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tsumea

Description

Feedback for problems, suggestions, and anything else relating to the website

Aggregators

Forum

Anyone out there using an RSS aggregator they're particularly happy with? I'm kinda using firefox's native functionality and it's starting to irritate me (can't tell what's read/unread etc.)

Also, I'm pronouncing "Aggregator" with a thick austrian accent, arnie style.

"I am an aggregator, a learning machine...."

Submitted by souri on Wed, 20/04/05 - 1:11 AM Permalink

Eeek... I will fix the tiny date error (damn, that's picky), the invalid urls - I'll replace the spaces with the ascii code for spaces, and the invalid character error is due to news submitters putting in crazy word document characters in their news items [:X]

Thanks for pointing me to this. [:D]

Submitted by Jacana on Wed, 20/04/05 - 2:28 AM Permalink

Blah :) I poked you in chat about it a bit ago. Thanks for fixing it Souri :) Mine is working again (I use an RSS feed on Trillian).

Submitted by souri on Wed, 20/04/05 - 2:39 AM Permalink

You should have harrassed me until I:

1. fixed the problem
2. call the police.. [;)]

Submitted by souri on Wed, 20/04/05 - 11:13 PM Permalink

Check out the feed validator now [8D]

Submitted by mcdrewski on Thu, 05/05/05 - 12:56 AM Permalink

...I am, and it's not happy with bigworld's post :)

Submitted by souri on Fri, 06/05/05 - 7:00 AM Permalink

[:X] I hate word documents..

Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 11/05/05 - 4:50 AM Permalink

Ok, after a lot of searching, and trying out rssreader, desktopsidebar trillian pro's plugin and a couple of others, I've finally found [url="http://www.sharpreader.net"]SharpReader[/url]. It's light and (almost) exactly what I was after. Thoroughly recommended.

Mini sumea

Forum
Submitted by souri on Thu, 09/06/05 - 5:38 PM Permalink

btw, I will be fixing mini Sumea up real soon, just beein fixing the other css styles before jumping into another one. It'll be very cool though!

Oh, I'll get onto the gallery as well asap. We're gonna have to find a way to make it fit with Sumea, like user comments and incrememnting picture views etc

Add news with pictures problem

Forum

I was on my profile page and was adding some news with pictures to my port. I uploaded the image and I enetered my data and submitted it, but the picture I uploaded didn't appear! :o I tryied it again about three time, I noticed on the part where i was adding the text there was no link in the picture 1 box.

I realised then it must be my firefox browser so I had to switch back to IE to upload it and enter the news with my picture. It worked thank goodness! but it didn't seen to want to work in firefox.

I just thought you should know ;)

Submitted by souri on Sat, 19/03/05 - 2:57 PM Permalink

Yeh, Firefox has issues with uploading pictures with the upload component that Sumea uses. You need IE to upload, unfortunately. I've written a small paragraph about it in the admin page.

Submitted by souri on Wed, 07/09/05 - 2:02 PM Permalink

ALERT THE INTERNETS!!!

You should be able to upload pics using Firefox and any other browser now when adding news with pics to your journal entries. Other uploads (avatars/forum avatar/developer logo/games pics uploads) will be fixed tomorrow after I get some sleep. [|)]

There's still a problem when you're uploading a lot of pictures in one go. Basically, the script seems to timeout at times for some reason. I've changed server timeouts to 40 minutes (so theoretically you could spend 40 minutes uploading and it would be ok, but it still does it. [:X] Best solution for that one is to upload 4 pics at the most at a time on broadband, and probably 1 on dialup. [xx(] (You can of course re-edit what you've posted to put in more pics)

Submitted by MoonUnit on Fri, 09/09/05 - 1:50 AM Permalink

awesome, its allways fun to be firefox friendly :P

Submitted by Makk on Fri, 09/09/05 - 8:37 AM Permalink

yeah, i tried tupload 6 last time and kept timing me out!!!

Submitted by souri on Wed, 21/09/05 - 11:39 PM Permalink

I've just made some fixes so hopefully this problem is no more. I tested it out by uploading 8 large images and it worked fine. If anyone runs into problems, please let me know.

Sumea.com.au on the Wayback Machine

Forum

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sumea.com.au

Sumea on the wayback machine! Check out what the site looked like since 2001 (sorta) [:0]

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Thu, 17/03/05 - 12:23 AM Permalink

Oh my! Sumea has come along way from back then! [:)]
You've done a great job souri [:D]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 17/03/05 - 3:01 AM Permalink

heh yay the site before i knew it :p
its cool to think that this site has been running for that long, keep it up! :D

Submitted by mcdrewski on Thu, 17/03/05 - 5:42 AM Permalink

Three Cheers for our long-suffering admin!

Hip Hip!

Submitted by palantir on Fri, 18/03/05 - 6:04 AM Permalink

*Throws confetti* [:D]

It's certainly come a long way!

Submitted by souri on Wed, 30/03/05 - 12:06 AM Permalink

Yeh, Snitz thinks I'm trying to post two links, so it parses it as such. :/ Wrapping it with an url tag doesn't help either, so that's the best you're gonna get [:)]

Signature images

Forum

I'm starting to see a few huge images in people's signatures... what are the restrictions of images in forum signatures?

I'd say 3 lines of text or image should be plenty.

Submitted by urgrund on Tue, 15/03/05 - 1:53 AM Permalink

one thing i HATE are huge signature images... you're not an advertising firm & you're not a movie star, get over it. As redwyre said, a few lines text/links, and maybe a neat logo is fine. I really love having a forum page take 20x as long to load because people have huge sig's... especially when replies are like "yeh, i agree" then its another 15lines for an image!
:D

ps. this is mainly from other forums, i havn't had a problem here :)

Submitted by mcdrewski on Tue, 15/03/05 - 4:48 AM Permalink

100% agreed to both. I'm normally not a fan of sig images at all, but I have seen some done very well...

