[Nick]

Just thinking there are quite a few techies buzzing around this forum, people who either work in the industry (like me) or enthusiast

Would be nice to have a dedicated place to chat, swap ideas and tips and answer questions posed by other non techie members

[johnjohn]

Nick, on 05 March 2012 - 09:53 AM, said:

Just thinking there are quite a few techies buzzing around this forum, people who either work in the industry (like me) or enthusiast

Would be nice to have a dedicated place to chat, swap ideas and tips and answer questions posed by other non techie members

What a good idea......!
This is one that has had me puzzled for ages...if one knows the jargon one might have a clue as to the problem.
Laptop windows7 networked with an HP printer....when using the word processor it will print out with no problems,however if one tries to print out an e-mail it will produce an error message;
'An error occured in the script on this page'
LINE 2053
CHAR 1
Invalid proceedure call or argument
CODE 0
URL RES/LEFLAME.DLL/PREVIEW JS
Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?
YES NO

Another strange e-mail received daily on a different computer on Outlook comes in addressed from a single name,different each day and when opened it only shows a single letter ?
Anyone out there have any ideas

[Nick]

johnjohn, on 05 March 2012 - 15:22 PM, said:

What a good idea......!
This is one that has had me puzzled for ages...if one knows the jargon one might have a clue as to the problem.
Laptop windows7 networked with an HP printer....when using the word processor it will print out with no problems,however if one tries to print out an e-mail it will produce an error message;
'An error occured in the script on this page'
LINE 2053
CHAR 1
Invalid proceedure call or argument
CODE 0
URL RES/LEFLAME.DLL/PREVIEW JS
Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?
YES NO

Another strange e-mail received daily on a different computer on Outlook comes in addressed from a single name,different each day and when opened it only shows a single letter ?
Anyone out there have any ideas

If it was me I would save said email , possibly as rich text format or normal text then print it it sounds like there is some Javascript running on the email possibly someone trying to be a bit cleaver or fancy in email or signature

[stripeycat]

I guess we are (or were) all techies of one sort or another. I suspect that you are thinking HTML experts as you posted in the website improvement forum. If so I would appreciate a local group dedicated to this sort of thing. Maybe the SBS site itself would benefit as the main area is still shot to bits since the hacking episode that occurred way back last year. It’s obvious that the technical issues have defeated the existing team.

It occurred to me some time ago that there must be a wealth of talent associated with this website so maybe if we had some idea of what our specialities are we might just see some mutual benefit.

To get the ball rolling I am a retired military electronics hardware designer.

Nick, you say you work in the industry. I have assumed you mean the electronics industry. Would this be true?

[Nick]

stripeycat, on 05 March 2012 - 18:58 PM, said:

I guess we are (or were) all techies of one sort or another. I suspect that you are thinking HTML experts as you posted in the website improvement forum. If so I would appreciate a local group dedicated to this sort of thing. Maybe the SBS site itself would benefit as the main area is still shot to bits since the hacking episode that occurred way back last year. It’s obvious that the technical issues have defeated the existing team.

It occurred to me some time ago that there must be a wealth of talent associated with this website so maybe if we had some idea of what our specialities are we might just see some mutual benefit.

To get the ball rolling I am a retired military electronics hardware designer.

Nick, you say you work in the industry. I have assumed you mean the electronics industry. Would this be true?

Not in electronics, wish I did as I could probably fix the electronic fault in my Car! I work as a programmer for a bank

I realise my post may have come across as a bit arrogant, I realise most people here have good technical knowledge and there vy few technophobes posting here, just was suggesting a forum where subjects could be techie based, sharing tips etc

[PaulOckenden]

I'm up for it. Specialities include programming, web stuff (although I'm slightly more out of the loop than I like to be, as I have staff that are better at this stuff than I am), online marketing / social media / etc., mobile technology, etc. Basically, a bit of a geek, but one that can take his anorak off and speak English when he needs to.

My LinkedIn profile probably tells the story best.

P.

[Spinalman]

Yep, a techie forum would be a good facility.. although it might be broad in content.

Re: the criticism of the site: please remember that this site was built 7 years of so ago as a hobby. It has grown beyond the original vision, and I think it is fair to say is a splendid example of a not-for profit community website. The history portal alone is unrivalled in depth and features. There are no benefactors, no bailouts by councils, and the only resources that the site consumes is Pete's cash..... and time. A lot.

At the same time Pete has a career and family to think of - he travels widely and (if I may say it for him) has more important demands on his time before he attends to his hobby. For myself, I too have many commitments - and whilst I am a bit of a self taught techie in a few disciplines, I hate joomla with a passion - and will only step into the back office under protest.

We are immensely lucky that Nelson has dedicated so much time and effort to the Site - achieving so much in the last few years - something that other web archives fail to achieve even when they throw £100,000's at their projects.

So it is with a big sigh that we discover some airhead decides to hack us. We are well aware of the damage to the site - we have plans to upgrade Joomla (did I mention I hate Joomla?) and then re-instate the archive. It is in process... but we are strapped for time, and have many demands that restrict what we can achieve. I hope people realise that we are not a commercial organisation that can drop everything to meet a mission statement.

[PeterW]

Spinalman, on 05 March 2012 - 22:56 PM, said:

Yep, a techie forum would be a good facility.. although it might be broad in content.

Re: the criticism of the site: please remember that this site was built 7 years of so ago as a hobby. It has grown beyond the original vision, and I think it is fair to say is a splendid example of a not-for profit community website. The history portal alone is unrivalled in depth and features. There are no benefactors, no bailouts by councils, and the only resources that the site consumes is Pete's cash..... and time. A lot.

