News Index: Tech Center   <<  Page 1 of 1  >>  December 15, 2008 Verified/Trusted Users Optional Program Considered As usual one of our users came up with a great idea. First of and this was in the works for a long time the "WHOIS" button will change to "BIO" for Biography. This will be a simple list of questions, sex,age,ethnicity,single.married,Open, other basics. Now that support is by phone only it allows me to speak to almost 1000 users per month, sometimes more. One concern among men and especially our female users is "How do I know I'm talking to a guy/girl?". That's (CLICK LINK ABOVE TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE  November 17, 2008 IE Stuffing/ANOTHER DANGER FOR IE USERS There is an exploit for IE that allows people to put information in your prefix box. Commonly it makes it so you can't speak in a room or it will say something nutty when you try to talk. All other browsers are immune to this. I have not been able to pin down the code but the removal instructions are in the bottom frame of every chat room. You simply hit config while chatting and clear the prefix box. If this happens please send me the contents of the prefix box and I will give you A FREE 1 YEAR MEMBERSHIP! This will allow us to fix yet another Internet Exlorer exploit. This is an issue of great concern because people think Chatro is malfunctioning when it is IE the is the culprit. My advice is to download Firefox. browse the zillion useful add-ons including Sparky. Then right click the IE icon and get to advanced/network proxies or connections. Put 127.0.0 for the proxy and you effectively disable microsoft from gathering information on your system or pulling the plug on your OS if your vendor put an illegal copy of the operating system on your box. If at any time you absolutely have to update any Microsoft product that requires you use IE you can remove the proxy setting and the browser will work. I can't say it as much as google has 349,000 results on IE exploits. Don't use IE! It's insecure,broken,slow,ugly,fatware and just a piece of junk!99.999% of all support calls involve IE and it's degree of brokenness. Simply google download firefox 3 and you can do it in 3 minutes. Then you can browse themes (I prefer the Harley theme) and add-ons like screen capture,passwd helpers like Skipper. Skipper lets you train forms and I would die without it. There are also privacy,encryption,time,geolocation,SEO and more tools than you could ever use. The tools are super small downloads that install themselves. Thunderbird mail Firefox's mail companion is also a great mailer with the same range of add-ons. I use Validation and spam reporting tools and also a neat clock weather combo that are always on my desktop.  November 11, 2008 Google Chrome Browser It was just a matter of time for Google to come out with a browser. If you like the minimalist look then this will give you a hardon. I didn't import any info from firfox so I'm sure a few tabs were missing but even then it is very basic and simple to use. I just got done done testing it. You must use http1.0 on the room entry's or the message box will not clear. But once you get the Chatro advanced setting to 1.0 it is very fast and I don't see a problem with using it here. It is another alternative to IE which is alwys a good thing. If your using IE please switch to Firefox or Now Chrome by Google. The download took about a minute from start to chatroom. As always with new browsers it hasn't had had time to show it's cracks yet but Google does a lot of things well why not an open source browser...Yea I think it's open source to for the tech heads. Now in my campaign to rid the world of IE there is one more choice. It looks like a better choice right off the bat. Well lets be honest Microsoft hasn't released a product that worked for the first 10 revisions in 15 years. I'd rather play Russian roulette with Chrome any day over IE. See what you think just make sure the room entry setting is correct.  August 27, 2008 Reporting Kiddie Porn/Spammers Alot of users report kiddie porn and spammers but unfortunately they don't provide the correct information and it doesn't help. When reporting Kiddie porn please call the 800 number and have the URL of the offending image ready. You obtain this info by right clicking the image and looking at the properties. We will immediately check the image and filter it. Spammers are another problem. Chatrooms are Holy ground and we don't advertise in them so it really pisses us off when someone else does. If you see anyone spamming our rooms please call us immediately and we will filter these talentless morons. On a funny note the telegraph spammer from a couple of weeks ago called me to complain he couldn't spam anymore. I immediately had his caller id info and told him. He stuttered and said this call is being forwarded I'm in Panama. So I called him back at his Hollywood flophouse (When I googled Earthed it you could actually smell the crack and see the hookers standing outside his house). Just from a glance it seems he lives off his 76 year old father and had what sounded like a dozen untrained rugrats in the backround when I spoke to his grandmother/wife or whatever I let her know I knew how stupid this guy is. I'm waiting on a backround/asset report to see if he's worth suing. Unfortunately these guys are usually too broke to bother with.  