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tsumea

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

Sumea Profile/Journals suggestions

Forum

I'm not sure if members see their own journals on Sumea as useful or as an equally important service compared to what other blogs offer around the net, but I would love to see the journal resource on Sumea becoming more prominent and useful..

I'll probably have a look around to see what ideas I could implement, but if you have any suggestions on improvments to Sumea profile/journals, I'm all ears...

Submitted by Barry Dahlberg on Tue, 26/10/04 - 7:26 PM Permalink

Journals? Where? I guess that answers some of your questions!

:)

Submitted by souri on Thu, 28/10/04 - 1:13 AM Permalink

Yeh, I probably have to give journals an appearance on the main page. At the moment, you need at least two clicks to get onto someone's profile/journal page fom the main page.

Submitted by souri on Fri, 29/10/04 - 6:49 PM Permalink

Just some more ideas I thought of... each member gets a general comments page so people can comment and message anything there. Sorta like a guestbook. I'll parse out the journals as XML so anyone can bookmark your xml page with an RSS reader and get your latest entry in an instant. The code for all this is already in place in other areas of the site so it should be easy enough to implement.

Anyway, more suggestions, people. [:)]

Submitted by Wizenedoldman on Sat, 30/10/04 - 8:56 PM Permalink

Hey Souri I just have to ask cause it's been bugging me for a while now, what happened to your forum avatar? Where's Astroboy? is it just me that's getting this strange wash of colours instead?

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sun, 31/10/04 - 12:48 AM Permalink

thats the M+Ms add by the looks of it (in his AV)

Submitted by souri on Sun, 31/10/04 - 1:19 AM Permalink

Yep, it's the 'colour my world' M&M ad. I love that ad. ^_^

Submitted by Wizenedoldman on Mon, 01/11/04 - 6:45 PM Permalink

Oh yeah I get it now, love that ad, makes me want to swim around in a sea of M&M's gobbling as I go.

Submitted by souri on Wed, 06/04/05 - 5:44 PM Permalink

I've gotten off my ass and upgraded the journals/blogs a bit. It's a little bit more useful (random sumea member, list of latest entries), and it looks a bit more cleaner, I think. You also have a guestbook as well. Also planned is that rss feed (when I can figure how to do it a certain way), and also let members customize the look of their profile page a little.. Upload your own background, choose if you want it tiled or repeated, change the colour of fonts/background colours for certain areas etc.

There are a few errors that need sorting out but I'm working on it.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Thu, 07/04/05 - 8:01 AM Permalink

oh this sounds really cool! As I was going to use my sumea journal thing to write stuff about all those art related goals and that. I just never had a chance to start it :p

Submitted by mcdrewski on Fri, 08/04/05 - 1:37 AM Permalink

suggestion: make the timeout on writing a new post a bit longer, or if you are timed out, at least save the post? :(

oh well. it's always better written the second time around. :)

Submitted by mcdrewski on Fri, 08/04/05 - 1:46 AM Permalink

oh, and perhaps we can more easily link the sumea profiles and the forum profiles? (ie: it's taking me forever to find out how to link to my own profile page...)

Submitted by LiveWire on Fri, 08/04/05 - 9:06 PM Permalink

i agree, if you want to look at someone's profile, you have to seach manually though all mapper, modeller, programer, etc sections to find their name. it would be great to link to it in forum profiles.

Submitted by souri on Sat, 09/04/05 - 12:42 AM Permalink

You could place your link to Sumea profile in your forum profile homepage link, cool links, or comments. [:)] You could put it in your sig if you want to.

If you want to find your own profile page, you'll have to do what Livewire just mentioned. Actually, for new registrations, I've been sending them their profile link in the activation email.

I'll do something about raising the session timeouts..

Submitted by mcdrewski on Mon, 11/04/05 - 9:55 PM Permalink

don't get me wrong - these new features are great and I'm ecstatic that I don't need to set up my own blog now :)

Just "usability" suggestions... :)

Submitted by souri on Thu, 14/04/05 - 10:39 AM Permalink

Ok, folks. If you login and go to edit your profile/select or create profile style, you can choose a fantastic *2* styles that I've thrown in there for testing purposes. Better yet, you can create your own one and choose to use that! It's pretty straightforward, you're just customizing font colours, background colours, background graphics, tiling etc but if you have any problems, let me know here.

Also, if you do create a custom style for your profile page, post it here, I'd love to see it.

Submitted by mcdrewski on Thu, 14/04/05 - 9:03 PM Permalink

Cool! Just tried it out with a colourscheme I've used before (CCFFFF text on 4B3300 background). It would be really nice to also be able to override the default white page body colour too, though...

Submitted by mcdrewski on Fri, 15/04/05 - 7:43 PM Permalink

Just trying to replace the existing background with this new one...

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/mcdrewski/2005414184051_bg.jpg"]bg.jpg[/url]
62.14 KB

...and it doesn't seem to work for me.

So, my guesses are - either work's web proxy is caching the image (which means that the timestamps reported by sumea.com.au need to be 'touched' when an upload occurs) or the upload doesn't let me overwrite for some reason.

any ideas?

EDIT : It's working fine now.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 19/04/05 - 6:38 AM Permalink

Yeh, soemtimes images are stuck in your web browser's cache. Sometimes you have to shift+refresh, or even clear your cache to see the changes. Because these images are referred to by the CSS style, sometimes it's pretty stubborn in displaying the new image in your browser. You'll probably see this when you upload a new forum avatar.

Submitted by redwyre on Fri, 29/04/05 - 11:05 PM Permalink

Got this while looking throught the profile thingies:

Random Sumea Member

ADODB.Field error '800a0bcd'

Either BOF or EOF is True, or the current record has been deleted. Requested operation requires a current record.

/sprofile.asp, line 53

Submitted by souri on Sat, 30/04/05 - 1:26 AM Permalink

Yeh, I know exactly what's causing that. I'll be fixing it sometime later though. [:D]

Submitted by souri on Tue, 04/10/05 - 3:05 PM Permalink

So Sumea Concepts is done, and while I won't be making that available to the public just yet, I'll be working on fixing up the very neglected Sumea Profiles/Journals.

If you have a quick look, I've made a few changes in the appearance of the journal pages. Firefox has some tiny issues with the CSS but I'll be fixing that once I find out why it's doing what it is. IE and Opera is fine. If anything else is broken, just know that I am working on it [;)]

Unfortunately the customised themes that 5 or so members have created will be lost as I've come up with a new way for members to completely change the way they want their journal to look. It'll be really simple and I hope people do some great skins for their page once I finish all that. I'll also get onto that rss feed idea which I had many moons ago, and any other ideas I can come up with to make the journals cooler.

Submitted by souri on Fri, 14/10/05 - 1:35 PM Permalink

I've overhauled the way you can customise the way your journal looks. Log in and choose "Select or Create Journal Style". There are some docs, pics, and files to download if you need any help. If you're stuck on anything or find something wrong, you can post it in this thread.

It's pretty simple, but you should be able to do some pretty wicked stuff with it. Just use your imagination!

Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 19/10/05 - 8:57 AM Permalink

cool! works great! For those artistically crippled souls of us that don't upload images much though, that big blank space at the top of the page looks a bit odd...

