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What's new

O/T Change of format for this 'Board

Joe Michaels

Diamond
Joined
Apr 3, 2004
Location
Shandaken, NY, USA
The roll-out of this new format for the Practical Machinist website has resulted in some obvious changes. I am wondering why the location of each member/poster, as well as information in our profiles has been deleted. I liked the fact I could see where participants on our 'board were located, kind of like 'Ham' radio operators collecting cards from other Hams with their call signs and locations. I suppose, like so much else nowadays, the concern about privacy trumps giving out the information such as a participant/poster's location or the information that used to be in the profile.

I will say that this 'Board has been a really good thing in my own life. It connects me with some great people, and during times when events in my life were a bit of hard going, this 'board really helped me with the sense of community and camaraderie. As I like to describe myself, I am a 'proud, stubborn dinosaur'. I do not always adapt or react well to change, so the new format for this 'board will take a little getting used to. The main thing is we are all still here, still participating, and that is what matters.

It just seems like the world and progress in 'technology' (as so much is lumped into this category) is moving ever faster. I am old enough to remember when the devices we take for granted nowadays such as 'smart phones' were the stuff of science fiction or seen in the Sunday 'funny papers'. While I profess to be that stubborn dinosaur, I realize the benefits of this modern technology in so many ways and accept and appreciate most of it. This 'board is one of the best examples of it, and enables us to have a community of like-minded (or so we hope) people in just about every corner of this planet. It's a special 'place' for me, and something I visit at least once a day. I am sure this 'board will endure in one form or another as the technology bringing it to us continues to evolve. It's hard to imagine, but the descendants of our generation(s) of members may one day be discussing CNC machining centers in use today as 'antique machine tools', and those descendants of our generation of members will be marveling at how we ever worked with such primitive machine tools. So, while I miss the old format of our 'board, I have to go with what we now have and be glad Practical Machinist is thriving as a website.
 
The new format is what it is... I don't much care for the "mobile-centric" perspective, finding such devices clumsy and obnoxious but its not our site so whatevs... That said, this board transition has been much smoother than others I've witnessed so there remains much to be grateful for. Back in the ancient past PM has gone thru a few other changes to the forum software. Small features such as location and rating are likely to filter their way back in over time as the kinks are worked out; for my part I'd rather see attention paid first to photos and links in the many thousands of posts- thats where the value of the board is.
 
As I too am of the Jurassic period, is there a way to change the background color to something easier on the eyes? Thanks however for keeping PM abreast of technology, I have learned a fair amount from people on this site and I appreciate it. Jim
 
If you hold your mouse pointer over a member's name to the left of his post, a box will pop up with location, number of posts and other things.

That works with a real computer and mouse. I don't know how it would work with a phone or tablet.

I am 82 (yes, even older than Joe M.) and have managed to learn to use modern tech, more or less. I have smartphones and tablets, but I only use the big Dell (bought last month to replace the creaky old one) for interacting with Practical Machinist. I want a real keyboard to type messages, and a big screen to look at pictures.

That said, I am still finding new features on PM's new interface. Today, I got a "Love" instead of a "Like." Who knew such a thing was possible?

Larry
 
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If you hold your mouse pointer over a member's name to the left of his post, a box will pop up with location, number of posts and other things.

That works with a real computer and mouse. I don't know how it would work with a phone or tablet
It works on my iPhone. Hold on the posters name and a box comes up. Select open and another box comes up with info about the poster including location.
 
FWIW I participate on 2 other boards that use Xenforo. I like Xenforo a LOT, and it's way better than Vbulletin in just about every way, IF it's set up accordingly. Both of those needed a bit of time to get right, there are so many options it took the admin teams of both boards a while to find and understand them all and make good use of them to the membership's satisfaction. Sort of like changing from Powerstation to NX. Not all will take to NX quickly. Give the admins some time to work.

If you haven't noticed, the Ignore function works differently in Xenforo. The posts of the members on your ignore list don't appear anywhere. The threads they start also don't appear. At All. Anywhere. Including search. If someone quotes one, you will see a notice that an ignored member has been quoted in the post but you don't need to see the text unless you choose to. That alone makes up for ANY other inconvenience IMO.
 
Joe -

Well, as another dinosaur mechanical engineer of the steam table and slide rule variety I hear you.

On the one hand learning a new format can seem to be a bit of a pain - but what the hell, we've figured out a lot worse in our days. And it keeps the brain cells active.

