IPSND RSS News Feed

Updated new submission rss feed

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:49:00 GMT

The original feed only showed the top 25 feeds. After using this for awhile, it was a little annoying actually since somedays there are quite a few submissions and I was missing them in the feed and had to go back to the statistics page to see the rest. Anyway, I changed the list to show the last 100 submissions instead based upon that reasoning. Plus, since some nudgers are now using this feature, you can also adjust the feed URL to only show submissions with photos (http://www.ipsnd.net/submissions.rss?photos=1). I will be adding some more functionality to all the feeds over the coming weeks that allow better versatility on getting what you want to see. If you have any specific suggestions, let me know. thanks.

New RSS Feed

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:55:00 GMT

I just created a new RSS feed that shows the latest submissions on the site. I did this so that with my handy Windows 7 sidebar, I can subscribe to the feed and see what is going on pretty easily from work or where-ever. I also thought it would be handy for those 'super-nudgers' that keep watch for submissions with nudge-ready photos. The info is on the RSS Page and the direct link to the new RSS channel is http://ipsnd.net/submissions.rss

Network Migration Completed Strikes Back!

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:42:00 GMT

Looks like Qwest didn't quite have things set up correctly as my static IP started changing on me. Some of you may have been unable to reach the site over the course of the past 2 days. They fixed my account and I have just updated DNS again to the new hopefully static IP address. Things should smooth out in the next 24 hours. They also informed me that my 40Mb/s line is only set up for 12Mb/s so I will see if I can get that put back where it should be tomorrow. Since my connection is VDSL2 rather than ATM, I should have upload speeds around 10Mb/s (which is download speeds for you)... that is 10x faster than I had in Laramie.

Network Migration Completed!

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 01:45:00 GMT

If you are reading this, then the migration of the site from Laramie, WY to Fort Collins, CO has been successful. I am now running on a Qwest VDSL2 connection with a theoretical speed of 40Mbits/second down (up for you) and 20Mbits/second up (down for you). That is a pretty hefty improvement over what I had up in Laramie with ATM DSL so we will see how it goes. If you notice that the sites is better (or worse!), drop me a line and let me know.... Im curious to see if this connection is actually any better. Thanks... jess

Submission Page Updates

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 07:27:00 GMT

I added a little new logic to the serial number submission page that dynamically checks the serial number against any defined serial number masks in the database. If the submission doesn't match, you get a little more information right up front rather that not knowing until after you submit the serial. I also fixed some dumb typos on the Game Part submission page and added some links to the reasoning behind not associating game parts with a specific game.

A couple milestones...

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Thu, 27 May 2010 01:43:00 GMT

Looks like while I wasn't paying attention, that we crossed the 17,000 serial mark and also 4 Million Visitors on May 15th. I have been working on a few new charts that show the trendlines for both of these metrics since the site started, they are unusually constant which I didn't really expect to see. I should get them up here in the next few weeks into the regular statistic charts.

Whew, that was a long one...

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Sat, 08 May 2010 15:01:00 GMT

We had a pretty massive wind storm here on Thursday night and lost power for about 8 hours. My database server didn't come back up after that little downtime incident (looks like the motherboard is the issue), so I had to transfer to the database over to a different machine and get everything configured. Things will run this way for a few weeks and then Im planning to move to a virtual environment which will make servers a little more manageable (I think!). Everything *should* be up and running now. Let me know if you run into any issues. Thanks.

See you at the Showdown!!!

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 05:08:00 GMT

Don't forget to swing by the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown from Friday-Sunday this weekend in Golden, CO. Dan and Holly put on a great show and there are lots of unique games slated to show up this year!!!! I will be giving a presentation on the Internet Pinball Serial Number Database on Saturday @ 4PM to go over features and get feedback from all you!!!

Account Bug Fix

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:05:00 GMT

Fixed a small issue where accounts that were locked out due to too many invalid passwords couldn't be re-enabled via the automated system of emails. I also had a fairly entertaining postfix mail server issue on April 15th due to ClamAV disabling their daemon if the version was too old. That is the problem with Linux, it works so well that you never really have to touch the box.... who knew it had been on and functional for 3 years without a reboot!!!

