Posts by Dani

*sigh* I can never win, can I?

As people said ... too much criticism that they were too distracting.

> Here, here KL, unfortunately can't give you a vote, coz I already gave a thumbs up to somebody else on here. Wish I could retract my vote and give it to you. Hmmm.

HUH?

Awesome.

About 1000 people voted on posts yesterday with another 1000 or so people voting today. So time will only tell. So far there has only been abuse by a single member who may or may have not posted in this thread ;) Right now I don't think we need to put any other measures in place ... everyone has just one vote to use as they see fit.

I want to give it a few more days to see how the "letting anyone vote up or down at anytime" is going to work out. The premise behind it is that any member can only affect anyone by ONE, and it only takes one other person to offset them. So it isn't as if someone on a rampage can really do much damage.

Also, it wouldn't make any sense to say that new members need to earn their down voting rights, because the people who are downvoting like crazy are regular members who are just trying to prove a point.

> p.s. A limit of 500 results on an individual search is quit limiting when at this point many of us have thousands of posts.

I increased the limit to 1000 but because of server resources this cannot really go much higher, since it's doing a massive table scan from a very active table in the database.

There are now links in the sidebar of every forum, next to where you can view just solved threads in that forum, you can view just upvoted threads.

Additionally, in your member profile, there are now links to view your upvoted and downvoted threads. You will notice the link to see your upvoted threads looks like this:

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/search.php?do=finduser&u=1&upvotes=1

You can actually change the value 1 to a 5, for example, to see all of your posts with a vote of 5 or more. The opposite with downvotes.

You can also see a breakdown by forum (links in profile for favorite forums) and the same holds true about replacing the 1 with any number of your choice.

I have gotten soooo many mixed opinions lately, and I was wondering what you guys thought of the current style. Please be brutally honest. I'm not talking about "It's missing a link in a convenient place" or little functional things that can easily be changed/added/removed. I'm talking about the color scheme, the main navigation, the aesthetics, if it's pleasing to the eye to look at for a long time, etc.

If no one has voted, it shows nothing. But if people have voted but it got both positive and negative votes that even each other out, it shows 0 to indicate that there has been interest in the thread.

Thanks for the positive feedback. OK I have some more confusion tidbits to add :)

As I mentioned, if you give reputation you automatically vote.
Or you can vote without giving reputation.

It is possible to change your vote (Click the other arrow) in the future. But, as you know, it's not possible to delete reputation you give. And once you've given reputation, your vote is tied to it. So once you give reputation, you can't change your vote.

So:

Give reputation and vote is automatically counted. Can't change either.

OR

Vote. Change vote. Change vote again. Give reputation. Vote is changed to whatever the reputation you gave was. Can't change either anymore. You might do this because you stumble upon a post and they used code tags right or the question was phrased very detailed so you one-upped them instantly. Then you took the time to evaluate their code, or study it more in depth, and you decided they really deserve some reputation love with a nice kudos on their algorithm.

OK I am going to try to clear up all of the confusion, so bare with me :)

The reputation system still exists in the same manner it always has. However, the algorithm to calculate rep power (how much influence you have on another member) has been altered so that those of you with a lot of reputation can still feel comfortable posting a negative reputation comment every so often without feeling like you're going to kill the new member. Additionally, previously new members had to have 10 posts before they gained their first point of rep power and now they only need 5 posts. What all this means is that new members will start spreading reputation around sooner and old timers won't be affecting reputation so drastically.

Reputation is used for when you agree or disagree with a post, when you find it helpful, when you have a comment to make about the post that's either good or bad.

Then there's the voting system ...

Every individual post can be up-voted or down-voted. You can only influence a post by +1 or -1 depending on your vote.

If you give reputation to a post, you will automatically up-vote or down-vote the post based on the reputation that you gave.

However, you can also very easily up-vote or down-vote a post by clicking the little button, without having to type anything in or refresh the page. When you do this, you are only affecting …

The new system is actually *integrated* with the reputation system. If you give rep, it automatically upvotes or downvotes. The rep system still serves its purpose if you want to leave a comment about the post more than a simple up or down vote (which is anonymous).

Let me try to explain it a different way. Let's say that a bunch of people are given a survey and have to choose whether they eat apples, bananas, or pears.

Tommy likes apples and bananas.
Susie likes apples.
Johnny likes pears and bananas.

Two of the three people who voted like apples. Two-thirds of the people who voted like apples. 66% like apples.

Two of the three people who voted like bananas. Two-thirds of the people who voted like bananas. 66% like bananas.