June 18, 2008 Common Errors and Fixes/Rules The dreaded white center screen. This is almost caused by the last peice of software you have installed. It's usually a webshield or anti virus program. Sat systems are sometimes a problem. For the most popular Hughs this will work for high lag time and a blank center window. You can go in your browsers advanced settings. For example in Firefox go to TOOLS>OPTIONS>ADVANCED>NETWORK>CONNECTION SETTINGS And put this is manual settings http proxy 69.19.14.10 Port 3128. That works just fine. 403 Error. This means your IP is banned. If you think this is not your fault please contact support so we can reconsider the ban. Sometimes a ban takes out more than one person. This is more of a problem in support email than an actual technical problem. We do not ban people because you don't like them. Because they are assholes or in your opinion "Have to go". This goes for members and non-members alike. Our rules are very few and very clear. You can read them here http://www.chatropolis.com/rules.html Reporting Child pornography. If you would like to report an inappropriate image please send us the room name,users screen name,time stamp and right click the offending image. When you right click the image give us the location of where it is hosted. We do NOT host child porn on Chatro.  June 03, 2008 Two Steps Forward One Step Back Well it's clear I'm going to have to redo the HTML of Chatro myself. Evidently I don't play well with others. That's not the end of the world I just find it boring work and it's not programming by any stretch of thee imagination. It's closer to spell checking and everyone knows my prowess with spelling. The good news is huge strides are being made with the new chat server. The other night a handful of users got a look at the video/audio end of it. It should be a lot of fun for those brave enough to put their mug in front of a camera. I did have one use give me an excellent view of their keyboard.LOL. In addition to the A/V end there will be many other features added. Most behind the scenes but just enough to make an improvement. But not so much as Chatro becomes unrecognizable.  May 14, 2008 Chatro Needs You! With our work on the "New Chatserver" we need some help in other areas. All these are paid contract positions. As always we would like to keep the jobs/work within the Chatropolis community. It makes things much easier than calling "Acme Inc." and explaining things to them. Here is a list of projects; HTML/GRAPHICS A small overhaul of headers and footers of Chatropolis. Also some image work revamping some graphics. Also looking to create several "Skins" for selectable look and feel inside chat rooms. WINDOWS/FIREFOX THEME CREATION We are looking to create a "Chatropolis" desktop theme with screen saver. Also a Firefox theme. BROWSER PLUG-IN Want to discuss/create a browser plug-in to allow users to easier get "Users online" info and keep track of friends on Chatropolis while they are on other sites. ADVERTISING/SEO We are planning a first ever advertising campaign combined with some SEO work. We are looking for individual web masters and companies familiar with Chatropolis to help us with a long term commitment. IDEAS As always we are looking for ideas and talented people to improve the overall chatting experience. No idea is too small if it positively effects users time here. On the other side no idea is too big. Chatropolis has been online for 15 years and we are in it for the long haul. If you qualify for any of the positions above please call 352-436-4185 8AM-7PM CST U.S. More telephone numbers are available on the Tech Support page. We look forward to hearing from you.  May 06, 2008 Blank Chat Window/High Lagtime This has been a problem for users for years. You lay out a bundle for a satellite and then find you can no longer chat. Calling tech support for the morons that sold you it won't do much good. You get the standard answer "Nothing is wrong". Well they are fucking wrong. These companies and even some ISP's have you on broken proxy's or just don't care take if you hammer to the dish in frustration. Well here are some fixes. For Hughs you can go in your browsers advanced settings. For example in Firefox go to TOOLS>OPTIONS>ADVANCED>NETWORK>CONNECTION SETTINGS And put this is manual settings http proxy 69.19.14.10 Port 3128. That works just fine. If for any reason you get a white screen or there seems to be huge lag time. It's also a proxy that is so stupid it can't stream a html file. So you just go into your browsers settings and configure your proxy for direct connection to the Internet. Webshields from McAffe and AVG(Paid Version)seem to slow things down to a crawl or you get a blank chat window. Just disable the webshield