Forum Activity for @claygordon

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 09:31:31PM
754 posts

Have to move off Arvixe NOW -- Linode? Digital Ocean? Other?


Jamroom Hosting

I get the sense that there are no hard and fast limits - after all, it's "unlimited" - but I get the sense that they are looser on the business accounts than they are with the personal accounts. Unless you run up against some ridiculous limit - or ask them to do something for you which gives them reason to run their utils against your account to spot TOS violations - you're probably okay with everything but storing lots of large backups.

Where you may run into problems is transferring the data. In cPanel there is a Disk Usage command that will tell you how much space is occupied by your public_html directory and the softaculous backup directory.

In order for me to get to the point where they would do the xfer I had to run the media delete tool to get rid of duplicate photos as well as to delete my softaculous backup. This got me down to just on 28GB from over 72GB. My guess is that there was no magic number they wanted to see, they were mostly annoyed at the thought of archving a .tar.gz archive and copying it over. The archive was 37GB on its own so I probably would have been okay with just deleting that and all of the JR cache folders claiming that everything else within the data directory was needed by the site.

I also did the work while on the phone with Arvixe tech support, not sales/billing (press 2). As long as I was actually making some progress and asking questions (as opposed to waiting for the media delete tool to count down from 10,000 twice) they were happy to engage with me. I made six calls over the course of as many hours to schedule the transfer and deal with the minutiae.

The other thing to note is that while you can ask to schedule the transfer, you really do need to call them to put it into the queue. So, early on the day you want to do the xfer, reduce to the irreducible minimum the amount of data you need to xfer. I got on the online chat with them and was able to have them upgrade my account and take all of the billing. If you complain (as I did) about sucky db performance they may give you a free month to "test" the performance of the new server. I made sure to include asking for a Guarantee of better db performance in the upgrade. I also copied the chat transcript and saved it in a file in case of issues later.

SO ... after you put the upgrade request in and slim down the amount of data, get on the phone and call them to initiate the xfer. You will need to update the name servers or the A host record if Arvixe is not the registrar. I went from one server (jxxxx) to another (cxxxx) and I needed to update the nameservers from ns1.jxxxx.arvixe.com to ns1.cxxxx.arvixe.com. The cPanel and FTP passwords should copy over, but if they do not (and they did not for me), get them on the phone and they will reset to a temp password while you wait and you can login and reset them yourself, again while on the phone to make sure everything works.

So, apart from the fact that it took longer because the initial request was denied because they didn't want to transfer the backup - the overall experience was quite pleasant even though I had to wake up three times between midnight and 6am to get on my computer and monitor the situation as I wanted to be back, live, by 6am. Which didn't happen.
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 08:42:57PM
754 posts

Have to move off Arvixe NOW -- Linode? Digital Ocean? Other?


Jamroom Hosting

So ... DNS is starting to propagate. I can see the site up at http://www.thechocolatelife.com/ here in NYC within two hours (traceroute as well as in my browser). Turned developer mode off and it feels acceptably responsive in Safari. Of course, I am probably the only person on it at the moment so the load is atypically light. But I feel much better already.

No entirely happy with the Arvixe xfer process because of the disk space warning and the delay it caused. But now that I am transferred there's a free SSL cert attached to the account and I will be using that in part to help SEO ranking. I will update the XML sitemap tomorrow and submit to Google and then send out the email to members (via Mailgun, Paul) to get them to claim their accounts.

What I am happy about is something small that did not really hit me until I started doing some original writing of new forum discussions and that is I did not realize how the Ning editing environment really got in my way. I got to hate writing in it and I started writing shorter pieces. Most of it was that the screen layout was cramped. My writing felt cramped before I even started typing.

Now, TinyMCE is not perfect by any means. But it's simpler and more straightforward and if I have any issues with formatting now (thanks to the great job the JRTeam did in coding around Ning's insane formatting inconsistency in the JSON export files) it's in the CSS of ordered and unordered lists and I will get around to fixing those presently. More importantly, the space within which to write feels positively expansive compared with Ning and I just feel energized to start writing longer and writing more often.

