Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

[Finster]

Dear iTulip Members,

Please be informed that starting @02:00 A.M. on 04/17/2010 (EST), our Engineers will be performing
an upgrade installation to the latest version of the forum software.

The upgrdate should be completed within approximately 4-6 hours.

iTulip.com website will be unavailable during the upgrade installation.

To convert when this upgrade window will occur in a different timezone please click this link ->
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

We apologize for any inconvenience this may bring you. As always, we appreciate your patience and
understanding as we proceed toward a more functional and secure version of the software updates.

Thank you,
iTulip.com

People have got to stop throwing around the term "upgrade" so carelessly.

This may be an "upgrade" if you are trying to write a full employment act for software engineers, but it has already wasted more than its full quota of my time. It is just plain flaky; window-lets covering up
where I need to type is just one of many PITAs already encountered in just a post or two.

Let's at least start using some value-judgment-neutral words to describe stuff like this,

for example, "change" ("update" will do), but "upgrade" is in the eye of the beholder. In this one's it's the
diametric opposite.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

window-lets covering up where I need to type is just one of many PITAs already encountered in just a post or two.

Well, dang, us retarded retired old software hackers might want a job too :rolleyes:.

I have not observed the "window-lets covering up" that you describe. I'm unsure of what you speak. I suspect it isn't easy to describe however, so I'm content to remain unaware until such time as the future might choose to tell me.

This is really just a litmus test to see who should be a programmer, namely those of us who thought the last couple hours spent poking around were fun.

[GRG55]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

Change we can believe in, apparently...

[FRED]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

Thanks for the feedback, Finster. Let us know where you are having issues.

The look is not the reason for the upgrade but the improvements to functionality that at first may not be obvious. For example, you may have noticed that as a Select member there are no more ads. Log out and look at the forums and you will see the ads are still there. The major benefits come later with the integration of the content management system and the forums is up and running in a few weeks.

For one thing, I'll be able to promote a brilliant Finster posting into an article that appears on the front page without an hour of hacking and pasting.

If you are so inclined, you can operate your very own Finster Blog inside of iTulip rather than the klunky Finster Forum we had before.

Want to embed a video? No more junky clunky media tags. Click on the insert video icon, enter the URL, and the system figures the rest out.

There are dozens of administrative improvements that you won't see but they'll free me up to so other tasks.

Keep the comments coming!

People have got to stop throwing around the term "upgrade" so carelessly.
This may be an "upgrade" if you are trying to write a full employment act for software engineers, but it has already wasted more than its full quota of my time. It is just plain flaky; window-lets covering up
where I need to type is just one of many PITAs already encountered in just a post or two.

Let's at least start using some value-judgment-neutral words to describe stuff like this,

for example, "change" ("update" will do), but "upgrade" is in the eye of the beholder. In this one's it's the
diametric opposite.

[karim0028]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

This update is kind of weird... Its difficult to look at and the green color is not as dark as it used to be making everything else sort of "blend" together... Not so easy on the eyes as the dark contrast of the old site were... I liked the old colors better... Even trying to find threads is harder, the color scheme just makes it hard to differentiate...

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

The look is not the reason for the upgrade but the improvements to functionality that at first may not be obvious. For example, ...

There are dozens of administrative improvements that you won't see but they'll free me up to so other tasks.

I started a blog entry at What's Changed (iTulip.com, April 17 2010 forum software upgrade) describing what's changed.

In my experience, part of a successful "upgrade" is getting out front with a clear explanation of what's different, both the visible changes and the major stuff behind the scenes that might be motivating the work. From what I can tell, vBulletin has done a poor job of providing its customers (such as iTulip) with the boiler plate material from which to construct such material. So we have to cobble such material together ourselves.

I'd recommend that you post an announcement, such as the earlier one announcing the downtime, this time explaining, from a helpful and positive user oriented viewpoint, what's changed. Of course, you're welcome to steal from, or completely ignore, my blog posting on this as suits your purposes.

[jpatter666]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

Can I subscribe to individual users like I've asked for so many ages ago??