One of the three people who voted like pears. One-third of the people who voted like pears. 33% like pears.

Now let's say someone comes along and asks how popular apples are. You can say that of the people you surveyed, 66% of them eat apples. And now someone else comes along and asks how popular banans are. You can say that of the people you surveyed, 66% of them eat bananas.

But 66% + 66% + 33% > 100%

That's coming very shortly. Stay tuned.

Thanks!

Yes :) It's I guess kinda like a Digg-inspired thing only it integrates with our rep system.

The up/down buttons let you vote a post up or down by just one point without affecting the user's reputation.

If you leave reputation, the vote will automatically be increased or decreased by one, regardless of who you are or what forum you're in.

Are you aware the little rep counters are actually little buttons to easily up-vote or down-vote a post without affecting someone's reputation points? ... But meanwhile if you do give reputation it also up-votes or down-votes for you automatically.

It's called AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML). Try AJAX libraries like www.jquery.com

Actually I lowered the requirements ... and I'll still play around with it to see what's ideal. But the point is that there now ARE requirements.

Regular members can add tags, but they can't remove existing ones.

However, I do understand your point and so I did make some adjustments. Now, only members with a reputation of over 100 or more than 50 posts are allowed to create new tags. Newer members are allowed to tag threads, but they have to choose from the existing tags already in the system. So, for example, they can't tag a thread with their website name.

Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 simplifies and automates workstation and server backup and disaster recovery processes in Windows and Linux environments and across physical and virtual platforms. It also simplifies migration and deployments. It's the complete disaster recovery solution for minimizing downtime and increasing IT productivity.

Reputation fixed and email link bbcode removed.

You need to disable rep power in the Community Center forums.

I was under the impression that rep wasn't being affected if it was handed out here. Is there a bug in the new way it works?

Whenever I try to view anyone's profile I get: (see attachment)

Yes, I was working on member profiles at the time. :) Site was going up and down most of the weekend.

Another bug I think. Before update was regularly getting email notification of posts to subscribed threads. Since update, nada. I kind of a pain when trying to assist someone and not getting the update sent as response is given.

Thank you for notifying me that email subscriptions weren't working. I fixed them, and hence the flow of emails all rushing in at once.

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post979441.html#post979441

I posted C# code in the VB.NET (it was a mistake, i meant to answer w/ VB.NET) forum with:

[code=csharp]
...code went here...
[/code]

But when viewing my post it shows "VB.NET Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)". It looks like its overriding the language i specified in the tag with the forums default?

If you specify an invalid language, it defaults to using the one from the current forum. csharp is now invalid in favor of C#. For c++, you can do C++ or cpp.

Google has finally implemented something that I've been requesting for quite awhile ... The ability to group statistics by day, week, or month. This is an immensely useful tool when trying to chart trends and patterns.

For example, instead of just being able to group statistics by day, we now have the ability to compare month to month - something you would think would be an integral part of any analytics software and yet sorely lacking from Google Analytics since its inception, up until now, that is. Unusual when you consider that it was present in Urchin, the analytics software acquired by Google that Google Analytics was based off of.

Now all that they need to work on is improving speed when trying to collect data for anything more than one or two months at a time. Otherwise, the group by month feature is pointless.

Thanks Google!

I am often asked how to create a tableless two column CSS layout so I thought I would just post it here for once and for all.

This is a program I wrote for my x86 assembly class which is basically the Spade Invaders game in all its glory. It uses Irvine32.inc which came with the textbook.

This is a program I wrote for my x86 assembly class which generates matrices, multiplies them, and computes how long the arithmetic took. It uses Irvine32.inc which came with the textbook.

What is grey code?

An example of method overloading. The program calls a function to get the square root of a number. The appropriate function (integer or double version) is executed.

A program similar to ComputeMortgage.java utilizing a mathematical formula and multiple methods to calculate a loan payment.

Quote in the end commented out :)

Not really any more eye candy ... at least for now, the site will have the same look and feel. This upgrade is much more behind the scenes ... the biggest changes will be more stability and long time bugs finally being fixed, as sos said.

The biggest additional feature would be the ability to tag forum threads (tag clouds, etc), a feature that's already available in our blogs, but with a cool AJAX-ey twist ... and this time it's native vBulletin.

This part of the upgrade is already complete, having taken the better part of the past month for me to do. It would have gotten done much quicker, but I came down with a bad summer cold. The entire DaniWeb forum system is now working on the new codebase ... all hacks and all. I'd show you screenshots, but it really does look exactly the same. It is very different under the hood though, as we've made the massive leap from vBulletin 3.6.0 to vBulletin 3.8.4. (For those of you non-vB experts out there, that is just over two years of versions).

