News Item - September 24, 1999 03:06 PM
Office bandwidth needs might cause me to stop down TwinTurbo.NET on Monday. Not sure how that is going to pan out quite yet. I was running the new box today at a rate of 890kbps, not sure what TwinTurbo.NET actually consumes in peak afternoon time. I have the ability to limit bandwidth for just the site, so I might trim it back significantly (wide open right now) to facilitate the office's needs. But I know how the site reacts to having the pipe squeazed, so... we'll have to see. Kinda cool to shoot a high res MPEG2 movie to California & back. No satelite crap or counter to counter delivery. It's a little soft looking, but for approvals, it might make life a LOT easier around here. Especially when it means we'll need a faster internet connection. Ah, the convergence of post production/broadcast and internet. :-)
Written by Dallas DamonZ
News Item - September 15, 1999 07:01 AM
We have a winner! Congrats to Mike B. for being the 300th through the link to 300z.com. He scores the KATO model & a pre-release CDROM of every Z commercial I could find, 240Z-Z32!
Here's the rundown:
#290 09/14/99-22:37:50-SeedyRom #291 09/14/99-22:37:51-J.R. (phx) #292 09/14/99-22:37:52-J.R. (phx) #293 09/14/99-22:37:52-J.R. (phx) #294 09/14/99-22:37:52-SleeZ #295 09/14/99-22:37:52-wesman #296 09/14/99-22:37:52-GTR(Houston) #297 09/14/99-22:37:55-Mike B (Houston) #298 09/14/99-22:37:55-SeedyRom #299 09/14/99-22:37:55-Jeff B (San Antonio) #300 09/14/99-22:37:55-Mike B (Houston) #301 09/14/99-22:37:55-J.R. (phx) #302 09/14/99-22:37:56-J.R. (phx) #303 09/14/99-22:37:59-beanz(Dallas) #304 09/14/99-22:37:59-RichZ #305 09/14/99-22:37:59-Zuper
Also, please read the instructions on the intro page, that's what this is all about. Don't just barge into the forum & then not have any idea of what all the number people are posting mean... :-\
Thanks
News Item - September 13, 1999 01:14 PM
OK, lets review the rules for posting on the forum...
1. PLEASE do a [ Search ] and check the [ FAQ ] before [ Posting a New Message ]. With 335,000+ messages in the archives, someone has probably already touched on whatever you have a question about. If, after doing these steps, you still have a question, then get specific and let's get the answers/opinions you're after.
2. This is a new one, DO NOT post a poll question eliciting a response from each and every one of the over 4000 members. Like 'what do you do for a living' or 'how old are you'. I'm sure you're not going to need to know EVERYONE'S whatever. If you want to know a couple people's info, then hit them up through e-mail. Because we all know e-mail is way over-rated around here. The full blown poll Qs will get nuked as soon as I see them. Nothing but a waste of bandwidth. If you had done step 1 above, you'd find a couple threads with over 150 posts each on those two topics in particular.
3. Non Z Related stuff can go at any time. In general if it's at least a question about another car (we happen to spend a lot of time discussing other cars) I'll let it ride for a bit. if it's not, it goes whenever I'm in the admin tool set.
4. I'm guilty of this one on occasion, but it's getting worse and worse for the general membership: Using the forum for chat. Once again, e-mail is way over-rated. If the other party doesn't have e-mail listed.. tell them to mail you. Or, just drop the whole conversation. Nothing makes me happier then seeing a couple of members banter & the 3rd line is 'check your e-mail'. Ah, joy! These will fall in line with the NZR stuff. When I'm in the admin tool set, they'll disappear too.
Overall this is to slow the forum's roll-over down some. Please make a conscious effort to follow through on these procedures.
V3.0 Beta forum software tests have been going VERY well. I'm porting a sample of it over to the live forum to do severe load testing to see if the speed will live through the afternoon rush. Hopefully we can run on it sometime next week to see how well it works.
News Item - September 02, 1999 06:00 PM
RichZ is telling me he's close to re-launching 300Z.com, so you might want to check the top of the forum every now & again to hit the link when it appears. Here's some pics (1. 2.) of the Kato 1/43 scale Z32 model. I just got it today & must say... why am I giving it away??? VERY cool! Might have to get one for myself. Rich wasn't kidding when he said it's detailed. Looks like the doors & hood all open & looking closely at the bottom of it, the thing even has a separate exhaust pipe piece.. it's not molded in. I'm digging it. BUT, it's going to some lucky member who happens to be the 300th to go to 300Z.com from tt.NET. Check the details below.
