TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Colin,

You have provided this forum on the web and it has 1173 people registered on here either to glean information, learn about certain musicians and their music, or have a pint of virtual ale in the most convivial of circumstances. For all this you should receive high praise!

Why did you do it?

So it's the easy questions first.  :-\

How did I get involved in this? I was the victim of a series of accidents.

The big mistake was sending a fax to Peggy, asking where I could buy David Hughes CD's (in 1996). This directly lead to me being involved in the release of David's next CD. (50 Yards of...). Then David went on the winter tour with Fairport. So I got involved with that bunch of ne're- do-wells, at about the time that the official Fairport web site collapsed. So I took that on.

Faced with unreliable ISP's I decided to do it all myself and run my own servers, directly on the web. So this gave me industrial strength access, that the web sites barely scratched.

Then I discovered YaBBse (Yet Another Bulletin Board) so set that up. It quickly grew and with the introduction of 'The Corporation Arms' (David again), became the phenomenon that it is. The success is also largely due to the Glo-Balls, who were selected using the late night beer method and have turned out to be an inspired choice.

Fortunately it's all running on servers, that are allowed 2TB of bandwidth a year. So it can be run professionally, with no adverts, pop-ups, or other nuisances, that have been the death of many a board.

Well that explains how, but not really why. More beer methinks.

Colin how much of your time does running the Board take each day??

Amy

Seriously Colin, how often do you think "WHY am I doing this?'. I DO know there's an awful lot of work goes into running the board: a lot of hassle and little reward.

Basically, therefore,...are you mental? ;D ;D ;D

Carey

I've no idea. It's just one of the things that's open on one of my computers. Some times I'll check it and tinker with it all day. Other days I don't. Some times I'm in Spain for a week and nobody notices.

I notice! That's usually the time when things go wrong and we don't know how to fix them  :-[

Colin,

Exactly what is the equipment you use to run the board & how easy was it to set up?

How much looking after does it take?

Colin

Quantum Physics. Any ideas ?

It runs on several Sun Cobalt RaQ servers (Linux). The main board is on a rented machine in Carany Wharf. This was chosen because it is relatively cheap, for high bandwidth (1TB/year), but does have very poor support. There are a total of five other servers, in two locations, doing everything else (including DNS). As soon as I can get SDSL, I'll be hosting all my own servers.

All of this isn't difficult to set up, just time consuming. Nick has commented on the number of parameters needed to configure the boards software. This is run on a program called 'Simple Machines'. This runs using two applications called PHP and mySQL. These use a web-server program called Apache, which runs under Linux.


It would take a lot less time, if I didn't tinker with the servers, quite as much.

Hi Colin

What do you do when you're not looking after the board?

And which is your favourite part of it?

Ta
C

Thanks Colin,

Here's another.....What happens to the people who have registered but never post or have never revisited the board?

Are they deleted after a set time or are they just left as is?

I am a designer of bespoke electronics. Mostly industrial control systems and occasionally consumer stuff. I've been self employed for 25 years and am probably totally unemployable.

I also take a lot of holidays.

The board hasn't been going for that long.
I do occasionally have a clear out of the very obvious ones. So far about 100 have been deleted.

Colin, how do you record radio programmes to MP3? Stream conversion? Clever tool?

It's recorded directly from the fibre optic output on my DAB receiver, into my PC.

Colin. can you get me samanthas phone number please?

   Foxy mentioned,in the computer advice thread,a thing called freecorder that enables you to record directly what plays through your speakers.Had a quick look..... haven't tried it yet but it sounds very handy!  ;)

http://www.talkawhile.co.uk/yabbse/index.php?topic=5426.0

Colin,

You're doing a great job mate but....(don't you hate  >:( it when people start sentences with that)...

Can you do anything about the spell checker? It would be good to add the work "Cropredy" at least - and ther's probably more.

Thanks

Steve

how about: word and there.
 just for steve's sake

After much scratching of heads, it's not that easy. The program isn't designed to allow people to add to the dictionary and although there are instructions for adding custom dictionaries, they are all in advanced geek-speak. Maybe one day, if I'm really bored.