Small GUI Update and a Bug Fix

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:50:00 GMT

The statistical charts that show on the right have classically been .jpgs for maximum compatibility. Being that Google Analytics is showing that over 95% of you have Flash installed, I changed them into .swf format now. The one nice thing this give is that the data points can now have a URL associated with them. So for instance, most of the bar charts are now clickable on the bar and will take you to the page for that member or game. I will keep trying to enhance these little graphs more in the future too.

Also, I fixed an issue with the Affiliate pages that was causing an odd error on sites that linked to the 'real time IPSND data grids'. If anyone is still having any issues, send me an email and I will take a deeper look.

IE Fixes

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 07:07:00 GMT

I fixed some issues with the login form (upper right corner) that was preventing IE 7 + 8 users from being able to just hit the 'Return' key for logging in. The old form always seemed to work for Firefox users but for IE 7 + 8, you would have to explicitly click on the login button. Either way, this should now be fixed so you IE users shouldn't be as confused anymore. :-)

New Site Security Roles Defined

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:06:00 GMT

It has become apparent over the last year that some users would really like to help participate in the site in various areas. I didn't have a lot of security driven functionality outside of one superuser (me) and then members having access to their own info. I have created three new security roles and assigned some users into those groups based upon conversations I have had. The two new roles are 'Mask Moderator' which allows a user to create, edit and delete any serial number mask in the database. The next one is a 'Serial Snooper' and this role allows the user to edit and/or delete any serial submission in the IPSND. The final one is a typical 'Administrator' and allows the user to do user maintenance, assign roles and run Synchronizations with the Internet Pinball Database. If you are interested in learning about these roles and their responsibilities drop me an email.

Development Tasks added

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:19:00 GMT

I added a new main menu item called 'Development Tasks' that shows the current queue of stuff that I am trying to work on and what I am planning on working on in the near or not-so-near future. The idea is that members can submit topics here and if they cut the mustard, they will go onto the development list. There have been some great topics coming up about deeper questions on how the IPSND should interpret and collect data and hopefully those lead to more insight and more development on my end.

Skin Updates

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:45:00 GMT

I deployed new code today that has the newest version of Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX this morning. So, some of the grids look a little different at this point. My goal is to soon give members the ability to choose their skin in the member preferences which would allow members to customize the way the IPSND looks for them. The 'big picture' goal is to take this to the point where even the background images can be selected by category... so for example, a member might select 'EM Games' as their preference on backgrounds, and so they would only get older EM games showing for their random backgrounds.

Silverlight Experimentation

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:53:00 GMT

I am starting to experiment wtih Silverlight as there are several areas where some client side processing might work better and to be honest with you, I don't like Javascript. :-) Right now, the top logo is built with Silverlight and so in order to see the logo at all, you will need Silverlight installed. I will be working on fixing the logo to be 'Non-Silverlight' compatible this week again. So... what does this fancy new Silverlight logo do for you? Well... not much. However, you if you rotate your mouse wheel upwards when hovering over the logo, you can cycle through some random colors. The color you leave it on, is the color that it should remain on the entire site forever (I think), so pick a nice color and enjoy. I will get the default color set back to the Yellow that it used to be rather than the ugly red that is currently there!!!!!

10,000 Nudges

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:39:00 GMT

We have had a total of 10,000 nudges in just under 1 year since I added the Nudging feature. It has been interesting to see how the submissions started getting photo's attached more often now that nudging can directly affect the scoring of a submission. We will see how the new commenting feature works for nudging over the coming year. Just to mark a milestone the current leading member of nudges is 'King of Pinball' who currently has 925 nudges.

Nudge Comments Added...

