Forum News

[RoamingGnome]

@Eugen I didn't notice any spam posts before, so you've been doing great Hopefully this will make your workload a little easier.

[myerslawnandgarden]

That's pretty interesting Eugen, does Google charge for that service?

Everyday I'm more amazed what current technology can do and more worried about how much is monitored about us and our actions.

Bob

[Eugen]

@RoamingGnome I check each account manually so they got deleted and banned before they could start spamming us.

@myerslawnandgarden it's not a paid service. The amount and details of what is being continuously recorded about each of us is huge. Inside google there are levels upon levels of security, actual access to that data is very restricted. However, various algorithms do have "analysis" type access. Also, if push comes to shove, various gov entities can get access. It's the price we pay for using the services. Old news, really. The moment you get a mobile phone and/or use simple services on the internet, you basically agree to being tracked. What they can do with this data it's another story though; mostly nothing, I guess, unless you are important. I somehow revel in knowing I'm a nobody and whether I take a leak on the side of the road or not is inconsequential to the powers to be.

[myerslawnandgarden]

I see, that makes sense Eugene. Is that a part of Google Analytics? Our web host is encouraging us to enable it.

As everyone has pointed out, you have done a great job, I don't think I've ever noticed a spammer either.

Bob

[Harry]

@RoamingGnome I check each account manually so they got deleted and banned before they could start spamming us.

@myerslawnandgarden it's not a paid service. The amount and details of what is being continuously recorded about each of us is huge. Inside google there are levels upon levels of security, actual access to that data is very restricted. However, various algorithms do have "analysis" type access. Also, if push comes to shove, various gov entities can get access. It's the price we pay for using the services. Old news, really. The moment you get a mobile phone and/or use simple services on the internet, you basically agree to being tracked. What they can do with this data it's another story though; mostly nothing, I guess, unless you are important. I somehow revel in knowing I'm a nobody and whether I take a leak on the side of the road or not is inconsequential to the powers to be.

I noticed men taking a leak on the side of the interstate on my way home over the weekend. I made sure I brought it to my wife’s attention while she was playing games on her I phone. Hey, look at that. Harry

[Eugen]

I see, that makes sense Eugene. Is that a part of Google Analytics? Our web host is encouraging us to enable it.

No Bob, it's not part of Analytics. It has a separate web page, you go to this address

https://www.google.com/recaptcha/

and there's a little procedure to do, it gets somehow associated with your Google account. You can "hook" multiple websites that you own to that using the Recaptcha Admin Console which you will see on that link. The forum software had the mechanism for adding this built in, but still I had to generate a key for the site in the admin console. There are instructions on the procedure easy to find if you google "google recaptcha v3 instructions". I can tell you that so far I'm glad I turned it on for our forum.

@Harry

[Eugen]

Well, this morning when I woke up and checked our forum the hour glass was turning and turning and no response. Seemed to be dead. Had a look at our site provider and the virtual machine on which the forum is running was simply turned off. This is the 3rd or 4th time this happens, so i opened a support ticket with the provider to investigate. I mean, why or who turns off our machine? We will find out.

[ras101]

Thanks for the update Eugen.. I think there were a few of us wondering what was happening. For me I was trying to access my PM's to get the home address for Harry as I was visiting and already on my way.. Harry and I worked it out and a great catch up session.

BTW. Harry's GT collection is to die for!

[JSinMO]

@Eugen I know it’s an aggravation. I appreciate you taking care of us!

[Eugen]

They say it's not something they did, but maybe our server crashed from too much memory usage. Oh well, our server has 1G of RAM and is using constantly around 700MB, so I suppose if it did need more it just crashed. That sucks, because moving to a server with more memory is a lot more money and we don't have that. I'll just try to optimize the usage somewhat.