Please welcome RSVX to the SVXWN Staff

Chris · #1 01-22-2007, 11:13 PM

As we grow, so does the amount of time to clean up and maintain this place. This has no account for the time needed to do things like home improvement. I have just added another assistant administrator to the SVXWN Staff. I would like to re-introduce RSVX not only as a member that is active here and makes this place what it is, he will be now be swinging a hammer to make this place what it will become. He brings with him previous experience as an administrator on other Vbulletin forums and configuration skills to add carpet and new coats of paint. I will be the first to note that I was all about function. Make this place work, and do so fast. I will make sure we maintain that standard. RSVX will assist with the fluff that will make us a little more pretty. Possibly some eye candy and additional features. I have been very poor about this and now I can make sure it gets done.

So as of today, we now have TWO administrators with the name of Chris. Please don't mix us up.

Budfreak · #2 01-22-2007, 11:30 PM

Congratulations RSVX! Now can we have some new smileys??

Chris · #3 01-22-2007, 11:42 PM

To do list notes:

More and or new smilies!! (for Budfreak )

Anyone else have some requests/ideas?

Budfreak · #4 01-22-2007, 11:59 PM

I'd also like to see a picture section, even though people have avatars and lockers. It'd be nice to just go to one location and see everyones SVXi.

Chris · #5 01-23-2007, 01:34 AM

This is a project already in the works. We have bandwidth issues because of the lockers.

In the near future, the lockers will be replaced with either Gallery2 or something similar. The service will run on a second server and the policy for routing will be Forums traffic first, then Gallery. Likely all users will get a "bit" of space, but members with donating status will get much more. The money donated helps to buy hard drives and bandwidth that are quickly chewed up by photos. A small sample of what I am referring to can be viewed at: http://photos.svxwn.com

This is a low powered server by todays standards. The software does chew up CPU cycles like pac-man so more research is being done here. A dual core CPU or dual CPU machine would perform this task like a Ferrari, but at a price.

RSVX · #6 01-23-2007, 05:07 AM

I just want to thank Chris (the other, or first Chris) for this opportunity!! I hope that with the suggestions and the guidance of the Mod/Admin Staff as well as the user base here that we can continue to make this place our wonderful home.

I Love You guys!

PS... I think I still have a TON of smilies from one of my previous boards... now to dig them off of my old (now my wifes) PC...

SVX_MY_BABY · #7 01-23-2007, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Budfreak

I'd also like to see a picture section, even though people have avatars and lockers. It'd be nice to just go to one location and see everyones SVXi.

Would be nice to have a place to see "types" of photos.

eg. Cars with non OEM wheels, Cars with custom paint, Cars with interior mods, etc. It would be a general section where anyone could put a photo. Obviously there would have to be limits per member.

SSSVX · #8 01-23-2007, 10:48 AM

Congratulations to you, Chris!

Thank you, Chris!

SVXdc · #9 02-05-2007, 02:27 AM

Congrats, "RSVX" Chris! Thank you for your time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

To do list notes:
...
Anyone else have some requests/ideas?

Since you asked, here are a few:

Make message edit box wider
There are some easy changes you can make to the vBulletin config files that will allow message edit boxes to be as wide as possible. As it is currently it's about 1/4 to 1/3 the width of the screen. Makes editing a post that contains a long URL difficult.

See the first few posts in this thread on another forum (then jump to post #20) for the fix.

[Added: I'm refering to the "advanced" editor]

Fix locker pictures filenames
There are a bunch of images in the lockers that somehow lost their .JPG extension (perhaps other extensions too). I seem to recall this happened around the time of a software or hardware change, when lockers were unavailable for awhile, but I may be remembering wrong.

When you try to view these files, the browser only wants to download the file rather than immediately viewing it (and once it's on a PC, Windows has to ask which app to use to open the file).

One caveat if you do this - you probably ought to locate posts that point to the bad filenames, and make corresponding edits in the posts.

Devise a way to post links in lockers
Earl has uploaded a few Word docs and PDFs in the How-To locker that simply serve as a way to direct people to URLs outside of this site. It would be more efficient (save a little bandwidth), if one could "upload" a link in their locker. Clicking on it would take you straight to the target URL.

Perhaps the image could be a thumbnail that the user uploads, or one of a few different canned icons (or a single, standard icon that will symbolize "external link").

Users should still be able to write their own caption, as they can now.

Use external photo storage sites
I've started migrating the photos I use in posts to ImageShack.us. Photobucket is a similar storage site. To save bandwidth (and thus monthly expenses), why not encourage other users to do this too?

Could the process be automated? The users would still upload to their lockers similar to how it happens now. Behind the scene, the server would store the file locally (to archive in case of problems), but then post to one of the image host sites and link there for display (both thumbnail and full-size). ImageShack actually offers this service, for free.

Even if you had to pay the storage site for "enhanced" service, that might work out cheaper than the extra bandwidth you'd otherwise need for this site.