Travis

Dale's Puzzles and Scroll Saw Goodies is now fixed! Let me know if you run into any troubles.

You can enlarge the picture to get more detail, but when you shrink it down, that detail becomes difficult or impossible to cut. So I'd recommend you to make the picture whatever size you want to cut it. If you're cutting it 8x10, that's what I'd do. If it's 11x14", resize it that way. That way the brush size reflects the detail you can cut with the scroll saw. If you want, you can upload your project file and we can take a look at it to see if there's anything unusual.

There is a way to do it. I think I have to code something in myself. So I need to sit down and figure out how to do that.

Ugg. I guess that one more thing I gotta fix. Scroll Saw Goodies is on the same server as SSV. I'll see if I can get that sorted.

A lot of it depends on your resolution. If I remember right, we set up the document for 150 ppi. I find that 3-5 pixel brush is about the size of a kerf of a scroll saw blade, especially if it's a spiral blade. But it's a good idea to run a few tests with different brush widths to find which one you're most comfortable with. Some folks can cut finer detail, some prefer something a little more forgiving. Just make a few scribbles with each brush size and label them and print it out. Then you can find the perfect brush size for you.

The previous version didn't work like that either. You had to go to their profile to see their first name. I think the best place to put it if you want it on your posts is to have it in your signature as others have suggested. You can set up your signature in your Account Settings.

If you're on the iPhone, in the upper right corner, there's 3 horizontal lines. That's the menu. Click that and a popup menu shows, then select forums. Either that, or you can click the black tag button that shows the forum name or category name. That will back out one level.

Hmm...I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

If you open a link in a new page, you'll have to reload the page to show that the link has been read. So if you're using the Unread Content link, after your refresh that page, the links you have read will disappear. If you're using the Activity feed, the links you read will no longer be in bold. Let me know if it's not working that way for you.

Howdy All. I got notice that the Chat service will be discontinued as of May 1st. The software company is retiring the product and will no longer be available. I don't think it'll impact us too much. Not many people use the service anyway. But I wanted to give you a head's up. Besides, you should be scrolling.

SSV patrons will only see the 3 banner ads at the top. Those are from our website sponsors (we only have 3, the others promote other SSV features/services). The sponsors are scroll saw related. Right now, it's Sheila Landry designs, the Lifter for the DeWalt Scroll Saw, and puzzle patterns from Dale's Puzzles. If you're not a SSV Patron, we do have a few Google Ads to help support the site. I don't have those turned on yet, but they're on my To-Do list. Those are usually on the sidebar, bottom of the page, and after the first post in a thread. There's not too many, but it helps.

I don't think you can delete them. I think they just cycle through now. So new notifications push off the old ones. When you click the Notification's button, you should see the newest ones at the top. Once you look, the pink button with the number should disappear. Let me know if that's not working for you.

Member maps are now working! Link is in the Nav Bar. In the last version, the map was frozen and we couldn't add any new markers. Now it's completely functional again! If you're not on the map, put in a pin to your hometown. It's fun to see where everybody is at. Enjoy!

If you're trying to upload to your gallery, click the User Gallery. Right under the Nav bar, there's two links: Upload To Your User Gallery, and Upload A New Pattern.

I've installed a new feature! Now quotes will only show the first 3 lines. If you want to read the whole quote, you can click the "Read More" link at the bottom of the quote. I've included a quick sample above.

Another quick update. I have the Supporter Badges working again. The upgrade broke the store and you couldn't complete the transaction to buy or renew your supporter badge. I was finally able to get that working again. It is now located in the Shop tab. You can also manage your account there too. It used to be in your Account Settings, but it looks like they moved it. So everything is now accessible on the Store tab. For those of you that don't know, the Supporter Badge is a way to support SSV and offset the costs of running this awesome community. If you choose to become an SSV Patron, you get badge below your Avatar that says Supporter and a special title that says SSV Patron. You get a few other pirks too. The best is it turns off the ads on SSV (except for the banners at the top). Right now there aren't any ads, but I'll be re-implementing them soon. You also get a larger mailbox, more notifications, unlimited albums, unlimited images per album, up to 25 blogs, and that warm fuzzy feeling, knowing you are supporting SSV! You can find more information here. Thanks everybody for your support! I really appreciate it.

I want to thank everybody from the bottom of my heart who used the PayPal Donate button in the sidebar of the forum to throw a few bucks my way. That means a lot. It really helps me offset the costs of running SSV. It makes me feel good to know that people love this community as much as I do. Thank you again. You guys are awesome!

