Kitz Forum
Announcements => Site Announcements => Topic started by: kitz on July 26, 2015, 08:06:57 AM
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I've been making some changes to the main site - mainly:
1) Tutorial and Tech sections have been merged.
2) The cookie compliance notification has been replaced. The old one relied heavily on a third party geolocation plug-in script that was at times causing pages to load slower than they should.
Please be aware that whilst I'm doing this, there may be some strange caching issues.
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A little bit more info
1) Re the tutorial & tech sections merger, any content in here isn't specifically targeted at anything broadband related.
I've also had several people mention over the years that because the site is broadband orientated they had assumed that it would be broadband tutorials that were in this section. It is easier for now just to merge the two because that frees up a tab for future development of something else.
2) I've mentioned before about the cookie compliance script and how I wasn't too happy with the old one. Because the cookie compliance laws relate to the EU it relied heavily on a free plugin (geoPlugin (http://www.geoplugin.com/)) to detect the readers country of origin before deciding what to dish out to the reader. Whilst geoPlugin is very good, the demands put on their servers because of cookie compliance means that quite often run slow. Over the past few weeks it has not only had slowness but also some total downtime, which meant my scripts were running slow and some pages weren't able to completely load. If the script didn't load and the cookie notification didn't show then it could cause compliance issues. I'm now using a simpler script that is hosted on my own server so page loads should now be quicker and no more waiting for other scripts to load because the cookie compliance one cant complete. IMHO the new one is more user friendly because once you've read it thats it done and no more green button (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,15754.0.html) for a third party site hanging around.
3) Because every single page has been re-uploaded and has had page changes then its highly likely that caching issues will occur that will cause some display oddness. Pressing Ctrl + F5 should clear this.
4) I've not yet updated the cookie script on the main front page. The reason for this will become clear soon - but that's a job for another day/night.
5) I'm aware the tab bar is currently off-center. There's a reason for this which is tied in with the above. I have a new CSS file which sorts it, but it will be uploaded at the same time the front page gets its update.
6) The ad banner script should now be more efficient and streamlined. When cookie legislation came in I attempted to remove use of a cookie and made use of math.random - which as the name implies chucked out ads in random. I've now gone back to using a session cookie to properly rotate ads. Session cookies are not bad, they disappear when you close your window and its only there so that certain ads rotate properly rather than chuck out random. No information is stored by me, its just keeping count of 1,2,3,4,5 to rotate certain approved ads. Once you close your browser window the cookie gets destroyed. More info about session cookies and our cookie policy here (http://www.kitz.co.uk/sites/policy.htm#cookies).
7)I know that the tab menus for the forum and wiki also need to be redone, but nothing more from me now - Im off to bed as Ive worked completely through the night on >500 pages.
The offline prep work had been done in every spare min over the past few weeks, but theres certain things that can only be done when traffic is least likely to be affected - hence the all nighter.
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kitz is there a way to sort out the awin1 performance issues?
if you can stop it lagging page load I am happy to whitelist my ad blocker on your site considering how much I use it. Perhaps make it async? so it doesnt hold up the page loading.
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just whitelisted and on a few clicks no lag, so will keep it whitelisted and report back if awin1 problem comes back :)
Also do you need people to click the ads for revenue? or is loading enough? if you need clicks I will try to click an ad everytime I visit the site.
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Google ads specifically do not allow me in any shape or form allow me to encourage people to click. Google ads display 2 types of ads: Those that pay per view (impression) and those that pay per click.
Its a bannable offence for me to encourage people to click in any way shape or form and they are very clever how they detect false clicks. I dont fully understand how they work its one of googles algorithms that they dont disclose, but I think advertisers have to bid to place an ad on a publishers site with what type of ad they wish to display and if its PPI or PPC. If its a pay per impression then I may get a couple of pence/penny/part penny, but if its a click type then the price is much higher. I have no control over the bidding process and no idea whether the ad generated is going to be a pay per impression or pay per click. I do not endorse any form of false clicking, so no please dont.
Google are very strict in enforcing the rules and regularly check for any encouragement of false clicks and extremely efficient at detecting them. They even check site content to make sure a publisher doesn't say anything to encourage clicks. They do this to protect their advertisers as I believe the understanding is say that an advertiser has bid a few quid for a click, then the advertiser is going to be pretty peed off to find out they are paying for something falsely obtained with no actual sale at the end of it. Im not even allowed to click my own ads. The pay per impression ads are slightly different though, they are a bit more akin to say tv/radio advertising, in that they pay to 'air' the ad and the publisher doesnt get any more revenue if they buy or not. AFAIK these are the ones that I mostly serve anyhow as its seldom, if ever!, that I see anything come through for pounds rather than pennies. They may only pay a penny or so or even part penny, but they are the ones that can add up, because they pay regardless of sale or click.
