Ok, so donations. Many people love this service and to my surprise, many have actually asked to donate. In all good conscience, I can't on the one hand write about how awesome and cost effective Azure is then on the other hand ask for donations to fund it. It's cheap — I've got it covered.
Let me instead talk about the sacrifices required to make a service like this work. It can be enormously time consuming and that's the real cost here. Plus there are a few services I pay for out of my own pocket to make the magic happen. If you want to kick in to help me cover those costs, that would be awesome. And no problem if you don't want to either; just share the love and help others make use of the service.
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/3.8
$3.80 - A large cappuccino at my local
Things just work better with coffee! I like to take the kids to school then grab a cappuccino from my local on the way home before beginning the things that take mental energy.
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/7.5
$7.50 — Rent a DVD for a quiet night in
A lot of the work on this happens after hours when I should be relaxing on the couch. Help me make it so and I promise to keep off the devices during the movie!
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/9.95
$9.95 — Fund a month of email delivery
This site sends out tens of thousands of emails every month. For that volume and to ensure deliverability, I pay SendGrid each month.
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/20
$20 — A six pack of Little Creatures Pale Ale
I often try and slip in an hour or two of work between getting the kids to bed and having dinner. You know what goes down real well at that time of day? Course you do!
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/40
$40 — Take the kids to a movie
Much of the work on this service happens on weekends which means giving up time with the kids. Let's show them a good time!
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/60
$60 — A bottle of Woodford Reserve
A favourite routine after pushing out a major new feature is to sit back with a glass of fine American Whiskey whilst watching for any problems on the various monitoring services.
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/80
$80 — Fund my GitHub private repos for a year
I ended up shelling out for this specifically to support this project so that I could push changes quickly. A great investment too IMHO.
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/100
$100 — Take my wife out to dinner
More than once I've had to rush out on my wife or family as a new dump has just hit the webs. Help me make it up to her!
https://www.paypal.me/doctorlai/
TBD — I've really saved your ass
I don't know by how much or just how bad things could have gotten if you didn't have this service to notify you, so you decide