I've been visiting this site for some time before deciding to contribute, and during all that time I've had absolutely no problem accessing it.
The moment I sign up, however, I get problems loading pages. What this means is that it takes ages to get a page up if I click on a link, and half the time absolutely nothing happens, or I can't post something easily. You're all lucky I managed to get any stories up at all.
Don't concern yourselves about my problem, I've been in contact with Erin and Co trying to sort it out. The real point of this entry is to tell you that there could be random and variable gaps between my presence here depending on the Internet Gods, and exactly which entrails I wave and where.
I'm attempting to narrow down my problem, and I hope to have it sorted soon. I have a fair amount to contribute, and this seems like a nice place to come, which makes my problems doubly frustrating.
Once I can get a reliable connection I'll contribute more widely, and put up some blog entries as well.
I thank you in advance for your patience.
Penny
Comments
Server Reset
The server does a minor reset (whatever that is) at 5 min & 35 min past the hour. Maybe that could be part of the problem you are having. The site has been very reliable and fast for me (reader only) since Erin brought the current server online. It is surprising how often I do get tripped up for a little bit by the server resets. I'm sure Erin will get you straightened out if the problem is on her end.
I'm glad you started posting here. I like all of your stories that I've read so far and really like A Winter's Tale which you are in process of posting here now.
Sever reset
Don't think it's that, sorry. My problems happen all the time, any time. I do get brief periods when it all seems to click, but lately they are few and far between.
What seems to happen is that I get what appears to be the entire page, if I get anything at all, and then it just sits there with the hour glass and sits there. For maybe 5-10 minutes, if I've got the patience. Normally I haven't, or I want to see the page before I die, so I abort it and have another try, which might show me more, or it might show me nothing at all.
It's only just about a practical proposition. It makes it very difficult to read anything on the site, including all your good works, and even these comments.
Thanks for your concern,
Penny
PS I had to hit "Preview comment" five times before it would work this time...
Don't tell me your problems!!!
LOL
Penny, I decided some years ago that I really couldn't afford new computers every
time lighting, or a member of my family, hits mine. when I'm working, and sometimes
that means fixing computers, I will take old parts and computers which the people no
longer want. Of course, from them ,and my limited knowledge, I make up the best computer
I can.
For years, I've wanted a couple of monitors, just to make it easier to have research
stuff open while I write, or to scan information while I'm working. Well! On Friday,
a firend whose computer network I've brought back form the dead several times (seven Tanna
leaves and rosery beads were involved), bought me an LCD monitor to replace the old 90 lb/700 Megawatt unit I'd been using for about ten years.
I broke down last night to finally just put it all together again, mostly so that I can
get rid of all these frick'n parts.
When I joked that I might end up in the burn unit, I was not far off.
So! At least with you it was the internet gods. With me, I pretty much did it to myself.
The little computer Oni who lives behind my motherboard is small, but he has some mighty big teeth and no sense of humor!
Now can anyone tell me why, when you have dual monitors in XP and a sound card that
was designed for windows 98, it is that the sound goes off whenever you move something that
makes noise from one monitor to the other?
Also, there was one small electrical pop, and some smoke... but no fire.
Oh my god...
I will never complain about christmass lights again...
Sarah whatwuzIthink'n Morgan
Seven tanna leaves?
I thought anymore that four leaves and the network, I mean the mummy, starts killing egyptologists left and right?
Good luck, maybe a system restore is in order then update all the main software? Could be as simple as an overly full offline storage file for your brouser, flush that cashe.
Something sounds correupted, you have a virus or a very poor connestion, maybe your cable or a mconnetor to the outside world is damaged?
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Sorry about Hijacking the Blog, Penny.
Okay! Now I get it. I get it.
Microsoft’s system/hardware acceleration settings were
inspired by a dogfight between two rabid pit-bulls. You simply ask windows to do something awesomely cool, like move a window across the conjoined desktop, and it does it by acting like it’s at a thanksgiving dinner between twelve starving
homicidal maniacs just about the time someone throws half a turkey sandwich on the table!
My little 98 year old, peddle-powered, sound card gets bitch-slapped right
out'a-dah-room, as the system acceleration starts shutting down and unloading competing drivers to get a bigger share of system resources….
I knew that.
Who would think up something like this? Even if they would, haven’t wars begun that way?
Well, I seem to be back online, folks. Although I’m not really sure Bill Gates
is the devil, but I’m pretty sure O’le Beelzebub works in their software development area.
Okay! I’m now going to try and play my Vista disk backwards and see what freaking happens! If the world ends, we know!
Nagrom Nnyl Haras
Windows?
No need to apologise, dear, I quite understand. But what is this "Windows" of which you speak? I vaguely remember back in the day, before dot-bust, when idiot managers used to pay me shedloads of money for turning out quality code, that I used something called "Windows". I haven't touched it since. All my kit now runs Linux (well, except for the firewall). And most of it is about as ancient as yours sounds.
