Server Upgrade

[FrugalTrader]

It's been a long time coming but I'm happy to announce that Canadian Money Forum will receive a significant server ugprade on Saturday. I have the upgrade scheduled for early in the morning so there should be very minimal down time. That is if all goes well (crosses fingers).

[Berubeland]

No more mortgage = better gadgets for CMF Yippeee! :D

[FrugalTrader]

Instead of waiting until Saturday, we decided to go ahead with the upgrade. Please let me know if there are any further performance issues with the forum.

[MoneyGal]

:)

[Jungle]

Seems to be ok. (ginxed it?)

[humble_pie]

what are all those weird long computer-generated names like ozee3imayeepbias that we see in the forum in the wee hours of the morning. These names never post. What are they, lurking spammers ? Denial-of-service hackers ? Brrrr. It's scarier being out in cmf at 5 am than taking a walk on the lower east side.

[HaroldCrump]

what are all those weird long computer-generated names like ozee3imayeepbias that we see in the forum in the wee hours of the morning. These names never post. What are they, lurking spammers ? Denial-of-service hackers ? Probably bots scanning for email addresses, personal information, sending automated PMs, etc.

[the-royal-mail]

Even right now there's all kinds of those weird user IDs showing as logged in. Are they waiting until their moderated status changes to allow them to post spam?

[FrugalTrader]

Guys, you have no idea how much spam we moderate in a run of a day.

[the-royal-mail]

Do tell!

[FrugalTrader]

I dont' have an exact count, but I kill at least 25 spam threads a day. And that's only me, CC does a lot of moderation as well. These are all new registrations who get moderated before getting posted for everyone to see.

[CanadianCapitalist]

I dont' have an exact count, but I kill at least 25 spam threads a day. And that's only me, CC does a lot of moderation as well. These are all new registrations who get moderated before getting posted for everyone to see.

I don't keep track either but everytime I'm on CMF, I'm killing spam messages. Kind of takes away from reading and posting on the discussions.

FT, Is there anyway for non-moderated messages not to show up by default?

[HaroldCrump]

Here's a suggestion:
it may be more work up-front, but if you guys can implement a two step registration process where you approve all new registrations.
New users can only request site registration, not sign up by default.
As part of the registration request, they have to give some information such as their interests, goals, any personal website or blog URL, etc.
That will help you decide if it's a real person or a bot.
Most spammers won't bother since time is of essence to them.
Most bots don't have the intelligence to generate real, meaningful sentences.
I'd guess that'll weed out > 80% of spammers and bots.

Once you do this initial time investment, hopefully it'll cut down on your day-to-day spam filtering activities.

[the-royal-mail]

Good suggestions Harold.

Another one of the issues that I keep having is it's not very easy to contact the moderators and when I've done so in the past I either don't hear back or have to keep trying. It took me quite a while to get setup here. For non-members, it is difficult to know who to talk to regarding registration problems. It would be easiest if the mods could simply post their email address on the site so that non-members with registration problems don't get lumped in and ignored with the rest of the spammers. My 2 cents.

[andrewf]

Usually sites with as much traffic as this one have more moderators. Many hands make light work.

[Four Pillars]

Good suggestions Harold.

Another one of the issues that I keep having is it's not very easy to contact the moderators and when I've done so in the past I either don't hear back or have to keep trying. It took me quite a while to get setup here. For non-members, it is difficult to know who to talk to regarding registration problems. It would be easiest if the mods could simply post their email address on the site so that non-members with registration problems don't get lumped in and ignored with the rest of the spammers. My 2 cents.

You can easily go to their websites and click on the "contact" tab at the top. That will allow you to send an email.

[Jungle]

Everybody please welcome our newest member, " isadorancheyneyn ". (claps) :D

[HaroldCrump]

Everybody please welcome our newest member, " isadorancheyneyn ". (claps) :Dyeah...that's Dora from Chechnya.
"is-a-dora-Chechnya".
Welcome! :rolleyes:

[the-royal-mail]

You can easily go to their websites and click on the "contact" tab at the top. That will allow you to send an email.