News Item - September 01, 1999 02:14 PM
OK, here's the rest of the details on the 300Z.com launch giveaway: I figure we can throw out a white 1/43 Scale KATO Z32 model, very detailed for it's size & an advance release CD-ROM of every Z (all years) commercial I could find. The movies will be available through the web off TTZD.com shortly for download. OK, how to score the goodies??? When 300Z.com re-opens, the current banner will change & turn into a link. The 300th person to link over to 300Z.com from tt.NET will get the goods. Just that simple! Check 300Z.com afterwards for the winner's listing.
I'm working on a very nice tool for the main forum. I think this one will greatly improve personal use of the forum. Hopefully I can make it public in the next couple weeks, I've got some other issues to attend to currently.
Speaking of new stuff... V3.0 forum software is on hold right now. With the demise of Greg's ZWEET & his job change, he's out of the loop for a bit. Although I was initially concerned about Greg's involvement in the future development of V3.0, he's re-assured me that even though he's out of the Z business right now, he'll continue to work on the V3.0 software in hopes of seeing it in action. I totally would have understood if he wanted to bow out of the project. It's hard to stay motivated if you're not able to 'participate'. I'd probably lose interest rapidly if I didn't have my Z. :-(
R.I.P. ZWEET, thank you for sacrificing yourself to save Greg & his passenger's lives. Hopefully I'm never faced with the same situation, but we're all supseptible & we're reminded of it in the most unfortunate ways sometimes.
That is all.
News Item - August 30, 1999 08:39 PM
RichZ from 300Z.com & I have gotten together to relaunch 300Z.com in it's newest incarnation. Rich likes to update (read totally revamp) his site from time to time. This is the most radical change I've seen it go through (I got a little sneak preview) so far. SO... we're having a little prize give-away to go with it! :-) Stay tuned for more details later this week.
News Item - August 27, 1999 01:29 PM
Well, finally success. We upgraded to SQLServer 7.0 today primarily to take care of issues with case-sensitivity in the 6.5 database. It worked! The upgrade went very smoothly and was completed in about an hour. After some quick testing we turned everything back on and hopefully you are now enjoying much faster performance from the site.
Most notably: 1. The user directory should be MUCH faster now. 2. Directory search should work much better and correctly now. You can search on MODS :-) 3. Logging in with your screen name should be just as fast as logging in with your ID
Written by Greg (Dallas)
News Item - August 20, 1999 02:39 PM
We're having SQL database issues galore. It's not capable of keeping up with the lunchtime load (101+ online at once) in it's current configuration. I'm getting SQL 7.0 & the version upgrade + re-installing without case sensitivity (Why you have to re-install to remove this option is ridiculous, who's the genius at Microsoft that made it that way???) + re-configuration should solve the deadlock problem. What you get to see is all the lag time between page returns, because every access is an access on the member database.. blah blah blah.
Now on the access counter, I think it's AWESOME that some people can spend as much time reading/contributing to the betterment of the forum as they do. I know I spend what I consider too much time on the list & I'm down in the bottom of the top 25. Those 3-4 up on the very top of the hill. WOW! is all I have to say, BUT, let's not get all wound up in the numbers. It's just an indicator of how much activity that member has. We don't base anything on these numbers, except using them as an indicator. I could set it back to 0 for everyone today (and probably will when V3.0 rolls out) & Jack B, RT, RH, etc. would still be on top in short order, because they spend more time here then anyone else (probably). Some people feel the need to turn this into some sort of competition base on how high your numbers are, which segues into...
I have NO clue what your access numbers are before you get bit by the 'tragic' access counter reset. It's a bug in the software that occurs during high load periods. If your counter crashes back to 0, I apologize, but I can't do anything about it. If for example (if I jinx him with this, I'll make ONE exception) Jack B.'s rolls back to 0. Well, sorry. To be 'fair' to everyone else, I have to leave it alone since I don't know what it was before. Why Jack B. for the IE? OK, OK, I know we document the top 20 or so about every 3rd day on the open forum, so I could put his number back to something close to what it really is, but we're back to the 'fairness' thing. Which relates back to the "We don't base anything on these numbers" which equals 0. See where I'm going?