Submitted by LiveWire on Tue, 15/03/05 - 5:54 AM Permalink

i've never noticed picutes in sigs here (is it possible to turn them off? i still have text sigs though, might check that out).

but i agree about huge sigs, most of the time i cant find the actuall posts in a long thread cops they're just a few lines hidden amoungst huge images in the sigs. a small sig about the height of one or two lines of textx is fine in my oppinion. any more and you're just wasting space and bandwidth.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 15/03/05 - 6:20 AM Permalink

I'd prefer no image signatures actually. I'm too lazy to tell people to not do it though. That can be your job, if you like [:D]

Submitted by Kalescent on Tue, 15/03/05 - 6:59 AM Permalink

Power to the people! [:P]

Do I get to wear some kind of "Signature Police" uniform? [8]

Submitted by palantir on Tue, 15/03/05 - 7:08 AM Permalink

What about tiny little pixel art things? I can only really think of one person here who has one anyway, but I quite like that little dude! [:D]

Of course, anything larger then a couple of lines of text is just plain rude ? and if everyone started doing sig pics, even tiny ones, it would be really annoying.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Tue, 15/03/05 - 1:21 PM Permalink

sig pics = annoying

Avatars are good enough I think [:D]

Submitted by LiveWire on Wed, 16/03/05 - 4:13 AM Permalink

there is a web site/forum that i used to go to that has a digital art section. it's pretty much full of "my new sig and avatar" threads(and nobody cared that i posted 3d there dagnamit)

Submitted by Pantmonger on Thu, 17/03/05 - 7:38 PM Permalink

I did originally ask if I could have him a long time ago and was ok?ed. But if the tide of feeling is against them I will remove it.

My personal opinion is just stipulate some limits and enforce those limits.
Something like no more then 100 pixels high x 400 pixels long and less then 10k should keep things pretty inoffensive.

Pantmonger

Submitted by mcdrewski on Thu, 17/03/05 - 8:35 PM Permalink

...I completely forget that yours was even there, and no, I don't have a problem with something that sort of size at all.

Submitted by LiveWire on Thu, 17/03/05 - 10:59 PM Permalink

yeah i forgot about yours too. i guess cos it dosnt draw attention to itself. though if everyone had one they might start fill out the page.

Submitted by Malus on Fri, 18/03/05 - 1:07 AM Permalink

Pantmongers isn't offensively large, I personally like it, its the big sad banner ones that s*$t me.

Oh and it's his creation. [:P]

Submitted by Kalescent on Fri, 18/03/05 - 1:19 AM Permalink

Im on your side Pants [:P] I also forgot about that little guy.

Submitted by redwyre on Fri, 18/03/05 - 1:59 AM Permalink

Normal text size on firefox is about 22px a line, so three lines of text or a 64px by 400px should be plenty.

Also there are some people with 5 line signatures... *looks at HazarD and Anuxinamoon* where they could be two lines or so if the text was to be spread horizontally. And noone seems to use a smaller font size in their sigs either.

Souri: You should probably write up a well defined signature policy :) I will personally contact those who have excruciating large images in the time being.

Submitted by Jacana on Fri, 18/03/05 - 3:55 AM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by redwyre

Also there are some people with 5 line signatures... *looks at HazarD and Anuxinamoon* where they could be two lines or so if the text was to be spread horizontally.

Souri: You should probably write up a well defined signature policy :) I will personally contact those who have excruciating large images in the time being.

But take into account that those people who have 5 line sigs are also Sumea sponsers :) I personally think that for helping to keep sumea running I can survive with a few extra lines of text.

In terms of setting up strict policies on sigs I hope you don't. Sumea has always been lax and open to what ever. I just don't like the idea of starting to hand out rules to everyone about how big a sig must be.

I think it would just be worth keeping an eye out and if anyone has anything really large just sending them a nice PM asking if they would mind shrinking the size.

Submitted by Malus on Fri, 18/03/05 - 7:12 AM Permalink

True Jacana but I personally hate sifting through millions of lines of text or pointless images to find the next post, no matter who it is.

I guess its more about being considerate to your other Sumeans, no matter your status, another thing I would have hoped Sumea was about. [:)]

I've always wondered why there isn't an option to just not load peoples sig's on forums if you don't want to see them?

Maybe someone should think of a way of doing that. [:P]

Submitted by redwyre on Tue, 22/03/05 - 6:57 AM Permalink

I'm not trying to be an ass here, but if there aren't rules, then some people take advantage of the situation. Once when the community here was small and close, it wasn't needed... but Sumea is getting big! But perhaps "policy" was too strong. How about some guidelines instead? And it's not just about the signatures, it's the whole forum needs a posting guidelines just to future-proof.

Edit: Oh, and the orginal poster has removed the huge image so I am content to return to lurking the forums.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Wed, 23/03/05 - 6:01 AM Permalink

Pantmonger: I never even noticed your mantis! I must have rolled a 1 on my spot check or something..

I reduced my sig size, just 'cause I can (it was stupidly too big anyway, I just never realised...... must put more skill points on spot)

And if I can figure out how to put a link up on my sig, I could be rid of another line! [:D]

Next Sumea modeller challenge

Forum

Hi all,
I was just wondering if there has been any word on when the next modeller challenge will be?

Apologies if this has already been posted somewhere else.

thx

Submitted by souri on Tue, 01/03/05 - 4:27 AM Permalink

I may have a new sponsor who's interested running a competition here, so I'm just waiting to see how that goes through before I set a definate date on a new Sumea challenge.

Submitted by Pauli G on Thu, 03/03/05 - 1:10 PM Permalink

ok thanks guys. I'm hoping the theme isnt directed at the mod. No offense to you guys or the mod, I just havent really been involved in it and it would give an unfair advantage to people who have.

