Would like to start out with the server specs because they are after all very important for Steemit blockchain:
Both Witness and Seed node server specs:
64 GB RAM
Intel i7
2x240GB SSD
1gbit/s network
Germany Dedicated Server (privex.io)
Our Seed server ip is: 46.4.37.176:2001
Minimal requirement is 32GB ram, so 64 will still last for some time. We are planning to rent out some seed servers, specifically South America, Russian and South Africa to cover the Steemit Globe a bit better.
This website shows the current situation in the world. https://status.steemnodes.com/ by @ wackou
SBD rate is updated with Steem Feed JS, thanks to @someguy123. Great tutorial can be found here or here
Configured NTP time sync to never miss a block. Excellent tutorial here
Securing Witness server
Thanks to @krnel we have secured our server with the following tutorials:
Setting Up A Linux VPS Securely (Pt.1)
Setting Up A Linux VPS Securely (Pt.2)
Secure Your Linux Server with a Firewall
Secure Your Linux Server with Fail2Ban
We are renting our server from https://www.privex.io/ where a top witness @someguy123 is the CEO. They have excellent prices, powerful servers, quick support team and you can pay in STEEM, STEEM Dollar, Bitcoin and Litecoin. Very glad that we are renting servers from them. Plus we have received a lot of support from @someguy123 in the past to tune the witness server.
Who we are?
We are a group of 6 volunteers from a small but interesting country - Belarus. Belarus is popular for being the origin of apps such as MSQRD, Prisma, Viber, Juno, Maps.me and game developers of World of Tanks ( War Gaming ). It is a very popular IT destination for outsourcing and apps development.
Our team consists of a Designer, 3 Developers, Project Manager, and Steemit Fan who started this whole thing. We are absolutely passionate about Steemit and would love to see it grow.
We have set many goals for ourselves and we would love to achieve for the Steemit Community. How can we do that without becoming Witnesses? I can’t imagine. We believe that being a witness and making a seed server shows great commitment and support to the community as well as the steemit blockchain itself :))
We are developers and we see endless possibilities for Steemit blockchain especially with the upcoming Smart Media Tokens. I (@yuriks2000) believe that Steemit is the greatest Blockchain out there which brings the most value to the people. Why not make apps for Steemit, and build apps on top of Steemit blockchain? We want to make it happen!
What have done for Steemit so far?
So far we have released a beta version of SteemApp - an app made for comfortable and simple posting from your mobile device. You can read more about it here. We have received tons of beta tester requests. 144 Android and 61 iOS. Post was viewed 5384 times, received 1553 upvotes, 177 resteems and 567 comments. We are thrilled to have such feedback from the community. This is absolutely astonishing! Thanks everyone for contributing. This is just a start, SteemApp will grow into a full-fledged app for staying social on Steemit while on the go. Moreover, it will ALWAYS be ABSOLUTELY FREE. No beneficiary rewards, no advertisement and no in app-purchases.
Our large team of beta testers have sent bugs and now we can polish the app until it is perfect. That will take approximately 2-3 days + 3-4 days to get the App approved and we are planning on making the first release to App Store and Google Play at the beginning of April.
Why vote for us?
We strongly believe in Steemit and would like to support it as much as we can. We would love to spend all our day working on projects for Steemit and we need your support. Being a top 20 witness will allow us to quit our jobs, rent an office and become full-time developers for Steemit. Right now we are volunteers who work on Steemit in our spare time. But we would like to change that because we have faith in Steemit and would like to help it grow.
Our Roadmap for the current year
- Make the best app for posting and viewing content for Steemit. There are a ton of features we want to implement to make it more convenient on posting through your mobile such as notifications, footer templates, Steem Power Delegation, total planned earnings, customize images (crop,resize), just to name a few.
- Make posting videos from your mobile phone as simple as uploading photos. We want to utilize either dTube or simply IPFS network to upload videos the blockchain way. Video content is as important as photos and text to get your message through. We want to focus on that area and help people in that way.
- Make a game based on Steemit Blockchain and Smart Media Tokens. Games are a big industry and we want to utilize that and make it happen right here on Steemit. We believe this will be just awesome.
- Our main task is to bring in new users to Steemit Community. We think a lot about making Sing Up process much easier. It mainly depends on the founders to make it easier, but if that will not happen the near future, we will implement it together with the help of Steemit Witness Community.
- There is one more thing missing from mobile apps and browsing through mobile browsers right now. This is Chat, and we would like to implement either steemit.chat or make an open-source chat with possibility to log in with your Steemit login and private active key.
Team
Would love to introduce to you our Team members. Each of them would like to say something
Portfolio - Facebook account
LinkedIN account -Steemit account
Steemit account - Facebook account
Vtaliy Grechikha - Android Developer "I have been developing apps for over 6 years now, but I have never seen anything like Steemit. If Steemit drives in the right direction all the future image, video, text content will move to Steemit. It is our duty to make it happen. Steemit is the next and only serious Social Media Platform."
Steemit account -> Facebook account
Anatole Salanevich - Android Developer. "I have done many projects working with Big Data, and I want to share my knowledge and implement it to the Steemit Blockchain. I have worked a lot with our Team members on other projects so I am here on Steemit for long."
Steemit account
Yuriy Aniskevich - CEO and Steemit evangelist. "I have heard about Steemit in 2016, when it was in it’s first stages of development. I started actively using it in 2017 and at the end of the year I saw great a setbacks, which does’t allow Steemit to get the popularity it deserves. That is a decent mobile app. That is why I have gathered a team of professionals to make this mobile app for everyone on Steemit for FREE." - Steemit account
We need your support to make it happen:
Please vote for us as Witness
Go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Or vote for us through steemconnect
Good luck being a Witness and with the SteemApp project, looking forward to see it in action.
