Technical Updates, Cool Stuff...

[TomFulp]

Some important announcements on the tech-side of Newgrounds:

1) LilJim has been sweeping through a lot of our back-end code and making improvements. You will notice that there are some small changes to the BBS, and he is also making changes to upgrade performance.

Right now we are tackling the user session system. We are completely overhauling how our system tracks user sessions, which won't be visible to the user, but should make the site run better. In the meantime, there is an issue where if you are logged in for 20 minutes, your session expires - even if you are being active. Some users have found that in the time it takes them to vote on 5 movies, their session expires before they can deposit the points. We are sorry about this and the issue will be corrected soon. :)

** Right now some people may be asking, "Where is Ross?" - I'll admit we have been rather quiet about the subject. When the internet bubble burst, Ross took a full-time job with another company. He has been doing very well, but over time balancing the two jobs became too time consuming. Ross is still around in spirit, but is not really involved in coding NG stuff nowadays.

Moving along...

2) I just updated the fan-net "join" page. Now, when you join the fan-net, you are give new code to use for displaying the fan-net logo/button. Users using the old code won't have any problems, but I recommend updating to help support NG.

In addition to now being only 60 pixels vertical (so it can sit along-side a banner ad without looking ugly), there are some more important changes that are meant to optimize NG performance:

I removed the nifty "rank" value from the Fan-Net buttons, because it required accessing a text file on Newgrounds to retrieve your rank - this means that every site in the fan-net was not only hitting our server for the .swf file, but also hitting it again to retrieve the rank value.

I also now ask that users download the .swf and host it on their sites. It is under 5k, so it will probably load a lot faster running on your site than running on ours. I'm just trying to keep hits to NG's servers at a minimum.

If you would like to join the fan-net, simply log into your user account and choose the option to "JOIN FAN-NET". If you are already a member, you can click the link to "VIEW FAN-NET CODE". You will get the new code.

On a more exciting note, last night while attending Political Party here in Atlanta, I encountered a man wearing a SHOTGUN MAN T-SHIRT! Shotgun Man is the Assassin mascot, for anyone who has not seen that part of the site. His wife said it was his favorite shirt. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

[QuarterMelonClock]

<3 <3 <3 Tom. It's good to see you guys are still putting a fair amount of effort into NG. There was a while there where i thought it was being neglected... <3

[QuarterMelonClock]

<3 <3 <3 Tom = awesome.

[MortalMaxx]

YAY! NG is finally updated :))))
.........finally............

[troglo]

A married couple have a shotgun man fetish? wow.

[Fatboy]

I've been noticing that the BBS has been moving better and with less errors lately, a couple of weeks ago it was impossible to access the forums without encountering an error. Also, something seems to have been done to make the drop-down page lists better for the individual topic, before they would take you to a page about 3 or 4 back from the newest, now it gos straight to the new. This helps us veer ever closer to set a new world record with the NG's Biggest Topic. That is if there is a record...
I'm spent of information now.

[zipstyke]

w69t!

This makes me happy.

HAPPY!

[uhoh-spagettio]

At 10/3/02 12:25 PM, zipstyke wrote: w69t!

This makes me happy.

HAPPY!

Me too. NG is the worlds greatest website.. Sometimes runs slow but when it doesnt its fucking awsome.

[uhoh-spagettio]

On the NG BBS you can upload .jpg and .gif images. Why isnt flash aloud in the bbs?

[moc-moc-a-moc]

His wife said it was his favorite shirt. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

Was he retarded and he couldn't speak for himself? Why did HIS WIFE say it was his favourite shirt? Maybe she was lying and he doesn't actually like it. Does she force him to wear it? How many shirts does he actualy have?

[Steve84]

At 10/3/02 10:08 AM, TomFulp wrote: Some important announcements on the tech-side of Newgrounds:

1) LilJim has been sweeping through a lot of our back-end code and making improvements. You will notice that there are some small changes to the BBS, and he is also making changes to upgrade performance.

