sorry guys the new format sucks

[Garg]

I remember a dictatorship election ran on all this "change" spat....


With that said, I am past the learning curve of the new site. I like it.

HAHA... I was talking/commenting on REAL change. Not just the empty promise of it.....

 

[deann]

the new up graded site is a little weird,but we must adjust to it,a little frustrating..

 

[deann]

rejects my pass word half the time........

 

[Ironbar]

Yup. New format sucks.

Yeah, I don't like the new format either. But seeing as I don't own the site, I don't have any say in the matter. One thing is for sure- I find my visits here much shorter nowadays. The new format is just hard on the eyes. I don't think I'll be re-upping my Bronze membership this year either.

Sorry Joe.

 

[Joe Link]

rejects my pass word half the time........

I'd like to look into this.

Yeah, I don't like the new format either. But seeing as I don't own the site, I don't have any say in the matter. One thing is for sure- I find my visits here much shorter nowadays. The new format is just hard on the eyes. I don't think I'll be re-upping my Bronze membership this year either.

Sorry Joe.

No problem, I know change never pleases everyone, and I don't want the people who don't like it to feel bad about not liking it. It's me that is sorry to those who don't. Unfortunately, it had to be done.

 

[RVTECH]

On a positive note I LIKE the new format - it is much easier on my eyes and easier to navigate. Only Took a few visits to get oriented to the features but all good now.

 

[Grunwald]

If I'm not mistaken, Joe mentioned that the software for the old forum was no longer supported. Software companies drive you forward, like it or not. I agree, it's not always fun to change, but in the end, you rarely have a choice. I do like the new format, but it's the same format used on a couple of other forums I'm on, so for me, it's not a huge learning curve.

You do have a choice. You can always stick with the old version. Of course that depends on whether you are hosting it yourself or using a service. If it's sitting on own servers then I would suspect the OS is Windows as Microsoft and its software partners love to change things for change's sake. It is part of the reason why I switched to Linux for my personal machines.

 

[Joe Link]

You do have a choice. You can always stick with the old version. Of course that depends on whether you are hosting it yourself or using a service. If it's sitting on own servers then I would suspect the OS is Windows as Microsoft and its software partners love to change things for change's sake. It is part of the reason why I switched to Linux for my personal machines.

Yep, but it was akin to building a house on a floodplain. We could continue to live in it as it was, but eventually we would have had to move. Knowing where I wanted to take this site, and the new features, resources, etc. I wanted to develop, all of that would have been a waste of time, like adding extra bedrooms to the aforementioned house.

I will say that when we made the jump from vBulletin 3 to vBulletin 4, member satisfaction was roughly 40%. I'd estimate closer to 80% of the members are happy with this change, which is nearly unheard of. We're 10 days in, things will get better

 

[etrain16]

You do have a choice. You can always stick with the old version. Of course that depends on whether you are hosting it yourself or using a service. If it's sitting on own servers then I would suspect the OS is Windows as Microsoft and its software partners love to change things for change's sake. It is part of the reason why I switched to Linux for my personal machines.

Sure you can stick with it, but what about when you need some kind of support? If the developer no longer supports the product, then you're completely on your own. No patches, no upgrades, no fixes, no one to help you if you have a problem. You might be able to keep it running on your own, but why do that? I work in an industry where our products are supported by software. When it's time to upgrade, the companies eventually stop all support for the previous version, leaving customers waving in the wind.

 

[powermad]

Internet forum changes, meh
Take the time to learn the features if you like the site. It's not that hard.
ih8mud is undergoing software changes right now. Everybody has to do it from time to time.
Welcome to the computer age, better get used to it.

We go through software changes all the time at work.
You'll find everything changed and no clue to where anything went or how to get there.
All you can do is click and click and click and hope it doesn't freak out and crash.
Then you find what you are looking for by accident and you have no idea how you did it.

Or the truck will not connect to the computer and you need to download and install the latest updates.
After that it still won't work and after an hour on hold with the help desk you find that one of the updates is corrupted so it is uninstalled by them. There's 2.5 hours into a job that initially pays .03 hour

Or you get the Cummins Insite version 8 disk to update all the Cummins laptops and find that Version 8 is not supported by Windows XP and you now have to get new laptops before version 7.6 expires in a few days.
Ain't technology great?