Just my 2cents

I'm sure I'd enter anyway regardless of what the theme was [:D]

Submitted by mcdrewski on Thu, 03/03/05 - 6:54 PM Permalink

good point, although I'm sure the judging will be based solely on the spec/criteria rather than needing any background on the mod.

Submitted by Tall Nick on Fri, 04/03/05 - 7:04 AM Permalink

From the modeler challenges I've seen they all relate around making models for unreal, and quake type games.
Has anyone had the thought of designing a Challenge around a PSP or DS game?
Basically challenging people to model with a very small amount of poly's and textures.

Submitted by palantir on Fri, 04/03/05 - 7:39 AM Permalink

We?ve done non unreal/quake challenges. Challenge 5 was to make something for aimed at the 6-12 year old market. [url]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1363[/url]

Like most people, at the end of the day I don?t really mind what we do. I just think the main thing is to do something that closely represents what a professional modeller might be working on in the industry. Something to improve industry appropriate skills.

If not mod related, my vote is for mecha! [:D]

Submitted by Kalescent on Fri, 04/03/05 - 10:03 AM Permalink

Then I strongly suggest Normal Mapping, its already been in use for 18 months + in the industry. But if we are to stick with something mod related that pretty much slays that idea - or we could leave the normal maps off and whack the textured models into the game.

Developer Chats ?

Forum

Would anyone be interested in some kind of question answer session in the sumea chat rooms ?

Perhaps it could be setup for an hour or 2 on a day of preference.

Not to sure how many others would be interested in lending their expertise but I'm be keen to be pumped for what info I can share.

Edit: The idea is for non industry people, to pump a few industry people - like a mini QA session.

Submitted by palantir on Sat, 26/02/05 - 7:55 AM Permalink

Sounds like a good idea. Though I?m too sure how useful a live chat session would be, as opposed to something that is not in real time. It?s just good to have the QA always available for anyone to read at any time.

Something that I?d love to see, is a mini questionnaire compiled from all the non-industry folk, which is open for any developers to answer. So you?d have a thread where everyone lists questions they would like to ask developers, and then a compiled list is placed on a special page with responses from developers being added as they are submitted.

Kind of like the portfolio questionnaire: [url]http://www.sumea.com.au/sarticle.asp?art_ID=16[/url]

Or something similar; have a ?developer question of the week? kind of thing. Each week is a new question on the front page open for any developers to answer, which all get added to the special page.

I'm sure this kind of thing would be found very useful to many people. At the very least it could be entertaining. [:)]

Submitted by LiveWire on Sat, 26/02/05 - 9:44 AM Permalink

all those ideas sound good to me. if it were to be a live chat it should be recorded so anyone can read over it again in the future.

a question of the week sounds cool, hmm, that's an idea - gamasutra does a simular thing. might be a cool thing for souri to do as well - a general games related question open to anyone (not just developers). ok, off topic but the topic lead me to it...

anyway: yes, i like the idea [:)]

Submitted by souri on Sun, 06/03/05 - 1:20 PM Permalink

Whoops! Missed this thread.. sounds cool!

Submitted by Kalescent on Mon, 21/03/05 - 3:04 PM Permalink

I'd definately be keen for a live chat session if some people are up for it. The recording of it is also a great idea Livewire, i also think it could be used as a base to be cleaned up and presented as the Q&A type thing you mentioned Palantir.

So whens good for people ?

Sumea merch??

Forum

were is all the cool sumea gear??

talking with a couple of guys from Fuzzyeyes (where i now work thanks to this excellent site) ... and we were all saying how cool we would look in a sumea t-shirt or hat ..or boxers [8D]....

didn't someone mention before that there used to be a shirt??

anyway .... souri .. if you read this ... bring on the sumea merchandise ......

so we can all be proud sumeans!

Submitted by souri on Wed, 23/02/05 - 3:03 AM Permalink

I think I only have about 10-15 small shirts left. I might do another round of shirts, but it really depends on the demand for it.

Submitted by palantir on Wed, 23/02/05 - 3:24 AM Permalink

I want a Sumea mug ? now that would be cool [:D]

I bet if you had a little add for Sumea merchandise on the front page you?d make a fortune!
?Help support Sumea. Buy a mug, or a shirt, or a Sumea doll? [;)]

Submitted by Jacana on Wed, 23/02/05 - 4:11 AM Permalink

Ooooo I want a pull-string talking Souri doll!

Submitted by tojo on Wed, 23/02/05 - 7:22 AM Permalink

i will buy a shirt and a mug... but dont know about the pull-string doll....

i would need an large/x-large shirt though.. i know a few others who would be keen on some shirts .... could guarantee another 3 or 4 purchases..

Submitted by palantir on Wed, 23/02/05 - 6:36 PM Permalink

Yeah, I'd buy a shirt if there were x-large available (?cause I?m such an Arnie and all)..

Don't want a pull-string Souri doll though [:P]. Hmm, it's a worry that Jacana wants one [:0]
[;)]

Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 23/02/05 - 9:28 PM Permalink

surely it would be an action figure - pull the string and any offensive posts in your forum are edited out...

Submitted by Jacana on Thu, 24/02/05 - 5:04 AM Permalink

Oh but it would say really cool random things when it was hung-over. Kinda like at Freeplay ;) It really would be a cool doll.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 24/02/05 - 11:29 PM Permalink

You just want one to poke pins into it [:(]

Submitted by Makk on Fri, 25/02/05 - 8:25 AM Permalink

I would also buy a Sumea mug :)

Submitted by Kalescent on Fri, 25/02/05 - 4:51 PM Permalink

Im definately up for a mug - i think mugs are on the list of things to do Souri [:P]

Submitted by Jacana on Fri, 25/02/05 - 6:46 PM Permalink

A sumea mug would be pretty cool :)

Sumea going down every once and a while

Forum

Seems like almost every day the site is down for a while.. (but I can only remember a few days anyway)

Submitted by souri on Sat, 19/02/05 - 4:14 AM Permalink

Yeh, I don't know why it's doing that. The site hangs for a minute when someone is sending mail via Sumea, so I've turned all subscriptions off in all the message threads (apart from the jobs section), although I haven't been able to see if there are any improvements because I've been away for most of this week.