Submitted by souri on Wed, 19/10/05 - 11:03 AM Permalink

Hey, very nice work on your journal page, mate [:)] [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofile.asp?member=444"]Everyone check it out[/url]! I'm hoping more and more people have a go. It's pretty simple to do!

Yeh, I've been trying to get get that blank space to disappear with javascript if you don't have any thumbnails. I've put in some asp code in the iframe that says "hey, there's no thumbnails, output this javascript code to hide the thumbnail space", except I don't have that js code working yet. I know it can be done, but my javascript-fu is pretty non-existant. [:(]

If anyone wants to help out with this. [;)]

Submitted by mcdrewski on Wed, 19/10/05 - 9:22 PM Permalink

I'm assuming it's something more complex than this...

[code]

if (document.getElementById("MyDivOrSpanID")) {
document.getElementById("MyDivOrSpanID").innerHTML = " "; // <- that's an & nbsp ; in there...
}
[/code]

Submitted by souri on Wed, 26/10/05 - 10:18 AM Permalink

I'm gonna have to pick your brain for this after I finish up on another project.

Submitted by souri on Sun, 06/11/05 - 9:17 AM Permalink

Hey, that went much smoother than I expected [;)].

Anyways, I've had to overhaul how members write entries and upload pictures to their journals. I know how uploading pictures to your journal used to be such a pain in the arse (anyone remember how it used to be when Sumea first started? *cringe*), and I know even recently people still had problems uploading work. The first problem is that people didn't understand that uploading images was a two step process. The other thing was that reuploading images was a bit of a hack job.. so I've been working on a solution this past week and I'm happy to say that:

1. Writing and uploading pictures only takes one step, the way it should be!! Write your journal, select your pics, then click submit and that's it. Simple!
2. Reuploading images is a *breeze*. Click edit, go to the thumbnail of the pic you want to reupload, and browse for a replacement.
3: This whole deal involved me renaming the thousands of submitted pictures on the website and database, which I was so close to doing by hand until I realised how mind numbingly time consuming that would've been. A simple script and a few minutes later and it was done [:)] I was afraid I was going to do some mistake and accidently batch delete all the images, but it turned out fine. Phew.
4: I've managed to cut down on the number of stinkin pages required to add/edit journal entries from 8 to just 3.

So anyways, I might put in an upload check so that people don't upload files larger than the set limit, but once that's in, the whole writing a journal/uploading picture procedure should be fool proof! No one should be having any problems anymore!

*ALSO* I've put in some functionality in there so you can embed a picture into your journal post, just like most other blogs. I haven't finished it off just yet, it'll only take a few minutes to complete but I'm taking a break for the rest of today. [;)]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sun, 06/11/05 - 10:17 PM Permalink

sounds awesome! i promise i might actually start using it soon too :P (VCE..)

Forum colour.

Forum

Have you ever thought about darkening the average tone of the backgrounds in the threads? The reason I ask is because the bright bluish colour and the white make it quite hard to see the detail in darker images. If the forum was more toward a neutral mid tone images would be easier to see in their full glory so to speak.
Ok I know this probably will not happen, but I thought there is no harm in asking.

Pantmonger

Submitted by souri on Tue, 19/10/04 - 9:11 AM Permalink

It'll probably make text harder to read as a result though. [:(]

Are there any sumea t-shirts left?

Forum

Hi Souri,

Just wondering if there are anymore Sumea shirts left? Mine shrunk in the dryer [V] I guess i'll need a large this time around so that it will shrink to a medium.

Are u coming down to melbourne for the AGDC?

Submitted by souri on Tue, 19/10/04 - 9:10 AM Permalink

Yeh, there's about 30 left. I was supposed to advertise on the site about it, but just never got around to it. Send me your postal address and I will send you a large one.

Don't think I can make it to the AGDC.. can't afford it. [:(]

Submitted by tachyon on Tue, 19/10/04 - 10:28 AM Permalink

awesome, i just sent you an email

Submitted by Blitz on Tue, 19/10/04 - 11:56 PM Permalink

Have you had an attempt at getting a press pass souri?
CYer, Blitz

Submitted by tbag on Wed, 20/10/04 - 3:46 AM Permalink

What forms of payment do you accept?

I went clothes shopping the other week and in my mind it clicked that Sumea shirts were on sale at one point and i was also wondering if any were left. I would love to get one off you, that is if my parents permit it and think you are trustworthy (They are a little over protective when it comes to ordering online, even if it is my money [;)]).

Submitted by souri on Fri, 22/10/04 - 9:16 AM Permalink

I haven't tried for a press pass yet, although I'm trying for someone. It's just that everytime this time of the year, I get hit with car insurance and car rego for $1600... I still yet to pay for my broadband connection and other things .[:X]

Payment is by money order only.. Details in the Sumea Website Related section in the forum somewhere. I'm pretty trustworthy.. [;)]

Submitted by tachyon on Sat, 23/10/04 - 12:22 AM Permalink

hey souri, did u get my email? haven't heard anything back so I assume you're waiting for the money order

Avatars not uploading

Forum

Hey Souri,

Having an issue with uploading new avatars to my profile, I browse to the file and click upload then I get a screen saying it's not a jpeg or that the file is empty, is there some sort of naming format for the file? It's definitely a jpeg, and I've tried other files, not sure what to do next.

Thanks in advance.

Submitted by souri on Sat, 09/10/04 - 12:44 AM Permalink

What browser are you using?

Submitted by Wizenedoldman on Sat, 09/10/04 - 2:52 AM Permalink

Mozilla Firefox, but if that's what's causing it I can easily use IE just to upload a couple of pics, I'll try it out.

Submitted by Wizenedoldman on Sat, 09/10/04 - 3:00 AM Permalink

Hooray! thanks Souri, all fixed, although it's probably given you something to worry over now with Firefox integration.

Submitted by souri on Sun, 10/10/04 - 3:54 PM Permalink

Yeh [:(]. Trust me, no one wants the upload function to work more on Firefox than me. I ditched using Internet Explorer as my primary web prowser a few months ago (only using it to check html/css compatibility on this site when I'm updating).

Firefox is incredible. It's got some very nice skins and many extensions which I simply cannot browse without now. If you haven't tried out Firefox yet, you're nuts!

As for the upload problem, I think I mentioned somewhere else, I don't think there's much I can do atm other than looking into another upload component.

Email Virus forging headers with Sumea email addre

Forum

I've been receiving a tonne of these recently - I'm getting emails which claim to come from sumea.com.au and have an attached virus.. The body of the message says it's a link to a Sumea forum message, but of course if you click it, you're going to get infected...

Obviously, a few of you have been infected and your address book is sending out a tonne of email with forged headers, some saying it's from Sumea. >.<

I thought I was getting these emails myself, until I stumbled onto another site which seems to be [url="http://www.forumplanet.com/planetunreal/topic.asp?fid=3711&tid=1480377"]having the same problem[/url]...

Just a note, I don't even have Outlook set up, and I do all my email through a web based interface which is offered with my hosting plan, so I'm not sending out these bogus emails.

Submitted by Malus on Mon, 13/09/04 - 7:14 PM Permalink

That sucks, do you have an example of a subject line of one of these emails so we know what to be aware off?

I can't understand why people don't have virus checkers, firewalls etc these days. [:P]

Submitted by souri on Tue, 14/09/04 - 3:48 AM Permalink

I've deleted all those messages but I will post it here when I get the next one.. It's obvious to spot because the link to the forum message in the body is actually wrong (I think it says something like sumea.com.au/messages?id=2832837.. not that it actually goes to that url anwyay.)