No. If I am having problems with CMF, I need an email address clearly posted for issues with CMF. As an outsider, and with all the offensive advertising on sites these days, I have no idea what's spam/advertising and what's relevant. When I have a problem on site A, there should be an email contact on site A for me to contact, not try and find it on site B. I don't keep track of who runs various websites, as an outsider, I have no knowledge of this.

[CanadianCapitalist]

@TRM: I'll look into your issue. There is a "Contact Us" form in the front page. Unfortunately, I'm not 100% sure where the messages go. I'll work with FT and make sure messages sent through "Contact Us" are (1) received by us and (2) checked regularly and acted upon. I agree that CMF members should not have to visit our respective blogs just to contact us.

While we get that fixed, I can be contacted at cc - at - canadiancapitalist.com.

[HaroldCrump]

An error has been popping up since the last couple of days on every page.
Doesn't seem to affect anything but something somewhere must be wrong.
Attached error print:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5010/5260998326_15ca232635_z.jpg

[FrugalTrader]

anyone else getting this message?

[CanadianCapitalist]

Not on Firefox or Chrome.

[FrugalTrader]

I'm currently using ie7 and not getting it.

[HaroldCrump]

I'm using IE 7 as well.
I notice that the error is there often, but not every time.
I suspect it may be coming from an ad. that shows up randomly.
The error is at the following location on the page:

clientscript/yui/yahoo-dom-event/yahoo-dom-event.js?v=381

[kcowan]

I am on IE8 and have not seen it yet.

[HaroldCrump]

I am on IE8 and have not seen it yet.The error doesn't popup by default.
It shows as an exclamation mark on the status bar of the browser.
When you click it, that's when it shows the actual error.
At least that's how it works in IE.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5086/5262014124_92eacfa105_z.jpg

[HaroldCrump]

I think I figured this one out, even though I can't solve it.
So this error occurs every single time when the Ads by FinanceAds.CA caption shows at the top of the page.
However, if there is an advert under that caption (usually the blue BMO ad), the error does not popup.

So when the top of the screen looks like the following, the error will appear:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5046/5266495402_6c05b35432_z.jpg

And when the top of the screen looks like the following, the error will not appear:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5126/5266495440_1900993713_z.jpg

I have tested this on 2 other computers, each with a different version of IE.
I haven't tested with Firefox, etc.

[FrugalTrader]

Thanks for looking into that Harold. I'll contact finance ads about that.

[FrugalTrader]

Heads up folks - we are upgrading the server once again! We are upgrading overnight so you should see minimal down time.

[humble_pie]

Heads up folks - we are upgrading the server once again! We are upgrading overnight so you should see minimal down time.

- so did we make it or didn't we
- there's no need to quote everything just address somebody by their username thank you kindly
- you don't think you've been named the troll police enuf already
- i'm in love with toronto.gal
- oh look jungle is setting up a US 5-pack
- yea does it have sino forest
- i'm having an asperger's attack in this dark closet
- it's claustrophobic not asperger's
- i'm calling it for trudeau & i say the market'll explode
- tch all that alberta oil draining east to those frenchie bimbos
- it's not maple syrup?
- i just groped someone & she said she isn't toronto.gal
- foutez-moi le camp
- that sounds like pie
- jungle that S&P return seems a tad too high
- jungle?
- jungle has left the server
- along with the music what shall we eat any suggestions
- cold dishes only, there's no power for cooking
- aquavit + cucumber-sturgeon-caviar-on-thin-buttered-rye
- what, use my japanese knife on a bunch of ignorant vegetables in the pitch dark
- who's the idiot smoking a cigarette
- put the server at risk all those carbon molecules
- death by black tar in the closet on the solstice
- speaking of solstice what happened to daylight, it's nearly 7 am
- days will start longer tomorrow
- euro markets are normal
- how we pronouncing that name john boehner?
- boner! boner!! bone-rrr !!!

[FrugalTrader]

Migration to the new semi-dedicated server has been complete. We are on a trial for 7 days, let me know what you guys think in terms of speed.

[mrPPincer]

Pages seem to be loading up quicker this morning than they have been over the last week or so.

[Spudd]

Seems to be a definite improvement.

Edit: Heh, realized how silly that sounded after I posted it. Anyways, it's pretty darn quick right now.