Which is very cool because it was completely unexpected.
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 08:02:04PM
754 posts

UX observation - keep tag cloud context


Ning To Jamroom

I will add this right away, thanks!

--- edited to add ---

{* BEGIN Tag Cloud *}
                {jrTags_cloud height="350" assign="tag_cloud"}
                {if strlen($tag_cloud) > 0 && $_conf.nsTCLSkin1_tag_cloud == 'on'}
                    <div class="item blog-archive-header m10"><h2>Tag Cloud</h2>
                          {jrCore_module_url module="jrTags" assign="tmurl"} &nbsp; <a href="{$jamroom_url}/{$tmurl}/">All</a>                    
                    </div>
                    <div class="blog-index-text" style="margin: 10px 10px 0 10px;padding-bottom: 10px;">
                        {$tag_cloud}
                    </div>
                {/if}
            	{* END Tag Cloud *}

updated by @claygordon: 01/21/15 08:07:53PM
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 08:01:00PM
754 posts

Have to move off Arvixe NOW -- Linode? Digital Ocean? Other?


Jamroom Hosting

Okay. So I am moved over to a more expensive server (going from like $5/mo to $30/mo but then I was paying Ning $30/mo so that's a wash except for Mailgun usage).

I am still waiting for DNS to propagate, but using it at a temporary URL until then, even with developer mode on, and the speed increase is dramatic. It's definitely usable now. I think there is still room for improvement, but I am going to let the community settle in for a while and get used to the new layout and the way the content is presented before switching to a new server.

My focus between now and then is fixing usability issues and ironing out small bugs and then introducing new features. Tops on my list are enabling domain mapping (I have some ideas about how to do this with URLs that I own but am not otherwise using - giving them a home and personalities within this community), then enabling selling digital and physical items. These are subscription membership features that should drive incremental passive revenue.
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 07:51:27PM
754 posts

One of my most prolific members ... missing almost all content?


Ning To Jamroom

Brian -

There are so many other things going on here that I am going to handle it a different way.

What I forgot (and need to keep reminding myself - and let my members know) is that what shows up on their Profile page is stuff the've created and/or participated in.

This is what I did not realize about Brad's participation in the community. He has not contributed image 1 and most of his contributions have been as comments on other people's posts, not forums or blogs he's started.

Interesting analysis all by itself, which suggests an interesting profiling routine to chart out patterns of participation.

But that's for a different discussion.
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 07:47:13PM
754 posts

Help with a profile page setting for Groups TAB


Ning To Jamroom

This is also an issue for me and I need to remind myself of the "me" focus of the profile page. The stuff that shows up here is ONLY stuff that I have created and/or contributed to.

I have put a Groups tab in the top nav which means that anyone can visit the page where all the groups are listed.

The form of that URL is: http://www.yourdomain/group

On the Profile Page, the form of the URL is http://www.yourdomain/membername/group

Strumelia - if you can modify the menu profile item (not sure you can - it's inside a loop that tests to see if a module is active but Brian has shown me how to use a foreach with a nested if to test and break out and that may work here) -- you'd want to replace the

http://www.yourdomain/membername/group
with
http://www.yourdomain/group


Another way to address the issue - and this may not work if you have hundreds or thousands of groups, my community only has about 20 and I like to "feature" top groups - would be to construct a sub-menu to the groups menu in the top nav that lists the groups you want to highlight by providing a shortcut to them. Like what happens now under ACP and your member name.
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 07:38:13PM
754 posts

comment back (tip)


Ning To Jamroom

Brian and Strumelia -

I am late to this discussion as I have had my hands full elsewhere.

Exactly where on the page does the Comment Back appear, and where in the code do I want to insert it to make it appear there?

TIA.
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 07:33:37PM
754 posts

UX observation - keep tag cloud context


Ning To Jamroom

Michael -

This does address the issue of making it very clear what a visitor is looking at:

1) items that are tagged with a particular tag
2) the entire tag cloud

Pagination is another issue outside the scope of my original request but it obviously needs to be taken care of.

