[ Speed increase logging in ]

- Using simple meta-refresh tags logging in is more automated and logging out no longer has a small bug.

- Unregistered users have a better chance of being sent to the registration page now that their is a link on the login page where is says "Are you registered?"

[ New Topic & Add Reply ]

I have changed the "New Topic" & "Add Reply" buttons to the new Ikonboard v3.0 buttons as I thought them more descriptive and better looking. It should be noted that the background color of the heading was changed to white to accomodate the buttons as they were not transparent.

[ New FAQ link & image changes ]

- An FAQ link has been added to the navigational bar for guests as well as registered users.

- New images have been created for Local Resources for Teens and LiveWire's NetaGuru HTML Tutorials

[ Read on... ]

Ned Marr from www.todayinashland.com was kind enough to give us several links on his web site, the new footers and headers have been applied throughout LiveWire, and Infostructure has been credited for generously hosting LiveWire on a much broader scale on the LiveWire site.

[ Always new content, always LiveWire! ]

An FAQ link has been added to the headers of all LiveWire pages, it currently covers only a few topics, but we hope to expand it further.

[ Over a period of one week ]

From August 1st to August 7th LiveWire averaged 17 unique visitors per day.

[ Because of miscounting ]

If anyone can suggest a good cgi-perl based counter script please post information in this topic. We have removed remaining counters as they overcount. The search for replacements continue.

[ you can see it as you read this.... ]

The current date is now displayed on all forum pages as well as main pages.

[ Isn't progress a good thing? ]

Load time: I'm pleased to announce yet another decrease in load time for the main pages of LiveWire. Total image sizes dropped a full 1k from further optimization! Well it's not much, but every step in the right direction is an improvement.

Alt tags: Alt tags are used to display text in place of an image if the visitor is using a text only browser or has automatic image loading off. I have expanded the alt tags for a number of images on LiveWire's front pages.

[ (Right above the LiveWire logo) ]

Visitors will now see the current date displayed as "Tuesday, August 14, 2001" above the LiveWire logo on all main pages. It is powered by server side includes. (SSI)

If your server supports SSI, you can display the current date too with the following code:

[ Tell a friend & Comment on LiveWire ]

Good News! New features are rolling on in, I just finished making and adding the "Tell a friend about LiveWire" and "Comment on LiveWire" buttons at the tops of all forum pages. These may be revised and/or added to other areas of the site as time goes on. When clicked on they will take you to the appropriate form to either comment or tell a friend about our service. Also, as an extension to the tell a friend feature, when new members register they are given a chance to recommend LiveWire to one of their friends via email. That is all.

[ Finally! ]

A few problems were encountered, but now new users are automatically sent their login and password in a welcome email from LiveWire's Forums. We hope this will encourage users to return and make it easier to do so.

[ Most removed, others overcounting. ]

All counters on LiveWire Forum pages have been removed due to their extensive coding in ikon.lib and blatant inaccuracies. Counters placed on the 3 front pages of LiveWire will remain until better counters can be found. The inaccuracies arise from a serious flaw in the counter's defense against accidentally logging a visitor twice. When one user logs on and passes by a page the counter logs a hit and records the visitor's IP address. Unfortunately, instead of holding onto the IP for a 24 hour period it gets overwritten when the next user accesses the same page. Obviously, if the first user backtracks to the same page another hit is recorded. We're very sorry about this inaccuracy.

[ Interesting, no? ]

Yes, it's true. LiveWire and NetaGuru are both designed and maintained entirely on the Macintosh platform using Power Macintosh G4s running OS 9.1 and MacOS X. All graphics are designed and processed in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe ImageReady.

[ New resources available for LiveWire! ]

The NetaGuru Web Site Design Tutorials can be found at http://www.livewireoregon.org/netaguru/ and there is a link to them under the Resource tab on the front page of LiveWire. These extensive tutorials can teach people interested in web design how to write the HTML for all aspects of a web page.

Enjoy!

