I just wanted to say thanks for whatever you guys did over the weekend!
The board is running more smoothly and quickly for me than it ever has since I registered. I have not noticed anything lacking to make up for the excellent speed, either. So I just wanted to say in light of all the hullaballoo about searching and what not, THIS poster is incredibly pleased with the changes.
Thanks to the whole staff for all your hard work.
I also am pleasantly surprised. Three big thumbs up!
[sub]Don’t ask.[/sub]
You will. To increase the flexibility of the database and reduce bandwidth demands, we summarily banned over 2,000 usernames, including those of most of your friends…
OW! Who threw that? OK, OK, I’m kidding. Sorry about that.
I was going to start my own thread on this subject, but see that I wasn’t the first to notice.
Holy cow, I am impressed! I usually have no luck getting on the board from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm ET. I can’t believe I’m posting in the mid-afternoon!
(Unfortunately, the SDMB is now available to distract me all day, in addition to all night. How am I ever going to finish my thesis?) 
I’d also just like to chime in that I think the new ‘number of users currently browsing’ thing on the main page is pretty neato schmeato. Thanks.
I can actually get on at lunch time! Indeed an improvement for the better. Thanks! 
I was just wondering about that. I didn’t know if it was new or if I was just so thick that I never noticed before.
That is a feature that is normally turned off. The techs will toggle it on occasionally for short durations when running tests. There’s another portion of that feature that isn’t on now, but is also used intermittently by the techs. It shows, in addition to how many users are currently browsing, the screen names of everyone logged in.
Man, this sucker’s flying. Nicely done, techs!
Just another complimentary voice. It’s CRANKIN’!
We know what a member is (no jokes, please). So what’s a guest? Someone who’s just lurking and hasn’t registered or logged-in yet?
Jerry, tech genius, rigged up the SDMB database so that, as I understand it, the search function (which is quite resource intensive) is offloaded onto … something else. Baby squirrels in the back room, I dunno. Jerry also upgraded the server to 1GB of RAM, so we can now run 125 simultaneous sessions. I notice from the main screen that we seem to be having 150 simultaneous sessions at the moment, but this is the sort of anomaly into which we non-technical types have learned not to inquire. Anyway, things are much improved. Good work.
Exactly.
And as Ed sez, nice work, guys. I think I’ll go move an assload of threads.
And in the EARLY EVENING! <sniff!> This is beautiful, man!
Yer tellin’ me. I can do most of my moderating between work and dinner now. Those weeks of 5AM shifts were wearin’ pretty thin.
Just want to throw my measly $.02 worth of compliments in the pile. Being a database programmer myself, I know how thankless the job can be sometimes. So thanks, guys – this baby is fuckin’ SMOKIN’!!!
I haven’t noticed too much of a change yet but then Im on the other side of the country.
e.g. the page was still loading all through typing the above sentence.
On crack cocaine, even.
handy, your speed experiences with the SDMB and your consequent explanations of them have always been different from those of the rest us. I wouldn’t sweat it if I were you.
I’m very impressed as well.
Is there any change in how we do things we used to do? (Search for old threads, for instance)? I was under the impression that the older threads were going to be archived as read-only (excellent idea) but would still be available to be searched and linked to, is that correct? Will there be a new search option (e.g., “Archived General Questions”), or will the old familiar search routines apply to the archived threads as well?
handy said
Oh! Geez, Jerry. Didn’t you tell them about…what? Oh! I forgot.
Nevermind
(((pssst)))) What day was that gonna happen? I forget.
Great work, Jerry. Thanks.
For anyone who is interested, the ability to access the new faster boards is being done by the number of posts that you have, much in the manner of your tax refund.
Those who have a post count over 10,000 should be able to access the new improved server in the year 2009. Have a nice decade.