Site Changes (BOWIE)

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Change: Handling of Signatures

From this point on, any messages that have signatures embedded in them also have tags inside them that I can programmatically use to find the signature. This does not apply to messages written before about 5 minutes ago.

What this means from the user perspective is that if you've got a Premium account, you've gained an option on the "My Settings" page ( http://www.investorshub.com/boards/my_settings.asp ) that says "Show Signatures in Messages". If you set this to "No" (the default is "Yes"), then when you're reading messages one at a time, you won't see signatures, assuming the message was written *after* I put this change in place.

There's no way for me to make this apply to older messages.

This is going to be a Premium-only feature. Non-premium members can change that field all they like, but it won't have any effect on message-reading.

Also, it currently only applies when reading messages one at a time. Once this has been in production for a while and isn't causing any problems (or I've squashed any bugs I've created), I'll do the same thing with batch-reading mode.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Bug Fix: Batch Message Reading

There was a bug in batch message reading (aka "Next10") that was causing the system to display messages you'd already read in the previous batch when you clicked "Next 10". This was happening in the system skipped messages in the current batch because their authors and/or recipients had been filtered.

I believe this has been fixed, but let me know (via PM) if it hasn't been.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Change: Top Boards Scoring

The scoring for Top Boards has been too dynamic, with boards changing as much as 5 positions on the list in an hour. This is because for the average daily posting volume component, I was using only posts in the last 24 hours.

I've changed it to use posts for the last 72 hours (3 days), so it should still be pretty dynamic but not as much so.

Having it use 3 days made the query more expensive, but not prohibitively so. Oddly, 3 days seems to be the cutoff. If I make it use 4 or more days, the "cost" of the query skyrockets.

So, 3 it is.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor change in MailBox, Keep/UnKeep, and bug fix:

Now there are 3 categories in MailBox rather than the 4 that used to be there. The 3 categories are:

1. Private Messages
2. Public Messages
3. Kept Public Messages

What went away was "Kept Public Messages To Me". Now they're all handled the same whether they're written to you or not. Along with this change I fixed the bug that was preventing UnKeeping of public messages you'd kept that were written to you.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Major New Feature: Board Surveys

I've just implemented Board Surveys. They are (should be) specific to each board on the site and any board moderator can create, edit, and manage surveys on any board they're moderating and anyone can participate in these surveys and view the results, as long as they're logged in.

Because of the size of this new feature, and the likelihood that it'll need a LOT of tweaking to make it work ideally, and a lot of verbage explaining how to use it, I've started a new board just for discussing this feature.

#board-1541

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Change: Mark as Last Read in Batch Mode

For you premium members out there, when you're reading messages on a board in batches of 10-100 (you do know you can configure this batch size, right?) you've gained a "Mark as Last Read" link on each message.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Change: Handling of "Keep" and "Mark as Last Read" functions.

The "Mark as Last Read" has been working well in the "Menu Buttons" version of the interface, so that function has now been incorporated into the "Text" version of the message-reading interface.

It has also been made a Premium-only feature. If you don't have a premium account, definitely stick around for Happy Hour this week to try out this feature.

I've also temporarily put off my plans to do a "super-tweak" walkthrough of our most frequently-used features because I've started working on another new feature that'll bury the needle on the Coolometer. One of those things that's a real bear to write, but I started on it last night and worked on it until about 4 in the morning because I'm really excited about getting this one implemented.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Major Change: Top Boards List

I've changed the formula for producing that list and was able to speed it up dramatically. With the previous version, I found that if I hit that list in two separate windows at the same time, I could spike the server at 100%. Didn't say anything earlier because anyone could've seriously dragged down performance just by repeatedly hitting that page.

Now it's no longer the case. Running that screen results in only a tiny blip on the database server.

Most of it was because, since I was dealing with such a complex formula, I really didn't write it well at all. Okay, I wrote it very poorly.

But the biggest killer was including posting activity to a board for the past 30 days. That's changed.

Now the formula takes the following into account:

1. Total posts on the board.
2. Total posts on the board in the past 24 hours.
3. Total bookmarks (turned out the previous version wasn't counting this) for the board.
4. Bookmarks placed by people who have posted in the past 30 days.

Because I'm looking at posting activity in the past 24 hours instead of the past 30 days, the results are a bit more dynamic; they can change dramatically from day to day. For example, non-stock boards will probably move up in the rankings on weekends and drop back down during the week.

