sako wrote:

the old forum was much easier to peruse. The speed of this new one is way too slow and I am on a T1 line.

Then something is wrong with your T1. 1.544mb is more then enough for my browsing needs. I've browsed the site on a "fractional t1" (256kb) and it was good.


the old forum was dated and this new one is much better.

Sorry to say it, John there are alot of high speed alternatives for browsing.

I'd also like to see changes, but I also think it's good to note that the membership has at least doubled the 3 yrs that ive been here and it shows. i think it'd be just as 'bad', if we were using the old format. just throwin that in there.

I even browse with my Blackberry, even that is just fine.

The new format is far better than the previous format. Reduced the amount of repeat questions. Its nice having a search that works.

56k Connections: When you connect are you 33.6k or less? Sometimes an alternate number will help. What sort of software do you have running on your system? How old is the desktop, really old desktops will render pages slower than newer machines, even over the same speed connection.
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-Justin
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'74 tii
'76 02
'97 m3
http://www.bmw2002.net

jgerry2002 wrote:

How old is the desktop, really old desktops will render pages slower than newer machines, even over the same speed connection.

i'll be damn....i've had a pic of kermit the frog on my desktop for the past few months and just changed my desktop to display a pic of sherman robert, one of my dogs and WOW...i have faster internet
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Portrait of a Deadbeat

esty wrote:

i'll be damn....i've had a pic of kermit the frog on my desktop for the past few months and just changed my desktop to display a pic of sherman robert, one of my dogs and WOW...i have faster internet

Well if the kermit the frog picture was a large 24 bit hi res bitmap and you switched to a sherman robert pic that was a compressed jpg, you could see a 60%-80% reduction on file size... which can make a difference in the memory footprint, especially older systems or budget pc's with marginal RAM and a ton of background (by default and typically increases over time) programs running. Throw in Windows XP default viewing anti-performance "features" like edge fading, animating, and shadowing of windows and it will all add up. Add this to the fact that IE is a memory hog and your pages will be slow because you will most likely be swapping to disk trying to get some RAM back. You can really see the effects of this on slow links like 56K connections.

Can an alternate browser like Mozilla make a difference? Yes, to some extent.

This is not even taking into account things like bad blocks, disk fragmentation, percent of free space, and physical issues with the hard drive.

This may not apply if you are on a Mac or Linux box. Thankfully things are a bit more streamlined.
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-Justin
--
'74 tii
'76 02
'97 m3
http://www.bmw2002.net

robvert wrote:

I am 'up to date', have computer savvy, have tried this new forum on a T1 and a fast DSL connection, work on computers constantly, belong to other forums and I'm not a whiner. AND i really appriciate the time and effort given to this new forum. AND agree that glitches are being worked out, so speed and such may improve. However, so far my comments are similar to others that don't like the new format. It is more cumbersome and slow for the way I use it... searching very often and quickly throughout nearly every day.

Its interesting what people with fast connections say. I'm on a dialup that maxes out at 26.4 kbps and its totally usable -- compared with A LOT of sites its pretty quick even.

as for using the search I'll remind folk why the site really had to be moved to another system.

The old system used static html files -- one per message -- to store information. The old forum was getting so fricking huge that there were almost A QUARTER OF A MILLION little html files making up the forum (more than 1/4 a million: 2589061 to be exact).

Think about that one for a second. 1/4 a million files adding up to about 30 gigs (or so) of text in little 1 kb files.

This is why Mike and me (mostly mike) went to work on transfering those html files into a database -- simply because the site could not grow much larger without some serious help.

And the searching -- there is such good information among those 1/4 a million files that we wanted them to be searchable. The old forum -- there was no way in hell you could search that space the way it was setup.

Just physically impossible without doing some kind of database indexing of the files or something well beyond the capabilities of the old forum.

So while folk may not like certain things about the new layout or whatever... there was just no freaking way the old forum could keep going without maybe deleting a bunch of those files or doing something!!

This way the 'archives' are maintained with just about every message ever posted and since it's in Database form you could put any front end you want on it.. its been preserved kinda

So thats my 02 cents -- having been involved with moving the site I sure hope folk can understand that there were seriously valid reasons for why it was changed

You all have to admit the search actually works now right :) :)

cheers

-zachary in langlois

What problems do people have with the site? I guess I don't see people being specific enough. You can view the board in a format similar to the old board or the style that almost every other BBS out there is.

I actually stopped coming here for a while because I had a hard time making any sense out of the posts since the old layout was not as organized by topic and there were multiple conversations going on under one topic.

I guess everyone has the way they like to see things done, but as far as I know this board can be viewed just like the old one, and for the people that like the newer style we have an option now as well.

This site has never been slow for me, but Im not on dial up so I cant comment on that.

Hopefully we dont loose any long time members though, its a shame to lose the people that got this board going.
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1991 325i track car
1984 325e daily driver

oz_tom wrote:

Woah, post from the past!! Glad your still here though John!!!!

Oh 02Fanatic had a few whiskeys in him and was fuming that the Internet had gone to pot since Al Gore lost his control over the Internet.
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67 Caribe 1600
76 Ceylon 2002

I really could give 2 fucks about this format or the last one. Why did this thread even get resurrected? Can it go to OT now?
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91 BMW 318is
90 Mazda Miata

JohnW wrote:

I really could give 2 fucks about this format or the last one. Why did this thread even get resurrected? Can it go to OT now?

hans_stuck was getting bored a couple of days ago and dug it out of the past. I guess we should look at the dates..I thought it was Deja vu.. Glad John is still around..

NOW, IF NO ONE ELSE POSTS ANYTHING, IT WILL SINK INTO THE SUNSET AGAIN!!!