Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Scott_H · Jan 4, 2001, 03:33 PM

Everytime these something worth posting about at AI UBB that server goes down. They are never up and running when they should be! Do any MacNN people know why AI UBB is total junk?

BMWDrum · Jan 4, 2001, 03:53 PM

I have visited there a few times (the forums) but never got the warm, fuzzy feeling that I get when I hang out here

I experienced slowness from their servers, but never outages.

drum

haunebu · Jan 4, 2001, 04:00 PM

What, Scott_H, I thought that MacNN ran AI. Don't they admin the servers?

Gregg · Jan 4, 2001, 04:00 PM

I've had trouble accessing several sites today, AI included. At least theirs looks like it's intentionally shut down.

disectamac · Jan 4, 2001, 04:12 PM

I'm assuming the site can't handle extremely large numbers of hits simultaneously. New article posted? Near MacWorld again? happens everytime.

Scott_H · Jan 4, 2001, 04:16 PM

Yea! I'm sick of it. I don't know how tight MacNN and AI are in terms of hardware servers? I send them (AI) nasty emails but never seem to get a reply

OddManOut · Jan 4, 2001, 04:34 PM

Yeah, it's just unbelievable, they *always* seem to crash when something's going on. Still nice boards they have nevertheless. Scott_H, you must find a bit interesting too, judging from your number of posts there

MacAgent · Jan 4, 2001, 04:44 PM

Don't they have to be taken down to ban a user? Maybe they've been ordered by Apple to ban kormac.

I hope not...

Scott_H · Jan 4, 2001, 04:58 PM

Maybe they've been ordered by Apple to ban kormac.

Kormac is a fake. He has no inside info at all. He makes every prediction under the sun with the greatest generality. When one of the them "comes true" Kormac is praised as a god.

I'm sick of Kormac.

Misha · Jan 4, 2001, 05:00 PM

UBB is Perl-based. Perl is extremely processor intensive, and members of the AI boards seem to enjoy using the boards as a chat forum (see: Cipher/Reader have no life thread for an idea of what I mean). When you get 50 guys reloading a thread every 20 seconds, it puts an incredible burden on the servers. We used to have all three boards (MacNN, AI, MacGen) on one server, but the thing was so overburdened (for Unix guys, w produced numbers in excess of 100.... this should be below 5.) that we moved MacNN's boards to its own server (for some reason this was a lot easier than moving AI's boards; I didn't do the move, so I'm not sure why). We now have two dual processor Pentium II/III systems devoted solely to the forums. Obviously we'll need to add a third in the near future...

Thanks for your concern.

[This message has been edited by Misha (edited 01-04-2001).]

Scott_H · Jan 4, 2001, 05:11 PM

Well. They go down all the time. The last time was for almost a week. You'd think they'd spend some of that ad revenue on a better server. Might I suggest this one.

[This message has been edited by Scott_H (edited 01-04-2001).]

tyris · Jan 4, 2001, 07:03 PM

Originally posted by Misha:
We now have two dual processor Pentium II/III systems devoted solely to the forums. Obviously we'll need to add a third in the near future...

Maybe some of those Dual G4's running OS X are in order when it's available?

MacAgent · Jan 4, 2001, 07:27 PM

Kormac is a fake.

And you know this how?

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Scott_H · Jan 4, 2001, 07:52 PM

'cause nothing he posts ever comes true. The last big Apple event Kormac said the i**** would be announced and it wasn't. He put his a** on the line and it didn't come true. My guess is that he took a guess hoping it would come true so he'd come off as a real insider. AI groupies forget this.

He's a total fake that hung on long enough so that the new AI members don't remember all the total junk he posted in the past.

Sometime next week when AI is running again (

) I'll point out a relevant thread.

MacAgent · Jan 4, 2001, 08:11 PM

He predicted the exact size of the Cinema Display *AND* predicted the cube.

I call that being an insider.

We only have 5 days left until we find out.

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tyris · Jan 4, 2001, 08:23 PM

didn't he predict the ibook as well? i thought i've heard things like that, but i've never looked to see

MacAgent · Jan 4, 2001, 08:52 PM

That's true, he did give some info on the iBook.

BTW, the front page of the AI forums are up now, but nothing else loads

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AlbertWu · Jan 5, 2001, 06:50 AM

AI always works fine for me...
What perl interpreter are you running.
I'm pretty sure you can't host it on a Mac because we don't have 5.6 yet. Unicode support, text file managing, ect.

no 5.6.