Submitted by souri on Wed, 18/05/05 - 5:43 PM Permalink

I've fixed a few things on the site, and changed the way the forum sends out emails, and I've noticed the site hasn't gone down on me for the last 2 weeks. Has anyone else noticed an improvement?

Submitted by souri on Thu, 25/08/05 - 12:28 AM Permalink

Ok, for some reason the site is shutting down with a Service Unavailable message. It usually lasts for a few seconds at a time (I'm guessing the server automatically resets itself and then all is ok again). Not exactly sure what's causing this, but I am on it. [:o] (I've just removed some of the features I implemented over the last few days just in case [:(])

Submitted by lorien on Thu, 22/09/05 - 3:57 AM Permalink

Are they using Windows95 as the sumea server Souri? [:)] Was down rather a lot earlier today.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 22/09/05 - 4:02 AM Permalink

I've noticed that too, although I'm certain the problem is from their end. I haven't been able to access my control panel for sumea or sumea's email box for long periods of time today. Might be that they're working on the server.

Submitted by souri on Fri, 30/09/05 - 1:59 AM Permalink

I just got these emails the other day, about a week late [:(!]. So yeh, last weeks outtage was definately from their end.

quote:
Dear Customer,

This e-mail message is to inform you the Issue with your Server has been resolved.

Completed: 9/22/2005 4:58:18 PM

Issue Notes:
9/22/2005 4:58:00 PM

The server is back online and working properly. You should be able to access your Web site and perform administrative tasks as usual.

If you experience any issues, please contact the support team.

Thank you for your patience during the resolution of this issue.

9/22/2005 3:40:18 PM - Dear Valued Customer,

The server is back online and working properly. You should be able to access your Web site and perform administrative tasks as usual.

We will continue to monitor your server until the close of business on 9/22/05 for any further issues. If you experience any issues, please contact the support team.

Thank you for your patience during the resolution of this issue.

9/22/2005 2:51:43 PM -

The server is back online and working properly. You should be able to access your Web site and perform administrative tasks as usual.

We will continue to monitor your server for any further issues. If you experience any issues, please contact the support team.

Thank you for your patience during the resolution of this issue.

9/22/2005 12:23:29 PM -

The repair is now complete and the server is back online. You should be able to access your Web site and perform administrative tasks as usual.

We will continue to monitor your server for any further issues. If you experience any issues, please contact the support team.

Thank you for your patience during the resolution of this issue.

9/21/2005 2:56:27 PM - This server is not accepting any SQL connections. This issue is currently under investigation.

Solution Notes:
9/22/2005 4:58:18 PM -

The server is back online and working properly. You should be able to access your Web site and perform administrative tasks as usual.

If you experience any issues, please contact the support team.

Thank you for your patience during the resolution of this issue.

As for todays outtage, I have NFI.

Submitted by souri on Sat, 01/10/05 - 3:02 AM Permalink

Yeh, I know the site's been unavailable for most of today. It's been frustrating. I've emailed my hosting server twice already, the first time they answered saying the issue was resolved - they had simply just visited the site once and it was working fine for them. And that was all that went into that. I just got home and as soon as I got onto the site, it was offline who who knows how long. I hope they fix this out real soon.

Submitted by pb on Sat, 01/10/05 - 4:53 AM Permalink

I'm sure they'll fix it quickly and efficiently, afterall, you're a valued customer - they even tell you! [:)]

pb

Submitted by souri on Sun, 02/10/05 - 6:42 AM Permalink

"The reason why your website has been off and on recently is because our system administrators has been doing some test and maintenance in our servers that they will need to reboot the application pool for 1 minute, then put the site back online."

They must be resetting the server every 3 minutes because I can't use the site for more than 1 minute at a time before the stinking thing gives me another Server Unavailable error. The last few days have been unbelievable, and I'm seriously considering moving to another web host provider.

Submitted by souri on Mon, 03/10/05 - 1:13 AM Permalink

Guys, please let me know if you get any Server Unavailable errors whilst I have closed off the rest of the site. Thanks.

Submitted by Kalescent on Mon, 03/10/05 - 6:15 AM Permalink

Im still having the occasional problem - even with the link straight to the forum. This is the first time ive been able to get in today.. [:(]

Submitted by souri on Tue, 04/10/05 - 12:10 AM Permalink

Yeh, I had some problems when it was just the forum too, but it was running much better (staying up for longer periods of time). So anyway, I've put the rest of the site back online and things seem to have magically improved. The site still goes down, but not every 3 minutes like Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

All signs seem to point the problem at their end. I'm making a guess but it looks like they did a major patch/update to the server last week and they're still working out the kinks. Service Unavailable usually means they're resetting the server or sloppy website code that's using up all the allocated memory. It's definately not the latter because you'd run out of memory after a while, but not every 3 minutes (unless you've done something pretty shocking). Just in case, I've gone through every page making sure I've declared all my variables and recordsets and closed them off properly. For a few hundred people that visit the site at a time, even not closing a few variables properly shouldn't be that much a problem.

Anyway, I got my third technical support response (on Saturday) and they pretty did the same thing previously... "I visited the site for a few seconds, it worked fine. Support issue closed." [:p]

Submitted by Kalescent on Tue, 04/10/05 - 12:37 AM Permalink

I have had zero problems with ilisys as a host. Quite pricey, but in 2 years no problems. They will always send emails out at least 7 days before hand of a notice if anything is likely to be on the piss for an hour or so, and even then its usually at about 2 - 3am in the morning.