Google come down hard on a publisher who in any way encourages friends/members/etc to give a few clicks in order to generate income and Im not even allowed to click my own ads even if I am interested in them. So I repeat nope please don't do it. Google rules are here (https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?ctx=as2&rd=1#Encouraging_accidental_clicks)
Publishers are not allowed to use language to lead users to click the ads, such as:
"Feel free to click an ad."
"Contribute to the cause by clicking an ad."
"Help keep this site running. Check out our sponsors!"
"We need a new server. Support us!"
Re awin - hopefully any slowness should now be sorted in a couple of areas. Im currently only targeting BT, TT, Sky & Plusnet in strict rotation rather than the previous random. I think the geo plugin issues may have been impacting somehow as it appeared to be slowing down practically anything script related. Obviously the cookie legislation script runs just before the ads. The slow loading of the the cookie script - of which I have to display in some form or other by EU legislation - has without doubt impacting all page loading over the past few weeks, I cant remember the exact date but around the 10th of this month the geoplugin site was overloaded to the point of going down. This caused my own pages not to completely load and was affecting any other of my third party scripts which are called after the geoplugin. I'd been noticing the increasing slowness over the past few months and its why I wanted to get rid of that particular cookie legislation script anyway.
awin only pay on sale so no point clicking unless you are interested and buy.
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ok understood, thanks.
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Thanks chrys :)
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I'm aware the tab bar is currently off-center. There's a reason for this which is tied in with the above. I have a new CSS file which sorts it, but it will be uploaded at the same time the front page gets its update.
The new CSS uploaded so all pages bar the front should now line up correctly.
The old (existing/current) front page will today look off center until the new front page is uploaded.
I'm also currently messing with some of the CSS styles plus a couple of changes to the header, so until thats complete and Ive re-uploaded >500 pages some styles may look a little strange. Using F5 & ctrl should clear any cached pages that look odd with the new CSS
I know that the tab menus for the forum and wiki also need to be redone
Completed.
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I'm also currently messing with some of the CSS styles plus a couple of changes to the header, so until thats complete and Ive re-uploaded >500 pages some styles may look a little strange. Using F5 & ctrl should clear any cached pages that look odd with the new CSS
Should all now be completed.
If you do spot anything odd please let me know. Thanks :)
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i click on the forum tab and it goes straight to home
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site still good performance with ad's, so seems awin problem is now solved.
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i click on the forum tab and it goes straight to home
It's fine now and many thanks ;)
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Cheers guys.:)
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An oddity. Please see the two attached images, Forum.png and Home.png
Notice the difference in the displayed tabs?
On the forum page: | Site | ADSL | ISPs | Tech | Routers | Wiki | Forum |
On the home page: | Home | Broadband | ISPs | Tech | Routers | Wiki | Forum |
So there are two questions: (1) "Site" or "Home"? (2) "ADSL" or "Broadband"?
In the case of question (2), if the former is chosen I would like to suggest that it is changed to the all-encompassing "xDSL".
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Thank you b*cat - Changed to Home - It's always been like that I just never noticed.
Re xDSL/Broadband - you bring an interesting point. This was something I was very undecided about. Personally Ive always used xDSL, but this country more than any other seems to be very much into the term 'Broadband' - in perhaps a lesser way than the UK uniquely & wrongly uses the term 'Fibre' when it comes to VDSL.
I think we as a country started off correctly, but somewhere along the lines ASA failed to stamp on a few things and because all UK advertising now uses the term 'Broadband' then the general public doesnt have a clue what ADSL/VDSL/xDSL stands for and therefore anything using the proper and correct terms tend to fall lower when it comes to SEO. This is one of the reasons why Thinkbroadband took the big step to rename their whole site.
I think you saw a preview image several weeks ago when I was working on it before live where I was using 'DSL' and I changed it just shortly before going live.
I may start a poll on this, because it would be interesting to see what others think.
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ETA
Poll started here (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,15830.0.html)
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Thank you b*cat - Changed to Home - It's always been like that I just never noticed.
Ack.. having done it, Ive just recalled why it was changed to "Site" for the forums and only for the forums.
It was because many moons ago, it used to cause confusion between the Forum home button (of which I have no control over) and the main home site. :'(
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PS @ b*cat.
Its bugging me that the header background isnt lining up correctly in your browser because I tried to move that over to CSS. I've tested in several different browsers and all line up correctly here - including wonders will never cease in IE. Out of interest does it just do it on the front page or on others such as this (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/) too.