By the way, I read your post and have a friendly suggestion about this statement.
"Being a top 20 witness will allow us to quit our jobs, rent an office and become full-time developers for Steemit."
With the current value of Steem. It will not be enough to support 2-3 full time employees, let alone 6 people + renting an office.
Cheers.
Thanks a lot @yehey, you too! We believe in Steemit an we are all volunteers on the team. So more support just means that we can get things done faster. It is not a fortune, but I think it should be enough to do what we have planned for Steemit.
Glad to know, keep in touch.
Cheers mate.
Cheer mate. Was nice to meet you and chat with you. Will keep in touch.
Hello, and support them with my vote as a witness ... Greetings and thanks for the support
Thanks a lot @kellyjhoanarh for your support. One remark though, to vote, you need to write "yuriks2000" and then press vote button once and that's it.
if I vote for you
All the best in the journey!! I hope this platform could grow even more thanks to your work, but please, enjoy a lot!!
Wow, that is really nice of you! We will try our best.
Lots of Hugs and good winds for your project!! :D
Hi @yuriks2000 I'm just an independent musician and songwriter here and don't really understand the schematics of how the bones of Steemit works and the programming side of things but, I know it's working for me and my music and that's enough for me to like what I've seen here on your blog and your passion for Steemit and beyond!
Your new #SteemApp looks like an amazing creation which will no doubt propel the platform skywards in terms of usability.
For that reason I'm voting for your witness!
Please feel free to visit my music blogs if you get a chance.
Best of luck to you and you team.
Darren LatestTrack
Wow @darrenclaxton, thank you very much for your support! We really appreciate it and it really motivates us to do more and more for Steemit. I love listening to music especially when I work. Listened to your tracks and liked "One man" and "Inside your soul". The later one reminded me of Nirvana for some reason a little bit :)) (heart shaped box) Your work is really great.
Wrote this article a while ago "Witnesses in Steemit - For Dummies" explains what it is very quickly if you are interested to know.
Hey! Thanks for checking out my music! I really appreciate it!
I see what you mean about the Nirvana reference... Was a huge fan of their softer stuff back in the day.
I'll be keeping a close eye on your SteemApp developments mate.
Cheers again for listening to my tracks... And if you need any music for the app, you know where to come!
Darren
Wow, that is so kind of you to propose your music. We will definitely use your help once we need it )) Will keep it touch Darren
look promising... ok I upvoted you guys!
Happy to have your support!
Hi @yuriks2000
I just read your message
I have upvote you as a witness
I wish the best for you and your team
Wow, thank you very much @tjoet! We need the support from the community a lot. Thank you for understanding!
Your wellcome @yuriks2000...
I also invite my friends to vote you like @aronnaawe, @handsaldi,@alvanaakbar, and @anayuliana. Hopefully can help you and we support you too.
@yuriks2000 i just upvoted you too. From me too, i wish you all the best for your project and your future. ;)
congratulations
I support you, I am sure you are a great and solid team
good luck guys :)
It really means a lot to us @kharrazi, thank you for your great support and kind words. Makes us even more committed to do the best job possible.
Impressive presentation and a nice team to climb the witness ladder. If you guys really do what you say you will do then you will get far in this game.
Glad to hear that, very motivating @valorforfreedom! We actually want to achieve all of this in the near future.
Keep it up my people and I hope many steemians support your endeavors.
Thanks a lot! Glad to hear that from you!
éxito
Cool!
Please meet our SteemApp iOS dev, who is posting our App in the App store today! He is really cool.
i will vote and also resteem the post for others to vote knowing that this will be of great benefit to us all.
Thank you very much for supporting us! Hope you like the app!
i believe it will be good and awesome
Good luck guys! Voted for your witness. Smart way to get people to come and see what you have going on.
Thank you @commonlaw, we are trying out best to get people to know more about our project.
I though David kust is David beckham's brother
Hehe @felixixi, why did you think that? Do they look alike?
Yes of course they're similar but David Kust is look younger so he must be young brother
Hehehehe
Удачи!
Спасибо за голос и за поддержку Александр!
Hello guys, hello @yuriks2000, you ve got my vote at https://steemit.com/~witnesses. Keep going, Steem on!!!
Icon pack by Icons8
That is amazing, thank you @kilianparadise for your support! Steem ON!
Congratulation
I support your team. Best of luck guys.
Thank you, we are very glad!
hi there...i just found your message in my inbox ,calling me to help you by voting you as a witness....i read your article about your team and your efforts....since i have a spare vote i will be very happy to give it to you...i wish you the best!! ...upvote and follow you!!!
Thank you for reading the article and supporting us, it really means a lot @funnel!
I have a free slot so i will vote for your worthy project. Thanks for the gift and the information which led me here to your post. Looking forward to reading updates from your project and eventually testing the app ;-)
Thank you very much @trumanity! That is really kind of you to help!
Just voted for you as witnesses. Good luck to your projects.
Thank you, it really means a lot to us!
awesome project @yuriks2000 , i will give you a witness vote , thank you
Thank you for the compliment and for your support!
Looks good. You have my vote.
Wow this picture is beautiful! Thank you fir supporting us!
already voted as a witness :)
Thank you very much!
Congratulation
I support your team. Best of luck guys. thank you
Awesome, we are happy that you do!
I good mobile app would be awesome. You have my vote.
Thank you, we will try to make it as good ad possible!
this is amazing @yuriks2000, it is appropriate that I give vote to you
I have upvoted you for the witness! All the best to you!