So if your thinking of changing Souri I can reccomend them. [:)]

Submitted by lorien on Tue, 04/10/05 - 2:07 AM Permalink

Perhaps try for somewhere where they have amazing sysadmins and host on a high availability Solaris or Linux cluster. Likely to be expensive [:(] I guess the current host is on Windows and IIS?

Submitted by souri on Wed, 05/10/05 - 12:47 PM Permalink

Yep, Windows and IIS. I think I'll save myself some headaches by staying on an NT server. Getting adjusted to a Linux server and replacing all the specific components I use for the site will be a bit of a hassle. If I could turn back time, I would've developed the site with PHP/MySQL on a Linux server. Heck, I was considering changing to asp.net until I realised I don't have the time to figure it all out [;)]

Been doing some reading and it's probable that the webhost moved Sumea to another shared server where the allocated resources are much lower (memory and cpu) for each hosted site (so they can cram more sites onto a shared server). Although that doesn't explain why the site gets another error only 10 seconds after the server's been reset. I've gone through all the pages on the site checking and rechecking things, but the only recent thing I've added was Sumea Concepts and I don't see how that could be causing the site to go offline all the time. I'm using the site at 4am, and it's going offline like every 2 minutes [:(!]

*shakes fist at webhost*

Submitted by souri on Thu, 06/10/05 - 2:44 AM Permalink

For crying out loud, I've only put two pages back up (the main page, and the news page), and I'm still getting the Service Unavailable error. I'm strongly doubting it's a problem from my end.

Submitted by Jacana on Thu, 06/10/05 - 3:22 AM Permalink

*HUGS SOURI* We do all appreciate the effort and headaches you are going through to solve this problem. Maybe just take a day or so off if it bugs you too much?

Submitted by souri on Thu, 06/10/05 - 1:39 PM Permalink

I think I may be developing a stomach ulcer from all this stress..*

It's hard to figure out what exactly is the problem. It could even be another dos attack. I remember Sumea had a couple attacks a few years ago which cause a bit of downtime, but our previous ISP had the courtesy to let us know and fix that up themselves. Looking at the Sumeans online count on the front page, it's pretty odd to see the numbers jump from 60 to 500 in a matter of minutes.

* yes, I know. :/

Submitted by lorien on Sat, 08/10/05 - 9:06 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Souri

Yep, Windows and IIS. I think I'll save myself some headaches by staying on an NT server.

You think Microsoft save you headaches!? [:D] I know what you mean btw, porting would be a pain.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 11/10/05 - 1:49 PM Permalink

It's funny how the site magically fixed itself up. Told you it wasn't from my end [:X]

Submitted by mcdrewski on Tue, 11/10/05 - 4:43 PM Permalink

***applause*** from the gallery. Thanks for all the efforts and bald spots thus caused.

Another Error: 404

Forum

Hey just thought you should you know that when i tried the send email link it gives me a 404 error:

[url]http://www.sumea.com.au/semailpost.asp[/url]

was just thinking you might like to know

Submitted by souri on Tue, 15/02/05 - 1:41 AM Permalink

That's the old contact page. The new one is at http://www.sumea.com.au/scontact.asp . I'm not sure why your pictures aren't uploading. I'll get rid of that upload metre script which doesn't seem to be working, but I'm not sure if that will help.
In the meantime, can you attach your image to a message here, I will upload it for you.

Problem uploading to my profile

Forum

Ok im having a problem with uploading an image to my profile.
For some reason everytime i try to upload an image it appears if its uploading the file, but it doesnt get uploaded. All i get is a small thumbnail which doesnt load, like the image doesnt exist on the server.

Im trying to upload a 800 x 600 jpg and ive tried using both firefox and ie6 - both are giving me the same prob.

Its definitely a pain not being able to show my work.
My username for my profile is Scorpiontail in case you need to know.

o_O

Forum

oh, ok

so because i am a young and talented australian artist and i dont have my own webspace, therefor no "paid" email account, i cant show my work to other artists for critique and suggestions to better my works. What the fuck are you on. Its not like your site is a special "club" where only cool people with cool emails can join up. I am Australian. I am an experienced artist and i am trying to show off my work in the hope of gaining some recognition and/or employment.

What a load of crap. You guys are really "helping" people like me in the industry by having stupid rules like this in place.

I choose from now, to have a poor opinion of your site. i will no longer reccomend your site to anyone anymore. Instead of doing so, i will reccomend other sites and other groups to people purely becuase of this idiotic and easily avoidable incedent.

I hope you rectify this immediatly before you start losing popularity and fast.

Sincerely yours,

>Hi xxxxxx,
>
>As the registering page mentions, we're unfortunately not accepting new registrants who are using free web based email accounts.
>
> Souri..
> Sumea Launchpad! www.sumea.com.au

Submitted by Mdobele on Fri, 04/02/05 - 10:03 AM Permalink

Ha ha ha ha.

Whilst Souri's reply was diplomatic and tactfull I bet if I squint real hard and read between the lines I can see exactly what he wanted to say to the toss pot instead [;)]

Come on xxxxx how hard is it to sign up with your CORRECT email acount that 99.999% of ISP's give you with your internet deal.

Submitted by LiveWire on Fri, 04/02/05 - 10:04 AM Permalink

o_O

someone like that is probably better off not on these forums anyway. at least better off for the rest of us.

Submitted by Doord on Fri, 04/02/05 - 8:32 PM Permalink

I'm sure their are problems with allowing free e-mail users to registered. But alot of artists including myself don't have home internet and don't have an ISP e-mail. Also I'm thinking of AIE students that also have net access at the AIE but no e-mail address and being student maybe unable to pay for an internet connection.

