Message From SJ

I thought SJ was just tired of posting here. The loss of his commentary is a collosal waste of assets. Does anyone on this board who lives in Eastern PA have the computer skills to help him figure out why his computer won't allow him to post on this site?

I wonder if SJ has tried the new Lightweight mode. It works for me.

I sure miss SJ's posts and wealth of knowledge here.

Lightweight mode can be accessed from a main menu page (not this page). It is near the lower left hand corner. Click on the drop down menu and change from vB4 Default style to Lightweight.

Good Luck SJ, we miss you.

Tom

Mike and SJ, I have offered several times to assist with advice. He has been given contact information to both the home office and Megan's email to further attempt to assist. To date, I have not ever been contacted by SJ other than to read his complaints on the ACME pages, upon which I again offer to help. He is still using WebTV, which is no longer compatible with some forums. The comparison is constantly made with ACME and the fact that he can still participate there. That forum has been rumored to be upgraded soon for the same reasons we upgraded ours. VBulletin no longer supports the older versions. ACME is currently running version 3.0.4. This version is 4.0.3. A while ago, SJ claimed he would be purchasing a new computer. I would welcome him to do so, as slowly but surely, he will no longer be able to view anything but the most basic sites. As was suggested, and noted on the bulletin board support section, Megan has enabled the "lite" version. Keep in mind that if you cannot remember your password or forget to log in when you view the site, you will be unable to participate.

An interesting side note, within the last couple of weeks, OldNuc and I had a trouble shooting session where he was having trouble with the refresh rate (scrolling) of the page when he would try to view to the bottom of the page. He diagnosed that he was using the HDMI port for his LCD display and that was causing the problem. When he reverted to the DVI port, the problem was solved. The moral of the story? Many problems can also be hardware related as I suspect SJ's is. (interestingly, VBulletin 4.0.7 supports HDMI) Also, operating systems, browsers, internet connection, server routing issues, memory and processor speed will also affect performance.

I do wish SJ the best of luck with his conundrum.

[quote="B4D2"]Mike and SJ, I have offered several times to assist with advice. He has been given contact information to both the home office and Megan's email to further attempt to assist. To date, I have not ever been contacted by SJ other than to read his complaints on the ACME pages, upon which I again offer to help. He is still using WebTV, which is no longer compatible with some forums. The comparison is constantly made with ACME and the fact that he can still participate there. That forum has been rumored to be upgraded soon for the same reasons we upgraded ours. VBulletin no longer supports the older versions. ACME is currently running version 3.0.4. This version is 4.0.3. A while ago, SJ claimed he would be purchasing a new computer. I would welcome him to do so, as slowly but surely, he will no longer be able to view anything but the most basic sites. As was suggested, and noted on the bulletin board support section, Megan has enabled the "lite" version. Keep in mind that if you cannot remember your password or forget to log in when you view the site, you will be unable to participate.

An interesting side note, within the last couple of weeks, OldNuc and I had a trouble shooting session where he was having trouble with the refresh rate (scrolling) of the page when he would try to view to the bottom of the page. He diagnosed that he was using the HDMI port for his LCD display and that was causing the problem. When he reverted to the DVI port, the problem was solved. The moral of the story? Many problems can also be hardware related as I suspect SJ's is. (interestingly, VBulletin 4.0.7 supports HDMI) Also, operating systems, browsers, internet connection, server routing issues, memory and processor speed will also affect performance.

I do wish SJ the best of luck with his conundrum.[/quote]

Yes. The problem is probably something simple. We just need to figure out what it is and how to fix it. Do you know if WebTv is compatable with 4.0.3? If not, who does.

So far, from the history I have researched, WebTV has always been a problem for VBulletin. I reviewed support threads as far back as 7 years ago and back then WebTV was causing problems. Several patches were instituted and that may be why SJ had been able to use his TV until the upgrade. Unfortunately, from what I can discern, there are so few users still utilizing it that the later versions don't support it. I would welcome anyone else's input, but it doesn't sound promising.