The scores on all boards have changed as a result, but are largely in the same ballpark. And because of the inclusion of total bookmarks into the equation (even though "Active" bookmarks count for more), the rankings of some boards have changed.

Anyway, not only does this screen run extremely fast now, running it shouldn't be adding overhead that the other processes have to deal with.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Major Interface Change Option:

Now you can go to Tools->My Settings and there's a new field there called "Show Message Navigation as:"

For this item, you can select "Text" (which is the default) or "Menu Buttons".

If you choose Menu Buttons, your "Reply Publicly", "Reply Privately", etc links above and below messages become menu items just like your top menu. The effect is especially dramatic if you've chosen any of the 3-D effects for your menus. And this Message Navigation menu will take on all the attributes of your top menu, including 3D effects, colors, fonts, etc.

This navigation setup is done a lot more efficiently than the text style (which I'll tweak later to be just as efficient) so a minor increase in speed might be noticeable.

Coolest of all, though, is that in the "Menu Buttons" interface, we've gained a new option when reading messages called "Mark as Last Read".

If you hit that when reading a message, it'll take you back to Favorites, and the system remembers where you stopped reading in that board. Clicking the New Posts link on the board will take you to the message right after that one. Solves a few problems right there.

Try it out and let me know (not via public reply here) what you think.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Change to Free Members featureset: Auto-Refresh

To ease some of the workload on the servers, and because Auto-Refresh of ad-viewing pages could be looked upon unkindly by our advertisers, I've disabled Auto-Refresh for the Favorites and Board pages. This time for keeps.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Interface Change: Read Last 50 (by person)

Each message in the 50-at-a-time batch now contains "Keep", "Reply" and "Replies" links.

Reading 50 at a time by a single person is a Premium feature, so only Premium members will see this change.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Changes and bug fixes:

There are a couple of new buttons available on the "My Interface" screen courtesy of The Original dpb5! and NoMoDo. They're presets you can use to try out a whole different look and feel for the site.

Thanks guys!

Also, if anyone can figure out the #RGB for Raging Bull's colors, I'd appreciate you setting up a config to have those colors and I'll add that as a preset on that screen. I'm too colorblind to do that one.

I think I've got the "menu buttons" version of message-reading done. Let me know (via Private reply to this message) if I haven't. Some other bugs I encountered in it were that "Keep" and "Unkeep" weren't even remotely working correctly. That's fixed now. And I also did away with the superfluous handing of Keep when it applies to messages written to you. Later, I'll go through and export such "Keeps" to the other format and do away with that heading on the MailBox page, taking us to 3 message groupings there instead of 4.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Cosmetic Changes and Bug Fixes:

Been busy this morning and taking a small hiatus now from banging out code for a while. Have to keep burn-out at bay.

Here's what changed this morning:

1. Removed the "Block PM's from this Poster" link in the Private Message screen.

2. Added 3 menu options (in your selected menu colors, hopefully) between the PM you're reading and the message it's replying to. These options allow you to block further PM's from this person, hide public posts by them, or add them to your Favorites page.

3. While working on this, I found a bug in filter removal. If you went to your filters and UnBlocked PM's from someone, it would not only UnBlock their PM's, it'd kill the rest of your filters. If anyone got caught by this bug and lost their filters as a result, let me know and I'll copy them back in for you from the filter backup I made yesterday.

4. Fixed an annoying little display quirk Matt had been complaining about. A space was getting embedded between "Sent By:" and the author's name when reading PM's.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Major New Feature: PM Filtering

It is now possible to block specific people from sending you private messages.

Anytime you're reading a private message, right above the message is a link that says "Block PM's from this member". If you click that link, the author of that PM will be added to a separate filter list.

You can maintain this filter list along with your "Hide Posters" list on http://www.investorshub.com/boards/filters.asp or by clicking "Tools" and going to "My Filters".

You can't block someone in advance. The only way to block future PM's from a person is to click the Block PM's link while you've got one of their messages on your screen.

If there are abuses of this (someone sends you abusive PM's but has you blocked so you can't reply), let me know and it shouldn't be too awfully tough to make sure that if you block someone, you also can't write to them.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Change: Reading One Person's Message In a Batch

If you're a Premium member and have a person peoplemarked so they appear on your Favorites page, now if you click the number of new posts by them (you did notice that's clickable, didn't you?) it'll show you all of those posts in forward chronological order.