He maybe a little over the top but he has a point. Maybe something little to review, as I think this site is a huge Australian resource to up and comers.

Submitted by souri on Sat, 05/02/05 - 1:34 AM Permalink

I accept any email address that isn't from yahoo, hotmail etc, so if you apply with your work or AIE email address, that's no problem. If you're a regular to the forum here, I will make exceptions. And to tell you the truth, if he wrote an explanation as to why he doesn't have an internet account with a proper email address, without being abusive, then I'd consider it too.

But this is the latest in abusive emails from people who want to register with a hotmail account, didn't read the bit next to the email textbox that says "** no free web based email address (e.g Hotmail, Yahoo etc).", and then when I respond with the standard "sorry" reply, get incredibly abusive. The attitude that some people have is just amazing. It's like they feel it's their goddamn right to have an account here and should be waived the ONLY requirement that I provide for registration.

Submitted by Kalescent on Sat, 05/02/05 - 7:18 AM Permalink

Couldnt agree with you more Souri.

For someone not prepared to spend ( what is it nowadays ? ) $20 for an internet connection and setup an email account to seek recognition and possibly employment to display there work probably arent that dedicated anyway.

Too many people expect the free and easy ride - its a very simple request, and I seriously cannot see a problem at all. Stick with your guns.

Perhaps you should write an email back stating " Yes this is definately an exclusive club site, only NASA scientists and Michaelangelo's allowed " [:p]

Submitted by Jacana on Sat, 05/02/05 - 7:26 AM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by HazarD
[Perhaps you should write an email back stating " Yes this is definately an exclusive club site, only NASA scientists and Michaelangelo's allowed "

Doh!!!! Does that mean you are gonna ban me :(

Submitted by Makk on Sat, 05/02/05 - 8:59 AM Permalink

But, but....he will choose to have a poor opinion of this site, Souri....you CANT let that happen!

........
.....
...

Submitted by mcdrewski on Sat, 05/02/05 - 9:17 AM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Souri
But this is the latest in abusive emails from people who want to register with a hotmail account, didn't read the bit next to the email textbox that says "** no free web based email address

...time to take the email out of the equation then... a couple of lines of javascript validating the email should solve that little problem once and for all.

Oh, and he's right about it not being a "club" - I noticed that bit on the registration page that says "A Sumea account is an unassailable right granted to every human being with a pulse."

Submitted by Kalescent on Sat, 05/02/05 - 10:34 AM Permalink

Jacana : The sumea user base would be close on nil if souri followed my maniacal plan - its probably not such a bright idea after all doh! [:(]

Submitted by palantir on Sat, 05/02/05 - 8:54 PM Permalink

quote:HazarD said:
Perhaps you should write " only NASA scientists and Michaelangelo's allowed " [:P]

...

The sumea user base would be close on nil if souri followed my maniacal plan

Actually, if Souri followed HazarD?s plan, the site would only allow for people who can?t convert metric into imperial, and ninja turtles?
[;)]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sun, 06/02/05 - 12:08 AM Permalink

ninja turtles? oh thats me! phew i thought i was gonna be kicked out for a minute there....

Submitted by mcdrewski on Sun, 06/02/05 - 1:16 AM Permalink

When I did my Electrical Engineering study I did a lot of subjects with Avionics/Aerospace Engineers - ie: "Rocket Scientists". Means I am quite sure that Rocket Science really - well - isn't.

Meanwhile I'll polish up my halfshell...

Vote poll

Forum

I need some suggestions for the main page vote poll. Question and a set of answers would be nice [:)].

Submitted by scorpiontail on Sun, 13/02/05 - 10:54 AM Permalink

you havent done a poll on who wants the office of film and literature to enable games to get an R rating recently have you?

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sun, 13/02/05 - 9:42 PM Permalink

yeah i think that was done at some point... or maybe it was just a forum discussion. You could allways do the PSP vs DS thing (with like a few more options like "i dont want either" "im sticking with my old GBA" etc)

Submitted by Makk on Mon, 14/02/05 - 10:36 AM Permalink

Makk should be president of the universe because....
A. He is super cool
B. He is super smart
C. He is super funky
D. All of the above
E. I didnt vote for D, but I secretly think thats the correct answer

Submitted by MoonUnit on Tue, 15/02/05 - 1:13 AM Permalink

G. he is helping me set the trend for eye themed avatars

Submitted by palantir on Tue, 15/02/05 - 5:38 AM Permalink

Poll:
So many Sumean?s have eye themed avatars because:
A. They look cool
B. We are an egotistical bunch
C. Something to do with being arty
D. They are copying Makk
E. They are copying MoonUnit
F.

Submitted by Malus on Tue, 15/02/05 - 12:52 PM Permalink

Pantmonger is:

A: not the Messiah.
B: a very naughty boy.
C: his own illegitimate father due to a wierd timeloop!! [:O]
D: standing behind me with a big knife......arghh!!! I didn't mean the wise crack about the gaffer tape and the donkey...nooo..please .....gurgle.....

Submitted by souri on Tue, 06/09/05 - 12:43 PM Permalink

Need some suggestions for a new vote question/set of answers on the main page [:X]

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Tue, 06/09/05 - 11:38 PM Permalink

Have you done a 3D software poll yet?

"What software do you prefer to use to build 3D models?"

- 3D Studio Max
- Cinema 4D
- Lightwave
- Maya
- Wings 3D
- XSI
- Zbrush

ect ect...

Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 07/09/05 - 3:35 AM Permalink

Are you HD ready for the "next gen"?

What sort of Home Cinema vision do you use for gaming?:

- HD CRT
- HD Plasma/LCD
- HD Projector
- SD CRT
- SD Plasma/LCD
- SD Projector

Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 07/09/05 - 5:48 AM Permalink

Where do you ultimately want to end up in games?

