PLEASE READ: New site going up this week.

DanHolohan

We've been working on the new site since last February and it's going to go live very soon. The target date is Wednesday, September 10. I think you're going to like the new bulletin board, which Vanilla has built for us. They've moved the contents of the Wall (a massive job) from the beginning to last May already. In preparation for the launch of the new site, they'll grab all the Wall content from last May until the time they do the grab. This will take some time, as you can imagine, so there will be some posts left behind in the seam as we move forward. These posts will be lost.



Just wanted to give you a heads-up. We don't have a way to put the current Wall into a Read-Only mode so please post judiciously for the next few days.



See you on the other side! I think you'll be pleased with what we've built. And thanks for being such an important part of our community.



Dan

Tim McElwain

What about stuff that is

bookmarked?

Docfletcher

Postphoned

Looks like the move will be next week. Sorry, I don't have bookmark information.

DanHolohan

Sorry for the late reply, Tim

I'm on the road this week. Looking at a furious storm in Chicago right now. We'll be doing the migration next week. A few things popped up. The bookmarks won't travel with us. Sorry about that.

icesailor

Comments:

I hope that the new Format doesn't include using Discus as the commentary manager. If you do, there may be a major problem. I have discovered that Discus does NOT support Internet Explorer nor is it  backward compatible.

It is supposed to support IE explorer that WIndows XP supports. MS no longer supports XP and Windows 7 used IE 9. There is also a newer version of IE, IE 10. If you have upgraded from previous versions of IE like as far back as IE 5 or 6, there are cookies and crumbs left behind that will cause Discuss to not recognize your browser.

If you type in (discus.com) into a browser, and you get a message that "Discus does not support this browser, you're going to have a problem. They have been slowly eliminating IE browsers for others. Internet Explorer 9 & 10 us used by over 40% of the worlds browsers on Windows Machines. You will be blocked out and no way to even get a message through.



If anyone cares.

JohnNY

Who's this guy Don Fletcher?

And what did he do with our buddy Dan?

icesailor

Who is Don Fletcher? :

He's probably a FCG.

Docfletcher

Don Fletcher

That would be me. I did not kidnap Dan, no matter what rumors you may have heard.

I am a retired homeowner. I have a basic understanding of hydronic heating fin type radiators and natural gas boilers. Which of course means I know very little compared to pros. I've been lurking and learning here for quite some time.



So now I need a little help and I'm hoping you guys can advise me with some issues I'm having with my boiler. So what is a FCG?



I'm right next door in Newtown Ct.

DanHolohan

Thanks.

We're using Disgus, but only within the Blog portion of the new site, which has articles others and I write. The Wall is by Vanilla and doesn't use Disgus. The folks who are building the site foresee no problems but I thank you for mentioning it.

Tim McElwain

Going to miss those

bookmarks. I actually have a 142 of them. I use the information often. Oh well just have to start all over again.

icesailor

Disqus:

Dan,

Tell me some place that you go to deal with Disqus. If I don't get a white display saying that Disqus doesn't recognize my browser, it might be OK. Whatever the problem is, it is known. Anyone that has bought a Windows Machine and isn't a Tech Weenie, is probably running  MS Internet Explorer. Their Website even tells you that they don't really support IE, but FoxFire, Google Chrome and others. People using Mac's or Portable Devices may not be affected.

I've been reading News Groups since the 1990's.  A few years ago, I started noticing that when sites switched to Disqus, I could no longer reply to a post. I could read all content, but I was never allowed to reply or comment. The last and final site stopped working 7-10 days ago. They have all postings on their site. So, I can't look to see if I ever posted anything. Its as if I never existed. The problem for them must be in the responses coming back. They started a new feature where if someone liked what you said, they could check a box. They could also comment on what was said. The new feature added was that they sent you a link from Disqus displaying all the comments back. That's where the problem is. For some reason, Disqus no longer recognizes something in a IE browser. There is no way to contact them, because #1, they have no easy way to contact them, #2, they won't recognize an IE browser. Even is you try to send them an E-Mail or access their Web Site, it won't recognize your browser.

The site I read and commented on would have 200 or 300 postings on any one topic. Just after the problem for me started, it dropped to less than ten to twenty. Searches all through Google, CNet and other places all show problems. With IE 8, 9 or 10. I run 11. I can not find a fix. It is on the Disqus side. Because everything else works.