As it happens, I have a son who has a Windows XP laptop he's not using (difficult: he's currently in Burundi), so I used that to eliminate the obvious. Didn't make a blind bit of difference :(
Next up is investigating my otherwise excellent firewall box, and also trying to get to grips with Virgin Media, which could prove more difficult.
Ah, well. If life were too easy etc.
Thanks for your concern,
Penny
Sod's Law?
Could somebody who knows, please define Sod's law?
I'm under the impression that it's similar to Murphy's law. Murphy's law has a long history, which, as usual, I have forgotten. It might have started in WWII or in early rocket testing. I think it started out as: If anything can go wrong, it will. One of the first corollaries added was: it will (go wrong) at the worse possible time.
My ex and I bought a little paperback book on Murphy's law and its corollaries; it was mainly humorous. We found, however, that the book was also a jinx. Whose ever car it was in was more likely to have problems or the drive (like driving to work, not the drive train) would have problems or the like. We probably imagined the correlation, but we had fun (it was during the first few years of our marriage) joking about it.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
US rocket sled tests of ejector seats in the 1940s/50s
See The Hackers Dictionary or maybe Wiki.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Murphy was a plagerist
Before there was Murhy's law, there was Finagles laws and Corollaries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finagle%27s_law
The term "Finagle's Law" was first used by John W. Campbell, Jr., the influential editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog). He used it frequently in his editorials for many years in the 1940s to 1960s but it never came into general usage the way Murphy's Law has.
Eventually the term "Finagle's law" was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy
For many of the laws and corollaries see:
see: http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mader/delta/deltoidslist/1998-06/...
John Campbell was himself an engineer, as was my father, who, as far as I know, never knew of Campbell. Yet, my father, who graduated from college in 1937, often spoke of Finagle's Laws by name.
It’s not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we’ll have,
David Weber – In Fury Born
Holly
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Holly
The Goose
I used to hear of the extra bit of tolerance or capacity being figured into a system for when things go wrong as being, "for the goose". Not sure if that is related but Murphy is who you hear about now.
-- Donna Lamb, Flack
Some of my books and stories are sold through Doppler Press to help support BigCloset. -- Donna
-- Donna Lamb, ex-Flack
Some of my books and stories are sold through DopplerPress to help support BigCloset. -- Donna
Sod's Law
Sort of a British thing, I suppose. I take it to read, "everything will work properly until you need it to", or, "yesterday when I needed x, I couldn't find one to save my life. Today, when I don't care about x, there's hundreds of the bloody things".
Get my drift?
The Other Half
I've heard it described as the complement to Murphy's Law or Murphy's as Sod's complement. Not only will everything go wrong in the worst possible way but everything will work perfectly as long as it doesn't matter. :)
In the theater there's a version known as the Dress Rehearsal Curse. If everything goes well at Dress Rehearsal, Opening Night is sure to be a disaster, and vice versa.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Just a shot in the dark
Just a shot in the dark here, Penny, but have you tried clearing your browser's cache? I've known more than one person who suffered through excruciatingly slow page accesses due to their browser having to sift through 30MB of cached data each time.
If it does turn out to be a bloated cache, you might want to change your preferences so that the cache is emptied each time you shut down your browser.
Good luck,
- vessica
The more complicated a system is, the less predictable it becomes.
This is what makes relationships both frustrating and interesting...
Browser cache
Having worked in IT for far too long, although forcibly retired through ill-heath now :( I am naturally paranoid and clear *everything* when I shut down. I understand what you're getting at, though: I've implemented a Squid cache on my firewall to try and keep the throughput down. That gets cleared every night as well.
Another Possibility
Within the edit your profile screen you can manage to a great extent what parts of the site load. Cutting out items you aren't interested in could improve your page load times.
Thanks for the tip.
I did know about that page, since I had to fill it in when I joined, but I forgot about it.
I have no clue about what most of the items in those tickboxes are, but I guessed which ones might relate to advertising and unticked some of those. It does make some difference to page load times especially some of the pages other than the home page. That still proves the big sticking point at the moment (and if I could stick a point in it, I probably would...).
Note to administrators I know the site takes advertising, but as I'm in the UK most of what you put up here isn't terribly relevant, so I don't think you're going to miss out much.
I've been trying to do some network analysis, but it's been a few years and it'll take me some time. My money's still on Virgin Media (my cable company) mucking about with TCP connections for sites they don't like. Allegedly. I think some of the US cablecos tried that stunt recently.
<sigh> I think I've had enough for today. I'm not going to give in, though. Back tomorrow.
Thanks for your concern,
Penny
You're Welcome
Karen J accesses using dial up. I think she has the tick boxes figured out. You might try sending her a PM.
Given that you know what you are doing, it unfortunately sounds like your ISP is going to turn out to be the problem.