Colin I know you did explain this once, but I've forgotten and I would guess others may like to know... what does
                                ph34r my l33t skillz

Mean/stand for/symbolise???

Amy (the intrigued) :o

So how did you manage to set up filtering for Maldon and m********n Crescent? Is that something different?

cheers

Ooh, Maldon works! Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon, Maldon...

That's the Censored Words function. Easy to use and maliciously powerful!

It's meant for stopping swear words but I must admit, it's hard to resist the temptation to censor other things, such as errant board members' user names!  :o  ;D

Cheers

Nick

I can't find the exact reference either. It's a joke about 'hackers at the dawn of time'. Writing misspelt words with numbers, used to be a geek thing, then it was a joke, now it's ironic. A very popular port number to hack computers was 31337 (=> eleet => elite). Cool  :-
So 'Fear my elite skills' is a reference back to the good old days, of The Cult of the Dead Cow and Wasteland.

It's about time I changed it.

There is a spell checker  ??? Where is it  ??? Why don´t I use it  ???

Yep.

When you're somewhere where you can type a message (e.g. 'Post Reply' or 'Send Message' pages) there will be a Spell Check button next to the Post and Preview buttons.

Why don't you use it?

Well, probably because being a native German speaker you really don't need to... As is the case for most Germans I know, your written English is already far superior to that offered by most British people!   :-[   ;D

Cheers

Nick

Colin,

I've only recently discovered 'general statistics' which tell me where I've been lurking, posting etc. 
I suppose each person's stats are just of interest to themselves but do you use them in any way, perhaps as a whole, to manage the board?

Is there other stuff about us that you know and we don't ? - not that I'm paranoid or anything :D

Happy Bday the other day btw

Oh! You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not spam,
I'm telling you why:
Colin the Mod is watching the board!

He's making a list,
Checking it twice,
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Colin the Mod is watching the board

He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake.
 He knows if you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!

Oh! You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not Spam,
I'm telling you why:
Colin the Mod is watching the board!

 ;D

I think Andy's ditty's answered my question  ;D

A new question for Colin:

Pinhoe - rat or hamster?

And who's looking after him?

And is it him who's eating the sensible bits of my posts?

I think I should be told
(Or possibly not)

(He's very sweet anyway)

Jude

Pinhoe is on an account called 'Colin Testing'. I use it to log on, so that I can see how the board looks, without administrative functions enabled.

He's a rather suave west country rat. The name was chosen after that well known straw chewer Steve Knightley, joined the board  on as Topsham, which is a suburb of Exeter. Pinhoe is a rather more select village, just outside the city. I lived there, until I was drawn to the bright lights of Guildford.

Nice one Mr Leslie  O0

Dear Colin...  I'm confused...  I can't work out what this is for.... ^-^ AZN???

Please put me out of my misery....

Amy

I can answer that.

It's for adorning and decorating posts, much like the other smileys only slightly different. To me he looks asleep, having an interesting dream...

Cheers

Nick

Colin -
1) Do I need to check the FC site out periodically, or will I be told here as a matter of course if anything happens or gets updated, in which case I can simply follow the handy link provided? (thanks btw).
2) There are other FC sites available. How do you all get on? Any cross-pollination?
3) Apart from the Folk Gnu, do The Chaps pay much attention to what goes on here?
4) Describe David Hughes in five words.
Thanks for your time.
Skirky

Yeah - go on Colin - dare you!  ;)

Colin says: I'm working on it. Three words so far, but it can take all day, to make one work sing.

Hughes 5 words...

He believes he can fly :)

Just ask him to confirm it :)

It's been nice knowing you mate  :o  What do you prefer - flowers or money to your favorite charity?  ;)

The web sites are really only there for official pronuncements and selling merch. The interresting stuff always seems to be posted here first and it's much more fun. However as fairportconvention.co.uk (http://www.fairportconvention.co.uk) gets over 600 unique visitors a day, I assume somebody is interrested.

The best Fairport web site is at Musikfolk - "Expletive Delighted" (http://www.musikfolk.co.uk). They have got the answer to every question about Fairport's past.