The body of the message is brief and says something to the tune of "you have received a forum message at...", so it's not hard to get suckered into clicking it if you already receive similar emails from Sumea by subscribing to certain forum sections/messages or someone has sent you an email through the forum..

And yeh, because I send an email out to every person who registers for a Sumea profile, or the mailer sends an email out to every person who registers (thus I'm in a lot of peoples address books), I tend to get a tonne of spam when there's a new email virus breakout.. this one pisses me off most because it's duping people by pretending to be from the site.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 21/09/04 - 12:38 PM Permalink

Just did a quick search on that email text.. looks like one/some of you are infected with a typical Outlook email virus.

[url="http://www.mac-net.com/402087.page"]More details here[/url].

Unexciting Sumea Website Updates

Forum

Yes, in case you didn't notice, the front page is a bit more colourful! I always had a lurking suspicion that the blue colour was a bit dull. Will be changing the rest of the website to match the main page. I've also ran the main page through the validator at w3.org and I've put down the number of errors from over 150 to just 25 now.. most of it was trivial stuff like not adding alt tags to web graphics, even though it's not linking to anything.

Posting job advertisments in forum is taking 5 or more seconds each for me. I'm guessing it's due to so many people subscribing to that section. The forum has to immediately email the info to all those subscribers.. >.<

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 09/09/04 - 6:01 AM Permalink

yeah i did, lookin spiffy souri :D

Submitted by Kane on Fri, 10/09/04 - 6:36 PM Permalink

yes, I must say...Sumea is looking particularly smashing at the moment...well done old chap... [:D]

Submitted by Makk on Sat, 11/09/04 - 1:39 AM Permalink

Yeah, I noticed as well. Looks cool, I like the black lettering with the blue outlines

Submitted by souri on Sun, 19/09/04 - 4:00 PM Permalink

Ok, some more news for those who find Sumea website development updates remotely interesting...

That other unamed project is on hold, and I'm working on converting all the web pages here on Sumea fully into CSS. I actually have most of my previous website development plans [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2021"]mentioned here[/url] completed, so I'll be embarking on the next project..

At the moment, the site is a html/css hybrid, with CSS only handling simple things like font types, colours, and links. There are tonnes of table data, tables within tables, and more and tags than you can shake a stick at. This was the proper way of doing pages before CSS came about. Now that CSS is getting more support and compliance from web browsers, it's a good time to ditch the old way of doing web pages and adopt the new streamlined one.

The new way is to seperate out the content and use an external style sheets for layout, font, colour, graphics info etc. It'll mean a heck of a lot less table tags, and all the pages will be really raw with mostly content (text). All the layout/display info is in the style sheet, and since they get cached, there's a lot less to retrieve when you're visiting a new page. So yeh, pages will load much faster! [8D]

The fun thing with external style sheets is that you can have as many as you like, and if you build the pages so, you can make it so visitors could choose different 'skins' on how your site looks. Heck, if I ever feel the urge to redesign the site, I don't have to even touch the pages!

I've got a cable modem and even I get a bit impatient watching each graphic load, so I'll be designing an extremely simple but elegant dialup-modem-friendly skin for Sumea - so pages will be even more faster! Making a new dialup-modem friendly skin was the main motivator for embarking on this project. I don't know how you dialup mode users manage [?].

I'm half way through doing the main page at the moment (I'm learning and refining as I go), and I'm amazed how much less scripting is required... however, Mozilla/Firefox and IE have different ideas on many things like space and margin sizes, and certain things work fine on one browser and flat out break on the other, so it's been a headache trying to make it work fine on both. Haven't tried testing it on Opera, but I guarentee there's going to be problems there too (although only 1% of you are using it on this site).

Submitted by matias on Sun, 19/09/04 - 10:00 PM Permalink

Haha, very nice of you Souri, including all the browsers and stuff! One reason I will never be a designer is when I made my little sites I made sure it worked on IE and bugger the rest of the guys out there!! haha, but I guess thats why your a webmaster dude, and I'm clearly not!! I also just upgraded to win XP and thought the site was loading a helluvalot fast and thought wooohee go winxp! but now I see it was you tireless efforts to help poor modem users such as myself! Thank you!

Submitted by souri on Tue, 21/09/04 - 12:28 PM Permalink

I've been a dialup modem user for over a decade (I got my first 2400bps modem in 1992 which cost me $400!!), so I haven't forgotten about ya's [;)].

Submitted by souri on Thu, 23/09/04 - 10:01 PM Permalink

http://www.sumea.com.au/1sumea.html

I've tested it on IE6 and FireFox 1 beta release and it works fine (not mentioning the hours and hours of head scratching, and getting things working right on both browsers). I'm sure this is gonna break on Opera, Konquerer, Safari, IE <5.5 including Mac, Netscape <4 etc..

(Ok, a lot of the positioning is messed up slightly in Opera, but it's still usable. Looking at my logs, 0.1% of the visitors here use that browser, so it's no big deal)..

Let me know if any of you find something wrong... post screenies etc

(I know the page doesn't look exciting, but you have to check out the page source to see how leaner and nicer it is)

Submitted by souri on Tue, 27/09/05 - 11:52 AM Permalink

Just some closure on this topic. I've finally figured out why the site looked like ass on Opera. Basically, you have to set body{margin:0;padding:0;} in CSS. IE and Firefox did that as default, but it seems Opera just gives you padding anyway if you don't set it to anything. [?]

Apart from Opera still not being able to do transparent iFrame backgrounds, the site looks the same in IE, Firefox, and Opera. Hopefully that means it'll be fine on other browsers too.

Submitted by Kizza on Thu, 29/09/05 - 9:19 AM Permalink

Excellent work Souri! I've found that more often than not Firefox will display my designs perfect, IE will be off by 1-5 pixels. Which is a shame. I've never tested in Opera so I hope nothing I make crashes and burns with it, haha. Hurray for cross-browser Sumea!

Submitted by souri on Sun, 06/11/05 - 5:59 AM Permalink

I'll be doing some big updates this weekend, so please don't add any journal entries since they'll be lost when I finish.

Submitted by souri on Sat, 12/11/05 - 4:48 AM Permalink

Ok, I'll be doing some small fixes and improvements here and there, and then I'll be working on Sumea Newstation. I say what I've got planned here, but it's gonna be awesome [:)]

Sumea Paint Chat test

Forum

http://sumea.game-host.org:18000/

Make sure you have to Java desktop software... http://www.java.com/ (top right of the screen)

Submitted by J I Styles on Tue, 07/09/04 - 5:58 PM Permalink

hooray [:D]

I had a feeling you'd like the paint chat idea souri, and it looks like it may very well be a popular thing [:)]

Cool stuff!

Submitted by souri on Wed, 08/09/04 - 12:31 AM Permalink

Ok, I had some outage since morning, so Sumea Paint Chat was down. My connection is back online, and I've been assigned to a new IP - I've updated the first post here with the new address and the news item, so connect to that!

