Bored Updates (Including the Return of Chat!)
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 5:19 am
Good eveni....er...morning. 
It's been a while since I was seen very much in these parts. I hope you are all doing well here in the land of trivia and political discussions. 
I've been in the same job for about 9 and half years. Technical support pays the bills (mostly) but lately I was feeling like I had fallen into a canyon-sized rut. I thought about the web design and programming skills that I taught myself back in college. These were things that I greatly enjoyed doing, but had largely neglected since that time. Sensing a potential path out of my employment quagmire, I decided it was time to start taking courses, doing work on the side, and whatever else I could do.
On Friday night, I thought about the thousands of backlogged spam registrations on the Bored, and then I logged on and (inspired in no small part by the aforementioned decision, I'm sure) started to tinker a bit. My girlfriend, who has a bit of web design in her background, mentioned a plug-in that she had used before that seemed to work well. I found it, installed it, and I'm happy to report that after more than 24 hours, not a single spam registrant has gotten through, despite the fact that admins don't have to activate new accounts anymore. You can read more about that in this post.
But I wasn't satisfied, so I came back for more. And stayed all evening. And most of the night. Sleep is for the weak.
If you tried to come to the Bored on Saturday evening, you might have found it offline. I had it out of service for an hour or two, but I got a lot done during that time. The Bored had been running on the same version of its software since, oh, I dunno, 2009?
Much like Doc and Marty and their DeLorean, it has now jumped forward to 2015, and will gradually move towards the latest and greatest version as soon as I'm sure that the newest updates won't break anything.
In addition, I cleaned out some database clutter and re-loaded the two base themes that nearly all of the Bored's accounts are set to use, prosilver and subsilver2. Hopefully, things will run a bit smoother, and maybe even seem a bit faster. If you see ANYTHING that suddenly doesn't work, or has gone missing, let me know ASAP.
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But I spent more time working on something else: Chat is back!!!
It's not the same software you remember.....that software is very old, and my hosting provider has updated some background systems that make it nearly impossible to get that old program running again (believe me, I tried.) So I've found something else.
To use it, make sure that you are logged in on the Bored, and then find the Chat link that appears near the top of every page. It will vary a bit, depending on what theme you use, but it's typically next to the FAQ, Search, Members and User Control Panel links:
Clicking on that link gives you another button to press:
Make sure you have Java installed (www.java.com). It is possible to enable the Flash version of the client, if anyone has too much trouble with the Java version. The Mobile client requires that I start paying money to use the Chat client, and that won't be happening.
Once you click the Click to enter Chat! button, you'll be connected:
The buttons below the Chat window are: bold font, italic font, font color, smileys, sounds you send to others in chat, your status, audio/video chat (disabled), and a logoff button. All the usual chat features, like private chats with one person, the ability to create more rooms.....it's all there.
Those of you who like to chat (I know there was a certain group of you that used the old one a lot) give it a try, and let me know how it works for you.
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I'm going to leave this thread stuck to the top for a while, so if anyone thinks of any technical issue, or something they would like to see changed, or anything else along those lines, just reply to this post, and I will see what I can do.
Take care, everyone!
tubadave
It's been a while since I was seen very much in these parts. I hope you are all doing well here in the land of trivia and political discussions. I've been in the same job for about 9 and half years. Technical support pays the bills (mostly) but lately I was feeling like I had fallen into a canyon-sized rut. I thought about the web design and programming skills that I taught myself back in college. These were things that I greatly enjoyed doing, but had largely neglected since that time. Sensing a potential path out of my employment quagmire, I decided it was time to start taking courses, doing work on the side, and whatever else I could do.
On Friday night, I thought about the thousands of backlogged spam registrations on the Bored, and then I logged on and (inspired in no small part by the aforementioned decision, I'm sure) started to tinker a bit. My girlfriend, who has a bit of web design in her background, mentioned a plug-in that she had used before that seemed to work well. I found it, installed it, and I'm happy to report that after more than 24 hours, not a single spam registrant has gotten through, despite the fact that admins don't have to activate new accounts anymore. You can read more about that in this post.
But I wasn't satisfied, so I came back for more. And stayed all evening. And most of the night. Sleep is for the weak.
If you tried to come to the Bored on Saturday evening, you might have found it offline. I had it out of service for an hour or two, but I got a lot done during that time. The Bored had been running on the same version of its software since, oh, I dunno, 2009?
Much like Doc and Marty and their DeLorean, it has now jumped forward to 2015, and will gradually move towards the latest and greatest version as soon as I'm sure that the newest updates won't break anything.In addition, I cleaned out some database clutter and re-loaded the two base themes that nearly all of the Bored's accounts are set to use, prosilver and subsilver2. Hopefully, things will run a bit smoother, and maybe even seem a bit faster. If you see ANYTHING that suddenly doesn't work, or has gone missing, let me know ASAP.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But I spent more time working on something else: Chat is back!!!
It's not the same software you remember.....that software is very old, and my hosting provider has updated some background systems that make it nearly impossible to get that old program running again (believe me, I tried.) So I've found something else.
To use it, make sure that you are logged in on the Bored, and then find the Chat link that appears near the top of every page. It will vary a bit, depending on what theme you use, but it's typically next to the FAQ, Search, Members and User Control Panel links:
Clicking on that link gives you another button to press:
Make sure you have Java installed (www.java.com). It is possible to enable the Flash version of the client, if anyone has too much trouble with the Java version. The Mobile client requires that I start paying money to use the Chat client, and that won't be happening.
Once you click the Click to enter Chat! button, you'll be connected:
The buttons below the Chat window are: bold font, italic font, font color, smileys, sounds you send to others in chat, your status, audio/video chat (disabled), and a logoff button. All the usual chat features, like private chats with one person, the ability to create more rooms.....it's all there.
Those of you who like to chat (I know there was a certain group of you that used the old one a lot) give it a try, and let me know how it works for you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm going to leave this thread stuck to the top for a while, so if anyone thinks of any technical issue, or something they would like to see changed, or anything else along those lines, just reply to this post, and I will see what I can do.
Take care, everyone!
tubadave
