is happily being the wheel rather than a rusty old spoke
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Matt, could you set up a Survey on this board so we can gauge how much demand there'd be? I think, if Paulie can do it, we should have choices. "Matt Brown", "Bob Z", "Admin Dave", "John H", "Admin Shelly" (and replace "bastard" in that case), "Those iHub guys", "Those iHub gals", etc. Maybe a list of other name suggestions before the survey?
And how about any buyers/wearers at the November event getting signatures on their shirts or if they pay an extra $5, no signatures.
Paulie, if this looks like it could fly, we'll work out a royalty arrangement in advance. It's about time you get something for your brilliant work here.
Actually, the "mortgage the future" thing is why we held off so long on doing anything with subscriptions. Anytime we temporarily offer lifetimes or announce an upcoming price increase, the money would pour into the coffers that month, then seriously dry up in future months.
I don't think it'll be the case this time. It's priced high enough that those who prefer to stick with monthly will continue to do so (that's our bread and butter subscription level), but low enough that those who usually go for annuals can cover the next 3 years in one swoop.
And if we wanted to really ramp up revs to "put lipstick on the pig", we would've done it last month since that was the last month of our fiscal year.
There are lots of reasons for running this special, most of which I can't really discuss but the two biggies are:
1. I want to prove a point. That it's possible for subscription revs to match ad revs without sacrificing the future.
2. When you smoke the comps month after month after month, it becomes a lot less motivational to do so ("up xx%? Again? <yawn>"), so I want to really set the bar a lot higher this month so when/if we smoke the comps in future months it'll be more gratifying.
Edit: And, yes, our bandwidth bill and what we spend on hardware now are absolutely brutal by my frugal standards.
Correction: Monthly and Quarterly are our bread and butter. By a long ways. Monthly is up there and works out to the highest amount per subscriber per day.
On that particular ad (if you're discussing the underlined ones in messages), we get paid on hovers.
But I want to hastily add that we definitely don't want people to hover those things en masse because clicking or hovering just for the sake of doing it hurts the quality of the click/hover, and eventually the amount paid. Advertisers do look at how often an ad is clicked, but the most important metric to them is the follow-through.
iHub only runs on Server 3 currently. We had to make some changes (ditching session variables) because we were overworking the load balancers and in the meantime found that running sans LB's on one server was performing better than 4 webservers with overworked LB's.
Pretty soon we're going to fire the load balancers back up and have the site use all the servers again in the hopes that the LB's can handle the load if ensuring server stickiness (keeping you on the same server so your session variables are accessible) isn't part of their workload.
We're optimistic.
I mis-read your message or I would've pointed it out too.
We were discussing it on this board years ago. People were talking about how investorshub.com was skyrocketing past ragingbull.com on Alexa and I pointed out that it's because ragingbull.com had become ragingbull.lycos.com, so the old domain wasn't getting ranked anymore.
Alexa has been pretty aggressive about improvements lately, so I'm optimistic they'll eventually start ranking subdomains.
Edit: Speaking of Alexa, it's hard to tell whether changing SI's URL has had any impact on the rankings of our parent company. Likely so since they're going up during a time that that's always a bit slower for financial sites. Alexa currently shows SI as comprising 2% of ADVFN's traffic, but I suspect that figure is for the past 3 months, like the ranking, and that change was done just a few weeks ago.
iHub's traffic is VERY strong and should cause a very steep climb in ADVFN's rankings.
And how cool is it that we're in the top 900 sites among US users?
LOL!
Reminds me of how some folks on SI were talking about how iHub would be out of business by such and such date, and I was goading them into getting more active about that discussion when I had plane tickets in-hand to go sign the papers to buy SI. <g>
I've been onboard for over 5 years and the future just keeps getting brighter.
That's how we've always advertised any specials we've had on subscriptions. "Worse", actually. They weren't dismissable. The blurb would stay up there counting down the days and hours until the special (and blurb) ended.
Anyone who wants to remove it should be able to just hit the "Click here" and just as quickly hit their "Back" button and it'll be gone.
I was thinking about that yesterday.
Matt, any ideas on an avatar for people who are on the 3-year deal?
Did you get a feeling of deja vu? I'm wondering if Meatloaf might've made a change to the matrix because it worked perfectly for me while I was writing that message.
I see Meatty already replied and the fix looks good.
The problem is simply a failure of the petcock to work as it should. Well, that, and you do have a float issue as you suspected.
Engine vacuum is supposed to overcome the relatively weak spring to allow fuel to start flowing. Sometimes the springs are too weak or the seal is bad and fuel flows all the time.
You should do the fix as described then check to make sure you're not still getting gasoline in the crankcase. If you typically start the bike and get rolling right away without a lot of idling happening, the engine could be using enough fuel that the float problem really isn't an issue.
The float problem likely isn't adjustment. Even an improperly adjusted float is unlikely to allow enough fuel into the float bowl that it pours into an open intake valve and leaks on past the rings (which is typically what's happening when you've got fuel in the crankcase).