I know that Peggy and Ric both keep an eye on things.


 :D 8) ??? ::) ;)

Bottle job!

Not really because:
a) You don't mess with words, around Mr Hughes. He's got a black belt in lexicography.
b) I got my chestnuts roasted, answering one too many questions, yesterday.

Cheesy, Cool, (can these two go together?), Huh, Roll Eyes, Wink. Yep, that's him!

Colin;
I always come in through the 'favourites' entrance. Does it help your (our) google rating if I do a search every time instead?
Regards
SK

Colin,

How does the system of local moderators work? Are they volunteers, press ganged or appointed? Are their computers linked to yours? Also, how do I delete a previous login name & email I have never used? I signed up ages ago from my home computer and forgot my password!.  :) :)

Glad it's not just me then who forgot their password and had to log in under another name! I've asked exactly the same question! Do we have a funeral for them?!  ::) ???

I don't know. Some people eh? Forget their own heads if they weren't tied on at the neck!

Good job we're not a bank... Actually I wonder how much money is tied up in accounts to which people have forgotten details, passwords, etc  ???

Regarding the rogue accounts, we can leave them or we can delete them, it won't make that much difference. If they're left they'll drift off into obscurity anyway.

Actually, deleting accounts tends to make a mess if there were posts attributed to them so It's probably better if they're just left - reminders of other lives perhaps!

cheers

Nick

All of this site is written in PHP and if you look at the address bar, you will see that you are always accessing a single page, called index.php
This does cause the search engines some grief and means that we have a lowly rank, considering the popularity of the site.

What would help the most, is if you add hyperlinks to TalkAwhile, whenever you mention us, in other forums, or on web sites.

Searching and following the link to here helps a bit, but mustn't be done too often.

Thanks for the thought  :)

Thanks Nick.

Now I'm a rogue account at home I can start posting and replying to myself. If you were a bank, could you lend me a fiver till Friday?


Barry says:  tidied up the formatting

That wouldn't be the first time someone ended up talking to themselves on this board  ;)

Colin,
There appears to be a plethora of teachers on this board, does the number of postings increase during the day in the school holidays?

Is plethora the correct collective noun for teachers?

If there is a pattern in accesses to this board, I can't spot it. It used to be very Fairport dependent (Cropredy and Wintour), but that effect seems to be diminishing.

The only pattern I can detect is that it is generally quieter at the weekends with about 30% fewer people logging on on saturdays and sundays.

So, either people have more interesting stuff to do at the weekends  8) or they're sneekily using the office computer to browse the boards in working hours  :o

Cheers

Nick (currently at work  :-[ )

I tend to visit while I'm supposed to be planning etc - to relieve the boredom (& we won't mention lunch breaks when I'm supervising kids 'kept in'!!


only pattern I can spot is that whenever I log in, everyone seems to have gone!!  :'(

 I know what you mean !
I suppose I ought to keep more regular hours,really   :(

Maybe my hours are too regular, just the wrong ones! :(

Colin, I got a 'page cannot be displayed' when trying to access Talkawhile this evening.  This lasted for about 15mins.  Is this because you were carrying out maintainance?

Ana

The database that runs the whole server (not just TalkAwhile) went wrong and killed all the email accounts. I had to shut things down, while I fixed it and re-booted. It didn't take long to fix and no data lost.
However I am planning to move everything, to a more modern server, on a more reliable connection, within the next few weeks.

Interesting - we've had big e-mail problems at work for the past 2 days - seems to be a national problem.

Wonder whether ther's any connection (or not - if you see what I mean).

As far as I can see, a whole load of people (200+) established connections to download a file and then did nothing. I don't know why this upset my server.

This has happened a few times, over the last week or so, but this is a remote machine, so it's difficult to monitor.

Colin, with all the potential, and actual, things that can and do go wrong when running your own server, I'm suprised (but very glad) that you have the time and energy for the board.

Thank heavens for techies!

Ana

Those of us who can't even hit a reply button without buggering it up will echo that.