It used to show their most recent 50, in reverse order, just like clicking "Read Last 50 Messages" in their Profile.

This should satisfy the people who want to read a person's messages in reverse order as well as those who want to read them in forward order.

In case anyone reading this wasn't aware this feature existed to begin with, any person who you've added to your Favorites page (by clicking "Add PersonMark" in their profile or in any post they've written) will have their "New Posts" count increment on the Favorites page just like happens with Boards on that page.

If you're a Premium member, that number is clickable and will take you to all of those recent posts on one screen, regardless of which board they were written to.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Major Interface Change: Filtering

Okay, I think I've got this down to a user-friendly way of doing things now.

No more of this confusing box on the "My Filters" page requiring you to enter the *number* of each user you want to filter out.

Now there is only one way to hide a poster: By going to their profile and hitting the "Hide This Poster" link. The system will take you back to their profile and the link will change to "UnHide This Poster" so you can undo it.

Where it really gets cool is on the UnHide and Filter-Management side of things.

If you go to the "My Filters" page (Tools->My Filters) or http://www.investorshub.com/boards/filters.asp you'll see that your filters are now arranged in a list with their number, alias (clickable to see their profile) and an "UnHide" link. Clicking the UnHide link will remove that person from your Filter list so you'll be able to see their posts.

If you've got a huge Filter list, and that page is a little slow loading, blame yourself then PLEASE pare down your list to no more than 25 entries. Roughly.

I'm going to make another change soon to the way filters actually work behind the scenes so I can get another (hopefully the last) bug squashed in filtering. But I want to let this change stay in production for a few days first.

As always, if you encounter a new problem this solution has caused, PM me. Don't reply publicly to this post.

Edit: Before putting this into production, since it also involves a new format for storing filtering info (to facilitate the upcoming bug-squash), I wrote and ran a program to convert all old filters to the new format. This program also weeded out invalid filters, like the ones that had names instead of numbers.

Let me know if your filtering list is screwed up after this change. I did make a backup before running the conversion program.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Another Bug Fix: Filtering

If you enabled both levels of filtering, it was possible in some instances to have the single-message reading mode skip posts that had no recipients. I'm still not sure exactly which scenarios were causing this, but now it shouldn't be possible for any scenario to cause it.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Bug Fix: Filters

There was a bug that, when you enabled filters and filtering of messages written to filtered people, was causing messages that weren't replies ("To: None" because the author hit "Post New" instead of "Reply") to not appear in the board message list.

That bug is fixed.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Major Changes: Filtering/Hiding/Ignore

The "Filter" feature has been radically changed. The changes include the following:

1. It is now available to Free members.

2. It is possible, at your discretion, to also filter messages that are written in Reply to people on your Filter List.

3. When you click "Hide This Poster" in a member's profile, your Filtering is automatically enabled at the same time. This reduces the frequency with which you'll have to use http://www.investorshub.com/boards/filters.asp (Tools->My Filters)

4. My Filters screen simplified somewhat. Each line that displays your filter status is now a link that toggles that status on or off. If the line says the status is enabled, clicking it will toggle it to disabled and vice-versa.

Some caveats are in order:

1. If you've disabled your filtering, using the "Hide This Poster" method to add a filter will toggle your filter back on.

2. Filtering of replies to specific posters is not poster-specific. Whew! Even I don't understand what I just said. Put another way, if you enable the filter of Replies to filtered people, Replies to *everyone* on your filter list will be filtered out. You can't, for example, hide my posts and the replies to them while hiding Matt's posts but not the replies to them.

3. If you don't wish to view Replies to your hidden posters, you still need to go to the Tools->My Filters screen and toggle the "Responses To Filtered People Not Filtered" link. It is off by default.

4. Most Importantly: This is a temporary/test thing in two ways:

1. If it doesn't prove to be a complete solution to the problem it is intended to address, I'll back out this feature.

2. If the overhead on the system proves to be too great, I'll have to revert it to being a Premium feature.

Also, if too much conversation takes place along the lines of "Filter out so-and-so" or "Nyah, nyah, nyah. I've got you filtered now.", I'll remove the feature as it'll be contributing to disruptiveness in the boards.


Please do not reply to this message. This is a Bob-only board.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Change: MDC table

If you've joined the site since the MDC started and your account doesn't have an MDC referral number, the MDC page is going to look a little different for you right now.

There's an additional column for each entry that has the entrant's name followed by "Referred Me" as a link. If you click that link, your account is added to their referral list.