What's left is, as sos mentioned, the blogs and code snippets. While the current plan is for them to look and function the same to the end user, the actual entries themselves are going to be migrated out of my custom-coded solution and into the forum system. This way, they'll be as feature rich as the forum threads, and moderators will have as …

Due to legal reasons, we actually are not permitted to prune our mailing list. Because of our monthly newsletter and all of the other email we send out on a daily basis, to comply with anti-spam regulations, we must retain on record detailed information about every user we have ever sent email to.

That being said, the bottom of our forum index does include the number of 'Active Members' which is the number who have visited DaniWeb recently. Additionally, we already do just as Jupiter 2 suggested, emailing users who have not visited in a couple of months, encouraging them to return.

I'm wondering though whether it's a permission-based setting ... i.e. we can do it b/c we have moderator privileges. Incidentally, I fixed tux4life's problem with his homepage in the meantime :)

It's true I want to keep the ranks a surprise as encouragement to post more and see what's next. The memberlist is unavailable because it was KILLING our server resources. After spending nearly two full days trying to redo all it's code to optimize it, I decided it wasn't worth it.

We've actually been growing so fast that we've been constantly needing new servers. The purpose of this migration was actually to virtualize as much as possible, so that it will be really super simple to add additional servers in the future with minimal configuration time and no downtime.

Let me put this bluntly.

DaniWeb never claims to be a democracy. I created the website. People are welcome to use it. If you don't like it, you're welcome to go elsewhere to a different website.

DaniWeb is also what pays my rent. It's my business and I want my business to be successful. Therefore, it's most definitely in my best interests to make sure that the majority of visitors are happy and keep coming back.

All that being said, we have a feedback forum. I read every single post that is made in this forum, and every single post is taken into consideration. However, it also needs to be appreciated that a majority of site visitors don't post at all, or don't post in the feedback forum. I still try to do what's best for the greater majority by carefully analyzing analytics and tracking statistics and coupling all of that hard numerical data with what people say and think in this feedback forum.

So you *are* being heard. Just because not every single thing that every single person says isn't done doesn't mean it wasn't considered or at least heard by the right people. Remember, 4,000 people have made at least 20 posts on DaniWeb and 400 people have posted within the past day and a half. Fewer than 10 people have given their opinions about the welcome popup. I'm not going to take a poll of five people to decide what's best for thousands.

This isn't a philosophical question at all. It's actually quite cut and dry. Computers are female because they have female ports. Cables and peripherals, likewise, are male.

LOL I didn't think you guys liked it so much! I just thought it was a completely useless statistic that came with vBulletin by default. I'll consider putting it back :)

Hi,

You may have noticed some changes over the past few days. I've been working on tweaking the style a bit to make the site more user friendly.

One of the main issues I've always had was that the site homepage is pretty much useless. After all, it's impossible to fill it with stuff that would cater to what everyone comes to DaniWeb for.

Therefore, I have put a bunch of work into creating a custom-tailored homepage for everyone. Go ahead. Visit it. Tell me whether it presents you with things you're interested in. Also note that you should see a customized forum index in the sidebar to act as quick links to your favorite forums.

Looks like something that is supposed to be docked there is having issues. If this was Vista I'd say maybe you had the sidebar up but nothing in it. Can you right click in the blank area by any chance?

I've coded the ability for administrators (myself and Davey) to be able to assign individual members as Featured Poster, Featured Blogger, Featured Writer, Featured Coder, Featured Chatter, etc. based on the different things that DaniWeb offers. Once you win the award, you carry around your badge and you also get listed on our awards page.

However, I'm leaving it up to you, the community, to decide who wins and how they should win. Currently, Davey selects one member each month, and that member gets interviewed in our monthly community newsletter. I'm up for other suggestions .... maybe people can win Featured Coder for writing code that does something creative ... ideas?

Umm ... if you're trying to have multiple accounts and post a question with one and reply with the other including a plug to your site, it only works if you remember to log out and not use the same account for the question and the answer.

Sigh :( What resolution? Do you experience that on every member profile?

There's nothing that I can do about it. :(

Someone once posted the analogy that a different database for every record is like a different hard drive for every file.

If we all knew the easy answer to this question, we'd all be billionaires :)

Oh, wait ... I do know the answer ... An awesome, unique idea and good, interesting content that people will want to keep going back to read, tell their friends about, and link to.

Get lots of inner links from authority sites to inner pages throughout your site ... that spreads PR in a very natural looking way.