keeping the community informed…

Our apologies to anyone who has experienced an intermittent difficulty connecting to DaniWeb during the last week or two. This was due to our migration to a virtualized server solution which did not go as smoothly as planned. We have been working hard fixing the few remaining problems, and by the time you read this are hopeful those connectivity issues are now behind us.

With fast approaching 5.25 million members of the community, we are always striving to provide the speediest and most reliable of services and are confident that our new server solution will enable us to do precisely that now those initial teething troubles have been ironed out.

but with an eye on the old...

And sticking with the changes, last month we reported in this newsletter how we had been busy delivering our new and improved DaniWeb homepage to the community. We mentioned how it retains a familiar feel, while at the same time striving to make the site a whole lot more user friendly for everyone.

Our current Member of the Month pointed out to us that the new look and feel update meant that a couple of previously useful links had apparently vanished, and that members might want to know how to access them. We are happy to oblige, and confirm that you can still access the full vb code tag list here and likewise the Subscription Spy (which provides a real time overview of subscribed threads) can be found here.

and discover the real benefits of DaniWeb membership

While we at DaniWeb have absolutely nothing against those members of the community who prefer to lurk and learn, rather than get pro-active and post, we would hate to think that you are being silenced when you really want to start talking. So, just in case you arrive at DaniWeb by way of a search engine link and find yourself immediately immersed within a forum thread where there is no option to start a new conversation, here's the skinny on getting talking. Use the forum menu navigation system towards the top of the screen in order to get to the most appropriate forum for your posting and once there look for he big yellow 'START NEW THREAD' button on the left of the page. Just one click and you can start typing, it is as simple as that!

profiling the best of the DaniWeb community...

Please welcome our newest member of the DaniWeb hall of fame, niek_e who has made some 2200 forum posts and earned a well deserved community reputation score of 996. We thought we would find out what made this member of our community tick...

How old are you,where are you from originally, and where do you live now?

Well, I am 25 years old and I was born and raised in the Netherlands

What is your current occupation, and have you ever done anything unusual in the past?

I am currently working as a C++ developer with a small company in the Netherlands. I do have a degree in Embedded programming (in C mostly) and so that is what I've done until a year ago when I decided to try something new. I'm also learning PHP/SQL and Python in my spare time, but this might take a while because free time is scarce lately.

Do you have a favorite operating system or computer platform?

I don't really have a favorite OS, I develop some programs using WinXP/Vista and Visual Studio, but I also run Linux with Netbeans for some other development work. I have a Quad-core with 6 GB and 2 TB raid-0 which compiles my code nice and quick and that's my only requirement because I don't really play games. Except for Quake 1 that is!

So what first brought you to DaniWeb?

I think it was some question about VB.net and naturally I found the correct answer here on DaniWeb.

And what makes you stay here?

Easy, the enormous amount of information in the forums and blogs, and I also like the whole 'community-based' idea.

Talking of forums, what is your favorite?

The C++ forum http://www.daniweb.com/forums/forum8.html because I'm mostly interested in C++ at the moment, but I've also spend some time in the C-forum. You can also find me in the Geeks' Lounge http://www.daniweb.com/forums/forum6.html on occasion.

What do you like best about DaniWeb, and is there anything you would change if it were in your power?

The best thing about Daniweb is the whole community idea. After spending a few years here, you really get know some people and that's something you don't really see on other forums in my experience. If I could change one thing, I'd make myself Admin and then hire Bill Gates as a moderator for the Linux forum. In other words: I have no idea.

What are your interests outside of IT and outside of DaniWeb?

In first place there is my girlfriend of course! I also play guitar in a rock 'n roll band and we have performed quite a few shows, so those two things take up most of my time. When I do have a minute or two to spare I enjoy reading a book.

And finally, any fascinating facts about yourself that you would like to share with the DaniWeb community?

I'm a normal man with two arms, two legs and one head, so nothing really fascinating about that. The biggest flaw I have is that I like to drive my bike way too fast. This results in about one new speeding ticket every few weeks.

Oh, and can I just say to DaniWeb members: If you want better and more replies to your questions then PLEASE wrap your code in code tags!