So, from now on, don't bookmark Sumea Paint Chat - check the front page (I'll make a link) or this thread for the proper link.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Wed, 08/09/04 - 4:01 AM Permalink

its not loading now :o !!!
it gets to 80% and just stops loadin

Submitted by Malus on Wed, 08/09/04 - 8:02 AM Permalink

yeah I cna't get it up and running either. [:(]

Submitted by souri on Wed, 08/09/04 - 8:18 AM Permalink

If it hangs on 80%, click reresh on your browser to give it another go. It usually will work after 1 or 2 tries if the applet hangs at 80%..

Submitted by Stephen on Wed, 08/09/04 - 10:18 PM Permalink

Ok i'm guessing it doesn't work if your behind a firewall, am I right?

The application starts up and I can see the chat window and paint area and controls and stuff but after about 30 seconds a dialog popups with a connection failed message.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 09/09/04 - 1:32 AM Permalink

Not sure about the firewall...

When you see the chat window/paint area etc, did you write your name in the text box below and click enter?

Submitted by Stephen on Fri, 10/09/04 - 12:15 AM Permalink

Yes I entered the room by typing my name and clicking the 'enter' button.

After doing this, the button changes to 'leave'. Then about 30 seconds later the connection failed message appears.

I haven't tried this at home yet (to test my firewall theory).

Does the applet try to communicate through anything other then http?

Submitted by souri on Fri, 10/09/04 - 8:57 AM Permalink

Not sure... but yeh, it does sound like a firewall problem.

Submitted by palantir on Wed, 20/10/04 - 5:01 AM Permalink

Is paint chat up and running at the moment? Because when I connect, I?m not getting anything listed in the who?s online section ? the server isn?t there. I get the normal paint chat screen open up, but after entering my name and clicking enter, nothing happens. No error messages or anything, just a blank paint chap applet. If the problem?s my end, I don?t know what the problem could be.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Wed, 20/10/04 - 6:21 AM Permalink

it appears to be down atm, page dosent load at all for me

Submitted by souri on Wed, 20/10/04 - 7:12 AM Permalink

Ah, ok.. The redirection service decided to change a few things, like dropping game-host.org as an option, and putting in a pop up [:X]. So I've had to change it to http://sumea.is.dreaming.org .. I've adjusted the login page so it gets onto there now, so it should all be ok.

Submitted by souri on Fri, 22/10/04 - 9:07 AM Permalink

Paint Chat is offline for the rest of this month since I've been throttled back to 33.6k for exceeding my bandwidth limit.. [:X]

No Freebased Email for Sumea Profiles

Forum

Ok, I'm starting to get tired of having to respond to people who have registered for a Sumea profile with a hotmail or other freebased email address, then having to explain why, and getting told off. The thing is, there's text *right* next to the email textbox saying "no free web based email address (e.g Hotmail, Yahoo etc).", yet I'm getting 3 or so people a day who have totally missed reading that somehow and registered anyway..

So from now on, I'm not going to respond at all and I won't register you.

(the forum is different, however, so you can use whatever email address you want here)

Upload problem

Forum

The other day I was trying to upload 4 pics at the same time but it didn't work. Then I try 3 but still without success. I ended up uploading only 2 pics. I'm sure I was following the right steps. I am not sure what went wrong....

Submitted by souri on Tue, 31/08/04 - 12:19 AM Permalink

What happened straight after you tried to upload 4 pics? Did you get an error message or what exactly happened? Did you see their names in the pic boxes on the next page where you write your news entry?

Submitted by Rapid on Tue, 31/08/04 - 1:05 AM Permalink

I got some sort of error, something like HTTP 550 server capacity error (can't really remember), few minutes after I started upload (using dial-up). It didn't get to the news entry page (the one shows pics). I tried reducing pic size but it still didn't work. Then I tried 3 pics and only 2 pics showed up in the news entry page. I am not sure what I did wrong....

Submitted by souri on Tue, 31/08/04 - 1:10 AM Permalink

Can you give it another shot and type out the error it gives here? Thanks...

Not exactly sure what it is - it could possibly be a script timeout since it's taking so long to upload 3-4 files at 150k each with dialup..

Submitted by Rapid on Tue, 31/08/04 - 1:25 AM Permalink

Ok, will try next time. I think it must be the problem with dailup.

I've been offline

Forum

If you have sent a news or job submission recently, I haven't been able to update the site since Friday. Since Friday, I've had to help out and attend a wedding as best man, had my car crashed into, and got the flu which left me bed ridden for the last 2 days. I can't access my email account at the moment as I can't remember my password, and I'm at an internet cafe since my brothers internet account (which I was sharing) has stopped working for some reason - which is why there have been no news up on the site recently..

Will be trying to get back online and updating things as soon as possible.

Submitted by bullet21 on Wed, 18/08/04 - 3:04 AM Permalink

I haven't been on sumea for quite some time, it has been a very hectic fornight at school. But why the hell does everything look so big. It reminds me of world 4 from Mario Bros. 3

Submitted by davidcoen on Thu, 19/08/04 - 4:01 AM Permalink

hey souri, hope life is treating you a bit better by now, try to get some rest (seem to work the best at getting rid of colds) and best wishes on continued survival

Submitted by souri on Mon, 23/08/04 - 8:51 AM Permalink

Yeh, I'm feeling much better now. I can't believe I dragged myself out of bed to take the car in to the garage (and popped into an internet cafe as well). I was shivering and my bones were aching still [:)]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Mon, 23/08/04 - 9:47 AM Permalink

damn that sounds like a hard week, and i thought mine was bad :P

Submitted by souri on Sun, 29/08/04 - 1:59 AM Permalink

I sitll have no internet access [:(]. Stupid router doesn't work!! *kicks router*

Things may be a bit quiet until Thursday next week when my cable access is installed.

Submitted by Brain on Wed, 01/09/04 - 9:56 PM Permalink

Yay, this makes me feel a lil less guilty about being here for weeks now. Still feel horribly behind though. The most art I've been doing is doodles on the weekly paper at work. Permanent part time's a bitch to your existing schedule.

Search members by employer / workplace...

Forum

This is just a thought, but it might be handy to have a feature on Sumea to search for members working at a particular dev company. Maybe in the profile there could be an employer field?

Has this already been mentioned, and what does everyone else think?

Submitted by Jason on Fri, 13/08/04 - 10:09 PM Permalink

Yeah this would be good. It also helps us know who is in the industry and who isn't, being able to see their work gives us an idea of the level we need to achieve in our respective portfolios.

Submitted by Kuldaen on Tue, 17/08/04 - 9:47 AM Permalink

I think there are already enough fields in the profile for people to put that sort of information if they want to - bio, occupation, homepage, latest news etc. Most people have links to their websites which usually tell you who they currently work for in a CV or something. If you put in a field to search by, you sort of open it up to people who start pestering people from specific companies etc. This might tend to push people in the industry away from this site which would be a real shame.

Just my 2c

-Kul

Submitted by Kane on Tue, 17/08/04 - 8:15 PM Permalink

true...it might be just a little too convenient for people to find out where you work...

oh well...just a suggestion...[:)]

Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 18/08/04 - 12:44 AM Permalink

although I can see where you're coming from, I personally wouldn't like this for 3 reasons:

1)it's a little too close to home for people to "stalk" people with jobs. There's this really silly myth out there that people who have jobs in "The Industry" have achieved some holy grail which elevates them aboves other people, and you get this silly fanboyism; recognition and feedback for something you've made is always nice, but people harassing you daily is not cool.