When this is done, I would like to add the "All" to the tag cloud header on my home page so having that code fragment would be really helpful.
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 07:27:19PM
754 posts

Profile Page Latest Forums - changing


Ning To Jamroom

QUESTION ONE:

The page in question is currently at <a href="http://www.thechocolatelife.info/thechocolatelife/clay" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.thechocolatelife.info/thechocolatelife/clay</a>
When DNS propagates it will appear at <a href="http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay</a>

On the Profile page, the content block header says "Latest Forums" and the text for this comes from the following lines of code, which are found in the skin's profile_index_discussion.tpl file:

[code]
<div class="title">
<h3>{jrCore_lang skin=$_conf.jrCore_active_skin id="20" default="Latest"} {jrCore_lang skin=$_conf.jrCore_active_skin id="19" default="Discussions"}</h3>   <span class="normal"><a href="{$jamroom_url}/{$profile_url}/{jrCore_module_url module="jrGroup"}">{jrCore_lang skin=$_conf.jrCore_active_skin id="30" default="All"}</a></span>
</div>

So, the phrase "Latest Forums" is a concat of two calls to
[code]
jrCore_lang skin=$_conf.jrCore_active_skin id="xx" default="sometext"
[/code]

I have already changed the text of ID 19 to "Forums" so that appears in my top nav so I can't change the text in the language file.

From my prior fiddling, I seem to remember that I can't just replace the default text here to some other text. To make it say something like "Group Discussions" I just replace everything with the h3 tags in the title div:

[code]
<h3>Group Discussions</h3>
[/code]

QUESTION TWO:

If you look inside the content block for the Latest Forums on my profile page you will see some entries from my GROUP's Discussions.

The display order on this is order_by="_updated desc":

[code]
<div class="block_content">
<div class="item item-scroll">
{jrCore_list module="jrGroupDiscuss" order_by="_updated desc" profile_id=$_profile_id template=$pd_tpl}
</div>
</div>
[/code]

What does updated mean? The last time a comment was added? If that's the case, then what's being displayed is not correct (last updated in September 2014?) and I know that there is at least one group discussion (in the DIY group) that I have commented on within the past 48 hours.

I want to make sure that this list is updated to reflect the most recently updated discussions in Group Discussions.

QUESTION THREE:

I have already modified the actual description itself to include the last updated:

[code]
<br><small><a href="{$jamroom_url}/{$item.original_profile_url}">@{$item.original_profile_url}</a> - {jrCore_lang skin=$_conf.jrCore_active_skin id="37" default="Comments"}: {$item.discuss_comment_count|default:0}; Last updated on {$item._updated|jrCore_format_time:false:"%F"}; Created {$item._created|jrCore_format_time:false:"relative"}</small>
[/code]

What I would like to do know is include the name of the group the entry was posted in, and it would go in the line above the @name. (Posted in: Group Name) with Group Name being an active link.. I have tried a number of different constructions but I can't format the selection of the group name properly and get it to work.
updated by @claygordon: 03/04/15 11:13:24PM
Clay Gordon
@claygordon
01/21/15 09:31:51AM
754 posts

One of my most prolific members ... missing almost all content?


Ning To Jamroom

paul:
OK - Have just checked this out. The link you give in the first post is to Brad Churchill's profile forum. Remember that all Ning forums get imported to the specified 'site' forum. I've just done a search for 'Brad Churchill' there and see loads of his posts -

http://www.thechocolatelife.info/thechocolatelife/clay/forum?search_string=brad+churchill

You'll probably want to disable profile forums in all but the 'site profile' quota in order to save your members any confusion.


Paul, it turns out I was thinking the same thing and the stuff is there in the main site forums, not the group forums.

Not sure how I "disable profile forums in all but the 'site profile' quota" but that sounds like it might work. I don't have a site profile quota.
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