If you joined after the MDC started (your account number is greater than 15843) and you were referred to the site by someone whose name is not on that list, PM me and tell me who referred you and I'll manually make the entry.

If you have any comments or questions, please do not respond publicly to this board. This is a "Bob-only" board.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor Change: MDC Listings

Now when you go to http://www.investorshub.com/boards/mdc.asp (available under the "Other" menu), you can click on your own name if it's listed and you'll see the details of your MDC points including names of members you've referred, their membership level, how many posts they've written, and the breakdown of the points they count for toward your score.

Keep in mind that the total points shown there will be less than the total shown on the MDC page. That's because the detail screen only shows points for your referrals but the MDC page takes into account the points you get for your own membership level.

So if the detail page shows 9 people, each worth 2 points (for a total of 18) and you're a Lifetime Subscriber, the score shown on the MDC page will be 38 (18 for your referrals plus 20 for being a Lifetime Subscriber).

Speaking of the MDC, I noticed that most of the people being referred aren't posting much. If at all.

The number of posts a referral makes is an important part of your score. For example, if a member has been approved by Matt for 18 posts per day (most have been), they're worth 2 points PLUS an additional point for every 50 posts they write. If they become a Monthly Subscriber, they're worth an additional point for every 33 posts they write, and so on up to Lifetime Subscribers, who are worth an additional point for every 5 posts they write (plus the 20 points they're worth before counting posts).

Bottom line is that you should send a PM to each of your referrals welcoming them to iHub, thanking them for using your referral link, and encouraging them to join you in discussions.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

New features and one change:

The search functions that let you search within a profile or within a board now include links to go to the Previous 50 when more than 50 results were found. Just like it's been for the Full-Text ("Public Message") search for a while.

Of course, since search is a Premium feature, this change will only be seen by Premium members.

Also, the "Go To Post#" box that's visible when reading a board has been doubled in width. It would always accept any size number, but a large enough number (5-6 digits depending on your configuration) would cause the first digit or two to scroll out of the box even though the feature would still work correctly.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Most of my work lately has had little to do with programming and more to do with business development. And what time I've been putting into programming has mostly been behind-the-scenes stuff like handling in-house ad delivery and email opt-ins.

I've just put something into production we call the MDC. This was suggested by a member (who I'll identify if they like) and I immediately fell in love with the idea.

MDC stands for Membership Drive Competition. It's a contest to see who can bring in the most new members to the site. Cash prizes. Decent cash prizes. As in $1000 for 1st place.

I'm bushed right now, so I'll wait until tomorrow to send out an email to everyone explaining it. For those who're curious right now and want to get a head-start, just hit the "Other" menu link and look for "Membership Drive Competition". It'll spell it all out.

I'm sure we'll encounter pitfalls and missed opportunities with this one, but we'll see how it goes and apply any lessons learned when we do another one of these down the road.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Major Change: Account Aging

I finally implemented routines to take subscription expiration dates into account.

Yes, that means people who had monthly subscriptions basically had non-expiring subscriptions until today. The subscription expiration date was being stored, but nothing was being done with it.

In cases where subscriptions should have expired prior to today, I set them to expire 3 days from now.

When a non-lifetime subscription gets within 5 days of expiration, a PM is sent telling you so. The same is done again when there's 1 day left, and if the date has passed, the account is downgraded to non-premium.

As the PM notes, if your account will expire soon, you don't need to wait until it expires before renewing. The system takes unused subscription time into account. So, for example, if your account expires 15 days from now and you renew today for 6 months, your new expiration date will be 6 months and 15 days from now.

If anyone thinks they've gotten the renewal notice in error, please let me know via PM.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Advertising change:

I'm excited to announce that CyberTrader is onboard as an advertiser on a trial basis. Let's make 'em glad they went with Investors Hub.

We've got a box ad for them on our homepage and they're in the rotation for banner ads.

I've also added a new page, available under the "Other" menu, that lists our advertisers and tells a little bit about them and have included a link to that page under "Our Current Advertisers" on the homepage. This way, even if you don't see ads because you're a Premium member, you can check out our advertisers.

Just go to "Other" then "Our Advertisers".

Hopefully we'll see that advertiser list grow.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Really cool new feature:

Now you can configure the site to give you an audible alert when a new message has been written to you.