2)As I noted above, this silly trend is a bad thing -- even worse is when it happens the other way around. When people who have a job get a bloated head and smother others in their ego. "I'm soooo cool, you suck, I'm cool!" egos make me quite sick. Although it's a small thing, this could perpetuate this mentality in these boards, which I don't think is a good thing. A little boys club isn't cool.

3)It could just as easily be used as a corporate headhunting tool. "Anyone who's worth anything has this box ticked, or works at x studio" -- that can very easily be abused.

anyways, just my 2 cents, but I think it makes way too much trouble in the end.

Submitted by Kane on Wed, 18/08/04 - 4:10 AM Permalink

that all makes perfect sense...thanks J.I. Styles

didn't really think about all that when I posted...[:p]

Submitted by Malus on Wed, 18/08/04 - 7:00 AM Permalink

I'd have to agree with JI.
Alot of people think because you work in the industry you are able to rain glorious jobs upon the needy, not the case, we generally do what were are told and have little or no sway with HR.

I'm sure most industry people have no problem helping people on Sumea, I enjoy it myself, its the countless emails to your work account that annoy. [:P]

Submitted by souri on Thu, 19/08/04 - 3:16 AM Permalink

Hey, glad this got sorted. [:)]
There's already a field for the developer name in Sumea member profiles, but that's used for people who want to edit/write news etc on behalf of the developer. Yeh, it can be easily modifed and used for the purposes that Kane has mentioned, but if there's ever an implementation of that, it'll be a choice for the member to use or not.

Paint Chat request

Forum

One thing I'd absolutely love for sumea is a paint chat style channel -- eg a chat and graffiti board to draw and scribble on with other people in real time.

Examples:
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/xvadark43vx/paintchat.html

http://ariela.jp/spc/chat/entrance_pro.html <---really good one

home of that one is: http://www.paintchat.jp , multilingual chat example here: http://chat.paintchat.jp/%7Eaotama/paintchat01/paintchat.html

etc etc

Submitted by souri on Thu, 12/08/04 - 3:54 AM Permalink

Ok, that Paintchat thing rocks... I've downloaded the java applet, but I can't find any english instructions anywhere.. As soon as I figure it out, I'll put it up on Sumea...

Submitted by souri on Thu, 12/08/04 - 9:10 AM Permalink

You know what cheeses me off? When I spend hours and hours trying to get this applet to work, searching the web and finding nothing, modifying, editing, moving around the applet files, and then I find out that they won't work on Sumea because the server's been configured not to run servlets. [:(!] I have to send an email to technical support to switch it on, and then *hopefully* we're in business...

I've been mucking a little on other paintchats and it's extremely fun.. [:)]

Submitted by souri on Thu, 12/08/04 - 5:08 PM Permalink

Ok, I can't run servlets on the server with this hosting plan... [:P]
There's an alternate way to run it and that's to have my own computer be the server, but that won't work either because I'm behind a router. [:o)]

I'd love to have it running, but unfortunately the only option is to either have someone else with a broadband connection to be a server and leave it up all the time, or I pay for dedicated server (damn expensive).

Or someone can donate a dedicated server.. [B)]

Submitted by Aven on Thu, 12/08/04 - 6:20 PM Permalink

I have an old Athlon 1.4 with Mobo and 512mb RAM lying around (parents just upgraded as they didnt like the noise :p). It is yours if you want it, but it does heat up a bit with the heatsink and fan that is on it. You would have to have the other parts though.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 12/08/04 - 6:44 PM Permalink

Thanks for the offer, but I also need it to be connected to the net/serve PaintChat [:D]

Submitted by Aven on Thu, 12/08/04 - 8:09 PM Permalink

Fine... away with you... just don't come back later on. That's all I'm saying (he really needs to make new eps of that show) :D Offer stands for anyone else. $10, and it is all yours.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 12/08/04 - 8:37 PM Permalink

Actually, I might do... what state do you live in again?

Submitted by Aven on Fri, 13/08/04 - 12:51 AM Permalink

ACT. If it for you, just cover the postage. If I have to take it to Revolve to get rid of it, then it will cost me money :/ I would set it up as part of a render farm, but I don't have the room or the money or licences. Tell the truth, I think I have parts to actually make a whole new computer (bar hdd). PM me if you are interested, and I'll have a look.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 26/08/04 - 5:21 AM Permalink

Could you post it to me, and I'll pay what it costs for shipping/packaging to you via money order?

btw, regarding the paint chat - my shared internet connection with router is borked, so I'll have to pay for Telstra cable.. which means I *should* be able to host Sumea paintchat on my 2nd computer with those parts. It's gonna be heaps fun [:)]

Submitted by palantir on Thu, 26/08/04 - 7:55 AM Permalink

Aven - you know, some people around here would think an Athlon 1.4 with 512mb RAM isn't all that bad.. hmm, maybe it's time to upgrade the old P4 2.4, 512mb...
..well, it may not run doom3 very well, but with max4 it does the job! [:P]

Paint chat would be ace - just as long as everyone involved has a tablet! Real-time art with a mouse is not a pretty thing.

Submitted by redwyre on Fri, 27/08/04 - 6:54 AM Permalink

just cause you have a tablet doesn't mean it's going to look pretty!

Submitted by J I Styles on Fri, 27/08/04 - 7:01 PM Permalink

hehe, true red... but it does mean you can indulge in many more levels of pressure sensitive ugly [;)]

Submitted by souri on Sun, 29/08/04 - 2:05 AM Permalink

I've been mucking around with the applet and I've finally got it working (it's been kinda hard without English docs and all the buttons/labels/menus are in Japanese). Currently I'm serving it via localhost and testing it there, but when my internet cable is installed on Thursday, I'll put up Sumea Paintchat! It's gonna be awesome! It's a great way for people to polish on their drawing/painting skills, I reckon.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sun, 29/08/04 - 6:08 AM Permalink

ah crap, and me with my dodgy 4 by 5 tablet.... i can do better with mouse -_-

New idea on Sumea - coming real soon!

Forum

Oh, the cogs in my brain started turning a bit an hour ago, and I came up with this great idea to start another fun thing on Sumea.. I won't tell you what it is yet, but it's gonna be great! [:D] It's somewhat art related, but the programmers and artisticly challenged among us can join in too..

Just had to let someone know. [:o)]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Wed, 11/08/04 - 1:47 AM Permalink

so basicly what your saying is theres an idea which you wont tell us but damn we should be exited.... well hell im sold! :D

(and the ghost from the forum graves said.. weeeebcaaaam)

Submitted by souri on Wed, 11/08/04 - 2:16 AM Permalink

I was actually going to start work on the webcam thing this afternoon/tonight but I have to be off somewhere [:)]

And yeh, you'd better get excited!! I know it doesn't help since I haven't said what it is, but I love these small activities that gets everyone involved and in the end you have something cool to look at... Pixel Town was great, the next pixel subject will be cool too, but this idea is going to be fun, amusing, and unique only to Sumea [:D] [8D]

Submitted by Jason on Wed, 11/08/04 - 4:37 AM Permalink

Wow can't wait to find out what it is!

Submitted by Makk on Wed, 11/08/04 - 7:25 AM Permalink

Interesting....

Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 11/08/04 - 6:18 PM Permalink

I'd love to see a sumea paint chat channel :)

Submitted by souri on Wed, 11/08/04 - 8:26 PM Permalink

We had the Speed Paint every fortnight in the Sumea chat room which started off pretty good, but died off after a while. In the end, I think it was just me, Pantmonger, and someone else taking part.

Anyway, I want to get this new idea off the ground as soon as possible. It's going to be a whole new section on Sumea, and people will be able to rank contributions and everything. I just hope you'll find it exciting as I do. [:)] I just need to do some art for it first, but it should grow from there with everyone's help...

Submitted by palantir on Wed, 11/08/04 - 9:26 PM Permalink

I'm excited!!, Big Kev style [:D]

Looking forward to the next pixel activity also [:)]

Submitted by souri on Thu, 09/09/04 - 2:13 AM Permalink

Ok, this idea is a mammoth task. Not only do I have to do all the initial art assets (we're talking about tonnes of art here), but I have to look into ways of using Macromedia Flash (which I haven't used since version 3) and assets dynamically with a database.

d[>.<]b

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 09/09/04 - 3:54 AM Permalink

dammit we cant get exited without spoilers, we demand spoilers dammit! :P

Submitted by davidcoen on Fri, 10/09/04 - 2:30 AM Permalink

a sprite based orthorgraphic MUD/ sumea chat rooms with user editable avatarts (32x32 pixels and some 16 frames of animation (4 idle, 4 walk, 4 cheer, 4 angry) ?

Submitted by Kane on Fri, 10/09/04 - 4:40 AM Permalink

wow...my brain has just erupted with joy...[:D]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Fri, 10/09/04 - 5:30 AM Permalink

i think coen was guessing, not knowing

Submitted by souri on Fri, 10/09/04 - 8:56 AM Permalink

Hey, that sounds pretty cool.

Submitted by Rapid on Sat, 11/09/04 - 10:11 PM Permalink

Something like "Sumea Kingdom" or Continent of Sumea" where everyone can contribute designs for characters, creatures, monsters, landscapes, or even stories of a world? [?]

Submitted by souri on Sun, 12/09/04 - 2:30 AM Permalink

You guys are submitting better ideas than what I've had planned. >.<

That would be great, but I have no idea how to program a mud [:D]

Submitted by RasTuS on Tue, 14/09/04 - 4:09 AM Permalink

heh.. reminds me of the red vs blue public service announcement about halo 2

interesting...

:D

Submitted by MoonUnit on Tue, 14/09/04 - 4:23 AM Permalink

lol i was watching that the other day XP
to play the part then: "well im completely stoked" :D

I'm retarded

Forum

Can someone please post a step by step guide to getting images uploaded on Sumea? I've done it befor ebut I can't remember how to do it. I've tried uploading the full images first, then thumbnails. Tried it the other way around too, I've tried changing the filenames, resizing the image (yes they are all the right sizes, 800by600 and 100by63.) I've tried changing the order of uploading etc. It's nuts. I can't for the life of me get it to work.

Could someone please write how to do it and with which images (thumbnails etc) and alse outlining the file naming conventions we need to use etc..

Thanks

Submitted by souri on Tue, 10/08/04 - 1:29 AM Permalink

Click on "ADD NEWS TO YOUR JOURNAL WITH PICTURES"

Browse for your large images to upload.. There is no need to worry about naming conventions or image dimensions anymore.. click upload.

Write your news entry, then click to submit. That should be it. Thumbnails are generated automatically.

Submitted by Jason on Tue, 10/08/04 - 5:56 AM Permalink

Thanks Souri, I've done what you've said. It's created a new entry, however no new thumbnails have been generated. Do I just have to wait until they appear?

Submitted by souri on Tue, 10/08/04 - 2:17 PM Permalink

They are generated on the server just after you upload your large pictures, and it should be completed automatically just before you write your news entry. You don't have to wait for them to appear. However, I've looked in the images directory, and it looks like nothing is getting uploaded at all from you.

It's using the same uploading component as always, so it's a mystery as to why it's not working for you (I know you've been able to upload images in the past).

What browser are you using and what version? After you upload a picture, and when you write your news entry, are there any of the picture text fields filled?

Submitted by Jason on Tue, 10/08/04 - 8:49 PM Permalink

I'm using mozilla 1.7 if that's any help to you? Though I read that mozilla should be compatible. Thanks again for your help Souri.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 10/08/04 - 8:53 PM Permalink

For the meantime, make a post here and attach the images you're trying to upload (you can upload files to the forum now) and I'll put it in your news post for you..

Submitted by Jason on Tue, 10/08/04 - 9:31 PM Permalink

Hey I tried uploading in IE and it worked, so it's definitely a browser issue.

Submitted by Stephen on Wed, 11/08/04 - 7:10 PM Permalink

Yeah I get the some problem, using Firefox 0.9.2.

Souri, I don't think your website is Gecko friendly.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 09/09/04 - 1:30 AM Permalink

I've made the transition to Firefox as well. I remember looking into the upload incompatibility ages ago (it didn't work on Opera), and I couldn't find a work around. The problem is the way Mozilla/Firefox/Opera is sending the form data, probably with enctype=multipart/form-data. The upload component isn't making any sense of it and just ignoring what's being sent.

I guess I should make an enquiry at mozilla forums >.<
It could be a problem with the upload component (SA Upload), but the server is using the latest version, and I would guess they'd fix it by now.

Comments Function on Sumea Votes, Mem Pics, News..

Forum

I've just put up the functionality for visitors to [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/svotes.asp?id=37"]comment on the voting topics on Sumea[/url].. if you ever had anything to say in one of the topics, you can do it now. [:)]

Anyway, I can re-use the asp code, and with some adjustments, we can have comments for uploaded pictures too..

Submitted by souri on Mon, 09/08/04 - 8:42 PM Permalink

Ok, that was easy. [:)] You can post comments for any of the gallery pics that Sumea members have uploaded now!

Submitted by souri on Tue, 10/08/04 - 3:33 PM Permalink

You can also comment on Sumea news entries as well now!

Submitted by souri on Mon, 28/11/05 - 2:22 PM Permalink

Ok, this probably isn't very interesting to anybody, but I kinda got tired of having to go in and removing duplicate posts from people making comments and clicking refresh right after. It took a bit of wrangling and changing how a lot of other things work but that problem is now no more. Also when people write profanity and swear words, they get to re-edit it rather than lose their messages like before (heh). Anyway, the comments asp scipting is shocking (there's so much going on) and I never want to touch it ever again.

I'm looking forward to adding/changing something in another 2 months and shouting out "what.. the.. freakn hell?!" at the comments asp.

Submitted by mcdrewski on Mon, 28/11/05 - 9:34 PM Permalink

Ah souri, you say you're not a coder but you have the soul and the hard-bitten potty-mouth of a true maintenance coder :)

Good fix BTW - thanks for the hard work.

edit: typo

Submitted by souri on Thu, 01/12/05 - 12:50 PM Permalink

I'm probably the last person on Earth you'd wanna even remotely call a coder. [:D]

Submitted by lorien on Mon, 05/12/05 - 11:50 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Souri

I'm probably the last person on Earth you'd wanna even remotely call a coder. [:D]

Nope. Your code mostly works [:)] (even on weird browsers). Puts you out in front imho [:)]

eep, weird forum error

Forum

i was on the forums just now when the followin popped up:

Microsoft JET Database Engine error '80004005'
Record is deleted.

