Ok, here is my take on the situation, I have a 19" monitor, running IE 5.5, when clicking on any thread the ad on the right side of the page takes approximately 1/2 half inch of screenspace, I just ignore it as it does not take enough space to annoy me at all. I also have never experienced any problem with slow typing or any of the other things that have been complained about due to the ads. If you want VDR to stay up & running it's just something that we all are going to have to live with & all the complaining in the world is not going to change it. You all know me well enough that I will do anything in my power to make this site as pleasant experience as possible for all the members, so it would be greatly appreciated if you all could just let it rest. Thank you. BJ
Originally posted by BIG JOHN Ok, here is my take on the situation, I have a 19" monitor, running IE 5.5, when clicking on any thread the ad on the right side of the page takes approximately 1/2 half inch of screenspace, I just ignore it as it does not take enough space to annoy me at all. I also have never experienced any problem with slow typing or any of the other things that have been complained about due to the ads.
Great, just like a few other people above you have no troubles in your particular situation. There's at least 11 of us who do though.
If you want VDR to stay up & running it's just something that we all are going to have to live with & all the complaining in the world is not going to change it.
I just re-read every post in this thread, and I didn't see one where a member asked for all the ads to be removed. A couple suggested ad blockers to get rid of all the ads, but that's it. The complaints here are with one specific ad - the VoiceXML Planet sidebar ad - and more specifically with the time when those white arcs move up the banner. Personally, that part of the animation makes my CPU usage jump to 98% when I just sit there and watch it with Task Manager open.
You all know me well enough that I will do anything in my power to make this site as pleasant experience as possible for all the members, so it would be greatly appreciated if you all could just let it rest. Thank you. BJ
Then please, take it up with the powers that be and tell us that you've done it. I used to be a mod at HWC, and I know all too well how slowly things happen past a certain level, but I think it would make people feel a whole lot better (and definitely make me feel better) if we knew that you'd done everything possible to rattle the cages that would result in that d**n ad being redone in a way that doesn't constitute an intermittent DoS attack on posters. I can accept the ads, but i cannot accept an ad that noticeably slows down my system.
Last edited by Tuttle; August 2nd, 2002 at 10:35 PM.
Amen, Tuttle.
I have a 17" monitor and I run a 800x600 Desktop and the ads take up 2 inches (OK, 1 3/4").
I'm not complaining (too much) about the space, just the way the ad is slowing down typing.
It must be poorly designed. Whoever designed that would probably like to know that it is a problem that needs to be corrected.
Maybe we should all contact VoiceXML Planet and tell them that they should either hire someone else to do their ads, or have the outfit (they probably pay dearly for it) they hired to do the work to clean it up (programming wise).
Ok Ok, the powers that can fix this problem have been notified, have already received a response from the big boss & he says he will take a look at it the first thing Monday. BJ
Originally posted by BIG JOHN Ok Ok, the powers that can fix this problem have been notified, have already received a response from the big boss & he says he will take a look at it the first thing Monday. BJ
Ok I read through this thread, and am a little confused about the problem. Mostly becase I only use netscape (on linux) and this sounds like an ie issue. Witch ad's are causeing the issues now? From the sounds of it, I am thinking that it is all the flash ads. If that is the case witch situations does it happen. I work very closely with the ad people here and I am just tring to anser all there questions befor they ask. So if everyone that is still experanceing this problem post there os/webbrowser and the ad that they think is causeing the problem. Then I will will pass that on to our ad department. They are usaly pritty good about fixing things up.
Morning Byron, from what I have gathered it is the flash ads in the right margin causing all the problems, slow loading of pages, causing delays when members type replies squishing up the screen on some of the members computers & making it very hard to read the threads. This is just to get the ball rolling as im sure the members that are having the problems will ad some more input to this, thanks for your time. BJ
It causes doubling of letters, the space bar ERASES letters to the right, the delete key erases letters to the left, instead of just pulling the text from the right to the left to tighten sentences up....
No, people around here haven't been imagining things.
(For what it's worth, I use WinME and IE6).