This only works for subscribers, and only from the Favorites page. Now you can turn off the "Alert Browser Window" feature if you like, make sure you've got Auto-Refresh turned on for Favorites, select a sound, and just leave a browser window "camped" on the Favorites page. When a new message is written to you, public or private, your computer will let you know. Even if you're in another room.

The new feature is configurable in the "My Settings" screen, as are the other items I mentioned.

Go to "Tools" on the site's menu, then select "My Settings" and scroll to the bottom. You'll see an option called "Sound for New Message Notification".

Next to it is a drop-down containing the names of the sounds that can be selected. There's also an option for "None" (the default). Right after "None" is an option called "Random". If you choose this one, each time an audio alert is played, one will be randomly selected from the list.

The next two choices, "Communicator" and "Doorbell" are probably the most suitable for use at work.

A word of warning: Though I don't personally consider any of these really, really vulgar, and wouldn't mind my 13 year old daughter hearing any of them, some of them are at least "off-color". The "South Park" ones comes to mind. If you've got delicate sensibilities where language is concerned, you're better off avoiding ones with names you don't recognize.

To help you with sound selection, the selected sound is played whenever "My Settings" is loaded. So, if you choose one, hit Update (always remember to hit Update when you've made changes on this screen), the screen will refresh and your selected sound will play.

If you're bored or just want to hear all of the choices, select "Random" and keep hitting the Update button.

Some folks who've tested it have reported problems with it such as lag (the sound plays long after a new message is received), and I'm experiencing minor problems with it on dialup in that it plays part of the sound, pauses, plays more sound, etc, while it slowly downloads it.

If you experience the same problem I've been having, I hope you'll find that it'll eventually go away as your browser caches the sound files. I've set up the directory they're in so that they never expire, meaning if your browser has cached a copy of the file, it won't try to download it again from the site. I hope it won't, anyway. This could eat up a lot of bandwidth.

And if you know of a really good mail-related wav file I should add to the list, post me a message on #board-504 with the URL and I'll see about adding it. We've got about 30 of them now, and I don't want to go past 40.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Changes and a major new feature:

The MailBox page no longer contains links for "Edit My Profile" or "Reset Counter". The former is redundant because there are other places containing that link. The latter is unnecessary because MailBox counts keep the proper number on their own now.

What's been added is Private Message searching.

In the Search box at the top of every screen, the "Full-Text" in the dropdown has been changed to "Public Msgs" and a new option for "Private Msgs" has been added.

If you use this choice, a search of all private messages to and from you is possible.

Thanks to AKvetch for suggesting it and helping me test it. It's another of those features I've already found a lot handier than I'd expected. Especially since I currently have 169 messages in my mailbox and thousands more I've written or read that're in my archives.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor new features:

"Cancel Post" button now prompts you to make sure you want to cancel the post. It doesn't work in the Preview screen, though, because of the way Preview works.

Profiles now include Signatures so it's easier to see what your signature looks like when you change it.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

"My Settings" explained.

There are many aspects of the Investors Hub interface that're configurable on a per-user basis.

All of them can be reached in the "Tools" menu and are in the "My Settings" and "My Interface" options on that screen.

"My Interface" deals with "look and feel" aspects of the site such as page colors and what the menu looks like. It's explained in detail at #msg-336778

In this message, we'll cover "My Settings", which controls things that aren't so much "look and feel" but more along the lines of "How I want the site to work".

Occasional reference is made to "Batch Mode" and "Next 10". These terms mean the same thing, although "Next 10" has evolved into a bit of a misnomer. These terms refer to the ability to display more than one message at a time on the screen. Originally, Batch Mode meant the ability to display 10 messages on a single screen. Now it's possible to display 10, 20, 50, or 100 messages at a time. This feature is available to Subscribers only.

The items controlled from this screen are:

1. Whether or not the "Favorites" page will automatically reload itself and at what interval it will do so.

2. Whether or not the current date and time (East Coast time) will display on the Favorites page.

3. How to sort "Favorite Boards" and "Favorite People" on the Favorites page.

4. Whether or not to display a menu at the bottom of every page, no pages, or just certain pages.

5. Whether or not to display/play graphics/sounds embedded in messages.

6. Whether or not to mark messages as having been read (removing them from your MailBox) if you encounter them in "Batch Mode" or "Next 10" view.

7. Whether or not the browser window that's open to the Favorites page will alert you when new messages are received.

8. The number of messages per category to display on the "MailBox" page.

9. How many messages to include per page when viewing them in "Batch Mode".

10. Whether or not a "Board" page will auto-reload, and at what interval it should.

For each item, select a value from the dropdown in the right column. Don't forget to hit the "Update" button at the bottom of the page or your changes won't be saved.