/forum/inc_func_common.asp, line 157

soooooo i dunno if thats a real problem or not but i thought i should just mention it just incase

Submitted by souri on Mon, 09/08/04 - 7:51 PM Permalink

Not exactly sure what cause that. Perhaps you were trying to view a post that was just deleted a microsecond earlier.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Mon, 09/08/04 - 7:59 PM Permalink

nah, i just went to the main forum page

?AUS-VGDC 2004 - Calling for Entry - Article Query

Forum

The relevant link to the PDF form does not work for me. Adobe Reader says the file is corrupted.

Anyone else have this problem?

I emailed Visionary Forces about this and the Virtools Eval. edition, but haven't heard anything back.

I'm on MacOSX.2, btw.

Cheers!

Logic in having to register with non-free email?

Forum

I was just wondering what the logic is in not accepting registrations using free email accounts such as Hotmail, given I've just been rejected on this reason?

I've been using stephencarmody@hotmail.com for something like 6 years now. It is my only public contact address. I would not use my work email address as it's only ment for work related communication, nor any crappy ISP email account I may currently have as we all now how much of a hassle it is when changing ISP's.

So why are you insisting I provide a less stable email account (i.e. change jobs, change ISP) then my hotmail account?

Secondly, would I still be able to enter and win programmer contests with only my forum account?

If so, I guess I can live with out a site registration, but non-the-less it is a shame.

Thanks,
Stephen

Submitted by Stephen on Wed, 21/07/04 - 7:29 PM Permalink

Ok I just read bullet21's post about his issue with not being able to register with hotmail account.

Is it cool Souri, if you let me use my hotmail account aswell?

Thanks,
Stephen

Submitted by souri on Thu, 22/07/04 - 7:19 AM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Stephen

I was just wondering what the logic is in not accepting registrations using free email accounts such as Hotmail, given I've just been rejected on this reason?

I've been using stephencarmody@hotmail.com for something like 6 years now. It is my only public contact address. I would not use my work email address as it's only ment for work related communication, nor any crappy ISP email account I may currently have as we all now how much of a hassle it is when changing ISP's.

So why are you insisting I provide a less stable email account (i.e. change jobs, change ISP) then my hotmail account?

I think my post to Bullet21 says it all really. What's to stop someone bent on abusing the service when it's so easy for them to register a new account on Hotmail etc within minutes? Ponder on the possibilities of abuse on a free image hosting service like Sumea can pose, and you can understand why I don't want to give membership without some sort of safe guard.

If I weigh up the potential amount of headaches I can get through abuse by opening up to those registrants, to inconveniencing genuine people who prefer to use hotmail than their own ISP email address, then obviously I choose the latter.

If you do change jobs or ISP (which I'm sure isn't that often), it's a simple email to me to adjust your details with a new email address. It's not hard to do.

Submitted by Stephen on Thu, 22/07/04 - 10:54 AM Permalink

Right... so a site account is inaccessible to me then.

Can I still enter and win (God forbidding) programmer contests with only my forum account?

Thanks,
Stephen

Testing file attachments mod

Forum

(Yes, you can upload images through Sumea's forum now)

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://66.148.2.51/forum/attached/souri/2004716135442_teaser.jpg"]teaser.jpg[/url]
42.62?KB

Insert Image: [img]http://66.148.2.51/forum/attached/souri/2004716135442_teaser.jpg[/img]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sat, 17/07/04 - 9:36 PM Permalink

so do you have to upload the image and then basicly figure out what the url will be and place that under the image tags?

Submitted by souri on Sun, 18/07/04 - 12:37 AM Permalink

After you upload your image, it'll spit out the attachment link into where you're writing your message.. You can be a smarty and just edit that link and put image tags around it if you want the image to show up in the message, rather than as a link.

Something worth noting is that you can re-use images that you have uploaded. When you go to attach an image, click re-use to see the list of images you have uploaded.

Also, you can attach txt files too - this is useful for programmers who want to show off source code. It's better for people to attach txt examples rather than have all that text go into a forum post which bloats the database..

Red vs Blue calendar wrong?

Forum

The Red Vs Blue screening is on august 22, but the main page says only 7 days to go! (22 July) I'm guessing perhaps an error was made when it was entered into the calnedar? :)
CYer, Blitz

Submitted by souri on Fri, 16/07/04 - 12:05 AM Permalink

Whoops.... thanks [:)]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Fri, 16/07/04 - 5:17 AM Permalink

crikey, i didnt realise they were coming down here! damn im so goin to that...

Uh oh

Forum

Crap...

My hosting plan expires today. My new hosting plan in the US hasn't received my payment yet either. I've been emailing my current host to see if I can extend my plan by another month, but all I get is an email responder. So it may be likely that the site disappears for a few days - if it does, don't panic, I'll be trying to get it back up asap.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 15/07/04 - 12:01 AM Permalink

lol woops
oh well, im sure we'll live :P

Submitted by Daemin on Thu, 15/07/04 - 12:10 AM Permalink

You're kidding right MoonUnit? :-P

Submitted by bullet21 on Thu, 15/07/04 - 2:27 AM Permalink

I'll shut myself down, to just breathing until such time as sumea is back up :)

Submitted by Me109 on Thu, 15/07/04 - 3:30 AM Permalink

ohhhh nooooooooooooo!!! the walls are crumbling around me!!

Submitted by souri on Fri, 16/07/04 - 10:46 AM Permalink

Yeh, the site seems to be running at the moment on borrowed time. My web host hasn't even responded to any of my emails yet (from accounts, or tech support), and I emailed them late last week. Most hosting places offer 24 hours support and real quick responses [:P]. I really wanted to get the database and domain transfered over to the new server asap, but I'm still waiting for a reply [:(]

I've been migrating the site over to the U.S server (yes, they received my payment, but they didn't let me know [:P]) for the last few days and everything is working and going fine.

I spent last night and today making use of the image components on the new server, and I've gotten it all working too! No more crappy uploading procedure, and renaming your files a specific way, 800x600 image size restrictions, specific thumbnail size and dimensions etc! Just upload whatever sized images you have, write your news, and it's done! Sumea will make your thumbnails for you and figure out everything else.. [B)]

*** btw, I need some volunteers to test this out, so if you're willing to log into your sumea profile account on the new server, upload files and report any problems, private message me please..

I will also be looking into implementing a file attachment/image uploading mod for the forum so that anyone who wants to show off a picture in exhibition area, or modeller challenge section, can upload their work through the forum and have it displayed in a post automatically..

Submitted by souri on Sat, 17/07/04 - 10:25 AM Permalink

test - ok, forum's date is fixed. :D

Submitted by souri on Sat, 17/07/04 - 1:36 PM Permalink

Forum email is working again, so you can send each other email here now... it's a bit slow though, and it stamps the wrong time on the message sent (it's using the mail server's American time zone).. will see on getting that fixed..

Submitted by souri on Sun, 18/07/04 - 3:53 PM Permalink

Anyone wanna give a comment on website speed compared to the previous hosting location? Noticable slower or is it the same to you?

