Mar 02, 2007 05:39 pm word
Just FYI People
Posted on Mar 02, 2007 05:37 pm
dbmasters
Administrator Since: Apr 03, 2002
Just so you know, if anything starts acting funny around here, use the contact us page to let me know. Due to some suspicious activity going on behind the scenes, I am beefing up code-level security in a BIG way...so many changes are taking place, some on VERY old code which I may not even completely remember how I did.
As time permits I usually go over old code and modernize it, clean it up and basically make it look like code I have written in this century. Security is of new importance to me due to my experiences a few weeks ago, and the more popular HRC gets, the more of a target it becomes...so, while I am doing things you likely won't see on the front, there is a lot going on, so if anything breaks, let me know.
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Mar 02, 2007 06:00 pm 10-4. I'd like to find some of these punk-*** crackers with JPEGs for girlfriends that have nothing better to do than play with malicious code when they're not playing with themselves, and remove their tiny little floppy disks.
In other words, good luck.
Mar 02, 2007 06:25 pm they won't hack in, they didn't succeed the other day when they were trying, they did however use a lot of system memory by some sort of session closing hack or something...DDoS sort of thing I suspect.
Regardless, it didn't work in any attempt they tried, all I am doing is locking down tighter...
That said, I do agree with your sentiments of how to handle the little girlfriend-less, zit-faced, geekboy fucks.
Oh, and I do see the search engine is broke, but judging by the forum, nobody uses it anyway...search and forum were the most attractive pages to the script-kiddies too as it appears.
Mar 02, 2007 06:42 pm I'll tell ya something, this is when I learn exactly HOW big HRC is, when I go through the whole site to do little things on each file...jeezuz!
Mar 02, 2007 06:48 pm I use the search now and then. But not now, apparently.
And leave my files alone.
Mar 02, 2007 06:51 pm I'll get it fixed over the weekend hopefully, first goal though is tightening the nuts and bolts.
Mar 02, 2007 06:55 pm From my gear profile, for those who haven't seen it:
"The one and only dB Masters, whose talents, insight, and general menschness have made this Web site, and America, a better place to live."
<<<<paid for by the committee to reelect db masters for webmaster herb utsmelz chairman>>>>
Yep, beer can be a factor...
Mar 04, 2007 10:16 am OK, search egnine is fixed...well, switched actually. Search engines are a very complicated machine to do properly. HRC's previous one was pretty good, I was reasonably happy with the results it provided, but still, nobody beats Google, so I tied in to Google's search engine results for HRC's search...the results are typically Google-awesome...they are the industry leader for a reason I guess.
Happy searching. There is one less tool on HRC I have to micromanage :-) and some space-wasting fulltext indexes I can delete in the database in the future.
In addition, security is at an all time high now at HRC, still some I can do, but much of it is locked down pretty well...
Mar 04, 2007 01:06 pm So you're not pissed off at Google anymore, I see..
Mar 04, 2007 01:27 pm Well, I still have issues, but at the end of the day they came through for me and did the right thing. Plus, like 'em or not, they have the best search engine, or, at least a much better one than I could build...
Mar 04, 2007 02:00 pm I do use the search on occasion as well. Not as much as I could I guess really. But I'll start using it more now to check it out for sure.
Nice going by the way Herb, a little plug for the webmaster is always a good thing.
Mar 04, 2007 06:02 pm If anyone notices the site being quicker (I do) getting rid of a few fulltext indexes that powered my homebrewed search engine cut the size of the database by about 30%...jeezuz...
Mar 07, 2007 08:35 am search is just bringing up google search, db. i wanted to search football so as to post a sad lament to the departure of joey porter from the steelers.
no hrc search, just google.
Mar 07, 2007 08:39 am nevermind looks like you have a new thing here... i see now.
maybe its not clear to peeps though? course, i've got beers in me.
Mar 07, 2007 08:39 am look at it closer, it only returns results from HRC...it is Google, but only targetting HRC results...it's actually quite cool, I did a football search and it returned many forum threads.
I got some football bitches my damnself...Childress is a friggin fool, or Ziggy is putting an incredibly stranglehold on him.
Google simply has a better search engine that I could make myself, so I outsourced my local search to people that can do it better.
Mar 07, 2007 08:49 am Quote:
maybe its not clear to peeps though?
Noted. I made a statement on the search page announcing the change and clarifying it's purpose.
Thanks, man, good call.
Mar 07, 2007 09:08 am no no...i saw it. it just took me two tries. but keep in mind, i drank beers till late tonight west coast time. in fact im still up, drinking water now, at 6 am.
i think if you just clarify the initial line somehow it might become more clear. maybe put 'search HRC' in a different color (red or blue). maybe that would do it. it would tell you this an hrc search, clearly. the little ghost text in the search field also served to confuse me. it just looked like google. if you could remove that ghost text that would help too. prolly built in though.