A little update. I think I got some good work done. The login issues seem to be doing better. I hope you are experiencing the same. Let me know if it's still acting up for you. As I mentioned in this post, I'm going to restrict access for guest browsers. This will help our resource consumption and stabilize SSV. If you're logged into SSV, you won't see any difference (did I mention membership is free!?). But if you're a Guest browser, you only have access to certain areas. Here's what I did: Guests have access to read the following forums: Introductions, General Scroll Sawing, SSV News, Help & Feedback. Guests can read topic titles in the rest of the forums. But if they want to read the messages, they'll have to log in. Guests can see recent uploads in the sidebar of the forum. However, they cannot view the image directly. They'll have to log in. Guests can't browse the User Gallery. Guests can see the categories in the Pattern Library, but cannot browse. Guests can't access the Activity feed, Chat Room, or Blogs. As I bring back the other features, I'll decide on a case-by-case basis. I also fixed some Gallery functionality. It should be working the way we want it to. I also put a couple quick links on the top of the Gallery and Pattern Library tab where you can upload either project photos or patterns to the Pattern Library. Gallery also had this strange function where you didn't have to post in an album. I removed that option as well. Off to the next task.

Just for the record, we still allow lurkers. You just have to be logged in to do so.

Huh. I'm going to have to check that out. I like some of those really old designs. Thanks for the tip!

Another neat feature I found, you can tag other members. All you have to do is type the @ symbol, then start typing their name. A popup window will show up with the list of folks with that name. Just click on the person you want to tag. When you post, their name will link to their profile. If you hover over their link, a popup with some basic stats shows up. Plus, they'll be notified that they were tagged in a post. Thanks @wombatie, this is a fun thread. I'm finding stuff all the time.

Check out your profiles. They are much cooler than before. I also turned on a feature where you can upload a cover photo, just like on Facebook. And to step it up a notch, if you have either your Facebook or Twitter account attached, you can set it to automatically update your profile picture and cover photo (depending on which you have set to update). I think that's pretty cool. Plus, you have your regular profile info, your activity feed, your status updates, and your gallery/albums.

If you know Bill Gates, tell him I have a server problem I could use some help with.

Howdy all. Here's a little update of where we are. I've been trying to track down the login issue for the last couple days. What I think is going on is when you click a link, the web server is returning a cached version of that page. When it does that, the cached version does not have you logged in, and may not have the most up to date posts. I found if you click the Ctrl+F5, it forces the web browser to retrieve a new page, not a cached page. It works for me (I'm using Google Chrome and Firefox on PC, and Google Chrome on Mac), but other folks are not having as much luck. So the solution is to have the web server stop cacheing the pages. There's the rub. The hosting company put a restriction on SSV because we're using too many server resources. During this lockdown, a caching system kicks in on the server to save CPU. That, in turn, causes all of our problems with the logins and webpages go haywire. Once we are no longer using too many server resources, the caching stops and I think our login problems go away. That's great! Let's do that! Well, we go back to our original problem: using too many server resources. I thought updating PHP, optimizing MySQL tables, and updating the software would help. While it helps, it turns out it's not enough. So we gotta reduce our load. SSV is a great place. We all know that. We have a great forum, tons of information, and a huge pattern library. As such, lots of folks like to stop by. At any one point, we have anywhere between 40-120 people browsing the website. However, the vast majority of them are not members of SSV. They pop in to read the forums and grab free patterns. As of this writing, we have 100 people online. Only 15 of them are signed in as members. Everybody else is browsing as a guest. Here's the difficult part. When I started SSV in 2009, I wanted to share as much information about this wonderful hobby as I could. Share patterns to anybody who wants them. All of this for free, without registering or logging in. I was really in love with the idea of a free society and wanted to help as many people as I could. That mission worked great, up until last week when we hit critical mass. 85% of our traffic is taking up valuable resources. And the 15% of us who care enough to register for an account and participate in this awesome community are paying the price. That doesn't seem fair. In order for me to bring down the server load so we can get SSV back on track, I have to limit what we can share with Guest browsers. It pains me to do this, but here's what i'm going to do. The Gallery and Pattern Library will no longer be browsable unless you're logged in. I think this will make a big difference on our server load. Guests will be able to see the forums and the topics, but they won't be able to read the topics unless they're logged in. The blogs, chat room and articles will also be for members only too. I'll bring back some of the other pages on a case by case basis. I still want to share information to the general public, as long as it's not taking a toll on the website. Eventually, I'll release parts of SSV to the general public. I still think it's important to serve the whole scrolling community. But we gotta get our house in order first. SSV is still free! You can still register for a free membership. You'll just need to be logged in to access all the great stuff SSV has to offer. If we reduce our server load, the hosting company will lift the restrictions. Once the restrictions are lifted, SSV will operate properly. Once SSV is working the way it needs to, we can continue to share and chat and enjoy eachother's company. And hopefully, everything will be back to normal.

Yah, it's not really fixed. I did a little something to trick the server to generate a new page instead of a cached one. I'm not confident it'll last, though. I think I might have a strategy I'm gunna try. I'm still working out the details and I'll let y'all know sometime this evening.