Some of these items are only relevant to Premium Subscribers. Anyone can change them, but the changes won't do anything for free members. Such items are noted with "(Premium)" after their name. If an item is available to everyone, it's noted with "(Everybody)".

Favorites Auto-Refresh (True=On, False=Off) (Premium):

If you'd like the Favorites page to reload itself on a regular basis, set this item to "True". The default value is "True".

Favorites Refresh Rate (in seconds) (Premium):

This determines the interval at which the Favorites page will reload itself. The available choices (in seconds) are 15, 30, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300. The default is 15.

Favorites Date/Time Display (Everybody):

Determines whether or not the current East Coast date and time are displayed on your Favorites page. Select "On" or "Off" from the dropdown. The default is "On".

Favorite Boards Sorted By (Everybody):

This item controls the order in which boards on your Favorites page are displayed.

Choices are:

Name: Sorts boards in ascending order on board name.

New Posts: Sorts boards in descending order on the number of unread posts they contain.

Date: Sorts boards in descending order on the date and time of their most recent posts.

Ticker: Sorts boards in ascending order on the Ticker assigned to them.

The default is "Name".

Favorite People Sorted By (Everybody):

Controls the sort order of the people you've added to your Favorites page.

The choices are:

Alias: Sorts in ascending order on Alias ("screen name").

New Posts: Sorts in descending order on the number of posts that person has written that you haven't read yet.

Date: Sorts in descending order on the date and time of each person's most recent post.

The default is "Alias".

Bottom Menu Display (Everybody):

Determines whether or not to display a menu on the bottom of the page, and on which pages to display it.

Choices are:

Next10: Display the bottom menu only while reading messages in "Batch Mode". This selection is only relevant to Subscribers, as they're the only ones with access to Batch Mode.

Nowhere: Never display a bottom menu.

Everywhere: Display a bottom menu on every page.

Note: Selecting "Everywhere" carries with it a small and likely not noticeable performance penalty.

The default is "Next10", meaning that by default, nonsubscribers never see a bottom menu and Subscribers see a bottom menu only while reading messages in Batch Mode.

Play Embedded Sounds (Everybody):

At Investors Hub, it is possible to include sounds and pictures within messages. This selection allows you to toggle the playing of sounds on and off while reading messages. If you select "On", any sound embedded in a message will be played. If "Off", an embedded sound is replaced with a link that says "[Suppressed Sound Link]" that, when clicked, will play the sound.

The default is "On".

If you're on a dialup connection and frequently read boards with lots of sounds embedded in messages, turning this off can improve site performance for you.

Display Embedded Graphics (Everybody):

This works just like "Play Embedded Sounds". If you select "On", embedded graphics are displayed. If you select "Off", they're replaced with "[Suppressed Chart Link]", which you can click to see the chart.

The default is "On".

If you're on a dialup connection and either frequently read boards with charts in the messages or just don't want to see the graphics, turning this off can dramatically speed up message-reading.

Mark Messages 'Read' in Next10 View (Premium):

This controls whether or not public messages to you are marked as having been read when reading messages in Batch Mode. When a message is marked as having been read, it no longer shows up in your "MailBox" screen and the number in parentheses after "MailBox" (the total number of unread public and private messages to you) is adjusted accordingly.

Selecting "On" will mark messages read if you encounter them in Batch Mode. Select "Off" will leave them marked unread so they'll still be in your MailBox.

The default is "Off".

Alert Browser Window On New Messages: (Premium)

This setting is only relevant if you're a Subscriber and also have Favorites Auto-Refresh set to "True".

If you go to the Favorites page and leave your browser there, then go do things in other programs or other browser windows, this setting can be used to alert you to new messages that have shown up on your Favorites page or your MailBox.

The choices are:

On: Alert you if any new messages are written to you or if any new messages are written to any of the boards on your Favorites page.

Off: No alert.

Messages To Me Only: Alert you only if new messages have been written to you.

The method of alerting depends on what you're doing when the Favorites page reloads and a new message is found. If you're working in another browser window, you're taken back to your Favorites page. If you're working in another program, the taskbar button for the browser window that is on your Favorites page will blink.

If you're usually working in another browser window, it can be distracting or annoying to have your system jump to the Favorites page, so you should keep that in mind when setting this item.

