Upgrade Downtime

[Ibrahim]

Hello Everyone,

This is just a note to inform everyone that I expect the site to be down from 1-4am Eastern Time, Tuesday July 22nd 2003.

This is to upgrade the RAM in our physical server and we hope to bring much more speed and reliability to the site.

Sorry for the inconvenience,

Ibrahim

 

[thcri]

If it's more speed the down time will be worth it. At work I am ok with the speed but at home with a 56k dial up that at best runs 26k it gets very slow.

I will not have a problem with the downtime.

murph

 

[Ibrahim]

We're upgraded.

I have to make some tweaks tomorrow morning to make use of the memory. But we shall have to see.

-Ibrahim

 

[JohnMiller3]

<font color="blue">( we shall have to see.)</font>

Hi Ibrahim,

Some quick preliminary tests with the slower Internet Explorer browser... indicate everything seems to be "snapping to attention" now... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Thank you!!!!! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

(p.s.- the on-screen counter has now gone from "seconds" down to milliseconds... for multiple hits...!) /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif[flaming emoticon]

 

[Muhammad]

We still have some settings to change to take advantage of the upgrade. We should have a better configuration later today.

 

[lloydp]

Very nice. Was taking several seconds to go back to the main index, now almost instant.

Thanks

Lloyd

 

[fivestring]

I like the new look..... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> We still have some settings to change to take advantage of the upgrade. </font>
Somebody did more than just make a change to exploit the additional memory! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Ibrahim]

Observant today, aren't we? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

-Ibrahim

 

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> Observant today, aren't we? </font>
I was born at night, but not last night! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I liked the former way that indicated how many new posts were there. I imagine just showing there is something new is faster. No need to determine how many new things.

 

[lamarbur]

will the "new" posts not opened yet,be returned. I guess that's what it is called. There would be a blue number, and I automatically knew new posts were available to read under any forum category. Not presently working or is this feature gone?

 

[Golfgar4]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I liked the former way that indicated how many new posts were there. )</font>

I agree with you Mike.

We could get a feel for how many replies a particular forum had received, and that might determine whether to go in right then to look at them or wait when you have a little more time. It also might reflect whether a particular thread you are interested in had received a response. If there were a whole lot of replies, chances are the thread you were interested in had received some, but if there was only one reply, it might not be in that thread and you would move on to something else.

Sometimes change is hard! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[Muhammad]

<font color="blue">There would be a blue number, and I automatically knew new posts were available to read under any forum category</font>

Right now we're testing something new. Instead of the number in blue, there is a tractor sign to the left of the forum on the main index indicating new posts.

When it's yellow, there are new posts. When it's white, no new posts.

See:

To count all new posts, decreases speed considerably. Once you enter the forum, it still highlights each thread with how many are new.

 

[Golfgar4]

Hi Muhammad!

I don't see any little tractor signs. I see what looks like little light bulbs. I did figure out that the yellow ones meant there were new posts and the white ones meant no new posts.

I guess that means you came up with a way of identifying these that even kids could figure out! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[Ibrahim]

Hi Everyone,

We basically scoured every part of the forum trying to speed it up this morning. We reached the point where it was just ridiculous that we couldn't get lightning fast responses everywhere all the time. We're running tests with different browsers, different login names, to see what takes the most time for new users, old users.

We've found that the post count of how many new threads and new posts, and who the last poster to the forum was, took a comparatively long amount of time depending on how many unread messages you had.

For an account that had almost all read, it took only about 2.5 seconds to display it all.

For an account that had almost all unread, it took about 10 seconds.

At the same time, the searches were taking an incredibly long time to load. This is because many people liked to search all the forums. All of the nearly-300,000 posts had to be checked before it could return data.

So we had to limit it to just one forum at a time. This may require people to do more than 1 search to find what they're looking for, but I doubt it. All that is required is to do a little thinking about which forum is most likely to have your answers.

Sometimes you have to sacrifice a little to gain a lot.

-Ibrahim

 

[Ibrahim]

Refresh! (Or empty your cache)

They used to be lightbulbs. But we didn't like them.

-Ibrahim

 

[Golfgar4]

Thanks! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( So we had to limit it to just one forum at a time )</font>

I wasn't very good at the "search" function even with "all forums"' now I'll never be able to find anything. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

A little while ago, the "Kioti" forum showed to have a new post (7/22/03 at 7:08 a.m.), but when I went to that forum, that message wasn't there. The last post listed was at 7/21/03 at 10:52 p.m. That's looking at an "active in the last day" screen.

 

[B7500]

"When it's yellow, there are new posts. When it's white, no new posts."
Sorry Muhammad I liked the old way. Now I have to click twice to see whats new.
Ya, I know, I'm being picky.
-Terry

 

[GreenMtnMan]

I'm for anything that speeds things up, and it seems to me these changes are quite reasonable. The Yellow vs. White icons are confusing though - if they need to be color coded I think maybe red and green would make more sense.