Forum Announcements

Email Issue at HTspot

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:46:33 GMT

It looks like in the past HomeTheaterSpot.com has had email issues.

You can help by asking your Abuse@yourdomain.com admin to allow our emails through.

Check your email junk folder too.

We are working to clean up HTSpot's email reputation going forward. Luxury Publishing Group has a CLEAN reputation and uses Vertical Response so 99% of the newsletter and direct email goes through. We will work to clean up the direct emailing going forward as we had no part in the past "best practices".....

the server changed - no worroies

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:42:48 GMT

This is old stuff. No worries.

Luxury Publishing Group has your back at HTSPot....

j

There is a new server for HTR PLUS a new look.

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:41:51 GMT

Enjoy the new speed of HTR.

Luxury Publishing Group Inc. has invested in a FAST BOX. It should be MUCH more speedy.

Return of the first First Amendment at HomeTheaterSpot.com

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:40:43 GMT

Gone is the old ownership and their right-wing oppression on your First First Amendment rights.

We've returned many of George Carlin's 7 words back to the lexicon here at The Spot.

We encourage you to use them carefully.

For example - calling someone a douce bag isn't acceptable but saying a product is a piece of ******* is now acceptable.

Let's test this to see if us liberals are justified in these new rights or if Paul was right in banning you in using the term *******. ******* - I say!!! *******.

New Owner Making Major Site Upgrades

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:29:30 GMT

Happy Sunday,

In case you can't tell - we are making some major changes at HomeTheaterSpot.com.

Some of the improvements include:
• a faster server
• Upgrades to the latest FBB software
• a complete reorg of the categories
• new ad code
• mending fences with popular former moderators.
• adding in new posters and moderators from the HomeTheaterReview.com and former AVRev.com staff.

Longer term things:
• improving browser compatibility specifically in Safari for Mac users
• making sure our new server's IP isn't blacklisted so that your Spot emails come into your email box.

There's much more. Our hand was FORCED by the former owner over the image of his dog which we were rushed to pull down. It was coming down anyway but it made us hurry with the unveiling of the new HTspot. Bare with us - there is a LOT of good stuff coming.

Also - if you would - download Google Toolbar and Alexa Sparky for your Firefox as that helps tell those services that you are reading the Spot. HTspot was once a mighty site and with your help we can bring it back. Just in Alexa ranking (3 month average) we've gotten it down from 800k to 674,000 in about 2 weeks. Clearly, people are coming back in volume. Under 100k is the key number. AVS Forum is at like 3500 - how's that for a lofty goal?

All the best!!!!

Jerry

Home Theater Spot Store

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:35:32 GMT

Grand Re-Opening.� The Home Theater Spot Store.� Click Here and help support the SPoT.

Along with our Group Buy areas, we now have a Store through Amazon.Com for everyday shopping.� Every little bit helps keep the SPoT going and your support is greatly appreciated.

The State of the SPoT - Membership Drive

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:07:25 GMT

Well, I have not banged the membership drum in some time but it looks like the time has come to have to do it again. Because of the economy I have really put off having a membership pledge drive and have not done one in several years. It has hit me just as hard as everyone else here on the SPoT. It has probably been the worst time to ever ask this of anyone.

A little history on Club SPottie Memberships; I first started the SPoT 10 years ago as a place to post my tweaks to my 1st Generation Mitsubishi 65903. Being first generation there were significant issues with this TV. After battling Mitsubishi over the issue for months, I finally jumped in and fixed it myself. At least as best as possible with what they gave us. Soon after a lot of people found out and emailed me for directions to fix their sets. Thus the SPoT was born. We were just a few core members and as we grew members kept asking me to add areas and we just kind of kept growing.

When we hit about 3,000 members, I got a call from my provider saying I was violating all the rules on the community server and our traffic was so high that we were crashing the other sites that shared our server. The alternative was to close the SPoT or go to a Dedicated Server. The problem was a 12-month lease commitment of about $4,500. Well, it was something I could not afford to do and I made the announcement that I had to close. Then members suggested taking memberships. I didn’t think it would work but I said OK. Well, I was wrong, members stepped up to the plate and chipped in and I was able to commit to the lease.

Since then, memberships have been the primary source of revenue to cover the costs of running the SPoT, and as we kept growing so did our needs. Pretty soon we needed two servers which cost even more. I had to pay Website Design, Maintenance, State Taxes, Federal Taxes, Accounting Fees and even employment at one time. As we grew so did memberships so that at least helped, but it again was not enough and it was very hard for me to keep asking the members to contribute more. I started taking on some advertising and that helped as well. Although the problem with advertising was that members then felt they did not need to contribute. Unfortunately the math did not work out that way to support that theory.

Anyway that is how the SPoT works. Unfortunately with the downturn in the Economy, the SPoT has been hit fairly hard. A lot of members have lost their jobs or their jobs have been cut back. Memberships are way down and we have lost all of our small Boutique Sponsors who for years supported us here. Because of the economy they have also had to cut back. It was impossible to get any support from the large companies. Mitsubishi for years threatened lawsuits against me, for having cost them over 2 million a year in additional warranty claims. Let’s face it the big boys didn’t like us tweaking their TV’s.

To make a long story short, we are coming up on our 10th year here on the SPoT. We have a lot of issues that need to be fixed around here. Our server is all screwed up; our email newsletter is not getting to everyone because we didn’t have the proper DNS and SPF records set up. This also caused issues with new members signing up because they never got the confirmation notice because providers like yahoo, Google, msn, Comcast, and Bellsouth were blocking the emails. I also did not get emails from members in many cases in customer support. While I have fixed most of the issues in recent days this is still a problem in some cases.

The Spot is not my primary business, when we have fallen short in funds, my other business as an Estate Planner, allowed me to cover the shortfalls. Well due to the Economy, my Estate Planning business has really taken a hit so I can longer do that. So in order to move forward into the next 10 years, the support of the members would really be appreciated once again.

I am working on membership rewards to make it worth the $25 annual club bronze membership. A bronze membership works out to just $2 a month but it goes a long way in helping us continue to help provide you information when you need it. This will help cover the upcoming lease, the upgrade of the forum software, and additional features members have been asking me to provide.

Thanks for listening and I hope that many of you will continue to support the SpoT or that those who have been sitting on the fence will step up to the plate and become a Club SPottie Member.

Happy Birthday Winston!

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:02:05 GMT

Happy 14th Birthday Winston!

Server Changes this weekend. Expect some down time.

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:08:47 GMT

We are making some changes to our server this weekend. There may be some issues with getting on the site as we are changing our Name Server with our IP. We were using our host and now we are setting it to our dedicated server. This should help clear up some of the email issues we have been having.

Problems with blocked Emails from HomeTheaterSpot.Com

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:12:42 GMT

In preperation for the site revamp, I have been working on our server configuration and some issues have come to light.

Email issues. It looks like our Provider had our email system setup incorrectly on several levels. They have made changes to our DNS records and our SMPT logs as well. We still have issues that need to be worked out.

If you have not been getting notifications or if you have recently tried to sign up and not got notifications, this is probably the reason why.

Known providers we are working on getting us fixed with.

MSN/Hotmail

Comcast.Net

Bellsouth.Net

AOL

If you are using these providers, this is the reason you are currently having problems.

Yahoo and Gmail seem to be fine. If have an account with the bad providers above and have a Yahoo or Gmail account you may want to switch temporarily until we get this resolved.

If you have having problems getting notifications at it is not one listed above please let me know which provider is having the problem so I can work on resolving the issue.

Sorry for any inconvenience. I have been working on this for about a week and I am not happy with the guys who administer our server.

Thanks!