Most likely you've got a tiny bit of debris keeping the needle from seating all the way. Very common problem and bikes are extremely prone to it because of the tiny size of their carb components and that they use gravity instead of a fuel pump.
If the bike is idling well, you should pretend you don't have a float problem. And always be sure to shut off the fuel when you stop. Though I can do it in my sleep, removing, dismantling, and reassembling motorcycle carbs is not a highly recommended activity. But if you insist (I personally would for a reason I'll point out in the next paragraph), the main thing to remember is to dismantle the carbs on a clean WHITE surface (tiny parts) and anytime you use compressed air, make sure you're holding the part tightly (tiny parts flying dozens of feet).
I'd personally look into the carbs because I'm a forgetful person and there's no way I'd always remember to turn the fuel off. And you're VERY lucky that this flooding problem hasn't played out the worst ways it can. Engines usually stop in exactly the same position each time you turn them off and you're lucky that the carb with the problem happens to be at whatever intake valve is open at shut-off and that the leak is slow enough to not accumulate on top of the piston. Filling an intake port or combustion chamber with liquid (which can't be compressed) is a quick and easy way to bend a connecting rod, ruin a starter, or any of a number of other bad things.
Before disassembling the carbs, though, simply loosen the screw at the bottom of each float bowl with the fuel turned off, let the fuel run out until it stops, turn the fuel on, and leave it on until a few ounces has run out of each carb. About half the time this will wash away whatever foreign material is on the float needle.
Looks like a good place for me to jump in (to it).
We still roll like we've always rolled. The difference is that we're becoming a lot more than "just a message-board site". But the heart of the place will always be the message boards. We're just adding in a lot of other really useful content.
We talked about the domain change for a long time and the consensus is that it's not only necessary if we want to be bigger and better than we are, it shouldn't ding the branding much, if any. We've already made the change to SI and will do it the same way with iHub. www.investorshub.com will still work, as will investorshub.com. They'll simply redirect to the new URLs.
And it's really at the core of why the acquisition was done in the first place. To take us beyond being just a message board site and to super-site status by offering nearly everything investors and traders need while still being what we always have been first and foremost: A community.
Cutting his caloric intake in half would make him look more like Matt?!?
I was doing a search for a different post and encountered this one I wrote 5 years ago and figured a reply to it would make for a good before/after picture.
5 years after the post I'm replying to, my daughter's at a brass clinic in Arkansas right now and is attending a trumpet seminar in England next month then starting college in August at one of the 3 colleges she applied for, all of which offered her full or nearly full rides to major in trumpet performance.
In that time she's been 1st chair at her high school since fairly early in 8th grade, gets 1st chair at any state band camp she does, so has had to attend a different state every year so she's not always on top of the same mountain, has gotten 1 ratings at District and State all but one time (a 2 at State that we strongly disagreed with) playing extremely aggressive songs usually in the domain of professionals, including a brutally aggressive song her Senior year with nothing but positive comments from the judge, has become very good at bass, drums, french horn, tuba, and many other instruments and is learning piano, and is a very prolific composer. She keeps me busy a lot at night helping her arrange and record songs on our basement recording studio.
So what I mentioned in that post about that week being pivotal has proven true 5 years later and though she decided to not even try for Julliard or the like (too stoic for her liking), she's heading off to college soon as the next step in pursuing a career as a musician.
Can't tell I'm proud or anything like that, right? hehe
Addendum: I can tell by the comment near the end about a wall full of guitars that when I wrote that post, we were a very small site and I was doing my work from a spare bedroom at the house (which has since had a wall taken out to double the size of my daughter's room), and look at us now. Palatial office in downtown Boogerville and a large part of a public company, and it's gone from just me and Matt to several people Stateside and a number of UK-side folks dedicated to iHub and SI.
I'm pretty sure "Submit/Keep" already does that. Or do you mean one you've already replied to and archived? Returning that one to your Inbox?
Interestingly enough, though it's some steps, it turns out if you dig it up and do a reply with "Submit/Keep" it returns to your inbox even if it was archived previously.
It's a glitch and it has me stumped, so I've passed the buck to Meatloaf, who's checking it right now.
FYI, leaving that box checked is very safe. It's a convenience thing. Only we can read the cookies we place on your hard drive by checking that box. Nobody else can read them and we can't read anyone else's.
Cookies are nowhere near the vulnerability people used to commonly think they were.
How recently was she having this problem. Having it right now?
Try again.
test
How long since you tried? That should've been a temporary problem fixed several minutes ago.
Try again.
test
test
We still have that bug where if the last message on a board has been deleted you can't hit the number of unread messages from the Favorites page to read them? It happened to me on this board in development.
Meatloaf and I are of the opinion it may be an unexpected side benefit of a project I'm working on right now. For the technically curious, I'm getting rid of session variables so we can put our load balancers and multiple servers back into production without them requiring server stickiness and see if they (the load balancers) are up to that reduced workload.
