New Features and Changes

Minor Slowdown Today

Today, we have experienced a minor slowdown from the hours of 12:00 PM ET to 4:00 PM ET. This resulted in many users being unable to access the site. As a result, we have improved our methodology of cleaning our database and improving site performance. This has resulted in positive changes to the database overall, and a re-assessment of our goals for January 2011, in regards to server technology.

One of our staff members, Trouble, also found a bug with uploading PNG images that has been corrected.

Thank you all for dealing with the lag situation today! We do have it under control, and it is mostly because our database is growing in size by the day, which poses new, and unrelenting challenges.

Look to an update of our Experience engine soon, within the next 42 hours!

End of August Updates

Please be advised of the following updates:

Let's Make It Official: Unless there are unforeseen circumstances, Windows7Forums.com will perform a server move during January 2011 to superior equipment. More details will be disclosed during the next full forum staff meeting in October. Watch out for that Podcast!

We have just recently modified our database engine storage type to improve the performance of the website drastically. We will now be doing a planned database assessment and cleanup until January. (This means our database isn't slow anymore!)

We have recently released a number of YouTube videos if you have not seen them. These videos include some tips from long time IT pro, Joe Stackhouse, who has received the User of the Month award for August for these videos. Video tutorial series for Windows Home Server and Windows Server 2008 R2 have also been published. This over an hour of new media content for our visitors.

Speaking of awards, achievements, and related points, the Link Removed due to 404 Error has been updated today. The calculations may take some time to go into full force, so please give the system some time to adjust. It is currently taking all users in the database into calculation! To participate in this system, you need only to use the website.

We are hoping to move all existing Link Removed due to 404 Error into the Experience System very soon.

The Link Removed due to 404 Error for the website has been updated to help protect our members from unsolicited attacks. An e-mail has been sent to all members in regards to this change. Infractions and warnings are now based solely on this agreement.

We have been working, behind the scenes, to create a Moderator Handbook for our forum staff members. This will allow staff members to have a reference guide of information if needed.

On YouTube, we went after a forum troll who attacked the website last month, posting negative videos about Windows7Forums.com. A video response was created, but taken down by the attacker. The video is being hosted Link Removed until the matter is resolved.

We would like to see drop-down menus from the tabs (Forums, Blogs, etc) by sometime in September.

VBSEO - Search Engine Optimization software was updated.

We expect another update to full forum software, likely in mid-late September. Whether or not this will be a maintenance release or a new feature release is still up in the air.

New Robot Voices

Too much, or?

Re: New Robot Voices

I think it's cool. If people don't want to hear them, they don't have to click the play button.

Re: New Robot Voices

More feedback needed from everyone on this. This will determine if the robot voices continue to be used for various things, etc.

Re: New Robot Voices

What a original idea. How popular it will be I guess time will tell...

Would I use it? Probably not but that's not saying others won't..

Re: New Robot Voices

which text 2 voice software is it using?

Re: New Robot Voices

Internet Explorer users cannot see the player (yet). This may change with IE9.

Re: New Robot Voices

Looks a good idea to me, and I personally can't see how it can be annoying if it's optional. First time I heard it felt like a cyber assistant from the future, lol, nice voices. Innovative and so far unique. My affirmative yes.

Re: New Robot Voices

I like it but I hit the X button so now it's gone....how do I get it back.

Re: New Robot Voices

Love it - exact same Text to Speech engine voice as I use to prank call people on Xbox Live

Speed

I know many of you have been concerned about site speed. That is why some changes were made tonight. I am evaluating this change, as page load time is currently clocking at 3 seconds, which is fairly average. That could change at any time, and if the changes I have made are inadequate they will be reversed.

New Stuff Coming for Premium Members


Premium Supporters have made the ultimate contribution to Windows 7 Forums, and all to often they have been getting the same features as everyone else. Now, it is time to provide Premium Members with some great perks.

Firstly, here is a new Premium Supporter feature that is already available:

• Premium Members can mark any thread on the forums solved or unsolved. Only moderators have the power to perform this operation.

But, perhaps most exciting of all, is that we will soon release a number of DVDs that are completely burnable and playable on any DVD player, so long as the person has a DVD player. These DVDs will include every video released on YouTube from Windows7Forums.com.

Also, these videos will be released as downloadable MP4 files that only Premium Members can access.

Premium Members already have access to special software downloads, but this will give them an entire library of information that they can explore, with animated menus on the DVD-version, at any time. This will be just one new enhancement for our Premium Supporters. It is taking awhile, but menu design has already been completed. Encoding, testing, quality assurance, and upload of both the DVD and MP4 files will take some time.

For more information about Premium Supporter membership please see the Link Removed or registered members can check out the Link Removed due to 404 Error (this area has recently been updated with robot speech information regarding subscriptions! You must be using Firefox or Chrome to hear our robot announcers in most areas, but the next version of IE may solve this).

I think I speak for all of the Windows7Forums.com staff members that we are committed to providing added membership benefits to all Premium Supporters.

Re: New Stuff Coming for Premium Members

DVD 1 is now available to our Premium Members!

Re: Speed

Serious, high quality efforts, are currently being made to make the site faster. Below are screen shots of some new features.

