cloh76.witness Update - A New Server for a Growing Steemit Blockchain [3.14.2018]

Dear Steemit Friends,

Today's Post will focus primarily on the hardware upgrades and requirements for my witness server and my development servers for the communities I support. I will also share some updates and insights on some of the projects I am working on as well as milestones that I have reached in bringing those projects to fruition. It's been a busy past couple of weeks between real life work, my work within Steemit and the communities I support, and my personal life. My goal is to find the right balance so I can provide adequate focus on all 3 aspects and offer an equal level of engagement and to each.

I just realized how robotic the above statement sounds - but oh well - It's early and I have so many things swirling through my head and not enough time in the day to do them.

Witness Server Upgrades

First-things-First. Let's talk about hardware changes and the forever growing requirements needed to maintain my Witness Server. Like most witness updates that you have seen lately, I too have just upgraded my Witness server. We recently just hit the 32G mark and my existing VPN server of 32GB of RAM was no longer sufficient to run a witness node. Because a VPN solution is limited, I have gone ahead and upgraded my Main Witness node to a dedicated server with 64GB RAM. The Specs Are below:

My Witness rank has dropped a few spots to 125 yet I still maintain an Active Rank of 97. This drop is primarily due to the loss of some Witness votes from high SP account holders - this is not unexpected since Witness votes change frequently. I am hoping that my activities (which I will mention later in the post) will help me regain some of those lost votes and help continue to drive my witness rank in a positive direction.

Like my fellow Steemit Witness @surpassinggoogle, many people are confused when they attempt to vote for my Witness. A lot of individuals tend to try and vote for my primary account @cloh76 when they should actually be voting for @cloh76.witness. I assumed this would happen since I generally use my primary account to chat and post content to Steemit. I set up a separate Witness account in order for me to draw a line between my daily re-occurring "post what's on my mind" content from my witness related projects and initiatives geared towards the community.

One account (@cloh76) is focused on me, while the other (cloh76.witness) is focused on the community.

I currently have 3 Development Servers for various projects. One Server is Linux based and 2 Servers are Windows based. These 3 servers house projects for the various communities I support as well as one server which is dedicated to my various projects. Not everyone is familiar with how to navigate and use Linux so I have options for both catered to the needs of my fellow community members. These servers represent a place where they can store their projects and experiment with them in a safe environment before deploying them.

Projects in Progress

This past couple of weeks have been a flurry of excitement. Not only for myself but hopefully for the communities I support. I made a lot of progress in some of the various projects I am working on.

The KuyaBot code has seen the biggest update for this past week - or at least indirectly. Current Beta and Crash testing is happening in the SteemPH Discord Server on new features for the bot. All the updated features are being tested on a separate bot to ensure everything works properly without impacting the current functions of KuyaBot. All community members seem excited about the new features and are excited about there full integration into the existing KuyaBot Code.

The following functions are being tested

• Bot tracks server activity for all users and award ranks for chat and voice activities in all channels
• All activity earns a random amount of server currency (Digital Peso) and Ranks
• All users have a personal bank where Digital Pesos are stored
• Users are able to check their DP balances and earnings
• Admins/MODs/Witnesses can send users Digital Pesos for contest awards, etc
• Users can Rep other users for a future system and project that will be developed
• Users can check Rep Status

Items still in Development

• User ability to transfer or give a specified amount of Digital Pesos to other users
• Users ability to buy Boosters and Server Items as well as Real life Items with Digital Pesos
• Bot to tie into Steemit.com so users can buy Upvotes on their Steemit posts from the bot (users will send a set amount of Digital Pesos to the bot for an equivalent % upvote on their Steemit post (Ex. ₱1000 - 10% upvote, ₱2000 - 20% upvote, ₱10000 - 100% Upvote)
• Games that users can purchase or use to earn (or lose) Digital Pesos (blackjack, dice roll, etc.)
• Daily Digital Peso giveaways

You can read about the latest updates at the following Link.

We officially announced and kicked off the SteemPH Gold project on Friday, March 16, 2018.

PH Gold is a project within the SteemPH Community - a secret society if you will. It is made up of channels with the PH community Discord Server which are hidden to most users. Membership is by invite only and all people who want access must fill out a Registration form. Registrations are ongoing and will be done regularly - because the current team of Admins is small, please be patient.

Once granted access rights, the subgroup will be visible to the user and a one-time registration fee must be paid to the PHGold bot. This registration fee is used to help fund and power up the bot to ensure it continues to grow and support the community. I am proud to say that a few users have already been granted access. Work on activities, events, and additional growth to the project is ongoing and you should have more updates soon.

You can read more about this project and latest updates HERE

Security Alert

Phishing Scams are increasing at a high rate of frequency. Always be careful about the links and services you use. Be vigilant about the people, applications, and sites you give your information to. Best bet is to not give anyone your information and store it in a safe place - preferably offline.

We continue to see people falling for Phishing sites as well as applications. If you are clicking links to other sites and/or posts, never enter your information into them unless you manually typed in the link yourself and are sure that the site is a legitimate site. Most sites which are safe use SteemConnect, however, you should be cautious even then.

If any site is asking for your Steemit information be weary and avoid it.

You can read my security alert and update at the following Link.

As mentioned in my previous update - ideas for supporting and contributing to the community just keep coming. There is so much potential to help the Community grow and so much possibility to expand on ideas already in place. I continue to work tirelessly to bring projects to fruition and hope that my contributions add value to the Steemit Community. As mentioned. If you have a passion, skillset, and even ideas that can help contribute to the completion of any of the projects I'm working on - even new ones, I am always looking for help. I thrive on the creativity and the passion of the Steemit community and am inspired every day to do something new.

Thank you for taking the time to read my Witness update. I hope you find my contributions valuable. Please let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. If you would like to participate or contribute to any of these projects and activities, please don't hesitate to contact me on discord or steem.chat @cloh76 or cloh76.witness.

I would also appreciate your support to help fund some of these projects by Upvoting and/or Resteeming this post and voting for my witness account cloh76.witness. I may not be the most skilled witness, but I do what I can with what I have and I'm learning every day.