Right now we are tackling the user session system. We are completely overhauling how our system tracks user sessions, which won't be visible to the user, but should make the site run better. In the meantime, there is an issue where if you are logged in for 20 minutes, your session expires - even if you are being active. Some users have found that in the time it takes them to vote on 5 movies, their session expires before they can deposit the points. We are sorry about this and the issue will be corrected soon. :)

** Right now some people may be asking, "Where is Ross?" - I'll admit we have been rather quiet about the subject. When the internet bubble burst, Ross took a full-time job with another company. He has been doing very well, but over time balancing the two jobs became too time consuming. Ross is still around in spirit, but is not really involved in coding NG stuff nowadays.

Moving along...

2) I just updated the fan-net "join" page. Now, when you join the fan-net, you are give new code to use for displaying the fan-net logo/button. Users using the old code won't have any problems, but I recommend updating to help support NG.

In addition to now being only 60 pixels vertical (so it can sit along-side a banner ad without looking ugly), there are some more important changes that are meant to optimize NG performance:

I removed the nifty "rank" value from the Fan-Net buttons, because it required accessing a text file on Newgrounds to retrieve your rank - this means that every site in the fan-net was not only hitting our server for the .swf file, but also hitting it again to retrieve the rank value.

I also now ask that users download the .swf and host it on their sites. It is under 5k, so it will probably load a lot faster running on your site than running on ours. I'm just trying to keep hits to NG's servers at a minimum.

If you would like to join the fan-net, simply log into your user account and choose the option to "JOIN FAN-NET". If you are already a member, you can click the link to "VIEW FAN-NET CODE". You will get the new code.

On a more exciting note, last night while attending Political Party here in Atlanta, I encountered a man wearing a SHOTGUN MAN T-SHIRT! Shotgun Man is the Assassin mascot, for anyone who has not seen that part of the site. His wife said it was his favorite shirt. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

hey Tom the grounds gold has been saying that I'm logged in but when I vote it says I'm not logged I hope you can fix it:(

[freakimus]

At 10/3/02 10:08 AM, TomFulp wrote: Some important announcements on the tech-side of Newgrounds:

1) LilJim has been sweeping through a lot of our back-end code and making improvements. You will notice that there are some small changes to the BBS, and he is also making changes to upgrade performance.

Right now we are tackling the user session system. We are completely overhauling how our system tracks user sessions, which won't be visible to the user, but should make the site run better. In the meantime, there is an issue where if you are logged in for 20 minutes, your session expires - even if you are being active. Some users have found that in the time it takes them to vote on 5 movies, their session expires before they can deposit the points. We are sorry about this and the issue will be corrected soon. :)

** Right now some people may be asking, "Where is Ross?" - I'll admit we have been rather quiet about the subject. When the internet bubble burst, Ross took a full-time job with another company. He has been doing very well, but over time balancing the two jobs became too time consuming. Ross is still around in spirit, but is not really involved in coding NG stuff nowadays.

Moving along...

2) I just updated the fan-net "join" page. Now, when you join the fan-net, you are give new code to use for displaying the fan-net logo/button. Users using the old code won't have any problems, but I recommend updating to help support NG.

In addition to now being only 60 pixels vertical (so it can sit along-side a banner ad without looking ugly), there are some more important changes that are meant to optimize NG performance:

I removed the nifty "rank" value from the Fan-Net buttons, because it required accessing a text file on Newgrounds to retrieve your rank - this means that every site in the fan-net was not only hitting our server for the .swf file, but also hitting it again to retrieve the rank value.

I also now ask that users download the .swf and host it on their sites. It is under 5k, so it will probably load a lot faster running on your site than running on ours. I'm just trying to keep hits to NG's servers at a minimum.

If you would like to join the fan-net, simply log into your user account and choose the option to "JOIN FAN-NET". If you are already a member, you can click the link to "VIEW FAN-NET CODE". You will get the new code.