 

[Joe Link]

Internet forum changes, meh
Take the time to learn the features if you like the site. It's not that hard.
ih8mud is undergoing software changes right now. Everybody has to do it from time to time.
Welcome to the computer age, better get used to it.

Yep, ih8mud is actually migrating to this same software.

 

[Rix]

I haven't been on mud in a while.
I should go visit.

 

[thorborg]

Updating drivers to view the new site correctly has made other older programs not work correctly so pictures don't display right. Where I once could preview messages on my E mail I now have to open the forum to view (five minutes later) Spiffier new programing on older computers along with increased ad downloading time has reduced my perusal time waiting for stuff to download.
Changes? enevitable? Really? I'm well into my sixth decade and have seen some changes! Follow the money, most changes I've experienced have ended up a bust over time, cost me a lot of unnessary monies, and all came with the same admonisions; Git over it, gotta crack some eggs, enevitable, you just don't like change, collaterable dammage, emmininent domain, it takes a village, Ram bus is the wave of the future, Vista is the only way to go, You're a dinosaur.
You Know, I still have a dial telephone that works just fine as long as you actually get a person to answer when you call. and I got better remote area TV reception before it "had to go digital" because they needed the band for the emergency response sector and "pagers" No wait, that didn't happen so now they're selling those band since they don't need them. And whats with the typing format here, if you notice you have mispelled or missed a letter and click the curser in the text to correct it you'll be erasing the text ahead of it as you type, that does suck!

 

[JRuby]

You mean like windows vista or for that fact Windows 8.1 - Because you call it progress does not mean its better. Its better for the software company selling the new software but not necessarily the end user.

 

[SMan]

Although I'm not posting much I'm reading a lot, lurking, used to it, and moving on.

Thanks for providing this place Joe!

 

[JackThompson]

Technology march's onward.
Windows XP->Vista->7->8->8.1
Lepord->Lion->Maverick
2G->3G->4G->LTE
etc etc etc.....
version 1->2->3 etc etc....
Embrace it. It's not going to change anytime soon.
Adapt and Overcome.

I'm going to expand on this quote a little.

Technology march's onward.
Microsoft: Windows 95 (Failure), 98b (Success), 2000 (Failure), Millennium (Disaster), XP (Success)->Vista (Disaster)->7 (Success)->8 (Failure) ->8.1 (Jury is out, but improvements being made)

Basically, Microsoft has survived the last 20 years because they held a veritable monopoly in the operating systems market. Not through innovation, but through Rockefeller-like marketing and business practices.

With mobile devices becoming the largest market share and Microsoft failing miserably to adapt to this new platform they cannot afford too many more Windows 95's/2000's/Millennium/Vista's before they just go away.)

Apple: Lepord->Lion->Maverick <- Interface remained the same, and stays relatively consistent to the original designs over the course of 20 years. Success. (With the exception that often they make code changes that require you to just drop your old Mac off at the dump.)

Cellular Networks: Analog (You can go up hills, into the mountains and through tunnels without losing signal), Digital (You lose 75% of the previously mentioned benefits, but you have a captive consumer audience with no other choice, so we adapt because we have to) 2G->3G->4G->LTE <- These are all improvements in speed with invisible back-end modifications, so this doesn't really apply.



Change can make a company grow and be successful.

Change can destroy a company and force them out of a job.

Simply stated, you never take change lightly. Even (Or sometimes especially) if it's cosmetic.

I dislike the new interface, and I really dislike that I don't get a preview of the message in my Email in-box the way I used to. This has cut my participation on this site down by roughly 90%.

It is what it is though, and I come in when I have time to sit at my computer and click through the site.

So I suppose I adapted. I made this site a lower priority for me because I'm a busy guy.

Still a great community with great ideas and content, just not as intuitive to access.