- Company support (HR/QA/secretarial)
- The grunt (coder/artist/etc)
- A grunt lead (director/lead programmer or artist)
- Management (external to content creation)
- Company management (CEO/founder/owner)
- The sidelines (Hobbyist/enthusiast)

The most important aspect of producing good graphics is:

- greater texture sizes and poly budgets
- the latest hardware accelerated features
- consistent art direction
- as much cleavage as possible

The most important skill for new game artists is:

- Modelling clean and optomised mesh
- Realistic texturing
- Believable and fluid animation
- traditional based art skills
- Jack of all trades, master of none

Submitted by Djenx on Fri, 23/09/05 - 9:12 PM Permalink

how fast internet connection?

-[V]-56 kbit & <
-[:)]-256 kbit
-[;)]-512 kbit
-[8D]-1.5 mbit
-[:0]-6 mbit
-[8]-12 mbit & >

Submitted by Brain on Wed, 19/10/05 - 6:47 PM Permalink

Do you buy mobile phone games?
Bought more than 5
Bought 2-5
Bought 1
No
Would if my phone was cooler

Message entry box

Forum

When you write a new message you have an option to select the screen size which is a great idea. What would be even better is if that also increased the length of the edit box, not just the width. Currently writing long message is a bit of a pain, especially if you've quoted someone.

Keep up the good work!

Submitted by souri on Wed, 26/01/05 - 1:10 AM Permalink

The width is changed via javascript, but I'm not sure if you can change the number of rows of textbox forms via javascript as well? I will have to look it up, but I don't think you can...

Kalescent image on front page

Forum

when you moues over it it says Krome Studios ;)

Submitted by Kalescent on Tue, 11/01/05 - 11:22 PM Permalink

LOL - Damn our cover is blown! fall back!

Kalescent Studios Sponsors Sumea

Forum

Kalescent Studios is proud to announce the sponsorship of sumea from the beginning of 2005 [:D]

The team here all believe Souri has done a fantastic job of building up Sumea into the number one .au and .nz games developer website, and we are more than happy to begin our support and hope to help foster growth in the local industry from 2005 onward!

Cheers! [:D]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Mon, 03/01/05 - 10:18 PM Permalink

wow great to hear, good stuff kalescent studios and ofcourse souri

Submitted by mcdrewski on Mon, 03/01/05 - 10:59 PM Permalink

Kudos (it's latin for "props") to all involved :)

Thanks for all the hard work.

Submitted by Johnn on Tue, 04/01/05 - 2:54 AM Permalink

[:D] I (and I'm sure all Sumea Forum users) appreciate the forum greatly, so it's super good to see support for the site.

Sig's

Forum

Was just wondering with the signatures. Is there anyway I can have text which gets linked else where. So I don't have to have the whole URL typed out because its a bit messy [^]

eg.

My signature at the moment I would just like to have "Webpage" and "Challange #6 Entry" as links rather then having the whole URL typed out.

Submitted by souri on Wed, 29/12/04 - 1:47 PM Permalink

You can do it like this:
(url="http://www.address.com)The address description(/url)

use square brackets []'s instead of ()'s though...

Error: 404

Forum

Hey Souri,

http://www.sumea.com.au/sumeachat/index.asp

When I was in the Sumea IRC chat I clicked the 'home' link button in the top links row and I got the evil 404 error page [:x]

I thought you should know!

Submitted by souri on Fri, 24/12/04 - 12:54 PM Permalink

Ah, thanks for that. Actually, none of the navigation links worked on that page. [:0]

Idea for extension to Sumea

Forum

How about a javachat applet?
Could be subdivided into
channels with similar topics
to the forums. Your thoughts?
[8D]

Submitted by souri on Wed, 08/12/04 - 2:32 AM Permalink

We already have a java IRC chat applet happening [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sumeachat/login.htm"]here[/url]. You could make it so you can select different channels etc, but I think we have enough problem filling in the main room with people [;)]

Submitted by WiffleCube on Wed, 08/12/04 - 8:42 AM Permalink

Hmm my forum password doesn't work on other parts of Sumea, including
this java applet. Grumble.

Submitted by UniqueSnowFlake on Wed, 08/12/04 - 8:00 PM Permalink

As far as I know thats because they have nothing to do with each other. the main Sumea part has your password for your profile on Sumea. When as the Forum is connected to Sumea but is just adding to it so you need another password. As for the Chat it is linked to IRC again linking to somewhere else so that needs a different password again.

Submitted by souri on Fri, 10/12/04 - 9:16 AM Permalink

Yeh, the forum is a seperate thing with its own database, that's why you need another password for it. I didn't develope the forum, however, I could've developed Sumea around it so that you only need one login detail, but I didn't want to risk depending on it in case the forum died development wise and I'd have to switch etc
The IRC applet just puts you onto an IRC server, and like the text says, you don't need a password entry for that at all. The IRC server has some functions where you can register your nick and tie a password to it, in case you don't want anyone else using your nick. You can leave the password textfield blank if you haven't registered your nick and still get on #sumea.

If passwords are annoying, you should just get Firefox to remember them all for you. I have tonnes of passwords and login details for lots of websites, but I haven't had to type any of it in apart from the first time. Firefox can store it and paste it in the fields for you everytime you visit the site. It's quite handy!

Submitted by Blitz on Sat, 11/12/04 - 3:48 AM Permalink

IE can do this too i believe, but i wouldn't use it, feels to risky to have my passwords stored anywhere other than inside my head :P
CYer, Blitz

reinvigorate.net

Forum

(Guy looking over my shoulder): get rid of it, it doesn't work anymore!

Submitted by souri on Tue, 23/11/04 - 3:19 AM Permalink

How does he know it doesn't work ? [:D]..
Reinvigorate creates some logs for me, and I check it regularly. It's still working.

btw did you get that email I sent you??

