52 replies to this topic

[GT6MK3]

IPB, the software the forum runs on, brought out a much anticipated upgrade a couple of months ago.

Life's been quite busy for me in that time, so I've been ignoring it, and waiting for other sites to work out the bugs. It seems to be pretty stable now, so we'll probably implement it before too long.

It will be a fun week or two when we do. It will probably break a few things at first, will almost certainly wreak havock with the look and feel for a few days (I suspect it's going to really be nasty to Marcus's lovely Sideways Skin), and no doubt cause general consternation, and end up with many calling for the head of whoever decided to implement it.

It does have some cool features however, and chief amongst them is a much improved suite of "New Content" choices, as well as a much improved handling and display of pictures.

It also (allegedly) is a lot move viewable on dodgy browsers.

In a work environment, I'd build a replica site, test thoroughly, then unveil the changes. But this is Sideways Technologies, where we run on a whiff of used/spilt oil, and, if given the choice between going for it, or backing off, well, there's no choice to be made!

Don't worry too much about a crash, I come from the "Three backups before you hack" school of computer nerds. If I bend it, there'll be backups to go back to.

So, brace yourselves. One day soon, the newly familiar will change again. Don't be scared, it's for the best.

Craig

[Nick Jones]

Go Craig

Nick

[spitNL]

[JohnD]

Even I, who when it comes to PCs should have Fred's Flintstone avatar, say go for it!

JOhn

Ps Nick, just noticed the new (?) message under your avatar.
Shouldn't that say, "Years beyond his wise"?

John ducks and runs.

[mattius]

Don't worry about the skin, i can rebuild it, i kinda like the name marcus though, i might keep it.

it should be pretty much ok as the skins are pretty universal.

[Nick Jones]

JohnD, on 14 September 2011 - 07:24 PM, said:

Nick, just noticed the new (?) message under your avatar.
Shouldn't that say, "Years beyond his wise"?

John ducks and runs.

I was awarded that instead of "electric fence boffin". I forget what I did to deserve it

Glad to see you have found us again

Nick

[GT6MK3]

mattius, on 14 September 2011 - 07:58 PM, said:

i kinda like the name marcus though,

A thousand apologies Matt. I'd been shuffling ip's on lans and vlans all night for a customer called Marcus, and did some 4am posting with reasonably fried set of synapses.

(Note to self. Matt, Mat, Matt.)

C.

[GT6MK3]

So,

I've begun the work on this.

It's going to take some time, but it will do some good things. I need to find a combination of a day or so of spare time, a big fat ADSL connection to exploit, and not too much traffic on the forum. It'll happen soon, when it does, we'll go dark for 24-48 hours.

I've set up a Twitter account SidewaysForum to let you know whats happening if there's no response here. Feel free to yell at @sidewaysforum if you need to vent.

Craig

[GT6MK3]

One of the holdups to doing this upgrade has been that my ADLS2 has been flaky as an ebay trunion for the last six months or so. It simply wouldnt run at speed, kept dropping out, and was only reliable at glacial speeds. Massive dropouts if it's raining or on hot sunny mornings till about 2pm.

I've had various techs out from the infrastructure providers, it's improved for anything up to 12 hours after they left, then gone bad again.

Kinda maddening, but I get it almost free through M'LovelyWife's employer, so it's hard to complain too loudly.

I recently upgraded to the "Terra-byte a month" plan, so I really needed to up the speed from the crappy 1.25k I was subsisting on.

Did a lap under the house on Thursday, looking for possible cabling woe's. Dirty, painful, claustrophobic work, and I couldn't find an internal fault.

But it led me to go outside and pull back the bush that covers the spot where the copper comes into the building.





No wonder it's been crap. Three techs have been out and decided it's ok like that. Lazy pricks. Scotchlocks hanging in space. Hello corrosion and condensation.

I sent photos to the Service provider, they're having someone come out in the morning to install an enclosure and termination box.


It's illegal for me to even touch those wires, but it's fair to say that since I spotted the dodgyness, my ADSL2 has been holding steady at 14 times faster than it was. It would be completely illegal for me to have re crimped them in the meantime, regardless of my box of crimps and crimpers I regularly use at work


Prepare for change over the Christmas break.