On a more exciting note, last night while attending Political Party here in Atlanta, I encountered a man wearing a SHOTGUN MAN T-SHIRT! Shotgun Man is the Assassin mascot, for anyone who has not seen that part of the site. His wife said it was his favorite shirt. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

Great, hopefully those awful lag times will be gone

[addsa]

At 10/3/02 03:27 PM, Flowerman wrote:

His wife said it was his favorite shirt. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

Was he retarded and he couldn't speak for himself? Why did HIS WIFE say it was his favourite shirt? Maybe she was lying and he doesn't actually like it. Does she force him to wear it? How many shirts does he actualy have?

Who would marry a retarded person?

[DrunkSquirrel]

Nothing to do with this topic, but i got #3 in daily today but i can't upload a new version... it keeps showing the crap one.

[EarthCrisis]

At 10/3/02 04:19 PM, DrunkSquirrel wrote: Nothing to do with this topic, but i got #3 in daily today but i can't upload a new version... it keeps showing the crap one.

Crap tastes like puddy. wonder why? For all people who like puddy its made of cow crap!

[HardcoreChristmas]

At 10/3/02 03:06 PM, uhoh_spagettio wrote: On the NG BBS you can upload .jpg and .gif images. Why isnt flash aloud in the bbs?

because thats what the rest of the website is for....

[fospher]

I dont get it, why do u have to use troma, there are plenty of providers with unlimited transfer limits and oc3 servers...8 bucks a month(esosoft.com)

why do u have ur unbearably slow server with an armada of ads just to pay off?

[Earlyman]

At 10/3/02 10:08 AM, TomFulp wrote: Some important announcements on the tech-side of Newgrounds:

1) LilJim has been sweeping through a lot of our back-end code and making improvements. You will notice that there are some small changes to the BBS, and he is also making changes to upgrade performance.

Right now we are tackling the user session system. We are completely overhauling how our system tracks user sessions, which won't be visible to the user, but should make the site run better. In the meantime, there is an issue where if you are logged in for 20 minutes, your session expires - even if you are being active. Some users have found that in the time it takes them to vote on 5 movies, their session expires before they can deposit the points. We are sorry about this and the issue will be corrected soon. :)

** Right now some people may be asking, "Where is Ross?" - I'll admit we have been rather quiet about the subject. When the internet bubble burst, Ross took a full-time job with another company. He has been doing very well, but over time balancing the two jobs became too time consuming. Ross is still around in spirit, but is not really involved in coding NG stuff nowadays.

Moving along...

2) I just updated the fan-net "join" page. Now, when you join the fan-net, you are give new code to use for displaying the fan-net logo/button. Users using the old code won't have any problems, but I recommend updating to help support NG.

In addition to now being only 60 pixels vertical (so it can sit along-side a banner ad without looking ugly), there are some more important changes that are meant to optimize NG performance:

I removed the nifty "rank" value from the Fan-Net buttons, because it required accessing a text file on Newgrounds to retrieve your rank - this means that every site in the fan-net was not only hitting our server for the .swf file, but also hitting it again to retrieve the rank value.

I also now ask that users download the .swf and host it on their sites. It is under 5k, so it will probably load a lot faster running on your site than running on ours. I'm just trying to keep hits to NG's servers at a minimum.

If you would like to join the fan-net, simply log into your user account and choose the option to "JOIN FAN-NET". If you are already a member, you can click the link to "VIEW FAN-NET CODE". You will get the new code.

On a more exciting note, last night while attending Political Party here in Atlanta, I encountered a man wearing a SHOTGUN MAN T-SHIRT! Shotgun Man is the Assassin mascot, for anyone who has not seen that part of the site. His wife said it was his favorite shirt. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

[Earlyman]

DAMNIT!! The same bloody thing keeps happening to me First as mentioned you only have 30 minutes per session to veiw and deposit your points. For those of us with LAN lines and 56K it might take that long to load some movies and games. The other thing is that the system has been logging me off durring the sessions which you don't notice until your vote is entered and it's only worth one point. Hopefully this will all be cleared up soon.