Over 40% of Windows Machines run MS Internet Explorer. I have years of saved "Favorites" that I would not want to risk loosing. It would be like loosing your Cell Phone and loosing your contact list.



Just saying:

Tim McElwain

Don Fletcher

you need to start a new posting and ask away we will be more than happy to help you.

DanHolohan

Sorry, Tim.

The bookmarks are actually on your PC. They're held by cookies, not by the software that currently runs the Wall. That's why we can't move them.

Hap_Hazzard

Internet Explorer 11

Microsoft changed the User-Agent string and other properties used to identify browsers drastically in IE 11, so most of the code people have been using to identify browsers doesn't work. I just noticed this on a couple of the sites I work on, and I'm working to update that code so it will work reliably and trying to identify what, if any, problem tickets have been opened because of it so we can close them.



IE's User-Agent strings have always been a little flaky, but there were cetain things you could rely on, like the substring "MSIE" followed by a version number. Well, now that's no longer the case. "MSIE" doesn't appear anywhere, and the version number is preceded by "rv:" just like it is in Mozilla. The only reliable way to tell it's IE instead of Mozilla is the substring "Trident," but that hasn't always been there, so no one has been using it.



Generally web programmers use feature detection to insure compatibility, without regard for who made the browser or what version it is, but sometimes they use shortcuts, especially for older browsers that simply can't be supported anymore. What's probably happening in your case is a site will use something like "supports ActiveX" to identify your browser as Internet Explorer, and then trying to check the version number. Most of the routines for checking version return "0" if they can't find a version number. This is usually interpreted as "it's not Internet Explorer," but if they've already assumed it is, because of ActiveX support, they only check to see if the version is less than their baseline version. Whatever that may be, zero is certainly less than it, so they throw you a shingle.



Clearly that's faulty logic, but it's worked up until now, and, like I said, people are only beginning to catch on that there is a problem.



Feel free to share this with whomever you contact for support, or just tell them to google "internet explorer user agent changes" and get an education.



Good luck.

Hap_Hazzard

Is there some reason the new site can't crack the cookies?

If the domain is changing that would be the case, but if you're keeping heatinghelp.com, they should be able to read the existing cookies. It's only a little extra work. ;-)

Steamhead

I saved my Bookmarked Threads page

as an HTML document. This should save the titles of my bookmarked threads, so I can retrieve them later.



Tim, I think I've got you beat- 187 bookmarked threads.

icesailor

Compatibility:

Hap, they suggest changing a "Compatibility" setting by checking or unchecking a box in IE. This AM, the site I use worked. I thought they had fixed it. As soon as I went to another topic, the fix was undone. I later tried unchecking the box. It then worked. Once. Then it stopped.

If for whatever, this current problem with the one site started when Disqus started an improved ability to send replies back to the original sender. Before, you had to go and look for them. They could be weeks and months old. Personally, I think that Disqus has created this problem. In all the years I've been "Puteing", I've never seen anything so closely linked to something.

The problem is that there are no set standards. Its anything goes. Like before 1915 and when they started the SAE to standardize auto parts. Before then, every nut and bolt on an automobile wasn't interchangeable. If you work on a really old car, you need to be a machinist.

All those old computer languages like Fortran are lost. Some years ago, there was some Space Object that needed attention. They had to beat the bushes to find some old dogs who used to program for NASA to fix it.

There's no standards. As long as companies want to re-design the world and make everyone else obsolete, the computer industry is down the tubes.



For years, since the 1990's MS WIndows always supported old DOS programs. Not now. Everything is geared to obsolescence. Unfortunately, the new, new, is worse than the old,  old.



And understand. Only the use of using Disqus as a comment platform has the problem. If all I wanted to read is the story outlined, it wouldn't make any difference. But because I am more interested in what people say about the subject, makes me come. But if there are no comments posted because of this Disqus problem, who will come? I read Huffington Post, for the comments and to reply. They stopped their own commentary and turned it over to Facebook where you had to get a Facebook Account to reply. They lost hundreds of thousands of members.

icesailor

FCG:

The old family owned wholesale house I traded with, used all paper invoices. Somewhere along the line, one of the two sons who owned it with their father decided that they should look into going computerized. So, he hired this tech guy to set them up and get their 3 or 4 stores (at the time) going. I know that at the time, there were a couple of good decent stock/sale/inventory programs out there, but this guy started from scratch. He designed his own one of a kind program. It didn't work. The son, my friend always referred to the man as "The FCG". Which was defined as "The F*^$ing Computer Guy". They finally parted company and they ended up buying a big huge ready made program for Wholesale Houses. I think they are up to 18 stores now.