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Albert Wu <- No life.
http://web.harker.org/

24/7 Cell phone use can not kill you. I am half-consious proof. (It's not because of the cell phone.)

Caffine is not a mind-altering drug.
It is a life-altering drug!

Cipher13 · Jan 5, 2001, 06:59 AM

So what are 'Kormac's predictions for this MW?

Cipher13

Scott_H · Jan 5, 2001, 12:55 PM

Kormacs "predictions" are vague and all over the place. He's cube predictions were sooo vauge people reinvented them after the cube was out.

I could go there and post in that I work for a company that sells plastic molds to Apple and I know that a smaller notebook, maybe a sub notebook or new powerbook mabye a hand held, is coming ....blah blah blah.

I'd be right someday.

Kormac has NO inside info and doesn't know more than anyone else that follows Apple. He put is a** on the line and said that the i**** would be out at the last big event. He was wrong.

tyris · Jan 8, 2001, 04:15 PM

Is it just me or did AI Forums go down again?

Scott_H · Jan 8, 2001, 04:51 PM

Misha had to shut them down.
http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Foru...ML/001007.html

I bet NoControl and NuclearAmbition went nuts with trivial off topic posts.

Leonis · Jan 8, 2001, 05:19 PM

Too bad AI's UBB is now closed

[This message has been edited by Leonis (edited 01-08-2001).]

Scott_H · Jan 8, 2001, 05:37 PM

Leonis! You made it out of AI UBB! Welcome! It'll be back up after MW at the latest.

Why can't y'all move the DNS to another machine

Seems like the better solution.

Jan 8, 2001, 05:38 PM

The AI UBB is currently closed due to the undo stress it puts on our servers. At present, the AI UBB shares the same server as MacNN's primary DNS, so when that box gets overloaded, so do all of the MacNN-hosted sites (MacNN, AI, MacDesktops, MacGeneration, etc.). We plan on moving the AI UBB to its own box early next year, and thank you for your patience in the interim. Also, feel free to use MacNN's forums for discussion if you desire (http://forums.macnn.com/).

Too bad about the AI boards I liked them a lot.

... What does this message mean? "early next year" is 2002. That sucks if that's what it means.

[This message has been edited by Lunchbox (edited 01-08-2001).]

graphiteman · Jan 8, 2001, 06:02 PM

Looks like I'll have to use the MacNN boards till the AI boards come back up. I hope they move the AI boards to it's own machine soon...

Fran441 · Jan 8, 2001, 06:05 PM

It seems kind of funny. Many posters at AI want registration turned off before a Macworld. MacNN and AI just want the boards turned off before a Macworld. Go figure.

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Its time for Apple to release a new PDA, but until it does, long live the Newton!

graphiteman · Jan 8, 2001, 06:09 PM

I wonder if applenut will register over here? It'll look odd to see his name with less than 4,000 posts.

MarsManG5 · Jan 8, 2001, 06:31 PM

I hope whatever they decide to do they do it fast! I miss the forums...

Oh, and I believe Kormac is more likely real than fake (but if he is the latter he's damn clever

)

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My name is MarsMan and I come from Mars. Well, actually Canada, eh?

"All good things must come to an end"

[This message has been edited by MarsManG5 (edited 01-08-2001).]

Zoom · Jan 8, 2001, 06:42 PM

Scott_H, you're being a little harsh on Kormac. You may very well be right, but the guy has brought a lot of fun to the AI boards. Furthermore, Jobs is such a fickle secrecy freak that even if Kormac was 100% right 2 days before MW, he could easily be 100% wrong after the keynote. Plus, I don't doubt that there's a lot of purposeful misinformation flying around. Look, I'm not saying I believe the guy, but I want to believe him and I'm willing to be optimistic and go with the flow. It's interesting talk if nothing else. I don't believe Kormac is purposely misleading anyone, and he throws in a good dash of salt, usually - people just don't pay attention to the caveats and they tend to really extrapolate the vague parts.

Anyway, the real (and only) reason I'm here is because the damn AI boards are down. Man, that really sucks. Those are the only boards I post to anymore, coz I just don't have the time.

AI moderators:
Is there ANY way to get them up prior to the keynote?? Give us one more chance. Put a warning at the top level telling people it will go down again if they don't behave. Ask people to limit their postings.

