August 20, 2005 5:01 PM BST
the way the menus work is such that the position relative to the top left hand corner of the screen is fixed as a distence in pixels (on screen dots to the normal people out there).
since this cannot be varied easily may it be worth putting the ads
under the menu? since everything else on the page can cope with this, then it doesn't matter how big the ads are.
as for full members not seeing them... didn't even realise they were there cus of this, but since the google ads can be useful, and since they can bring revenuw in it could be worth seeing if a cookie can be set to show/hide them (full members only) so we can see them when we want, and kill them when we don't.
should be possible, though you would need javascript turned on for it to work, mind you turn it off and the menus don't work either...
as for features...
one word
SPEED
given the whole site is dynamically generated, which means server load, which costs money.. could it be worth having more static pages? i don't know exactly how the forums work but it wou;ld be a hell of a lot faster for the pages to be static, but regenerated each time anyone posts something.
since more people read than post this will speed things up since the server is now throwing out a semi static page (killing the database access to fill the content in), this could help.. if its possible with this software (may not be).
the site speed is the only real problem at the mo, which is a direct result of the sites popularity.. the obvious way of speeding it up (faster server) costs silly money, and without a massive increase int he membership base isn't even worth looking at.
otherwise the incremental improvements in the sites apperance recently are making a big difference to the way things look.. me likes em..
August 20, 2005 9:15 PM BST
We do have a new design on the way which will fix the problem with ads under the menu. I've been working on it most every day for the last month but I don't want to put it in place until I'm sure it will work okay.
It will also be tied in with our new content management system which I hope will make a big difference to how the site looks. Hopefully, it will soon look much more professional.
Trouble is, you still have an amateur in charge of design (me) so it may not be as good as it could be with a professional's touch. Unfortunately we can't afford a pro.
As for speed, the site has never been faster. I'm not saying it's blistering or as fast as Google but it's faster than Trannyweb has ever been before.
Clair is right though. The only way we will be able to make it faster still will be to move to a much faster server.
According to Eric, our programming guru, a faster processor and more memory would be well useful but the best thing we could do would be to get some SCSI drives. Our hard disc speed is letting us down at present and a server with SCSI drives in a RAID configuration would also be a boon to our data integrity.
I've already looked at the kind of prices we could be expected to pay for a newer, faster SCSI server but as Clair rightly said, without a very large increase in Full Members we will not be able to afford one and the various programming fees that would be associated with a huge move like that.
Eric has already made a lot of improvements over the last few months, to try to help our speed and he continues to do so.
I'll keep you posted on the server issue if anything happens but don't hold your breath.
Anyone got any other bright ideas?
Hugs,
Katie x