So, if you're working around, and someone who doesn't know you or what you do, just tell them that you're The FCG Guy.

ChrisJ

IE?

I used IE for years including the latest one and finally gave up on it.



Too many problems with too many sites. All of my machines and bookmarks are switched over to Chrome now with Firefox as a secondary browser.

ChrisJ

New site

When the new site goes online I'm assuming it will be the same URL as this one?

Hap_Hazzard

Oh, there are standards.

It's just that not everyone follows them. Microsoft has been one of the worst offenders, not only of ignoring standards but of promoting their own technologies to the point that some developers treated them like standards. Now that more developers are using other operating systems and browsers, they can't get away with it anymore, and their browser has slowly become more standards-compliant. I think these changes they made that are making it more difficult to identify their browser reflect their desire to have IE treated like any other standards-compliant browser, but there is a lot of history written into websites, and it's going to haunt them for a while.

Hap_Hazzard

That's smart.

I'm going to do the same, right now.

DanHolohan

Bookmarks

Good news! Vanilla has migrated 3,332 bookmarks to the new forum. They tell me that when you login with your current username and password you should see them.

DanHolohan

How we built the new site

It's completely open source, Chris. It's built from several components but appears seamless. The part of the site that had Disgus is the Blog section, where people can comment on the articles. This is hosted by BlueHouseGroup in New Hampshire. They're the architects for the new site. The new Wall is hosted by Vanilla in Montreal. The store is by Volusion and it, too, is hosted in a different place. Disgus will not be a part of the Wall or the Store or anything other than the Blog, so there's no need to be concerned about your postings. Thanks.

j a_2

new site

Looking fwd. to your new site….I am sure it will take a few tweaks of the vents….but will be great….

DanHolohan

Yes.

And Tuesday, September 16 is the launch date. Thanks.

Tim McElwain

That is great news Dan, thank you!

Save the Bookmarks

D107

New Site

Hey Dan, does all this mean you'll be stepping back a bit from day-to-day hands-on with the site? Hope the library will be there and your weekly newsletter....

DanHolohan

I'll be very involved.

I haven't posted much lately because we've been working on the new site since February. It's been a big job (this site is enormous) but I think you're going to like it. I'll keep writing and doing the newsletter. I'll stop doing seminars in January 2016. AHR Orlando will be my last seminar. Thanks.

Docfletcher

Ice Sailor Please Tell Me...

As the FCG guy do I get a BIG discount on on my plumbing/boiler needs?

icesailor

Discounts:

FCG's get it for free. Unfortunately, being unemployed now due to advancing age, I have nothing to give. Other than free information that might be controversial.

Are you a PhD, or a MD?

Docfletcher

AMA LOL

Docfletcher is just a nickname my sister gave me. It just sorta stuck.

icesailor

Nicknames:

Well, if you're a FCG, you must be smart.

Common sense isn't a monetary value. They don't teach it at Harvard, MIT or any other college or University. You're born with it. Its in our DNA.

Consider this. Before WW ll, they were taking farm boys and unemployed youth and putting them in CCC and WPA projects, teaching them to get a GED when they had to quit school in the 5th grade to work on farms. Fixed their teeth, gave them medical and dental care, and when the war started, they were useful. They sent them to mechanics schools. Some went to the Pacific and serviced P-38 Lightnings. One of the most complex aircraft ever built with counter rotating engines. They could rebuild engines and aircraft damaged in combat and have them ready to fly the next day for duty. All the big aces of WW ll flew P-38's (**** Bong, Tommy McGuire). It was a P-38 that shot down Yamamoto. 7 of the top 10 aces of WW ll flew P-38's. The same in all branches of the services. They came home and in California, started building Hot Rods. Many of the improvements in autos today came from those 5th grade farm boy drop outs that our Government taught a skill to.

We all can add letters after our names. Like I do. JP, MP, WD, OBT, MPF, and some others. My favorite is the one I'm most proud of, CA. Complete @$$hat.



