New Forums

First, the reason I'm out is because I have a life. I don't have hours to spend on a computer going on forums. However while I'm out, if I happen to have a few minutes while I'm waiting for someone/something, I can read a topic or 2... but thank you for your scathing remarks of superiority (typed sitting at home, I'm sure.. oh the irony).

Second, I'm not asking Jeff to break the site - quite the opposite. I'm trying to help expand the compatability to more than just the "big browsers", many of which will ignore minor errors like if you omit many html closing tags. It may be an obscure "bug", but it's there nonetheless. If my browser were broken, I wouldn't be able to post this reply to you since by Jeff's own admission it uses the same ASP coding on this version. The only difference we've been able to pinpoint is the location of the variable declaration. Even going outside of the scope of coasterbuzz, what if an entity comes along and purchases v8 from Jeff for their own site, and most of their users are using mobile devices? (such as realtors.. a lot of them use windows mobile based devices) They're going to be pretty pissed. If we pinpoint this as the cause, Jeff can pass that along to them as well to fix it, quickly and easily, even if he doesn't implement it on cbuzz v8.

All I'm asking at this point is to TEMPORARILY make a tiny change on the BETA site to see if that is what's causing this. Isn't that what betas are for? To find potential problems and test their resolution? Also, it may be a little selfish, but knowing if that is the cause will help me in troubleshooting in my own work - even if Jeff chooses to disregard the change later. Further, it will help him respond if someone comes along in the future with the same problem like I mentioned above. Instead of saying "I don't know and I don't have a test environment to duplicate it" he can, with certainty, explain it's a known issue and why.

I don't really see that as a huge request.. especially as a club member, twice renewed, at $20 per year. It's not like I'm a freeloader asking the impossible for nothing. If Jeff declines the request, it's up to him - not you. Last I checked this is his site, not yours.

Oh, and did you ever consider the possibility that I hate your precious Opera browser and do not even want to install the piece of junk on my device? Working in PDA/Blackberry level 2 tech suport, did you really think I don't know about other browsers? I've seen it corrupt devices left and right. Countless times I've had to walk customers through wiping the device, and it worked, but as soon as they reinstalled Opera the problems came back (memory issues and connection failures primarily, but only after installing Opera). I haven't had a single call regarding mobile IE.

That was harsh PhantomTails.

Let me put it this way: You're asking me to change something I have no control over, and that there isn't anything wrong with the script as it is. Furthermore, I'm not going to spend time on something for .001% of users. It's a waste of time when there are dozens of other things that need to happen.

This is why I'm reluctant to put stuff like this out there for public testing. Instead of getting the help I need, I get a hundred opinions about architecture and design that aren't helpful.

This isn't an opinion on how you should program.. it's trying to find the source of the bug. If you'd rather not try to find it, fine. As I said it's your choice. Just like it's my choice not to renew when I am not able to access properly because you insist the programming is working properly and don't want to find the bug.

I'm sorry. I thought the purpose of testing was to work out bugs. My apologies for trying to be helpful and find the source of it.

Look, if you're going to wave a twenty in my face to prove a point, I'm not going to take that bait. There is no bug, there's a problem with your device because it doesn't comply to standards that the rest of the world does. You're asking me to fix a problem equivalent to making it work in Netscape 4, and that's not going to happen.

My only point was that once the new forums go live, if that condition still exists, then an upgraded membership would be worthless for me since the majority of the time I won't be able to access the site. Further, fixing it wouldn't be for absolutely nothing. Granted, $20 isn't a lot of money, but it's still more than $0 for a relatively simple thing. It wasn't meant to twist your arm or say you have to do it. Just simply that in this case, the concerned member is one who actually wants to continue paying.

Lastly, just in general, I don't understand why it is such a bad thing to make the site backwards-compatible? Or in this case, mobile-compatible. Especially in an era where there is a strong push of people going towards mobile devices with internet access (and a great majority of them with WM5 devices will be using IE Mobile).

Simple thing? Are you an expert? How many books have you written about ASP.NET? Seriously, let it go. I made my decision, and it's a non-issue.