I've added a How To Help page, which you can find in the top menu. Feedback is welcome.
I also added 'Recent' (the tracker) to the top menu. If you're not reading the front page or going straight to the forums, I imagine that's how most people browse the site. Are people using the 'Active forum topics' and 'Recent content' sidebars?
I've removed Chat from the top menu because it has its own sidebar now. I've also moved the AUP to the Navigation sidebar, because that allows me to spell out "Acceptable Use Policy", which I think is a lot clearer than AUP.
I tend to use the "Active forum topics" and "Recent content" blocks in the sidebar -- it would be nice if the "Who's online" block got bumped towards the bottom.
I've removed 'Who's Online' entirely, at least temporarily. It used to be fun to see who connected recently, but I think it's less interesting now that the site is so big, and anybody can be connected any time via their phone. And it feels a bit different, now that the internet is such a privacy wreck.
Does anybody want "Who's Online" back, or have any arguments in its favor?
I habitually skim the "Who's Online" when I connect, so I immediately noticed it was missing.
But that's arguably an improvement because "Recent Content" was more prominent, which brought this particular thread to my attention.
Honestly, I don't have any particular need for "Who's Online". I suppose it's nice to see a familiar user name, but it doesn't give me any useful information.
I've made it so Online Users is hidden by default, but you can turn it back on by going to your account settings page. I've also set all the other non-essential blocks so that you can turn them off on that same page.
I post links to applefritter from other sites. I try not to link from applefritter to "big tech" walled silos. In fact, I avoid big walled-in social media sites because of the toxicity. I've only recently started using the fediverse in a limited fashion. Be careful what you ask for as one popular applefritter link might temporarily give the site a "hug of death" although it might be a good test of applefritter's infrastructure. I will continue to post links to applefritter because it is a great site and community here. When I joined applefritter back in 2005, I had no clue there even was an Apple-1.
Thank you.
We're on an unmetered 100 Mbps connection. What's the modern equivalent of a slashdotting require?
I went searching for an old slashdotting graph. I couldn't find one, but I did find this fun old email (with attachment missing). The email addresses and phone numbers are no longer current, so I didn't remove them.
I've included the headers so you can see it was sent with CommuniGate Pro. At digital.forest in 2002, that may have still been Mac OS 9. Our server at the time was an Apple Network Server 300 running Yellow Dog Linux.
----------
Return-Path: <cg@forest.net>
Received: from [66.218.192.165] (account cg HELO [10.0.1.2])
by forest.net (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 3.5.9)
with ESMTP id 16882958 for owad@applefritter.com; Tue, 10 Sep 2002
00:38:27 -0700
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Sender: cg@treehouse.forest.net
Message-Id: <p0511170ab9a3517f349f@[10.0.1.2]>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 00:38:08 -0700
To: owad@applefritter.com
From: chuck goolsbee <cg@forest.net>
Subject: Fwd: [d.f Tech] SLASHDOTTED!!
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="==_20050209013955.14242-1_=="
--==_20050209013955.14242-1_==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>From: "Ryan Spott" <rspott@forest.net>
>Subject: [d.f Tech] SLASHDOTTED!!
><snip>
>
>Yet again Tom Owad was slashdotted.
>
>http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/02/09/09/1958256.shtml?tid=137
>
>And the traffic peaking to the max of the switch (10MB)
>
>
>ryan
>_______________________________________________
>df-Tech mailing list
>df-Tech@forest.net
Thought you would like to see that.
Notice that the comments have no complaints about unreachable servers? =)
--
Chuck Goolsbee V.P. Technical Operations
_________________________________________________________________
digital.forest Phone: +1-877-720-0483, x2001
where Internet solutions grow Int'l: +1-425-483-0483
19515 North Creek Parkway Fax: +1-425-482-6871
Suite 208 http://www.forest.net
Bothell, WA 98011 email: cg@forest.net
--==_20050209013955.14242-1_==
Content-Type: image/jpeg; name="slashdotted.jpg"; x-mac-type="4A504547";
x-mac-creator="70727677"
Content-Disposition: attachment
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
--==_20050209013955.14242-1_==--
Here's another interesting one from 2003. I'm excluding the sender on this one since I don't know how he'd feel about it, but the X-Mailer is fun:
----------
Received: from [12.158.34.175] (HELO psmtp.com)by forest.net (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.0.6)
with SMTP id 28307164 for owad@applefritter.com; Tue, 01 Apr 2003 12:52:59
-0800
Received: from source ([64.81.13.150]) by exprod5mx62.postini.com
([12.158.34.245]) with SMTP;
Tue, 01 Apr 2003 15:52:21 EST
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 12:52:09 -0800
Subject: The Slashdot effect (New York Times query)
To: owad@applefritter.com
X-Priority: 3
Message-ID: <a0106000e-1024-D01179BD648311D7924D000A959AE854@[64.81.13.130]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Mailsmith Prerelease (Blindsider)
X-pstn-levels: (C:86.2913 P:95.9108 R:95.9108 S:27.7566 )
X-pstn-settings: 1 (0.1500:0.1500) pmc
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hi, Tom,Chuck Goolsbee suggested I contact you about a New York Times article I'mwriting on bandwidth disasters. I recently experienced one myself, so am
writing about what happens when individuals such as ourselves are
overwhelmed by traffic.
Chuck pointed out that since you were on top of things, you wound up withenough resources and no charges, and I wonder if you'd care to have an
email exchange about it? A little bit about what happened, why you got
the spike, and how you avoided getting charged.
At one point, I thought my bandwidth bill for last month was going to top$15,000! It looks more like $0 - $2000. Still not sure.