We can be whatever we want to be. We can be ANYTHING we want to be. Just not EVERYTHING.

Tim McElwain

I have over the past few years been going

through my bookmarked stuff and copying what I needed and then deleting the bookmark.



A wealth of knowledge over the years on this site. Just think many who started out here with Dan have gone on to be writers for trade papers, instructors for manufacturers, and definitely real gurus of the industry.



As I grow older I have been asked who is going to take my place and run my training center many who have posted here could do that easily and probably bring a lot more to offer than I have been able to do over the years. I am 74 years old and still learning. I recently took a test to see if I am going to get dementia or have memory loss. I scored at 96% for my age group so I guess I am doing pretty good for an old guy. Now if I could just remember what I did with my glasses!

BobC

Live and learn

I'm seven years younger and had to retire 5 years ago because of physical limitations that made it hard to do the job I was doing. I learned a long time ago:  you are always learning because somebody always knows something you don't or they see it in a different light.



I have worked places where people told me that I would have to learn the same way they did. I've never held with that, I was always willing to teach anyone what I knew and most times I learned something from them along the way.



Nothing keeps the mind working like learning something new, and nothing keeps you young better than teaching somebody something you know.



Bob

Docfletcher

Tim & Sailor & All The Rest Of You Gents

Tim, I've found this place to be a treasure trove of information. Sailor, I can actually empathize with "before WW2 comments". Some time ago I became well acquainted a fellow who was a Navy test pilot in the 30's 40's. His storied exploits held me in awe. He actually started flying in the barn storming days, he said the navy brought his skills to a whole new level. You won't find any writings about him, and few remember him I'm sure, but I will not ever forget him. His name was John Philips. So you see your posting touched a nerve in a good way. Oh yeah one more thing , John spent his last years living on Long Island.

icesailor

Navy Pilots:

If you want to read a couple of excellent books on WW ll Aviation, read "Wings of Gold" about Navy flying in the Pacific. The other is "Semper Fi In The Sky" about Marine Aviation in the Pacific. Both by the same author. The Marines developed close tactical ground support in Nicaragua in the 1930's when they dropped hand grenades out of bi-planes. In the pacific in WW ll, the Navy didn't want to do tactical bombing against an enemy unless the enemy was at least 1 1/2 miles away from the front lines. They used different radio frequencies so  mis-communication was a problem. The Marines developed Forward Air Controllers (FAC) on the same radio frequencies, The Marine aviators would bomb and strafe at under 400 yards. If a Marine pilot was injured and couldn't fly or screwed up, he became a FAC. I had a customer, a Marine Vet. He flew F4F's at Guadalcanal when the Navy abandoned them. When the Marines transitioned to F4U Corsairs,  a lot of pilots washed out doing carrier landing qualifications. They were very difficult to land on a carrier and Marines all have to be carrier certified. My friend washed out and became a FAC. He never talked about his experiences. Only later did he tell me that he was a pilot. He gave me a signed copy of James Brady's book "Flags Of Our Fathers" to read.  There was a pencil underlined paragraph about guys on ships watching the flag go up at Iwo Jima. Fred was there. Brady schlepped the book where he was during the summer. He introduced Fred to the audience.

What we hold in memory is ours forever.

If you REALLY want your socks blown off, read William Manchester's "Good By Darkness". You never appreciate what those old guys did until you read about what they did when they were young. They would never talk about it. Some started later in life because if they didn't tell their stories, they would die and no one would ever know.

Everyone has a story. I enjoy finding out their stories.

Docfletcher

Tails Of Truth

Those stories come out more and more. As we age the importance of the substance of the storied truth overcomes the reluctance to tell. Life's dynamics work wonders in such scenarios.

nicholas bonham-carter

User verification

I hope the math problems will not be harder for user verification!--NBC

DanHolohan

No math

You can login in with your current username and password, or if you want to start from scratch, you can log in with any account you have with Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Open ID, or Twitter. Or you can open a new account by filling out a simple form that asks for Name, e-mail, a password of your choice. This one does have a Capcha box (letters not numbers)

RobG

Wings Of Gold?

Was that the book about WW1 pilots, German and American who fought in battle and then ended up barnstorming after the war? If so, it was a great book, I read it so long ago that that I have a hard time remembering anything but vague details. I would love to read it again if I could find it.



Rob