I'll have to see if the guy who does the work on my machines can get me a copy of the picture he took of the excavator stuck *again*. Got it out without any other machine helping last night. Well, started yesterday afternoon and once I figured out a way that might work, it took 6 hours. I basically rocked it back and forth a foot at a time, using the boom to lift the tracks so that piles of dirt I'd set at the edges would fall under the tracks, lower the machine, turn around and do the same with the other end of the tracks. Each time, probably gained about 6 inches of height. Until it finally pulled itself out.
Gonna take the hired help a couple of days to get it clean this time.
Anyway, music thread, right?
I was looking on Youtube last night for a live performance of Maynard Ferguson's "Give It One", which has always been a favorite.
Didn't find an MF one, but found this and am so glad I did. I'm absolutely blown away! The screamer in this group plays a good octave higher than I can, and I play pretty darned high!
I mean specifically on our site. USA Today is doing a story and I'd love it if they can get info and quote people from here.
Does anyone know if any thread(s) exist here devoted specifically to the topic of how to use chat sites as research tools?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=489004234752212560&hl=en
This was taped on one of my home tracks, MidAmericaMotorplex near Pacific Junction, IA. It's a riot!
We're covered on the DBA side of things. Each of Dave, Meatloaf, and myself is strong enough in that area to be a dedicated DBA in our own right.
The side project I was working on the other day was searches. They should be performing quite a bit better now. Though all the fields used in that particular query are indexed, it needed a single multi-field covering index to really start acting right.
Greetings to all my greeters.
Don't get too used to seeing me around here. Not for a while anyway. My job duties have changed pretty dramatically and until I get some help in some key areas (that I haven't even completely identified yet), I'm usually going to be pretty busy.
I'm around right now because I'm geeking for the first time in months. And loving it so far. Had a pet project and when we all discussed it, I was the logical candidate to assign it to since I'd be the one who'd be using the new aspects of it. And while I'm geeking, decided to address a somewhat arcane part of SQL I just happen to know like the back of my hand. Now I'm back to this other project.
For those who *must* know, it's doing further development on Dave's excellent Project Management System (yes, "PMS") so we can use it more properly and it can feed me some info I really need to know. Like when/if to add programmers. Seat of the pants answer is we could use a few more geeks, but when I get done with these changes, hopefully I'll know how many and when.
I've contacted the local DeVry letting them know I need a couple of interns for the summer for a few big projects, but no reply yet. I think it's either Boogerville, or that darned revolving door.
Ahh! Looks like someone took care of your alias. Yes, "Select" is one of those words we screen out because it's a SQL verb. We'll come up with a different approach later.
Is performance still alright for everyone? Meatloaf found what was likely the cause of performance issues and has routed us around the problem, but right now I'm addressing another performance issue and am putting a bit of a load on the db server, but it looks like one it can handle while still being speedy for everything else.
It's part of our very ambitious protections against SQL Injection attacks. Anything in a search that is a SQL verb logs the user out, logs the search itself, and adds "_inj" to their username pending review to make sure the search was innocuous.
We need to make a list of words the system won't let you use in searches. And I think we're protected enough now from SQL Injection that we don't need to take as many steps when a suspect querystring is encountered. Just not doing the search should suffice. You reading this, John?
In the meantime, words like "drop", "truncate", "table", "insert", and "delete" (not an all-inclusive list) will have this result. We do know that we need to come up with another approach because a lot of those words are things one would reasonably expect people to search on.
We're doing it this way for now because it's the easiest way to prevent people from using search and other inputs to send our database server commands that would be destructive. And they're out there. And they're always trying.
District is in a different venue every year, and I think we've done one in Warrensburg. They have State in Columbia every year now.
Not yet. She's a big deal locally and among her peers and music educators statewide.
But that's something she'll end up facing before too long. Among trumpet players, she's a budding "musician's musician", but fortunately her music interests go far beyond the trumpet and she may very well end up being someone who's more widely popular, but to an audience who yawns when she plays the trumpet.
Like that violinist, she plays for the joy of it, audience be darned.
Not yet. She's a big deal locally and among her peers and music educators statewide.
But that's something she'll end up facing before too long. Among trumpet players, she's a budding "musician's musician", but fortunately her music interests go far beyond the trumpet and she may very well end up being someone who's more widely popular, but to an audience who yawns when she plays the trumpet.
Like that violinist, she plays for the joy of it, audience be darned.
My daughter not only got a 1 rating at State yesterday for her trumpet solo, "Napoli", for the first time ever she got nothing but the highest ratings on every single rating item and no corrections or negative comments. There was actually a bit of stunned silence at the end of the solo before the room erupted in applause. Turned out quite a crowd had gathered outside the room, too.
Nice finish to her high school competitions career.
We'll be performing it in a couple of weeks at the school's Spring concert and we plan to videotape it and put it online like with her previous solos.
I can't remember if there's a real-estate board here or not. I'm very interested in participating. I don't necessarily want to be a house-flipper (I have the ability but lack the time) but instead would like to diversify so I'm not so highly exposed to just the stock market.
Off-topic:
Are we good or what? hehe
A national newspaper is looking for former real estate flippers who are now investing in the stock market to interview for an upcoming story. If you are or know of such a person, please have them email francescad@techstocks.com.