Mar 07, 2007 09:23 am Yeah, ghost text is part of their branding. I could hack it out, but I am betting thats a breach of contract or usage rules...
Mar 07, 2007 09:32 am 10-4. I'd like to find some of these punk-*** crackers with JPEGs for girlfriends
hahahhaaaa
Mar 07, 2007 09:34 am tony, you're here, dudes yesterday were asking about Magix...don't remember the exact threads, but as I recall you are the magix guru around these parts, right?
Mar 08, 2007 05:31 pm are those google ads down the left side new? were they somewhere else originally? not to be a jerk, but they are bothering me. if they must be there, perhaps a border to clearly demarcate them from the forum contents could help! like a nice barbed wire or split post fence. ads over there, content over here.
Mar 08, 2007 05:33 pm They were 468x60 ads in the header, they are now 120x600 ads down the side...part of my experiament is NOT having a distinct separator...the three column design is as well...now that 1024x768 resolution is the dominant reso of people, I can more design toward bigger screens than I used to.
That said, depending on what my analysis dictatesm a separator may be next in my mad plan...not verbal feedback, but statistical analysis...you of all people, forty, should be able to appreciate that...not that verbal feedback isn't taken, cuz it is.
Don't think for a minute there isn't a method to my madness...I also remember people freaking out when the nav went to the right, but days/weeks later many admitted they liked it...
Mar 08, 2007 05:52 pm Quote:
I also remember people freaking out when the nav went to the right, but days/weeks later many admitted they liked it...
And then they freaked out when it went to the top! :-)
We're on board with you...and we trust that you'll do right by us!
Mar 08, 2007 06:17 pm Thanks, glad I have earned that trust over the years.
Lots of what I do may not make sense to people at the moment, but has generally been accepted at a later point and accomplished the goals I wanted to.
Moving the nav was to increase search engine rankings, it worked, moving to the top was using a new technique to make the whole site easier to navigate and not hurt rankings, maybe even help, it's worked so far...some of the ad moving stuff I am doing isn't necessarily related to the ads themselves as much as the fact ad tracking systems have great analytics behind them to study behavior...
My goal by the end of the year is something that will put HRC on a whole new map if it all pans out, I just need to get some info behind me before making rash moves...
All in good time my friends, all in good time.
Mar 09, 2007 01:41 am db, maybe if i were a web designer i would use statistical data to determine something like this. but when it comes to aesthetics, i *always* go with my eye, personally! i just think these feels 'unbounded' and raw in a bad way. i feel 'like i'm going to fall off the side of the page' i dont know how else to put it.
Mar 09, 2007 05:54 am Yeah, I use my eye too, a designer always does, but I also use click thru counts for a lot as well, moving that ad from in the black header to the left column resulted in about 30% more clicks. The three column design is more "newspaper-like" resulting in more column of narrower text...
Part of the click thru rate going up is the simple fact it isn't boundried, and looks like it is actually part of the content of the page itself...or, that is my suspicion, anyway, many may be accidental clicks. The beginning of next month I will likely change it up again a little...already have an idea of what I want to do, but I need more than one days data to make a decision.
Design to me for informational sites such as this is partly aesthetics and partly scientific...when you have tens of thousands of pages on a site some things need to be placed in more prominent places than others, and with tests like this I can kind find HRC's heat map of clicks...if you have ever seen heat maps of clicks, it's kinda interesting. Google and Yahoo! are two sites that have a great deal info in those areas, Microsoft spends millions a year researching such info...small, less info driven sites such as typical band sites and stuff generally use more aesthetics only type of approach, which, when dealing with some many fewer pages and such, is easier.
Like I said, just some behavioral analysis...sorry if it bugs you.
Mar 09, 2007 06:33 am i just clicked one for ya.
do you care if i comment about this publicly? if you made the ad bar black or something it'd be a border without a border and might even catch the eye more? i dont know anything about web design. all i know is that the lack of a border makes me feel strange and unprotected. the content of the board seems marginalized this way. feels like weeds.
Mar 09, 2007 07:10 am No, I don't mind, comment away.
That ad appearance will change, not sure how or when, probably not until the beginning of next month, your suggestion will be noted, however, there are proven analytics that say otherwise...
That being said, I am a guy that does like to see things for myself. if you recall the Google Ads used to have borders, I took the borders off and noticed a substantial difference when removing those borders and blending it in to the page.
Like you, on this particular left side ad I am very torn between aesthetics and statistics...but I have to watch the logs for the next couple weeks before doing anything.
Mar 09, 2007 07:31 am yeah revenue is very important consideration; i just have urges to kill weeds. if you had a garden in your backyard, it could look pretty good if only there were little wooden rails separating it from the weeds. maybe really slight graphical adjustments. a slight silvering or something. dont know if you can do that. kind of a middle ground between a border and no border. confuse the mind: give it both things. whenever i visit a web page that is overrun with weedy ads, i get an automatic feeling that there's something sketchy about it. like maybe its motivations are suspect.