 

[Joe Link]

Updating drivers to view the new site correctly has made other older programs not work correctly so pictures don't display right. Where I once could preview messages on my E mail I now have to open the forum to view (five minutes later) Spiffier new programing on older computers along with increased ad downloading time has reduced my perusal time waiting for stuff to download.
Changes? enevitable? Really? I'm well into my sixth decade and have seen some changes! Follow the money, most changes I've experienced have ended up a bust over time, cost me a lot of unnessary monies, and all came with the same admonisions; Git over it, gotta crack some eggs, enevitable, you just don't like change, collaterable dammage, emmininent domain, it takes a village, Ram bus is the wave of the future, Vista is the only way to go, You're a dinosaur.
You Know, I still have a dial telephone that works just fine as long as you actually get a person to answer when you call. and I got better remote area TV reception before it "had to go digital" because they needed the band for the emergency response sector and "pagers" No wait, that didn't happen so now they're selling those band since they don't need them. And whats with the typing format here, if you notice you have mispelled or missed a letter and click the curser in the text to correct it you'll be erasing the text ahead of it as you type, that does suck!

I've never heard of having to update drivers to view a website. Browser plugins such as flash may have needed to be updated, but best practice is to keep those sort of things updated anyhow. This new site, as measured by Google, is roughly 60% faster to load than the previous site. This is due to extensive caching and server optimization. I'm not sure what's going on with the people reporting longer load times, but I'm interested in hearing more. This site is much faster and more responsive on the systems and devices I've tested it on.

I dislike the new interface, and I really dislike that I don't get a preview of the message in my Email in-box the way I used to. This has cut my participation on this site down by roughly 90%.

Quite a few people have made this same complaint. Unfortunately, we had to disable that feature and force people to visit the site to view the content. The reason for this is that I was receiving between 50 and 100 emails per day from people replying to those notifications, despite the instructions saying PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL. Then, when their message isn't delivered and they miss out on a purchase, they complain. For a long time I tried to keep up with those emails, I just don't have the time anymore, so now people have to visit the site to view their messages.

 

[thorborg]

JackThompson's right here:

I'm a busy guy.

Still a great community with great ideas and content, just not as intuitive to access.

Technology bubblegumes aside & as this type of forum goes. I agree.

 

[JackThompson]

I've never heard of having to update drivers to view a website. Browser plugins such as flash may have needed to be updated, but best practice is to keep those sort of things updated anyhow. This new site, as measured by Google, is roughly 60% faster to load than the previous site. This is due to extensive caching and server optimization. I'm not sure what's going on with the people reporting longer load times, but I'm interested in hearing more. This site is much faster and more responsive on the systems and devices I've tested it on.



Quite a few people have made this same complaint. Unfortunately, we had to disable that feature and force people to visit the site to view the content. The reason for this is that I was receiving between 50 and 100 emails per day from people replying to those notifications, despite the instructions saying PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL. Then, when their message isn't delivered and they miss out on a purchase, they complain. For a long time I tried to keep up with those emails, I just don't have the time anymore, so now people have to visit the site to view their messages.

Joe, who is your technical site administrator?

I bet he could help you with this problem if you knew what question to ask him.



Take a look at this advertisement I get from MidwayUSA (Online firearms and ammo sales site.)

Notice that he has a specific reply-to address listed, and it's NOT the same Email address that this Email was SENT from.



This means you can have your Email notifications use your regular account ([email protected]) and have your replies go to "[email protected]" if you want. (You can then just NOT setup an Email account for "[email protected]" or you can set one up and delegate someone to clean that box up from time to time, but overall just ignore it.

Then you don't get inundated with Emails, and we (The Community) get to stay in touch better!

 

[JackThompson]

Here's the best part!

Ok, I just sent an Email to "[email protected]"

The bulk of the work has been done for you!



Here's what I sent..


Here's what I automagically got back!



So if you just Enable the "Reply-To:" Email line with a bogus address and do nothing else, this problem fixes itself.

Another fringe benefit is, that unless you've been replying to those 50-100 erroneous emails per day where people replied to the notification, you haven't been informing people that their replies aren't making it to the forum, and they probably just think they're being ignored or censored!

This solves that as well, since it gives them an error explaining what happened.