[Morelia]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

This update is kind of weird... Its difficult to look at and the green color is not as dark as it used to be making everything else sort of "blend" together... Not so easy on the eyes as the dark contrast of the old site were... I liked the old colors better... Even trying to find threads is harder, the color scheme just makes it hard to differentiate...

and the "print as PDF" feature is now gone.

also, "find" is spelled "fimd":

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

Yup, the green type against bright white is poor ergonomically in the standard weight (like "Join Date" and "Loaction at top right od every post). The bold green is just heavy enough to be readable (like the username next to the avatar). It it feels like everything is zoomed larger so I see fewer posts at one time - have we been made geezer-friendly with larger overall type?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

have we been made geezer-friendly with larger overall type?

Yesterday I recall some of us geezers complaining that the font was too small and we were going blind (*). Then yesterday evening I recall the font suddenly got bigger when I refreshed one of the iTulip pages I had been reading. Now the youngin's are complaining that the font is too big and they can't fit enough on a page.

Meanwhile us nerds are biting our tongue's, holding back suggestions to switch to Firefox, which allows easily adjusting a page's font size on the fly.

Oh the joys of being a webmeister -- some days there just is no right answer. (Thanks for the good work, iTulip Webmeisters - you guys Rule!)

(*) I'm still unclear as to why my failing eyesight is the fault of iTulip.com, but be that as it may.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

I just noticed a posting with a reply, and the views reads 0. I like the view count, it's a nice tool to determine relevancy to the community.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

.. Now the youngin's are complaining that the font is too big and they can't fit enough on a page.

Meanwhile us nerds are biting our tongue's, holding back suggestions to switch to Firefox, which allows easily adjusting a page's font size on the fly.

Bless your heart, cow, calling me a young. We digital mass consumers use MS Internet explorer, runing MS windows, on a Dell machine, because the Overlords tell us that is the only safe and approved road to heaven.....

Perhaps there is a middle ground for font size.

[WDCRob]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

Fred(s)... one thing that might be nice is would be for something to break up one topic from the next when you're looking at a list of them. Right now it's hard on the eyes. Either a subtle color difference or a light line maybe?

Err... am I getting old?

[D-Mack]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

Well, dang, us retarded retired old software hackers might want a job too :rolleyes:.

I have not observed the "window-lets covering up" that you describe. I'm unsure of what you speak. I suspect it isn't easy to describe however, so I'm content to remain unaware until such time as the future might choose to tell me.

This is really just a litmus test to see who should be a programmer, namely those of us who thought the last couple hours spent poking around were fun.

I have problems with Firefox, when I used to click on indent I would see the BBS tags, but now Firefox just previews/interprets them in the editing window. And it's not doing it correctly with multiple indents for example.

Now I'm using Opera and it seems to work the old way.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Upgrade Is A Value Judgment

I have problems with Firefox, when I used to click on indent I would see the BBS tags, but now Firefox just previews/interprets them in the editing window.

I'm not seeing that. However since I've started erasing my Firefox disk cache everytime I start up the browser, and now gone further to disabling the disk cache entirely, I've seen many such odd little problems go away.

Disabling the Firefox disk cache works fine if you have plenty of memory (RAM), say at least a quarter or a half GByte or more RAM above and beyond what you actually use for other purposes.

At the "about:config" URL, set browser.cache.memory.capacity to some nice comfy value. Mine is currently set to 262144. That's in KBytes, so that means about 1/4 GByte of in-memory Firefox cache. Then I disable the disk cache by setting browser.cache.disk.enable to false.

It seems that Firefox ends up storing and remembering stuff in its disk cache that causes strange bugs later on. By using only a memory cache, nothing hangs around from one Firefox session to the next. If you have a dial-up line or other painfully slow connection, you might not like this, as it will force reloading pages across the web more often than you might like. I only actually restart my Firefox browser session every few days. I run Linux and am accustomed to having my system runs for months, sometimes years, between reboots. I only restart Firefox when Flash videos stop working; there's some bug there for which I have no better workaround.

I also have my Firefox startup script empty out my $HOME/.macromedia/Flash_Player directory every time I startup Firefox. Macromedia Flash is another means by which "bad stuff" from past pages is remembered, to give you future grief.