When I got off active duty (Army) back in 74 I hired into IBM. First day there I found out that the job I was hired for had been eliminated due to that specific project being canceled. As the policy in those days was that once you were offered a job you got one I went through a short period of make work - if I had been single rather than married with a two year old son I might well have just walked. Shortly I was informed I was going to become a programmer - bad news was when I interviewed I had talked to two managers about that path and both they and I decided it was not a match. In any event I became a programmer and it took me seven years to get back into the manufacturing engineering realm. The experience I gained there was never directly applicable to anything but sure has helped over the years in strange ways. My good friend Jim's oldest granddaughter just graduated from Penn State with a degree in computer engineering. Like me (he retired as a chip designer from IBM, he's an EE) he had a few years detour as a programmer along the way. His granddaughter considers both of us total dinosaurs when we start the stories of no memory to work in compared to today, coding in assembler language, etc. etc. It's fun to be obsolete in multiple disciplines. How the heck did we ever design with slide rules, program in machine language and still manage to put men on the moon?

Now I have to get back to trying to figure out this new format we have. Something tells me there are way more features available than I'll ever figure out how to use - at least this evening..

Dale
 
Heh... slide rules, machine language, assembler............

They sure do help a person to remember to keep things simple and straightforward. I would assume that was of great assistance on the moon project.

There are some youtube vids on how the computer for the lander was programmed. Seems that it was VERY well thought out. Worth a look if you can find them.
 
Thank you, Joe, for the gracious tone of your comment, something we have all come to expect and appreciate from you. Sometimes, when the smoke is still coming out of one's ears over some foolish seeming development, it is good to just sit back, exhale, and then breathe.

You wrote, "So while I miss the old format of our 'board, I have to go with what we now have...." Others of us, me for example, may not find it easy to practice resignation and tolerance, but sometimes it is worth the attempt in an effort to preserve whatever it is that is at the core of why each of us an individual is here in the first place.

-Marty-
 
I really don't like the look/behaviour of the new format but as I hated the functionality of VBulletin - meh.

Apparently there are lots of features & options with this software so I expect it'll improve with time & experience.

Having ignored members be REALLY ignored is a major leap forward IMO.

PDW
 
"...considers both of us total dinosaurs when we start the stories of no memory to work in compared to today..."

Heh. Tell her *my* story, as I've met and talked with Robert Dennard at IBM research!


Also kudos to Larry for pointing out the new 'feature' related to the avatars!
 
"...considers both of us total dinosaurs when we start the stories of no memory to work in compared to today..."

Heh. Tell her *my* story, as I've met and talked with Robert Dennard at IBM research!


Also kudos to Larry for pointing out the new 'feature' related to the avatars!
Jim -

The one benefit of where you work I would think is the interesting people you get to interact with. I only made one trip there, in I think early 1975. We were developing rework tools for wire routing on LEMs - the liquid cooled modules for FS that never went anywhere as I remember. Trying to develop graphics tools for routing the rework/repair wiring was exotic in those days. Now it would be easy on a lousy phone. Funny how technology moves along.

Funny thing was I shared an office for a while with the guy that supported the last core memory machines in Poughkeepsie, think there were two of them. Most of the output went to Owego, where I escaped to eventually. Where I learned a 'bit' more about core mats. The original storage solution for some problems.

Dale
 
One irritation is that I was originally able to change "style", and went to "default", which marked read threads by turning off bold, or otherwise making them not stand out. But somehow that changed back, and I cannot find any way to change the "style again.

Either I just don't know what I did, or that option got deleted.

I DID see this new format before it was rolled out, but at that time I did not notice some of the things that show up after some "real" use.

I had thought that "read" threads were shown as not bold, or less intense, in the demo moderators had.
 
I just want to thank all the people who work to make this forum better. I have been around for a long time, it has at times been in PITA but with this newest version seems better. So THANK YOU.

BTW Is Don still around? Does he still own it?
 
One irritation is that I was originally able to change "style", and went to "default", which marked read threads by turning off bold, or otherwise making them not stand out. But somehow that changed back, and I cannot find any way to change the "style again.

Either I just don't know what I did, or that option got deleted.
I believe it got deleted,as I also changed the style, found it "magically" restored with no way to change it again to the way I want it.
 
I messaged one of the developer admins, and this is the reply. Seems like they "get it", at least partially:

"We heard the feedback from the community and are currently gathering suggestions from all the threads and sending them to developers in order to make those improvements. Readability and visible changes between read vs unread threads are on the priority list.

Unfortunately, we did not roll out a version using the "default" style. This style did not support the Practical Machinist branding and therefore we had to remove everyone's access to it.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but rest assured that we are aware of the tweaks needed and are doing our best to make the changes as soon as possible. "
 








 
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