Last edited by JoJo Gunn; August 5th, 2002 at 01:13 PM.
Under Win98 IE 5.5 the problem exists but under FreeBSD running mozilla 1.x it runs fine.
The main problem is lag, most likely due to the increased CPU utilization of that portion of the ad. The best summary I can give is:
It is like typing a document over a telnet session when you're connected at 26.4 dialup and the server is at full capacity, 1000 miles away. Basically, if you type over 10WPM the words take several seconds to "catch up" to you.
I should add that these problems happen regardless of the speed of internet connection. Its a problem with the browser/computer itself.
Here are my observations (much is repeating what Tuttle and others have said):
Problem: Reply box becomes slow and unresponsive while typing a message.
Cause: Local computer CPU usage spikes to 100%.
Observations:
1) The VoiceXML Planet banner is the only one causing the problem. Regardless of page location (right side or top), the animation causes CPU utilization spikes. However, the problem is not apparent unless a poster is responding to another post and the ad is on the side. From what I can tell, the ad is never at the top while responding to a post. Also, the CPU utilization increase is not apparent when simply reading and browsing threads so the top banner does not cause the problem. Regardless of whether the problem is apparent, it does exist, in all versions of VoiceXML Planet's ads.
2) CPU usage spikes anywhere between 50-100% while the ad is displaying the animated "wave". While the "wave" is not visible and thus there is no animation, CPU usage returns to its previously low percentage (1-3% on my system).
3) The problem is eliminated when the browser window is minimized, ie cpu usage does not increase even though the animation is [presumably] playing.
4) This problem appears to affect all Windows and IE versions. I personally have tested it on a Win98/IE5 machine and a WinNT4/IE5.5 machine. I have also tested the Win98 machine running Netscape 6.2 and the problem remains. The win98 machine's CPU spikes to around 80% while my NT machine spikes to 100%. No problems found on machines running Linux or BSD. I have been unable to test a Macintosh.
5) All other animated ads appear to be GIFs and do not pose a problem. The VoiceXML Planet ad appears to be the only one written with Flash (version 6 in this case).
6) Mentions of erratic keyboard behavior are directly related to a momentary and immediate increase in CPU utilization.
7) Mentions of the ads taking up too much space are beyond the scope of this problem. They are in no way related.
Conclusions: The VoiceXML Planet advertising was probably incorrectly created. I am not sure if the issue is with Flash 6 in particular, perhaps an incompatibility with Windows. However, seeing how widespread the problem is, I hypothesize the ad is not optimized and was simply made incorrectly and/or without regards to CPU utilization.
Recomendation: Contact VoiceXML Planet to inform them of the problem with their advertising. Allow them to correct the advertisement and supply a more optimized version. If they fail to do so, prohibit them from using Flash animation and if they fail to comply, stop running their adverts.
(Not that anyone asked my opinion, just had to through this all in there )
"Sad. In some ways, everybody has lost because VirtualDr allowed an obnoxious, disabling ad, and kept it long after complaints. Poppy4 no longer sees the ad, VirtualDr no longer gets the revenue, and the rest of us risk not having VirtualDr around.
Is there a lesson here?"
Jim
WIN7 Ultimate SP1 64bit, IE 11, NTFS,
cable, MS Security Essentials, Windows 7 firewall
I am the customer, and the customer is King. That is, except at Virtual Dr. If we rightly complain we're told to "live with it", or go elsewhere, or be shouted down by the groupies who see no wrong.
Back when this was the only board i attended, (heck it used to be the only place i would go on line) I noticed the system slow down over that ad, and i also reinstalled. It need to be done anyways i was installing linux at the same time.
By the way, it is not Macromedia 6 that is the problem. Take a look at my page (link in signature) and all that was built by me with Macromedia 6.
Thanx to everyone how got that taken care of, very much appreciated!!! Now we can resume normal speed
V.P. Q; What are elephants for?
A; For making water holes for other animals.
Q; What are Koalas for?
A; To keep Eucalyptus trees from taking over the planet...