[ Also, small visual improvements ]

Overall load time of site cut by 3k and small visual improvements made to front page of site. The four rounded corners of the main layout have been smoothed and a more efficient less washed out drop shadow applied. I realize 3k doesn't sound like much, but to a dialup user that could mean anywhere from 0.75 seconds to a 2 second improvement in load time.

[ Problems with the registration process... ]

I could not report this until the threat was sealed since someone may have been tempted to take advantage of the hole. New users signing up *had* the ability to overwrite an existing account if they choose the same user name as the account to write over. Users didn't need to enter a valid email address, password, or even a user name. It took us some time to track this problem down but be assured the error has been mended.

[ Login screen & resources ]

Slight visual and wording alterations to entrance page (http://www.livewireoregon.org) and the addition of a member login form at the top of the main page along with new content on how to design your own web sites using the "Learn the Secrets of Web Design" button found on the main page. This new section has been titled NetaGuru and can provide extensive information for webmasters of all levels.

[ Full Summary of improvements to forum ]

When updating profile, show email no longer defaults to on.
Admin & Mod options in forums, topics and announcements are only visible to mods/admins.
A space at the start of a topic name, is no longer allowed. This stopped the link from appearing.
Maintenance Mode is now a feature, used through variables setup.
Deleting Forums, the post count is now accurate when you delete.
The iB Code tag for E-Mail works properly in posts and now works in signatures.
Messenger is now spelt correctly.
Added admin help section, first file fontsizing.html
Topic Titles and Descriptions can now be edited by the forum mod or admin.
In addition a huge rewrite of processing routines to try and stop disappearing threads.
Alphabetical Sort of Emoticons and Avatars
Bad Word Filter is now NOT Case Sensitive.
Bad Word Filter can be applied to member names and signatures.
Forum Topic Counts are now Accurate.
Deleting Threads should not result in negative post counts.
Fake Members will not be displayed in 'WhosOnline'
Very long members names in last registered will not be shown.
Adding New Category & Forum Bug in Admin is fixed.
Link to help.cgi from profiles now works.
Smileys are now NOT displayed in code statements.

[ Troubles encountered... ]

This update should address several bugs including one which causes new posts and topics to disappear. We are experiencing a few glitches with the update, such as unexpected font size changes and errors on certain support applications.

Thank you for your understanding.

[ Read on... ]

Some users who set their Internet Explorer preferences to "larger" text may have noticed that some text on the front page of livewire was displayed at a size which caused it to carry on to the next line when that was unintended. It has been fixed, previously our css/span tags were not doing all that they we though they were.

[ Aren't they great??!! ]

Some of you may have noticed that we have expanded the number of images on the main page of livewire from 2 static images to over 20 dynamic (ever changing) images. Try refreshing the page to see a new pair of randomly selected images from the Grove.

[ Yippee! ]

The forum now has a functional counter for each section!

[ Rejoice! ]

In your profile you can access close to 50 user avatars which will appear next to your name in all of your posts and in the membelist. Please select one today!

[ Multi-page Bug fixed ]

The author of the forum script had neglected to link the number of threads per page preference to the coding which decides how many threads per page and how many pages per forum. It was set to "15". It can now be controlled correctly by an administrator.

[ Those broken images are fixed (hopefully!) ]

Those who experienced the broken images should be pleased, I have hopefully found the cause of them and fixed the problem. (Please let us know if these do persist though!)

[ Improved buttons... ]

I have added a bit more life to the buttons on the main page as well as trimming overall file size of images on the main page.

[ Sorry! Explaination... ]

The forum was down for 3 hours 3/26/01 with users unable to login, I had ammended a crucial file and the text editor I was using restyled a number of tags case causing errors. My apologies.

[ Incorrect post count continues to plague us ]

An incorrect post count continues to plague us on the main page, we have yet to determine a way to ammend the error.

[ You can log in on the main page now! ]

LiveWire users can now log in on the main page. Enjoy!