Mar 09, 2007 07:42 am It's a mix between revenue and visitor experience...some would say (most, statistically speaking) that it makes a better user experience not having borders because it doesn't look like an ad, but part of the content...so it doesn't strike you immediately as an ad like the ads on the right side do, they are blatantly ads, they are bordered and set apart from the rest very obviously...so your opinion, while logical on paper, statistically are not true.
In addition to that, some of the ads on the right have a limited life span, as, guess what, being bordered and set apart, are not clicked on as much...plus, Google's ads I like cuz they are context sensitive, the ads it displays are pretty cool and accurate with the content on the page...which is cool.
To this point, what I have tried to do is make templated places for ads, so when browsing the site there are not ads all over within the actual articles and stuff...that, to me, makes a lousy user experience by interrupting the content itself...however, statistically they are VERY effective...but I haven't done it cuz I don't like the idea...not saying I may not try it at some point, but I haven't yet.
I already have the basic plan for next month in my head, only to change based on possible data I get from this month.
I really don't consider HRC "overrun" with ads myself. They exist, they are here, they have to be, but they are also relevant to the content and not popping up or under anywhere. I do the best I can for all involved. Some people may not agree all the time, but, like daddy said, you can't please all the people all the time.
Mar 09, 2007 07:48 am Just so people do know, I turn advertisers down on a regular basis, I could have LOADS more if I wanted to. I had a long email conversation with one just last week that I used a bit ago and dumped cuz it was ads for dating services and crap...if anyone remembers that couple of weeks...
They asked why there were no more impressions logged and whatnot, and I told them why...they asked what kind of money would be needed for off topic ads, I told them it wouldn't be worth it for me or them...they wouldn't pay me the money needed cuz off topic ads just don't work on niche topic sites...
So don't think it's all about the revenue...
Mar 09, 2007 07:50 am i have never considered it overrun. i still dont think it is. its just about borders. borders totally give you a subconscious choice and a feeling of control. the ads are 'over there' and the content is 'here.' when you put the ads edge on like that, it actually feels like the site is unfinished. we'll all get used to it in time, but who knows--a new user might still experience it like i just described it. i think (not that i know anything about this) that there's a chance you're getting clicks because the google ads are simply better because they contextualize themselves and are relevant, AND because you've now simply made the google ads more visible by running them down the side. i never really noticed them before. i knew they were there, but because they were at the top, i would always scroll right past in 2 secs. but now that they're vertical they do grab my attention and they persist in my field of vision. i don't think the border thing has much to do with that... i think it's the content of the sort of 'AI-like' google ads plus your new positioning of them that is doing the trick.
but then i can't see your data, of course...
Mar 09, 2007 08:04 am I totally understand what you are saying, and on a personal level agree with most of it...but also let the stats do their part, then try to meet in some middle ground of form and function.
Mar 09, 2007 09:47 am hmmmm, not comforting to know the #2 IP visiting HRC is traced back to Russia...hmmmmm, very troubling.
Mar 10, 2007 05:50 pm That's how a lot of black-hat type operatives route their connections...people like hackers, crackers, pirates, etc...cuz countries like that don't police the internet, or cooperate with countries that do...a lot of warez sites, keygen sites, hacking communities and the like reside on russian servers
Mar 11, 2007 06:17 am yeah but i meant what could ... what could be the reason for coming to hrc, for them
Mar 11, 2007 08:34 am as a site gets more well known, more people start trying to hack it...
but then, I am sure there are home studios over there too...
Mar 12, 2007 06:49 pm Well here is my two cents worth on the new look.
All ads are now on the left, I'm liking that for sure for now. To me it is less distracting with no defined border and I'm not thrown off as I consider the avatar's the border I guess.
Now take that with the knowledge I am viewing on 19" widescreen flat panels set to a rez of 1440 x 900. I dont' honestly think that is making a huge difference but could contribute a little I suppose.
Lastly I have clicked several pages and found the adds to be very on target as far as relevance goes.
I guess so far then I'm liking it a lot. And the new Google search engine is killer if ya ask me. It works slick as heck!
Mar 12, 2007 06:59 pm I always used to have to remember how to find the Search utility, so I'm definately in favor of having it right up front where I can't miss it. I just used it this morning!
Mar 12, 2007 07:21 pm Yeah, like I was telling Noize on the phone a bit ago, there is no way I could conceivably build a search engine even CLOSE to what Google has supplied me here...I mean, I consider myself a pretty decent developer, but come on... :-)
Mar 12, 2007 07:49 pm yeah, the google search is certainly cool. I wouldnt mind one of them. anyway, site's looking great maeng
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