Illegitemi Non Carborundum - don't let the bastards grind you down...
"While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold
that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful." - H. G. Wells _Junker :>)
Yeah, they're back, and the spikes too. So far I haven't seen it on a reply page. It's only a matter of time, though.
I just went into the control panel, and took out Flash completely. All I see is a white space where the "ad" is. Pages load so much faster now.
If a businessman was smart, he wouldn't want to alienate his customers by throwing that exact same "ad" back up there. The wise thing would be to replace it with something static. Hey, but what do I know?
Last edited by JoJo Gunn; August 15th, 2002 at 07:58 AM.
I suggested an alternative early in the thread. Tools|Internet Options|Security tab|click Custom level| change all the ActiveX settings to Prompt (except those "not signed" can stay at Disable).
The downside is that when you enter a page with the offending ad, you have to click the box "No" when asked if you want to run ActiveX. But this way you can see the ads and that should keep VirtualDr happy. The ads just won't throb.
Jo Jo Gunn--Probably why you have had no problems on a Reply page is that the bad ad does not run there. Probably just lucky. BIG JOHN--What happened? Thought this was all cleared up to everyone's satisfaction a few weeks ago. Hard to believe this is being allowed to happen again after all the hue and cry.
Last edited by Welshjim; August 15th, 2002 at 03:42 PM.
Jim
WIN7 Ultimate SP1 64bit, IE 11, NTFS,
cable, MS Security Essentials, Windows 7 firewall
Originally posted by Welshjim BIG JOHN--What happened? Thought this was all cleared up to everyone's satisfaction a few weeks ago. Hard to believe this is being allowed to happen again after all the hue and cry.
Since im a remote administrator & have nothing to do with what goes on at the internet.com offices I have no idea what happened, why dont you send Byron Albert a pm & ask him. BJ
I had noticed it on a particular ad, but it comes up so infrequently that I can't pinpoint which one it is - I think it is a Microsoft one but I couldn't be sure - it has these wiggly lines at the top and bottom that are constantly moving.
When those 'white' lines move up that Voice XL ad, things do slow down. If I move the scroll bar on the right up and down, it goes smoothly until that ad starts flashing and then it moves jerkily until those white bands stop.
Although it does't bother me much, I am just amazed how poorly that ad is constructed.
Doesnt' say much about the that ad design company.
PS: I am running a Cel366 @ 550. Pretty slow this day and age.
Ok no sooner had I posted my reply than the Voice XML ad at the top of the page was displayed and ........guess what !!!
A simple test was to place the cursor in the address bar and hold down the 'a' key, as soon as the wavy lines began to display, the repetition of 'a' slowed down.
In fact it varied depending on how many lines were displayed etc.
As I don't know much about MMFlash5.0 I coudln't say if it is bad usage by the VoiceXML programmers or bad programming by the MM people.
The problem is no where near as noticable as the ad on the side was, ie it doesn't physically stop the typing, but it's a slow down none the less.
As Ned Kelly (famous Australian Bushranger) supposedly said before he was hanged.
WelshJim, what I meant was that I haven't seen the "ad" on the reply page yet, (though it won't surprise me in the least if it soon appears). On other pages I have seen two "ads" at once several times already.
Speak of the Devil. I do an edit, and I see the blank space on the right side. I'm so ashamed of myself and my solution now. For all I know I'm missing out on the fun....
And don't expect any help from Macromedia. Read this for an example. Yeah, it's about Windows NT, but you'll see....
Amost a year to date since my last post on this thread and now it's the HP ad at the top of the page (with all the people walking about) causing slow typing
But here's the kicker it's only if it's visible on the screen, if I scroll so it's not visible, it doesn't slow down.
Nix may not be alone in his troubles, but I've not had such a problem on my end. I'm on dialup... maybe it's due to the route the board comes to you on? Or maybe Nix, you've been posting too much, take a break.
"Dreams are born in your heart and in your mind, only there can they ever die." - Art Berg
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Champion.
Or maybe Nix, you've been posting too much, take a break.