>Hello John, I am curious about the cost of implementing with Rick's Web Connection. You can't just thow this out on a virtually hosted site can you? It seems like you have to own the server and at minimum co-locate with an ISP. Am I understanding this correctly? So I guess my question is, what are the perfromance gains compared to the costs?
>
>I downloaded the demo and really like what I saw. I have a Web project coming in the near future and am looking at my options.
>
>Thanks fo rany further insight,
>
>Dean

An alternative is to find someone to host your application which will lessen the cost, but I'm a control freak on these kinds of issues. It's also much easier to support if you can put your hands on the hardware. Here's the minimum you will need to run the server from your site:

1. A pipe to the internet (ISDN, cablemodem, etc.) I have an ISDN line through Bell South. As things pickup, I will upgrade to ADSL or something else. $30 per month

2. A dedicated IP address and domain name. Attained through internic. I think the cost is around 100.00 and there's an annual update fee after the first two years. This cost is negligible.

3. An ISP to host the ip address. I pay around $200 per month.

4. The hardware - NT Server 4.0 with IIS 4. I am in the process of upgrading to a home built Pentium II 300 with 128 meg ram and about 10 gig of disk. Cost with me building it was less than 1500.00. I have a Motorola ISDN Bitsurfer Pro that I bought reconditioned for a little over $100 and will be moving to a Pipeline Ascend soon.

Once you get over the initial hardware costs, the other charges on the low end aren't that bad.