These new features have not, and will not come, without cost, but the viewer experience is what counts.

Enjoy the forums!

Early September 2010 Update

The following changes have been made for early September 2010:


Speed-Up: We are now running full memory cache software to lighten the load on Windows7Forums.com until we acquisition additional hardware. The software is quite expensive, and has already saved over 15 million database queries. These are direct calls to the database that are now being diverted into memory instead.


Site Life Status: Using aggregate data from all prior sources, we are able to estimate the number of page views since the beginning of all forum activity tracking.


Contextual Auto-Tagging: The tagging of threads creates a Tag Cloud. Noticing the lack of use of this unknown and seldom used feature, we have brought back the concept of auto-tagging. The title and content of your message will automatically be tagged for search and indexing through the tag cloud itself. With around 27,289 threads, and 25 tags per threads, that means there are potentially 682,225 tags now in the tag cloud.


A bug with Twitter syndication which may have been causing errors at the end of a new post has been solved.


Website staff members are no longer eligible to participate in the Link Removed due to 404 Error. Points can now be given away or traded in the system.


Link Removed due to 404 Error Trackbacks, Pingbacks, and Refbacks are now being auto-accepted again.
New anti-spam software has been installed.


We bring to life three new forums:


Link Removed due to 404 Error A support forum for the prevention, removal, resolution, and debugging of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors in Microsoft Windows.
Virtualization: A forum for discussing virtualization technology and infrastructure. VMWare, Citrix, Microsoft Virtual PC, Hyper-V, VirtualBox, and others. Discussion for both workstations and servers. NEW!


Link Removed due to 404 Error As with other syndication forums such as the general Windows 7 Live RSS feed syndication, Security syndication, and Windows Vista syndication, News is now retrieving information directly from MSDN’s Channel 9. “Channel 9 keeps you up to date with the latest news and behind the scenes info from Microsoft that developers love to keep up with.”
New features and changes:


Link Removed due to 404 Error A forum for discussing virtualization technology and infrastructure. VMWare, Citrix, Microsoft Virtual PC, Hyper-V, VirtualBox, and others. Discussion for both workstations and servers.


Additional content has been released for Premium Members.

LONG LIVE THE GOLDEN AGE!

Mid-September 2010 Update

Most of these forum updates will not affect the casual user, but should help to improve overall performance somewhat.

September 15th, 2010:

• fixed New sub-forum images on homepage were not rendering correctly, but could not necessarily be detected unless in Internet Explorer. This is now fixed.

September 14th, 2010:

• new Entire forum code updated to latest maintenance release.

September 11th, 2010:

Website Performance

• fixed Some web server modules have been disabled to improve performance. This will not affect site features or experience.

New Video:

• new A new video on how to join the forums, and what it entails, can be found under the Videos tab.

Updated Forum Search Engine Optimization Software:

• new Tag thread titles
• new Correctly Loading Div within vBSEO Cp (accounts for #anchor in cp links)
• new Improvement to vBSEO Cp language system
• new Automatic code insert for Relevant Replacements ( vb4 only, no more template edit necessary )
• new Twitter has been added as a default Social bookmark
• fixed Showthread & Forumdisplay Go to page issue
• fixed Album rewrite disabled option
• fixed Linkback approve disapprove icon display
• fixed Who's online user location displays non-vbseo'd url
• fixed Duplicate URLs with "nocache" parameter
• fixed SEO URL-Alias bracket bug
• fixed Member urls incorrect with Php 5.3.3
• fixed Uncached vbseo blog templates
• fixed Forum cache bug
• fixed Blog tag rewrite
• fixed Attachments loading slow
• fixed vbSEO Copyright display options showing wrong option
• fixed Furl has been removed from Social bookmarks
• fixed vBSEO breaking xhtml validation issue
• fixed Newly created forums redirected to Forumhome issue
• fixed Rewrite Nav bullet image option is changed to display vB3 versions only
• fixed Missing md5 sum file have been added
• fixed UTF8 support bug
• fixed Issue with Blog Social Bookmarks in vB4 version
• fixed Duplicate attachment url issue
• fixed Memcached bug
• fixed Threaded mode causing blank pages
• fixed A minor bug related to create article is corrected
• fixed Duplicate avatar url issue corrected

Re: Mid-September 2010 Update

Friday, September 17, 2010:

NEW FEATURES! THE GOLDEN AGE CONTINUES

• 98 New Smilies Added.
• Quick unsubscribe from admin mailings at Link Removed due to 404 Error
• Anti-spam software updated.
• Members are now auto-notified on nearly all moderator actions.
• Unanswered Threads now searchable.
• Desintation Forum Confirmation to avoid non-support posts in Discussion and Rumors/News forums.
• Tabbed menu consolidation.
• Full-Text alternative Google Site Search at Link Removed

Re: Mid-September 2010 Update

Looking good as always, Mike

End of September '10 Updates

A hardware upgrade took place on 9/27/10 to address a faulty processor, which has now been replaced.

Additional anti-spam software has been upgraded and zero poster accounts have been removed.

A maintenance release of the forum software has been installed.

Tab-based navigation has been added to the website.

Please stay tuned for more substantial updates soon!