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Under "Site sections" at the left hand side, the first item says "ADSL", so whatever you decide concerning the headers needs to be changed here as well. It also lists Tutorials and Tech separately.
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I attach a screen-scrape of what I see at the head of this thread.
(Sorry but I am having one of those days when nothing appears to "go right" or "be simple". :( )
Please let me know if you would like to see "what I see on other pages".
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@Eric - Thank you. Updated :)
@B*cat. It was the image line up of the main site silver bar header that was bugging me. (see how on your screenie, there's like a double blue line)
Ive tested in all the popular browsers and it lines up perfectly here (even IE which is normally the pig) so I was surprised to see that it didn't on your screen cap.
I wondered if it also did it on say this page (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/) which uses a different template as content is static.
Out of interest which browser do you use please?
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Ah, I now see what you mean. :) And yes, I do see it on both pages. :( Screen-scrapes attached, below.
The browser is Firefox ESR v38.1.0 (64-bit) which is packaged by Red Hat for use with RHEL-6 . . .
[Duo2 ~]$ rpm -qa redhat-release\*
redhat-release-server-6Server-6.7.0.3.el6.x86_64
[Duo2 ~]$ rpm -q firefox
firefox-38.1.0-1.el6_6.x86_64
[Duo2 ~]$
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Cheers b*cat. Ive just been playing around with this, but there isnt any thing obvious that I can change. Margins are set to 0 and it should align to top so I cant figure out why it appears to be dropping by one pixel only in your browser.
I could perhaps try setting the font size to a specific pixel (px) but as I play on here, then you may not get the same result, because Im not using I dont use ESR for RH. One possibility has occurred - do you by any chance have custom font or font sizes set? Your image looks like it is rendering the font at a slightly smaller size than I see here.
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No, sorry, nothing has been set by me. :no: Everything is the default.
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kitz
Is there any way of 'ignoring' topics/threads? Amongst other things I never play Games and spend half my life clearing them from Unread Posts :-\
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@b*cat - thanks. I'll have a look further when I get chance, but I suspect the only option may be to setting the <h1> tag to display at a specific pixel size and work up from that.
@tbailey. That would have to be a specific SMF feature or mod. Ive had a look around and there doesnt seem to be any easy or satisfactory mod for this. Having had a quick scan through this thread (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=240146.120) it appears to cause database/performance issues and breaks whenever theres a forum upgrade. I believe there is hope that it may be properly implemented within SMF 2.1 when its released.
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Thanks.
The only thing I just spotted when poking around is that on the SMF forum (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=380344.0) it says V2 supports Ignore Boards - and Boards are all the sub headings of the forums of which Games is one? So is that turned off or ?
Ignore boards is a feature in 2.0, and it hides boards from "Show unread posts since last visit." but not "Show new replies to your posts."
Mind you that was in 2010 so may well have been dropped possibly due to performance reasons....
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it says V2 supports Ignore Boards
Oh thank you I didn't know that. I'd been searching for an ignore topics. :clap:
So I've just been poking around in the settings and voila - I hadn't noticed it before as its quite hidden away. Allow boards to be ignored Ive just enabled it now.
If you want to ignore any boards, then now you can change this from within your Profile settings. Modify profile -> Ignore boards where it now says:-
When a board is ignored, the new post indicator will not show up on the board index. New posts will not show up using the "unread post" search link (when searching it will not look in those boards) however, ignored boards will still appear on the board index and upon entering will show which topics have new posts. When using the "unread replies" link, new posts in an ignored board will still be shown.
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Great and thanks ;D Let's see if it works now.... I'm getting tempted to ignore some users as well.....
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thanks also
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Thanks Kitz, games ignored :)
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Thanks Kitz, games ignored :)
I did find that you need to check the sub options under Games as well, not just Games..
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Thanks Kitz, games ignored
Ditto
ignore some users as well....
Woops don't upset Tony by finding problems on MDWS
:) :)
ou need to check the sub options under Games as well
Thanks
Ian
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Thanks Kitz, games ignored :)
I did find that you need to check the sub options under Games as well, not just Games..
Yes, I thought that odd, but never mind just a few more ticks
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ignore some users as well....
Woops don't upset Tony by finding problems on MDWS
:) :)
That's not a very nice comment to make and you are reading into what I said and making totally incorrect deductions :thumbdown: , I have no problems whatsoever with bug reports.
It's not you anyway (or wasn't), I think we may have a troll on here who is getting very annoying....
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That's not a very nice comment to make and you are reading into what I said and making totally incorrect deductions :thumbdown: , I have no problems whatsoever with bug reports.
Sorry :paperbag: I thought you may have taken it as it was meant (tongue in cheek) hence the smilies.