Submitted by bullet21 on Sun, 18/07/04 - 7:36 PM Permalink

It seems a fair bit faster to me, and i had cable as well, evrything loads almost instantly. It looks great as well with these nex XP icons. JOB WELL DONE SOURI

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sun, 18/07/04 - 9:57 PM Permalink

with my cable i never notice any speed changes :P but the forums sure looks spiffy, your doing good with all the upgrades :D

Submitted by Aven on Sun, 18/07/04 - 11:07 PM Permalink

512k DSL. No difference as far as I can tell. Haven't had any troubles either :)

Submitted by souri on Mon, 19/07/04 - 1:32 AM Permalink

I'm on 512k ADSL as well, but there's a noticable slow down in speed for me. Previously, page loading was near instant, but now I can see each graphic loading one after the other. Sure, it's only about 3 seconds more, but still.

Submitted by inglis on Mon, 19/07/04 - 1:57 AM Permalink

im on 256k and i have no problems at all.

Submitted by Makk on Mon, 19/07/04 - 2:06 AM Permalink

56k dialup!! woooooo!

Didnt notice anything.

Submitted by souri on Mon, 19/07/04 - 2:53 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Makk

56k dialup!! woooooo!

Didnt notice anything.
Testing new quote box... oooh, nice. [:)]

Submitted by souri on Mon, 19/07/04 - 2:54 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Souri

quote:Originally posted by Makk

56k dialup!! woooooo!

Didnt notice anything.
Testing new quote box... oooh, nice. [:)]
[:o)]

Submitted by redwyre on Mon, 19/07/04 - 9:16 PM Permalink

quote:quote:quote:Originally posted by Souri

quote:Originally posted by Souri

quote:Originally posted by Makk

56k dialup!! woooooo!

Didnt notice anything.
Testing new quote box... oooh, nice. [:)]
[:o)]

I don't like the new icons! They're too big!

Submitted by souri on Wed, 21/07/04 - 1:51 AM Permalink

I'm not sure how long Sumea was offline this afternoon, but I had to reset the server... Something is taking up too much memory or processor speed.

Submitted by X5 on Wed, 21/07/04 - 4:00 AM Permalink

must be keeping track of all those quotes ;P

Submitted by souri on Thu, 22/07/04 - 7:53 PM Permalink

Had to reset the server again this morning [:(]. Site must've been offline for 4 hours or so.. I've got the server on automatic reset, but that only happens after 2 hours of inactivity, unfortunately there's at least someone on this site all the time. Seems I might have to reset the server every 2 days, or find out what the problem is. >:(

ATT. Souri

Forum

is it possible for me to sign up for a Modeller profile as well as my programmer one? i am attempting to delve into the realm of the modeller...[:D]

Submitted by Kane on Thu, 08/07/04 - 1:52 AM Permalink

sorry to do this too you, but i filled out a form applying for a modeller's profile without first realising that you have fixed it up for me already...just thought I'd let you know...[:p]

Sumea updates and plans

Forum

Just an update on what I'm planning to do on the site. Posting it here is just a way for me to remember it as well.

The US webhosts haven't received my money order yet and I sent it almost 2 weeks ago [:P]. I need that finalised before I migrate everything over there. My current hosting plan is just about to end, so it's getting a bit close for my liking. Krome was happy to sponsor the site for another year, which is fantastic! I will post more about this after the site migrates and everything is settled.

Currently testing the site making sure everything is working there. I'll be implementing that thumbnail image resizing ability for members once the site has migrated, and I'll have to adjust the site to use another mail component. Hopefully that'll be really easy.

Other plans include spitting out all the main body of every news item in the Sumea database as individual txt files which will be zipped up in a news archive. At the moment, the whole news is chucked into the database (including the sizeable body/text of the news) and the only useful reason I can imagine for keeping it in the database would be for a keyword search feature, which I did have over a year ago but removed because it really slowed things down. Nowadays you could just use google instead which would do it much faster.

Less data retrieved from the database means a more happier, faster Sumea, and in return the database is *much* trimmer too. I think it's a good plan for the future if Sumea were to go on for another 5 years or so, the news won't bulk up the database and slow the site down. I think that's what most major commercial news sites do anyway, archive news stories/articles in zip files. Gonna use the same idea for member posts - all text files compressed in a members zip archive.

From a visitor or member's point of view, you won't see anything different apart from a slightly faster loading time..

Gonna build some functionality for the gallery so that visitors can post comments under the picture (comments will be zipped up in an archive as well).

Need to fix the missing graphics for the section pages and redesigning the member profile pages, linkstation, and gallery pages.. And yes, I'll add another field to the database so you can upload a cam photo of yourself for a Sumea cam portal shot thingy. :)Just been waiting for migration to the new server before I do that.

Of course, all this is a HUGE amount of work, so that'll keep me busy for a year or so of slow paced tinkering. [:)]

Does anyone know where I can find a VERY cheap local ISP where I can place 10mbs or so of Sumea website gfx? I don't need an IP, domain name, email or anything other than an FTP account and 10mbs of space.

Submitted by Kane on Tue, 06/07/04 - 6:18 PM Permalink

i dont know any ISP's, but i think the mugshot thing is a great idea!

Submitted by MoonUnit on Tue, 06/07/04 - 9:11 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Souri

And yes, I'll add another field to the database so you can upload a cam photo of yourself for a Sumea cam portal shot thingy. :)

yay go souri [:D]
it all sounds very interesting, seems like youve got your work cut out for you for a while [xx(]

Image problem

Forum

I'm having this problem where, all the images that people put up are appearing as red crosses, is it just more is some one else having htis problem as well.

Submitted by bullet21 on Wed, 30/06/04 - 8:48 PM Permalink

never mind, i think it's just photobucket fucking around.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Wed, 30/06/04 - 9:28 PM Permalink

yeah, its not sumea its just that a lot of people are hosting on photobucket

Submitted by Kane on Sat, 10/07/04 - 12:34 AM Permalink

im having the same problem...

i added a news entry and uploaded a pic and it just appears as a red cross...wtf?

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sat, 10/07/04 - 2:25 AM Permalink

you probably didnt follow the specifications, read the little points that appear before you add an entry about image size, name etc

edit: yeah i think you need to change the name of the large image to 1L.jpeg as apposed to what you have which is L.jpeg

Submitted by souri on Sat, 10/07/04 - 2:53 AM Permalink

I've had a look at what you uploaded, and I can only see http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/108_outbackHouse.jpg there.. there are no other files uploaded.

There are a few things wrong which tells me that you didn't follow the upload procedure of uploading thumbnails first, then writing news, then uploading the large pictures..

The picture above is named as a thumbnail (if it wasn't, then it would have an L at the end) - it's also placed as a thumbnail, but at 33k, it's way too big. Now, I can tell you must've done something funny because when anyone uploads anything bigger than 4k as a thumbnail, Sumea stops receiving at 4k. I'm guessing you uploaded this as the large image and re-edited your post so it'll show up as a thumbnail. At the moment it's loading up on the main page as a thumbnail, so it's slowing down the page for everyone.

It's also the wrong file dimensions.. 633x454 pixels, when thumbnails are 100x63, and large images are 800x600.

You really have to follow the step by step directions, it's really simple.

Submitted by Kane on Sat, 10/07/04 - 4:15 AM Permalink

ok, sorry about that...[V]

Submitted by souri on Sat, 10/07/04 - 12:48 PM Permalink

Give it another go, dude.. I don't mind you trying to get it right. Tell me which bit you're confused with.