At the same time Pete has a career and family to think of - he travels widely and (if I may say it for him) has more important demands on his time before he attends to his hobby. For myself, I too have many commitments - and whilst I am a bit of a self taught techie in a few disciplines, I hate joomla with a passion - and will only step into the back office under protest.

We are immensely lucky that Nelson has dedicated so much time and effort to the Site - achieving so much in the last few years - something that other web archives fail to achieve even when they throw £100,000's at their projects.

So it is with a big sigh that we discover some airhead decides to hack us. We are well aware of the damage to the site - we have plans to upgrade Joomla (did I mention I hate Joomla?) and then re-instate the archive. It is in process... but we are strapped for time, and have many demands that restrict what we can achieve. I hope people realise that we are not a commercial organisation that can drop everything to meet a mission statement.

And I think we are all really grateful ( what is joomila anyway ? )

[Nick]

PeterW, on 06 March 2012 - 15:24 PM, said:

And I think we are all really grateful ( what is joomila anyway ? )

I agree this forum has grown and grown I remember back in it's very beginning when a shout whent out fr local pictures it co-insided with he purchase of my 1st digital camera so must have been a while ago. We now are lucky enough to have a forum and site that larger towns and cities near by can be envious of and would struggle to match. This is is all down to he hard work of a few

Re the hacking of the site is this why a lot of the avatars are wrong and I am getting quite a few extra avatars of Paul O ?

[stripeycat]

Spinalman, on 05 March 2012 - 23:56 PM, said:

Yep, a techie forum would be a good facility.. although it might be broad in content.

Re: the criticism of the site: please remember that this site was built 7 years of so ago as a hobby. It has grown beyond the original vision, and I think it is fair to say is a splendid example of a not-for profit community website. The history portal alone is unrivalled in depth and features. There are no benefactors, no bailouts by councils, and the only resources that the site consumes is Pete's cash..... and time. A lot.

At the same time Pete has a career and family to think of - he travels widely and (if I may say it for him) has more important demands on his time before he attends to his hobby. For myself, I too have many commitments - and whilst I am a bit of a self taught techie in a few disciplines, I hate joomla with a passion - and will only step into the back office under protest.

We are immensely lucky that Nelson has dedicated so much time and effort to the Site - achieving so much in the last few years - something that other web archives fail to achieve even when they throw £100,000's at their projects.

So it is with a big sigh that we discover some airhead decides to hack us. We are well aware of the damage to the site - we have plans to upgrade Joomla (did I mention I hate Joomla?) and then re-instate the archive. It is in process... but we are strapped for time, and have many demands that restrict what we can achieve. I hope people realise that we are not a commercial organisation that can drop everything to meet a mission statement.

Paul my comment regarding the damaged site is a fact; it is damaged. There is no point in seeing it in any other way. If there are technically capable individuals using these facilities who might just be willing to assist then perhaps a technical forum would be a good catalyst to bring that about.

The other facts (not criticisms) are that the security of the site was or is not good enough if it can be destroyed so easily. The lack of backup is a fact which also needs to be corrected.

I make these comments for constructive purposes, not as criticisms. Many people including me have heaped positive praise on the site and all who are involved with it but you have to realise that intentionally or not SBS is the face of Shoreham-by-sea on the internet and it saddens me to see that so much of it is damaged. Could someone who knows what the real problem is put together a couple of lines of text to give the users at least some idea of what is wrong?

[Chavster]

Spinalman, on 05 March 2012 - 22:56 PM, said:

have plans to upgrade Joomla (did I mention I hate Joomla?) and then re-instate the archive.

I`ve been a Joomla developer for nearly 5 years.

Few months ago I moved over to Wordpress, although WP was pretty rubbish as a complex CMS I think especially since V3 its now come into its own. Its faster to develop with, just as flexible and when I hand a website over, far easier to maintain.

Joomla has been good to me, and I`ll allways have a softspot for it, but WP is my light weight CMS of choice now.

[Nelson]

stripeycat, on 07 March 2012 - 14:51 PM, said:

Paul my comment regarding the damaged site is a fact; it is damaged. There is no point in seeing it in any other way. If there are technically capable individuals using these facilities who might just be willing to assist then perhaps a technical forum would be a good catalyst to bring that about.

The other facts (not criticisms) are that the security of the site was or is not good enough if it can be destroyed so easily. The lack of backup is a fact which also needs to be corrected.

I make these comments for constructive purposes, not as criticisms. Many people including me have heaped positive praise on the site and all who are involved with it but you have to realise that intentionally or not SBS is the face of Shoreham-by-sea on the internet and it saddens me to see that so much of it is damaged. Could someone who knows what the real problem is put together a couple of lines of text to give the users at least some idea of what is wrong?

As far as I know both Pete and Paul are out of the country on business at present and although my knowledge of computing and programming is virtually nil, will try to answer as best I can. I believe Pete has managed to fill in the holes in the joomla system through which the hacker attacked and has secured back up for the future. Over 90% of the missing history images have been restored which only leaves a number of the SAS photos and the majority of the Winton Collection to do – it’s just a matter of time.

[stripeycat]

Roger that is excellent news and I am sure that all who use these facilities will be very pleased to see everything running properly again. Thank you for taking the trouble to give an update.

For my part I am very happy to give more thanks and praise to the support team. If the backup system is as bad as I believe it was then the amount of re-work will have been huge and no one enjoys that sort of thing.

Having spent a large part of my career working with high grade secure software and hardware I am aware of the vulnerability of computer systems and although the known holes may now be plugged rest assured that there will be others. The only solution is regular secure backups. This is tedious and time consuming but so is rebuilding a database from scratch.