Sumea Education Insider

Forum

Ok, I have some free time today so I'm going to start on the Sumea Education Insider section. Sounds snazzy doesn't it? Well, it's basically a new section which will list all of the known education sites in Australia and New Zealand. Sort of like developer profiles, but with game development courses.

I've noticed that, while the comments of the courses in the [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=652"]Australian & New Zealand game development courses[/url] thread have been extremely good, it's probably not the best way to provide feedback on all those courses when it's all in just one thread.

So, the plan is to allow feedback to each course via Sumea comments. Sure, with anonymous posting, comments may get a bit ugly now and then, but hopeully they'll be offset with good, insightful and constructive comments.

Ok, I just got a call to go out, so I won't have any time to do any of this today, but since I just wrote all that above, I may as well post it. [:D] And before MoonUnit says it, WEBCAM!!!!!!!!!

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sun, 21/11/04 - 5:01 AM Permalink

ha ha ha ha awesome, nice to know im thought of :P ;)

RSS Feed Failure

Forum

G'day...

Just thought I'd let you know that your RSS feed is playing a bit nasty with Firefox 1.0 (possibly with other browsers too, I don't really know)

The problem, I think, is that the tag in the mailto link for the halo acmi tournament has had it's forward slash escaped as an ampersand-hash-four-seven-semicolon, meaning that the XML isn't well-formed anymore.

Quickest way to fix it will be to simply wrap the data in the description tags in CDATA tags.

Here's the error I get, but note that the forum code is already having some problems with unescaping the & # 5 8 ; (: in mailto:halo@acmi) and the & # 4 7 ; (/ in the tag).

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: http://www.sumea.com.au/include/sumeanews.xml
Line Number 68, Column 115:
[code]
Register to play now email halo@acmi.net.au<#47;a>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------^
[/code]

Cheers

PPS: If you try previewing a post with ampersand escaped html codes in it, the preview pane acts differently to the actual post (the post removes ampersands!) which explains why I've just edited this post :)

Submitted by souri on Fri, 12/11/04 - 8:08 AM Permalink

Ah, ok. I didn't know about ! Very handy. I did a quick fix and it's working fine now. Thanks for the tip! [:)]

Major bug/problem that affects everyone!

Forum

Hey,

A bit strange but i came across this in the news section. If you go to the 2D Artist subject section there is one news post and link titled 'adult galleries' which yeah, goes to an adult website and it was posted by Souri. I had quite a good laugh at it, so much for game developer information for 2D artists [:p].

So Souri, care to explain this news posted by you [:p]?

The news link (Minors do not click, even though i am a minor i found it purely by accident [:p]): http://www.sumea.com.au/snews.asp?news=2&related=2D%20artst

EDIT: It turns out that the same adult gallery is in every news category.

Submitted by souri on Mon, 08/11/04 - 6:09 AM Permalink

Yeh, some idiot posted the link in the comments. Thanks for letting me know.

Submitted by tbag on Tue, 09/11/04 - 2:58 AM Permalink

Ah ok, cool, saves you from getting in trouble from some parents or other webmasters atleast [;)].

Submitted by souri on Tue, 09/11/04 - 7:29 PM Permalink

Yeh, the site does get read by a mixed audience (developers, students, people researching on local game development such as parents, government, media etc).

The anonymous comments posting has been a mixed blessing. I do hope that the language can tone down a bit, with less personal attacks and flaming, but more of the good discussions (and there have been some great discussion). There've been also a tonne of trolls though, like the idiot posting that offensive link, and others posting jibberish or outright offensive and unrelated comments just for the heck of it.

I might put in a "report this offensive comment" button that people can click so I can fix problems asap.

Submitted by tbag on Wed, 10/11/04 - 12:33 AM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Souri

I might put in a "report this offensive comment" button that people can click so I can fix problems asap.

Sounds like a plan, and perhaps an IP logger when comments are posted? [:p]

Submitted by souri on Thu, 11/11/04 - 7:56 PM Permalink

Maybe.. I dunno, I don't think I could be assed to send an email with someone's IP address to the abuse department of their ISP, and I'm sure they couldn't be buggered looking through their logs to find out who it was, especially if it were a dialup person. Although if things get worse, I'll take other measures instead, and then that one if it gets real bad.

Submitted by redwyre on Fri, 12/11/04 - 3:28 AM Permalink

If you capture IPs you can easily delete repeat abuse and even ban that IP from adding comment/accessing the site. Might act as a deterrent too. Also you could use if for the polls.. you can just keep on voting..

Submitted by souri on Sun, 21/11/04 - 3:33 AM Permalink

I don't think I will be capturing IP's for every comment/vote because, as you'd imagine, it would add too much bloat to the database. If the problem gets bad, I'll just put up some options in the admin so volunteers can edit the offensive stuff out themselves.

Capturing IP won't be good for voting - it'll mean that those behind company IP's will only be able to make 1 vote total.

PaintChat Setup....

Forum

Hi!

Just wondering.....is there any information on how to set up my own paintchat room?

Thank you for any responses =)

-tommy

Submitted by souri on Thu, 28/10/04 - 12:49 AM Permalink

[url="http://www.kamioekaki.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16"]This is the place where I used to help set up mine[/url]..

The latest version of Paintchat (the one in that tutorial uses an old one) looks a bit different, and some of the text boxes are placed differently or requires other values. If you need any help with that, I can send you what I put in my settings...

btw, this is only one of the two ways to run Paint Chat. This way is how most people run it - you need your computer online to host the chat, so you need to download the appropriate version if you do it this way.

Submitted by furnut5158 on Mon, 01/11/04 - 2:28 PM Permalink

oh my gosh, thank you very much, Souri! =)

*goes to setup paintchat*