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:01:00 GMT

One more quick feature for the evening before I start to do 'real' work. I added the ability for members to add a comment to their nudges in the main nudge queue. You can also see all the other nudges that exist with their score and comment for comparison purposes before you vote. I added this because on some of the more controversial nudging threads, I really couldn't see why some people voted a certain way. Even tho it is optional, maybe this will allow members to 'vent' along with their vote! Have fun!

Bug Fixed in Submission Form plus Nudge Counter improved

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:39:00 GMT

I fixed a bug in the submission edit form that was changing the submission type (Full Game, Body Only, Head Only or Game Part) when you would edit any GamePart. The bug was changing the type from a Part submission to a 'Body Only' submission. John Vorwerk noticed this issue on his submissions... thanks John. Another change I made today was with the Nudges Remaining counter in the member stats box. This number was updating every 15 minutes just like the rest of the stats and was a bit misleading especially if you were in the process of nudging a bunch of serials and the box still said you had X number of nudges remaining. Im working on getting the entire stats engine to be realtime rather than batch processes every 15 minutes. The process is time consuming just because the counters require queries that span about 15 tables and as the site grows, these tables only get bigger and hence take longer to execute.

Statistics Fixed

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:20:00 GMT

When I deployed that last 'upgrade' several of the other statistics pages broke due to a ViewState issue. I have fixed the issue and the stats should all be feeling much better now. More stats to come soon!! Keep watch!

Manufacturer Listing Bug Fixed...

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:47:00 GMT

Looks like the page showing games lists by manufacturer had a bug in it that excluded games without any serial submissions. This came to light due to a question from Jay Stafford about Alvin G. and Company serial numbers and their formats. For these games being fairly new, we definitely don't seem to have many serials registered so far. Out of the 12 games manufactured, there are only serials for 5 of those games. If you have any Alvin G. games, please register the serials so we can start to understand the formats for these games. One item of distinction is that these games sometimes have both a 'serial number' and a 'cabinet number', please register the 'serial number'!

Statistics Update

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:49:00 GMT

I just added two new statistics to the stats page that show top submitters by total points and top members by most nudges. I am in the process of overhauling the stats page and the engine behind the statistics to make it more accurate. There is actually a bug in the statistics engine that a few of you have pointed out to me and I have known about it, but just didn't have the time to get it fixed. Since Basil LeBlanc is now moving up the charts so strongly, I should get it fixed as it will not give him credit for several rankings. In the past, it only affected me since I had so many points, so I didn't mind. :-)

Site Downtime

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:00:00 GMT

The site was down today for 4-5 hours while I played around with some hardware issues. I thought I would improve the server a bit today by adding some more memory and it all fell apart from there.... after reboot, none of my network interfaces existed and they just wouldn't come back. I threw in a temporary one and it worked fine, so we are running on auxilliary NIC right now. I should be able to get this resolved today still. My apologies for any interruptions if you get booted from the site. Thanks for the patience.

3,000,000 Visitors!!!

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:54:00 GMT

Looks like we crossed the 3 million visitor mark earlier today. Thanks everyone for your support, the serials are pouring in at a faster rate than ever before!!

IPDB Synchronization

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:53:00 GMT

I just finished a fairly large database synchronization with the IPDB that included about 600 database updates. I try and synchronize with those guys every now and again to keep my database up to date with all the great info they collect. Overall, the IPSND gets the game name, manufacturer, manufactured date, mpu type, game type, abbreviations, production run and associated flags. Without the excellent quality and data normalization of the IPDB, this entire process would be much more difficult. Thanks again guys!

Photo's Photo's Everywhere!

webmaster@ipsnd.net — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:31:00 GMT

Just an update on the serial number photos... since this feature was rolled out in Feb 2008, we have collected over 1000 photos of serial submissions. That is about 1 in 4 submissions that have an attached photo. This is pretty damn nice and I appreciate all you that are taking the extra effort to get that camera into sometimes difficult positions and lighting situations to grab that high quality photo. In addition, our average nudge balance is 2 positives for every 1 negative nudge so that means the photo quality is also edging much better than it is worse. I thought these numbers were interesting enough to share with everyone... thanks all... keep the photos coming!