What would it take to port the boards to... whatever the alternative is? They're done using PERL? What are the MacNN boards built on, then?

And shouldn't you guys be using Mac servers??

Hell, I'd rather you had Linux servers than Wintel boxes, but surely OS X Server would work - no?

Why are there multiple boards, anyway? If you guys run them all, why not consolidate?

[This message has been edited by Zoom (edited 01-08-2001).]

Leonis · Jan 8, 2001, 06:43 PM

Originally posted by graphiteman:
I wonder if applenut will register over here? It'll look odd to see his name with less than 4,000 posts.

I have the exact same thought!

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My comic web site

I don't use spell checker.

Leonis · Jan 8, 2001, 06:45 PM

Originally posted by graphiteman:
I wonder if applenut will register over here? It'll look odd to see his name with less than 4,000 posts.

I have the exact same thought!

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My comic web site

I don't use spell checker.

jutus · Jan 8, 2001, 06:47 PM

Yup, If someone could clarify what "early next year" means, that'd be appreciated.

All those lonely AIBB souls, wandering the net.

Some might turn up at BlueGecko's orangeinsider... but most will probably come here.

If the same members post on these boards at the same rate as they did on the AI boards... wouldn't the problem still exist?

Scott_H · Jan 8, 2001, 06:48 PM

Scott_H, you're being a little harsh on Kormac

Ummmmm grumble grumble maybe. But the guy was WRONG WRONG WRONG and people eat his BS to this day. AFAIK he's never been right on anything. It bugs me.

Jan 8, 2001, 06:51 PM

Originally posted by Zoom:
What would it take to port the boards to... whatever the alternative is? They're done using PERL? What are the MacNN boards built on, then?

You know there are PHP alternatives out there that are a lot like UBB...

graphiteman · Jan 8, 2001, 07:23 PM

What about OpenTopic? It says that it is more powerful than UBB and can import the current UBB messages and users. Might be a good move to upgrade to that when they move boxes. The best part is that we don't loose our current messages and users!

Cosmo · Jan 8, 2001, 08:19 PM

Well i'm here too...it feels weird having more posts than some of u.
And if apple nut joins i'm sure he'll pass me within minutes, i only post here when there is a question the ppl at AI can't answer.

It now says that they are planning on moving the AI UBB to its own box sometime this month...that doesn't mean the boards will be down until then...does it?

And y not allow the boards to go back up, but on this, the eve of macworld they could have flood control re-activated...and have it set to a very high (and extremely annoying) number of minutes.

Long live AI!

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Cosmo has left the building...

ICQ me: 24184791

Zoom · Jan 8, 2001, 08:39 PM

Hey, good idea - I forgot about flood control. But I think they're also saying that when you hit "refresh", it also hits the server. I admit, I do that a lot on some of the fast-moving threads. Shouldn't there be a way to simply ask "has this page changed? If so, then get; if not, use cache". I'm not up on HTTP, but I thought that was possible.

Michaelm8000 · Jan 8, 2001, 08:40 PM

Back off AI!!!!

That is the best ****ing Apple Board on the web!!! But I wish it was up right now. I hope it comes up soon!!! Till then long live AppleInsider!!!!!

Scott_H · Jan 8, 2001, 08:50 PM

I forgot about flood control. But I think they're also saying that when you hit "refresh", it also hits the server

I think the real problem is the running the perl scripts. If I'm not mistaken, and someone will correct me if I'm wrong, the pages are static. That is the perl script write the page to a file and the server just serves it. The page is updated only when someone replies or edits a page.

So if people were just surfing that wouldn't be so bad. If many people are posting the thing dies.

Zoom · Jan 8, 2001, 08:56 PM

Hey, I'm officially a Junior Member now!!

Man, that's weird starting all over again.

AI boards are pretty good, but I think they need to partition the threads a bit more. I never quite understood the usefulnes of the "future" vs "current" distinction. I kinda like the forum breakdown here better - seems more logical. Still, though, I think both of these boards (AI and MNN) need to split up the catch-all "general" forum somehow. Can moderators move or delete entire threads? (In my short time here, I've already seen threads about people's cats and people's cars!! What's up with that??

[This message has been edited by Zoom (edited 01-08-2001).]