[Idjiit]

Tom -
First time posting here, I've been a Newgrounds fan for a long time however.

One extremely easy server improvement you can (and should) make is to set cache-control information for your image files. It is a little known fact that IE cannot use its caching system correctly without this bit of information.

In a nutshell, if IE doesn't see "expires" information for a file, it will *always* hit the server to make sure that the file is "fresh". Usually what will happen is that the server will send back server response code 304 stating that "you've got the newest version". In system like the BBS where there are tons of images, this means that the server will be getting useless requests continually. You'll get a request for EVERY SINGLE image on the page. The image won't redownload, but the request overhead adds lag to the end user, and puts totally unnecessary strain on the server. If you set cache-control information even to one hour, you will see an exponential decrease in the amount of hits on the server - I guarantee it.

For more info, check out this website:

http://www.web-caching.com/mnot_tutorial/

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me.

[Dom-Price]

yeah, I've met a few newgrounds fans up at my university. It's actually pretty cool to bump into people who like newgrounds in this dull town. What's even cooler is when they recognize me from Mobiusfactor and my work in the portal, it doesn't happen often, but it's pretty cool when it does!

[SkuM001]

Thats why i keep logging off! Im so used to automatically signing in that i keep forgeting to sign in manually. Its very annoying especially when i had the luck of finding two movies on the portal with very low scores both on 24. I blammed em but i wasnt logged in! I was very annoyed being a member of the blam club n all.

[AntiTanner]

At 10/3/02 11:07 PM, fospher wrote: I dont get it, why do u have to use troma, there are plenty of providers with unlimited transfer limits and oc3 servers...8 bucks a month(esosoft.com)

why do u have ur unbearably slow server with an armada of ads just to pay off?

NG needs a dedicated server, not virtual (which most hosting plans offer).

[aviewaskewed]

At 10/3/02 10:08 AM, TomFulp wrote: Some important announcements on the tech-side of Newgrounds:

1) LilJim has been sweeping through a lot of our back-end code and making improvements. You will notice that there are some small changes to the BBS, and he is also making changes to upgrade performance.

Right now we are tackling the user session system. We are completely overhauling how our system tracks user sessions, which won't be visible to the user, but should make the site run better. In the meantime, there is an issue where if you are logged in for 20 minutes, your session expires - even if you are being active. Some users have found that in the time it takes them to vote on 5 movies, their session expires before they can deposit the points. We are sorry about this and the issue will be corrected soon. :)

Well? It's sunday, and it's still happening. For those of us who come here to vote on new stuff everyday I find that on a file that will not load up quickly (around 900k and above) so I really can't even vote on ONE movie before my session expires! Yeah I use a crappy 56k and all, but still I hope this will be corrected soon

[Diablo727]

Perhaps you should log them off only if they're not active for 30-60 minutes

[EarthCrisis]

Blam club blam all of p_v_m2001's movies he total sucks and doesnt use flash he uses some animater thing. Blam all of his movies he's not good he's the creator of dbz stick fight (remake) and he was but it got blammed the creator of Viewers stupidity. Blam all of his movies they suck!

earthcrisis

[GutterSlut]

At 10/3/02 10:08 AM, TomFulp wrote: In the meantime, there is an issue where if you are logged in for 20 minutes, your session expires - even if you are being active.

I know, I know... I'm late.

I've personally noticed that, even though I check the "remember my info" box, I always have to log in again the next day, what's up with that?

[EarthCrisis]

At 10/9/02 11:56 AM, GutterSlut wrote:

.

I know, I know... I'm late.

I've personally noticed that, even though I check the "remember my info" box, I always have to log in again the next day, what's up with that?

whatever I dont care please I like to be last so nobody else post unless it is very ver important! or not important ASS!

[gtmitch2]

So, seeing as I haven't been on newgrounds (logged in) in a long time, I haven't really noticed anything. But after reading Tom's post, it really worries me. Also, after reading a lot of your responses, I felt like it was really bad. I've been logged on for a while now, and I haven't been logged out yet!