Personally, I'm usually working in another program, so I'm not taken back to the Favorites page; it just flashes on the taskbar, so I have it set to "On".

The default is "Off".

Messages Per Category in MailBox (Everybody):

This is the one I get asked about the most.

This setting controls how many messages in each category will be displayed when you go to the "MailBox" page. The choices are 10, 20, 50, 100, and 500.

If you select 10, the MailBox page loads pretty quickly. If you select 500, and you've got hundreds of messages in any of the MailBox categories, performance can be pretty bad. It can take a while for the server to process the request and even longer for the results to arrive at your machine.

If you should have more messages in your MailBox than are actually displaying, it's because this setting is set below the number of messages in your MailBox. For example, if you have 15 private messages, but only see 10 of them, it's because this field is set to 10 and you should change it to 20 or more.

This setting also controls how many messages to display in your "Archived Inbox" and "Archived Outbox" screens, both of which are accessible from the MailBox screen.

If you need to search for a private message ("PM") written to you a long time ago, you might want to temporarily set this number to 500 so the Archives will display the most messages possible.

The default is 10.

Messages Per Batch in Batch-View (Next10) mode (Premium):

This setting is only relevant for Subscribers because only they have access to Batch Mode.

This controls how many messages at a time should be displayed when you're reading a message and click the "Next 10" or "Previous 10" link. If you change this number, the change is reflected in the link. For example, if you select 20, the links become "Next 20" and "Previous 20".

Choices are 10, 20, 50, and 100.

The default is 10.

Board Refresh Rate (in seconds, 0=no auto-refresh) (Premium):

This works just like Favorites Auto-Refresh except that it applies to boards. If you "camp" on a board, this setting can be used to have the system automatically reload that page at the interval you select so you can do other things while Investors Hub reloads the Board for you. A lot of people use this so they can just jump back to the Investors Hub screen and see at a glance whether or not the board they were camped on has any new messages.

Choices are 0 (no refresh), 60, 120, 180, 300, and 600.

The default is 0.

If you have any questions about settings that weren't answered in this message, please don't reply here. Instead, use #board-504.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

So many changes, so little time to report them.

1. I've added a menu option called "Other". Live!Chat has moved there, along with other things.

2. In the "Other" menu you'll find a handy little WordFinder. Useful for crosswords. Plug in the letters you have and underscores for the letters you don't, and it'll list all possible words.

3. The "Other" menu also contains the fastest Anagram Solver I've ever seen. It'll only solve one-word anagrams, but whaddya want for nothing? A rubber biscuit?

4. Surveys! The Demographic survey has been redone and is now one of the surveys in the "Other" menu. Not only can you opt in for it, each answer is selected from a drop-down and "No Answer" is always a choice. I should point out that no identifying info about you is associated with your answers. One table stores the answers and a separate one just records the fact that you took the survey. Any survey, for that matter. That way people can only take any given survey once.

5. Any survey I add other than the Demographic survey will have publicly-viewable results. Check it out in the two other surveys we currently have.

6. The Boards menu item has changed a bunch. It got several new listing formats. Now you can list all boards on the site by Category, Group, Ticker, Size, or Name. Be patient if you're on dialup. It lists *all* the boards except when listing by Size, where it'll only show boards with at least 100 posts.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Forgot to post a change here that happened Thursday.

Made a two-part change.

Part 1: Made all routines call the same function to determine whether to make a feature available (based on subscriber/non-subscriber) rather than determining them in-line. Minor increase in efficiency, plus it made it possible to do part 2.

Part 2: Implemented a site-wide "Happy Hour". During Happy Hour, the software considers all users to be subscribers. No ads, and access to all Premium features is given.

Currently "Happy Hour" is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 3:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Useless new "feature" that might be fun for some.

http://www.investorshub.com/boards/wordfind.asp

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor change: Archived Private Messages

I just changed it so that the number of messages displayed on the Archived InBox and OutBox is determined by the number selected in the "Messages Per Category in MailBox" field of the My Settings screen rather than being hard-coded.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Bug fix and minor change: Profiles

Apostrophes included in the "Quote:" part of your profile should no longer show up as double-apostrophes.

Also, after you've made changes to your profile, you're taken to your profile rather than to the homepage now.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Minor change to an existing feature:

The "Go to Post #" routine when reading a board now takes you to the 50 messages containing that post number rather than straight to the post itself.