded with every new page like it would be necessary with a single-frame-table-site.
Also the JavaScript for the active-users list is in a special file; only the user-data is transmitted, and passing the four numbers for the top-right quick-info doesn't need so much traffic.
In fact, we had a traffic of only 10 GB last month. In my opinion this is not very much as there are many users online here all the time. It's only that our "not-so-kind" host promised in his offer that we may use unlimited traffic. But now he complains about those 10 GB. We are thinking of moving to a new host
Concerning the design I personally am very happy because I'm not a good web designer and it took me like ages to create this site. Now we have a kind of basic-layout here; some kind homogeneous. But of course I'm open to any ideas, hints, tips, requests, what so ever...

bye, Erik [/align]

so, what does constitute the 10Gb traffic ?
seems like a lot to me

whoa 10gigs..............!
thats is a TON !!

<nitpick>Considering a Megagram is also known as a ton, 10 Gigabytes could be referred to as 10 kilotons</nitpick>

--Diskis

i'm just curious, but how much are you paying per month?
not that it's any of my/our business, but a hosting company i use to work at offers a package at $20/mo. and allows 10GB of traffic. of course, there are more expensive "packages" for more bandwidth per month, and/or i think they still offer basic packages with the option of purchasing higher bandwidth quotas.
if this of any interest, just PM me.

well 10gigs a month
mathmatically speaking from a nominal point of view
==
$size = (10 * (2 ^ 30)) ## = 10,737,418,240 bytes = 10 gigs
## consider an average file size of 100 Kilobyes = 100k
$average_file_size = (100 * (2 ^ 10)) ## = 102,400 bytes
## so ($size / $average_file_size) = 104,857.60 files per month.

if ($size < $average_file_size) {
$size = "exceeded";
print "size does matter !\n":
}
else{ print "size is just right\n"; }
end;

A little design improvment for hackchallenge.php:
Loose the JavaScript for rollover highlight. Instead put this in your CSS (well, something like this):

.challengetable {
width: 100%;
background-color: #000;
}

.challengetable td, .challengetable a {
background-color: #444;
color: orange;
font-weight: normal;
}

.challengetable td:hover, .challengetable a:hover {
background-color: #000;
color: #fff;
font-weight: bold;
}

then for the HTML:

<table class="challengetable">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1: <a href="challenge1.php">Challenge Sample 1</a></td>
<td><a href="solved.php?item=1">30</a></td>
<td>Solved</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2: <a href="challenge2.php">Challenge Sample 2</a></td>
<td><a href="solved.php?item=2">20</a></td>
<td>Unsolved</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3: <a href="challenge3.php">Challenge Sample 3</a></td>
<td><a href="solved.php?item=3">17</a></td>
<td>Unsolved</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Konqueror and Gecko browsers at least will render the rollovers a lot faster this way, and you won't have all the onMouseOver and onMouseOut JavaScripts you're using now. And I know its not exactly the same as the current design and incomplete... its only an example

I'm setting up a home server soon, around 1 month's time.
If all goes well, I may be able to offer some form of free hosting
Meanwhile, I have a site (sgcpc.org) with lots of bandwidth not used, so I can offer to host around 2-4 challenges now.

Hiya,

I thin tbs and Erik should know where the traffic comes from, they have logfiles and stuff. So analyzing the Logfiles would be a good start to decrease traffic and optimze the corrct things. If there are no log files, a quick implementation of some page-reqest counter in PHP can be done the manually keep track of the traffic

If the Traffic increased only the last month maybe RHC2 is kinda responisble for this ?! I mean if everyone here did a port scan (like me) on the 2nd URL and used AccessDiver to try to find some standard webserver files (like me) this will increase traffic alot.

On the other hand..here are about 2000 Users...lets say 1500 are active and there are very few graphics (including stegano) which got cached anyway, and crackme usually got downloaded one time, so I dont really understand where 10GB come from

ray