Greg is unofficially starting a new job. Congrats to him in his new capacity (I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is the one where he starts a Dallas office for a Ca. software company). I'm off doing some wheels-off freelance stuff, so between the two of us, there's basically no time to work on the current forum, or V3.0 software. V3.0 is doing better, but until we can get the new SQL stuff happening, it's reached it's maximum potential for now. :-/ Also to speed in login, we've always given the option of entering your member ID number in the screen name blank. Please use your ID number when logging in, otherwise doing the search for your screen name is a database slowdown. If you don't know your number, go HERE, it's the number at the top.
Using Member Directory Search will probably fail too, for the same reasons everything else is slow above.
RIDES submits were caught up the other week. If you submitted in the last couple days, you're in the next batch. Otherwise your page is ready to start by editing your member profiles.
Remember, we don't get paid for this, it's a very involved hobby. So don't cop an attitude with us if something is wrong. It will in no way benefit you here, like it won't most anywhere else. We do the best we can to keep this thing on the tracks & since it doesn't cost you a single dime if you don't want it to (visit the sponsors!), then drop the attitude when there is a problem of some sort. We'll try to correct it to the best of our abilities, but I can't promise anything & we don't sit and monitor this thing 24-7 for problems. For those of you that know this, I'm sorry to repeat, but there's a lot of newer members that just don't know the details of how all this admin stuff works for this site.
News Item - August 09, 1999 06:19 PM
Ugh... Lot's of changes going on in the V3.0 software to make it fast enough. Glad I don't get paid for this stuff, cause someone would be riding my backside right now. :-) Greg is probably going to switch jobs shortly, which is great for him, but V3.0 goes on the back burner for awhile. Oh, well.. at least what we have now works good. :-) I added a couple much needed FAQ pages & trying to keep up with the RIDES pages & TECH pages in the meantime. Just thought you should know what's up right now.
News Item - June 28, 1999 07:20 AM
No update in awhile. I've been buried at the office with a huge project, which I'm still working on. Greg has been out of the loop for the last week. Who cares, right? Well, this means no development on the V3.0 forum. We had a small beta test & the actual scripts work fine. The Perl programming language libraries need some beefing up though. With a low load, it (the libraries) couldn't keep up, so we're having to upgrade the Perl & get some software acceleration for it to handle the 78+ member high side server loads. Greg has done some tests with it & says it makes it really fast due to the way it keeps the scripts compiled & in the RAM of the server, instead of executing each individual script. :-) Bad news is we have to do some revamping of the scripts to make them work cleanly with the different software. Depending on work schedules, this could take some time. As always, Greg & I have real jobs that pay the bills, this site is a hobby (an intense one), meaning we don't live & die for it. Don't get irritated when something doesn't happen when/as quickly as you think it should, I'm talking about working on new requested features, RIDES pages, stickers, T-shirts, etc..
The forum is moving WAY too fast. I know there's a lot of traffic through here, but a lot of it is idle chit-chat adding nothing to the archives. The VtD feature does pretty good, but I'm probably going to start making sweeps of the forum deleting 'noise' from the forum. I'm as guilty of it as the next person, but I see what it does to the forum. If your message disappears, deal with it. Don't start complaining about 'my message got deleted, <insert insult here>'. Sorry, if it's BS, it's out. Think about what message got deleted & why it might have gotten deleted, it'll probably be VERY apparent. Sometimes this will include Z related posts. I'm talking about the lifestyle with the Z posts. Sometimes they're fun, other times it's just a waste of space. We have to re-focus the forum, because we veer off track too often (yes, this is partially my fault), for awhile we had a nice balance, but now it's lost, so we'll do our best to get it back. We could sit on our hands like some other forums, but I've got too much time & money involved to see it go downhill now.
New members to the forum need to go thumb through the FAQ section & check out the titles there. I don't expect you to read everything, but I'd really like it if you would remember where to find that answer to 'how do I remove the shift knob'. Also Appendix Z in the FAQ section provides a fairly complete glossary to the terms we frequently fling around here. It's a bit spartan, but I think you'll be able to get the info you need to follow the conversation with out having to ask the inevitable questions. We made it for a reason, use it. Also, take a read (yes, read) the ForumFAQ in the FAQ section. This forum has a LOT of features you won't find in other forums. Please learn how to use them to make your time here better spent & not irritate other members when you continually re-post the attempt at posting a picture of a wheel.... use the [ Preview ] feature instead... See what I mean?