Mike and SJ, I have spent some more time here trying to get a work around and the most I can come up with is that WebTV is dead technology. Most of the support sites and tech blogs most current reference is as young as 2007, nothing more up to date, so that gives you and idea of how far back we need to look. Also, WebTV sold out to MSN TV and they have proprietary software. One of the biggest issues I saw was the lack of support for java script. Java is becoming more prevalent in modern applications, so the longer SJ waits to upgrade, the higher his level of frustration will be. Here are several links and extracts from VBulletin and WebTV related issues.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?340013-WebTV-users-on-VB4&highlight=webtv

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?254788-Webtv-MSNtv-Users-not-able-to-view-full-size-images&highlight=webtv

feldon23
Senior Member

Join Date
Nov 2001
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Posts
10,233
[i]Originally Posted by HarryWx
3.0 looks terrible at best and doesnt even work in some browsers. Thus i do not like the new vB 4.0 look that i saw posted in the blog and am hoping that there is a chance it may be reconsidered. [/i]

Thanks.When you say vBulletin 3 doesn't work in some browsers, are you referring to older browsers or newer browsers?
[b][u]
vBulletin 3.0 has incredible compatibility with very very old web browsers. It is even usable on WebTV which most other software has dropped support years ago. vBulletin 3 works on IE5.5 (obsolete), IE6 (obsolete), Firefox 1 (obsolete), Firefox 2 (obsolete), Mozilla (discontinued), Opera, Safari, etc.[/u][/b]

Maybe you are referring to recent browsers? I am not sure if Chrome has been fully tested. I know Opera was an issue for a long time because how slowly and incompletely they implemented the DOM. Of particular note was the WYSIWYG editor. This is not a vBulletin issue though and you'll note Opera's market share has shrunk dramatically over the past few years due to pressure from Safari and Firefox.


As for vB4, I think vBulletin 4 looks AWESOME from the first looks and it is going to be incredibly easy to customize via CSS. Without editing templates, you'll be able to completely restyle vBulletin with different colors, backgrounds, borders, arrangement, etc.

vBulletin 4 will enter beta this year and might not be the official release product for 9 months to a year. vBulletin 3.8 series will continue to be sold for years to come. If you like 3.x, use it. vBulletin 4 supports modern web browsers and adaptively degrades on older ones.



http://www.about-the-web.com/shtml/WebTV.shtml

That is all I can come up with at this time. I sure hope SJ reconsiders upgrading his internet options. I would like to see him here again.

Thanks for the info. Gone yesterday. Based on my workload, its going to take me a week or so to find someone to figure this out.

Something is really bugging me. Why does SJ have to buy a new computer. Why doesn't ACMOC buy him new hardware and an internet connection to with.

There are a handful of people on this forum that everyone relies upon to bail them out of their problems. We all know who they are. They are the "Givers". The rest of us are "Takers". The success of this forum is directly related to the information they post here. If it wasn't for them, this would be just another bulletin board. It is their participation that makes ACMOC special.

ACMOC's revenue is directly dependent on these folks and it cannot afford to loose any of them. If the Givers stop sharing information, ACMOC is going to experience a reduction in interest which is going to translate into a direct reduction in revenue.

So here is my proposal. ACMOC should identify the handful of folks who contribute the majority of tech info to this forum, pay for an internet connection for them of at least DSL speed and buy them the hardware they need to communicate with the members. ITS IN YOUR BEST INTERESTS NOT THEIRS. If you want a world class site, its not 4.0.3 that's going to do it. Its the information posted thereon.

I encourage others to think about this and to post their comments.

Mike, as always, everyone is encouraged to comment, but I will tell you this. As welcome as the entire forum is to the input of people like SJ, Old Magnet, OzDozer, DeasPlant, BruceOz and A LOT of other people, we are still a commumity of volunteers. I would absolutely love it if every director had our computers/internet connection/telephone lines etc. underwritten by ACMOC. Truth be told, we receive nothing other than a stipend to attend and represent the club at sanctioned events. As often as SJ and others submit useful information, there are several volunteers as well as an entire board of directors that run this club tenfold without a single cent contributed to them.

If we reduce input to the forum based on a pay to post basis, those who receive funds will be the only ones posting while everyone else holds out until they get their piece of the pie. Sounds kind of like the government to me.

you asked for input so here is mine....
if you had to pay to use the BB then i could see you argument about buying SJ and others a computer, but to my knowledge there is no fee for using the BB. I do not see how the usage of the BB creates revenue for ACMOC,(the ACMOC store creates the money) i check everytime i log on and the guests out number the members 2 to 1 of not more. it is very hard to keep up with technology and unfortunaley the money to keep up must come out of the users pocket. Maybe if 51% of the useres had the same problem as SJ then the problem would lie in the BB but so far less the 2% has had problems.
this is just my opinion and everyone else is entitled to theirs.