HB site update - Page 10

by HB on Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:16 am

The three cookies are fine, but the hbforums_sid is the only one that matters for logouts. If you're getting multiple SIDs, then your IP address is changing. Some ISPs dynamically allocate a pool of IP addresses to a large community, i.e., one IP address could be "reused" by 50 people within the span of a few minutes (AOL is well known for this proxy approach). Forums that use IP addresses to recognize return visitors have troubles with such ISPs; when it checks your returned session ID and it doesn't match the recorded IP address, it creates a new session (otherwise someone could potentially "spoof" your ID if you happen to send the full URL with SID to them in a chat, e-mail, etc.).

To test this theory, I've reduced the precision of the check to a larger block of IP addresses, which should encompass your ISP's full allocation. The drawback of this reduction is one of your fellow ISP subscribers could spoof your login, if they managed to acquire a valid session ID (yes, a remote chance but not zero).

by **DavidMLewis** on Fri Mar 07, 2008 2:12 pm

HB wrote:The three cookies are fine, but the hbforums_sid is the only one that matters for logouts. If you're getting multiple SIDs, then your IP address is changing. Some ISPs dynamically allocate a pool of IP addresses to a large community, i.e., one IP address could be "reused" by 50 people within the span of a few minutes (AOL is well known for this proxy approach). Forums that use IP addresses to recognize return visitors have troubles with such ISPs; when it checks your returned session ID and it doesn't match the recorded IP address, it creates a new session (otherwise someone could potentially "spoof" your ID if you happen to send the full URL with SID to them in a chat, e-mail, etc.).

To test this theory, I've reduced the precision of the check to a larger block of IP addresses, which should encompass your ISP's full allocation. The drawback of this reduction is one of your fellow ISP subscribers could spoof your login, if they managed to acquire a valid session ID (yes, a remote chance but not zero).

No difference. I should have mentioned that this behavior does not happen if I use Camino (Mac-specific browser with the Gecko rendering engine), and it doesn't happen with Safari and other forum sites. The former removes an ISP issue.

Best,
David

by **chelya** on Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:09 pm

Dan,

Is it possible to adjust RSS to show new topics only rather then generating messages for each updated topic?
People post a lot - this generates a ton of rss activity rendering it pretty much useless.

A better approach to monitoring activity:
- watch new topics via rss
- subscribe for email updates on the topics of interest

Thanks!

by HB on Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:20 pm

The current RSS is based on beta code that is not yet baked. In the final version, it won't update so frequently (e.g., a few times a day), so the effects of new post activity on previous topics won't be as dramatic. Another idea is to have two RSS update time critera: One for new topics (e.g., immediately published) and one for updates to older topics (e.g., maximum of once every n hours). That would produce the effect for the RSS feed you seek.

by **chelya** on Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:30 pm

Got it. Actually I don't mind reading on the old topics that were revisited. After all - new is well forgotten old.
As long as the delay is longer. Something like at least a week.

Kudos on the upgrade!

by HB on Sat Mar 08, 2008 12:08 am

Waiting a week before reflecting a change in the RSS feed would be too long; I was thinking more like 4-8 hours, otherwise it would be useless for those using it for daily updates. Anyway, those are details we can explore once I get it running again. At present the settings are all the defaults.

PS: It may also be your feedreader. Some do a better job of recognizing "near duplicates" than others and only showing the very last one (I use Google Reader and Firefox live bookmarks).

by **chelya** on Sat Mar 08, 2008 12:40 am

I use google reader as well.

by **jesawdy** on Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:44 pm

It may be due to the crummy display on the laptop that I am using this evening, but I'm having a hard time picking out the hyperlinked text in a recent post of mine (link). Is it just me?

Otherwise, I'm loving the updated look. Kudos Dan! What a lot of work.

by HB on Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:00 am

Thanks Jeff, I need to tweak the link color, but for now I added dotted underline to help it stand out more. You'll need to purge your browser's cache to see the change.

by **jesawdy** on Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:09 am

HB wrote:... for now I added dotted underline to help it stand out more. You'll need to purge your browser's cache to see the change.

Ah, much better already. Thank you.


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