C

[GHR630]

We sold a lot of ADSL and SDSL in my last job. Supplied by various ISP but copper supplied by BT on the local loop. It never ceased to amaze me the crap installs that BT engineers thought were fit for purpose. Your photo would have been one of the best of 'em!! Much of the local loop wiring in this country is now old legacy crap and not really good for data. UK people shouldn't be supprised if their connection keeps dropping in bad weather. I've seen more junction boxes full of water than I care to count!!

[Nick Jones]

Interesting. We have major issues of this kind at work - which is a problem as most of our useful software lives on a server in Germany. If I can type faster than it comes up on the screen that is a sign of real slow happenings........

BT have been 3 times now. But they go straight to the server room and swap expensive boxes out. Makes no difference. Bet they've not even looked at the wires!

Nick

[mattius]

ahhh the joys of fibre broadband in edinburgh, im on totally unlimited 30Mb/s with a 5Mb/s upload. Did have the 50Mb but since im now living in aberdeen cut back on the folks edinburgh internet. I have the joy of ADSL in Aberdeen, its horrific, 8Mb/s on average was the best i could get, well i say best i could get BT connected it, then some other dude disconected it the next day cause the previous tenants contract was up, despite the fact it had been transfered. now i have to wait 6 weeks! for the same twat to come back out and plug back in the wire.

Even the buisness' in aberdeen struggle for decent broadband, our office has 3 adsl lines going into it. bar getting a dedicated line it was the best we could get (you should see the price they want for an asynchronis line!)

[AJ.Lintern]

Only 8Mb? Count yourself lucky, only get 2-3Mb here in rural Oxfordshire Still it's better than dial-up

[Aar0sc]

Here in Haslemere I'm on 1.5mb... Which is better than the previous 0.9!

[GT6MK3]

It's all better now.

Currently humming along at a steady 18.2mb.

A nerd with high speed internet and a terabyte a month to play with for less than a buck a day... It's like giving a druggie al the heroin he want's for free.

Next, World Domination.

C.

[logicaluk]

i had a call from kingston comuications (no BT in hull)last satarday "were sending an engineer round to improve your broad band speed is monday morning ok?"
I know theres 4.7km of cable from the exchange to my house so im not going to be getting ultra high speeds, he turned up changed the face plate on my master socket for one with the adsl plug on the front so i no longer need a micro filter & disconnected the orange pair of wires from the socket, results were a tiny improvment in speed, but a much cleaner line with less errors. so im happy
Dan

[GHR630]

Nick Jones, on 19 December 2011 - 07:31 PM, said:

Interesting. We have major issues of this kind at work - which is a problem as most of our useful software lives on a server in Germany. If I can type faster than it comes up on the screen that is a sign of real slow happenings........

BT have been 3 times now. But they go straight to the server room and swap expensive boxes out. Makes no difference. Bet they've not even looked at the wires!

Nick

In my experience, industrial buildings on business parks are some of the worst. Particularly older buildings where many changes in the routing of cables via Service Risers etc in the past has lead to many casual non maintained connections, redundant frames and old distribution points on CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) side of the Master Sockets. That said, a visit to the Server/Comms room of any business supplied by BT will normally reveal services terminated on NT boxes that are neither fixed to the wall or racks, just lying around being tripped over. Furthermore, many will not even be labelled with the circuit number etc. I used to have a black museum of photos from previous claims against BT. We used to get the flack from the customer, even though we had no choice but to use the BT monolopy. Of course it's not a monopoly anymore because Openreach do the work!!! Like they are independent - I don't think!

BTW, if you are 5K or more from your exchange, you are unlikely to get a reasonable bandwidth on ADSL. The attenuation on the copper pair is just to great.

[GT6MK3]

Hi All.

As promised, I've finally got off my date and pushed the upgrade through on the software.

It's mostly working, but we have a very ugly interface until Mattius weaves his magic and re-creates the custom (Sorry Mattius!)

There's sure to be bugs and wrinkles, but I'm certain we'll get them ironed out before long.

Merry Xmas!

Craig

[Nick Jones]

Seems to be working - well done! (Smilies MIA?)

Nick

[mattius]

Bare with me, im working on re-styling it, the new upgrade uses totally different files.

Also there is a problem with the images being corrupt from the upgrade at the moment, aware and working on it.