Michaelm8000 · Jan 8, 2001, 09:08 PM

I hope none of you AI mebers are thinking of switching to this board!!!! Stick with AI!!! it is the best!! stick with them throgh thick and thin!!! and use this bord as a back up!!

elzinat · Jan 8, 2001, 09:14 PM

a few brief words about the culture of the MacNN Lounge, for our new AIBB friends:
we talk about anything and everything. it is very standard for threads to drift far off topic. we periodically have topics about threads drifting off topic.
the admins/moderators can move/close/delete threads. Moving is common if a thread is deemed to be "in the wrong place." Closing happens if a mod/admin decides that for some reason it would be bad for the thread to continue. a while back we had some long discussions with the mods about closing threads; they now normally at least tell us why they close a thread. I am not certain I have ever seen a thread actually be deleted.
the mods can also edit posts members make. I have not seen this except with ca$h68 (a legend of these boards, had his name banned more than twenty times, now posts as "gorefan68") who has had "frictions" with the admins, and in an unhappy fight last November with a rival SETI team over an alleged hack of our BB, which resulted in the departure of our most prolific admin, wlonh. you can dig that stuff up if you want to.
we generally try to all be nice to each other. it happens sometimes that people are offended by something someone posts. voice your issue politely and posts will be politely edited.
issues with the boards are discussed at the "Suggestions/Comments" forum. there is alot of stuff there you can learn our mods. read up. some interesting commedy in the annals of this here board. the main Admin guy (in terms of communicating most with us) is Misha.

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be happy!
-mac freak

Cosmo · Jan 8, 2001, 09:15 PM

Originally posted by Michaelm8000:
I hope none of you AI mebers are thinking of switching to this board!!!! Stick with AI!!! it is the best!! stick with them throgh thick and thin!!! and use this bord as a back up!!

Switch?!
Never, just look at my new signature.

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Cosmo has left the building...

Long live the AI boards!

graphiteman · Jan 8, 2001, 09:19 PM

My guess is that when they move the server the boards will stay up because there will be a copy of the BB on the origional server. When they switch the new one in, they just copy the current status to the new server and it's ready to go. The only downtime would be for a few minutes to see that it works properly.

I still think they should consider OpenTopic. Like I said before, it is more advanced than UBB and more customizable.

PS-No, I'm not switching. I'm going back when it's up and running again.

[This message has been edited by graphiteman (edited 01-08-2001).]

Zoom · Jan 8, 2001, 09:24 PM

I may never return to these boards once AI is back up, but can I suggest that you create a separate forum for truly non-Mac stuff? Actually, the Lounge is probably the best place for that, so maybe create a new forum for General Mac Discussion. Look at how many posts there have been to this forum - it could easily be split into Mac and non-Mac general discussion, with no harm.

But hey, just some ideas. This ain't my playground, so I'll go with the flow until AI is back on its feet.

Zoom · Jan 8, 2001, 09:28 PM

(Gotta run my post count up to a respectable level! Hey, what's the next milestone?)

Suggestion for the AIBB mods - why not take this opportunity to upgrade the AI boards to something like this? How hard is it to do? Surely there must be a way to convert the existing threads - they look and feel almost the exact same way. What software package is used to do the MacNN boards? I'm just curious.

Actually, I'd rather have the boards back up, even in a limited fashion. But if that's just totally, 100% out of the question before the end of the week, then take this chance to make the conversion.

[This message has been edited by Zoom (edited 01-08-2001).]

HeyAndy · Jan 8, 2001, 09:40 PM

<b>...and members of the AI boards seem to enjoy using the boards as a chat forum...</b>

not to be a smartass here; but before anyone criticizes the users of the AI boards for using the boards as a "chat forum", maybe AI should rename the link to the boards to something other than "Chat Forum". I realize that it would be a superficial change, but it might help prevent sending mixed signals.

Just a thought.

PMG4DP · Jan 8, 2001, 11:26 PM

I wonder if applenut will lose his post count whenever AI gets back online

He had like..4,500 or somthing..

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"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."

Michaelm8000 · Jan 9, 2001, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by PMG4DP:
I wonder if applenut will lose his post count whenever AI gets back online He had like..4,500 or somthing..

If that happend he would have his post count up to 5,000 in 2 days flat!!

Any way I better get to bed I have go a Big Keynote to go to tomarow I have to get up at 4:00!! I will not get a wink of sleep with PB G4's, G4 1ghz, subnotebooks, and OSX flying around in my head!! I can not wait!!!!!