Tribalmixes NewsLetter :: 2009-04-26

i thought it could be a good practice to cross-copy new news from the main page into this forum section. of course, this topic is open for discussion. everyone is welcome to voice their opinions, wishes and dreams... each item of news in the future will have its own thread, like this one..


tribalmixes newsletter is back.. or so it seems to be...    

this section of website news has been empty for a while, since the IDC 2009 finished, nothing big has really happened around here. nothing to write about. but recently a few things have been put in motion, and that gives me a reason to post some words in here. some of you guys have been waiting for your suggestions to come around for so long, that you might have forgotten about the things you wanted to be better around here and asked for them before. but i haven't forgotten anything... and so i present, or pre-present the big big big project going on right now behind the closed doors - strong, large and thorough renovation of the looks, of the code, of the processes happening on tribalmixes.com. to be specific, i'm going to lay down a few major areas here which the work is being at, but since the stuff is mostly fresh now and most of it is unfinished, it is going to be a quick lineup, while major explanations and story-telling will commence later (whenever that stuff is finished and polished enough to be put out for all the community)...

first of all, bothersome (to some users) AJAX is going, and the traditional page-loading is coming back. right now some of us are able to set up Olde Design in the profile, well, that's going to be something like that, only better, gray control panel on tob with tabs - staying, only loading html will be done differently, while the average page-load should go down dramatically, probably going (again average and assumed, cause i don't have any stats of page loading, - it happens on your computer) from 2-3 seconds per page to 0.1-0.2.. with ajax gone a few things will work differently, such as browser image caching, browser-operated back-forward history buttons, lots of other stuff.. full list of all benefits will be posted later. one thing though - AJAX will still be used around here, only for smaller things, such as rating torrents without needing to reload the whole page...

one of the biggest changes is happening to the [e]browser. it is going to have a completely different look, completely different way of operating, it will be enhanced with Favorites, where you'll be able to select a few of your favorite djs, radios or shows, and those will provide you with emails on new uploads, maybe rss feeds for each dj, this is still going on, so something might change. but one thing is for sure - the [E]ntertainment Browser is becoming a very powerful tool for anyone interested in EDM scene. most likely free access to the [e]browser will be set for everyone without even registering on the website, but before that we'd have to move to a cheaper and more-bw-ed hosting.

torrents page browser is undergoing many changes as well. most important - a new search mechanism is being made. this new way will not only allow you to search just in torrent names for an 'exact match' (highly anticipated feature), but also search by numbers of seeders, snatches and comments, release date and upload date, bitrate and quality.. all in all mathematically calculated, this will be a 50-way search, no less... also (annoying to some) yellow icons will allow to completely disable themselves, not even leaving text links, although new way of displaying those text links will be incorporated,  along with extra genres they will line up next to or above every torrent name-link, thus requiring less bandwidth and shorter waiting times, if that was an issue. with that thing on, it will be much easier to see if you've already snatched some torrents without going into the details page. also this change is expected to boost the 'best torrent of the week' program, since the link to vote for the best torrent will be always in front of you, asking to be clicked... by the way, once clicked it disappears till monday next week...

control panel is going to be a little different as well. the scroller on the right will be enhanced with several different types of info, besides ratio-free torrents a few other types of info will be added, such as recent comments, recent forum posts, everLifes in the way they've been moved up in status, allowing weeks-old torrents just freshly turning ratio-free to be seen on top of that list, etc. also i'm bringing out the donations section again to the open... it will be put into the control panel itself in between the tabs and the scroller and will display our current website funds.. as of right now, we only have 1 more month of money, and too few donations coming in nowadays. doing this i'm hoping to see more funds arrive since consciousness is a tricky entity... he he... well, it's just going to hit my pocket hard, if donations do not cover up the monthly costs...

cascading style sheets a.k.a. css a.k.a. website skins are expanding, so expect new style(s), fresh palettes and more aye pleasing graphics. since it is a long and work to adjust all colors perfectly, at first there will be limited number of new skins (maybe just 1 or 2), and old ones will probably be removed with time, because expanding them to have all the new added definitions will simply be an overly-time-consuming job, new css files are about 5-10 times larger than the old ones. but the good news is: if you ever decide to make your own skin for tribalmixes.com, you'll be able to change virtually everything, starting with regular things and ending with changes into control panel and [e]browser that weren't available before.

one sad change is coming, but it has to be done to ensure more money coming for the rent of the server... nowadays everyone gets (or already have gotten) hit with the economy crises, and if not able to donate real money, - please donate your time and clicks... lots of advertising will be placed throughout the website, mostly same places as they were before, but different stuff, and some additional spots, like awards page... if someone gets (or will get) bothered alot by this advertising, there will be ways to get rid of it.. mostly by donating money, maybe by exchanging your immortal points to switch off banners in some spots, but the easiest it will hit the platinum users, who will see barely any banners (talking banners i mean outside advertisers, while our local banners directing to torrents or other tribalmixes pages will still be there even for platinum users), although those users have donated significant funds to the website, that is why they deserve to see no banners, taking that they have 'paid their dues' to the community. thanks alot, platinum users, you really help out!!!

while all the outside is changing and will be noticeable, the insides are being reprogrammed as well. while it is senseless to talk about all the invisible changes being done behind the closed curtains of the workshop, it is important to mention at least one of them: we're cracking up on upload cheaters like never before... some little hidden bug was found in the system that allowed cheaters to slip through until now. but not anymore. the hole was closed, and since then twice more cheaters have been exposed every day. well, it's not like dozens of them, - only 1 or 2 cheaters a day, but still they try and still we catch them. think before cheating!! not only your account will be disabled, but the IP-address will be banned w/o any arguments, do not be surprised one day to see blank page in front of you, if you're accustomed to cheating. and that's not all... more work is planned in this direction, so that cheating is eliminated at all, or better to say, "100% of all acts of future cheating will be discovered with quite a number of sophisticated procedures and highly efficient software applications."  this is for real... don't cheat and you'll have your music fix at any time.

Has anyone ever thought of getting the newsletter in email. And maybe you can opt to choose to receive alerts when someone has replied to a forum thread too. Everytime you write in a topic/thread you can choose to receive an alert or not.
It's only an idea. And im sure you have already thought of this slash