New Look

[jevd]

Hey Dave,

I take a day off and everything changes.

New Look. New Name.

Looks good.

[oriecat]

It all looks the same to me?

[Appleby]

Me too- but then I though I was just missing something...

[jevd]

Benefits Buzz changed to Benefits in the news.

Link to message boards last 24 hrs on Right instead of top.

Additional Links on Top

Have I been in the Twilight Zone??

[oriecat]

Oooh on the main BenefitsLink site. I rarely look at that, I just come straight to the forum, so I thought you meant here.

[jevd]

Although the boards are a primary source of information, Dave puts a lot of effort into the main page to provide up to date information on the current goings on in the industry. Its my first stop generally and then the boards.

Thanks Dave for your continuing efforts to keep us all informed.

[E as in ERISA]

Don't like that the links to prior days and the message board are no longer at the bottom of the page.

[Kirk Maldonado]

E as in ERISA:

I prefer the new location. You know what they say about one man's meat being another man's poison.

jevd:

In addition to the points you raised, I want to personally commend Dave's efforts in pasting useful computer tidbits on BenefitsLink from time to time.

My only wish is that there was a spell-checker feature that corrected all messages before they could be posted, but based on conversations I had with Dave, there are some significant technical problems preventing that.

[david rigby]

While I agree with Kirk's desire for a spell-check feature, there may be other ways in which we would like to see messages "corrected" before posting.

[Appleby]

My only wish is that there was a spell-checker feature that corrected all messages before they could be posted, but based on conversations I had with Dave, there are some significant technical problems preventing that.

I usually type the text in Word –for the spellchecker feature- then copy and paste to the board. I do that with my e-mails as well---except for AOL, which doe shave a spellchecker

[No Name]

Doe shave.. pervert!

[Appleby]

I guess that shots my theory...

That should be does have, just bring the s over No Name.

Obviously spell checker does not help when you use the wrong words that are spelled right

[No Name]

Didn't you used to have an avitar?

I was just being a jerk on a Saturday. Sorry.

[Appleby]

That’s OK- I though you were just being funny as usual – no offence taken.

The Avitar is my son...as someone pointed out, he is older now ( 3 –years old as opposed to the 6-months old picture I had for the Avitar). I have been trying to upload a new picture, but finally gave up as the files did not satisfy the requirements to be uploaded .

[No Name]

I've seen corporate websites where the principals were all shown as grade-schoolers. Your kid is cute, BTW. Put him back up until another option is found!

[Appleby]

LOL. I think I will.

Have a great weekend

[Kirk Maldonado]

I think that it is funny that the utility of a spell-checking function is demonstrated by the messages posted after mine; the correct spelling is "avatar" not "avitar."

That is a minor typo and only one typo in each of the posts, but I've seen posts that were full of typos. Those are the ones that I object to.

[WDIK]

Eye dew knot sea the knead four spill cheek and doughnut no two hoom Kirk is refereeing.

[Kirk Maldonado]

I nominate WDIK's post as the best one of 2005.

[Kirk Maldonado]

Going back to the "doe shave" topic, I recall that one ancient language didn't use spaces between the words, so translating it was a mess. There were some ancient scriptures of some religious import that some scholars were working on. The example that they gave of the complexities caused by the lack of spacing between words was illustrated by the following sentence:

Godisnowhere.

Is the correct interpretation?

God is now here; or

God is no where?

[Appleby]

This is the new look.

[Fredman]

I'd bet that Dave isn't done fiddling with the new boards. I noticed that ( c ) (without the spaces) changes to © again.

BTW, where is everyone at...haven't seen many new posts since the boards came back up.

[Appleby]

I was unable to log-in and had to request that my password be sent to my e-mail address. Maybe they are unable to log-in?

Denise

[Fredman]

Hmmmm....I had to do the same.

[jevd]

I think we all did. Something hijacked the boards over the weekend.

[Dave Baker]

Yes, we did have visitors from Bulgaria on Saturday, a little after noon.

The vulnerability was my fault; I hadn't upgraded the message board software in quite a while.

I had looked at the newest version of the software a couple months back but didn't see that it had enough features to merit the trouble of an upgrade. But I forgot that one very good reason to keep up with the latest versions of software is to take advantage of changes that have been made to patch vulnerabilities.

The damage to the boards appears to have been limited to changing the home page on BenefitsLink and the message boards ("You've been hacked, etc."); I don't think they were able to access the database holding the content of the messages.

Oh, and the other change was that the characters "lol" (as in "laughing out loud") were added to the start and end of every word ... that one took me a little while to figger out

We're now running the latest and greatest version of the software; I need to tweak it to provide some of the graphics we had before, but I'm happy that I don't have to worry about my Bulgarian friends now.

The upgrade was difficult in part because the upgrade instructions from the software vendor (Invision Power Services) were flawed; I had to find the flaws and fix 'em. Plus the size of the database (29,000 message threads) meant the conversion process was a couple of hours for each attempt. I wish it hadn't taken so long on Monday and Tuesday to get the new software up and running, but I was working on it full-time.

Thanks for lolhanginglol lolinlol loltherelol loleverybodylol !

[Guest Pensions in Paradise]

THANK YOU. I never really appreciated how much I enjoy this site until the boards went down on Monday and Tuesday. I felt kind of lost those days.

[Guest KFM]

I still can't get in using my login, so I had to create a new one, KFM.

Kirk Maldonado

[Erik Read]

Sounds like several of us "ole-timers" are having issues getting logged back in.

I've sent Dave several messages, and he must be swamped - no reply - either that - or they aren't getting through.

I had to change my login - and he'll need to re-assign moderator status' or figure out the issue with the password resets.

I know he's working hard on things, and at this point, I think our login ability is low man on the pole - although I do miss the "status" and "ego trips" from the original subscriber dates and number of posts - sniff.

[Lame Duck]

I had a problem logging in a couple of days ago because it wouldn't accept my password. I used my Log In name, though, and requested my password. When it was sent to me, I had no trouble getting back into the site. It asked me to set a new password but it has been working ever since. By the way, I checked the spelling in this post for Kirk and I do nut find any miss takes.

[AndyH]

Took me a week or so to get back in also, but thanks to this thread I solved it the same way. But I know others who cannot get in under the old name.

[Guest Davve Bakker]

This is a test message by user "Davve Bakker" -- I want to see what happens to it when I delete the user Davve Bakker after posting this message.

[WDIK]

This is a test message by user "Davve Bakker" -- I want to see what happens to it when I delete the user Davve Bakker after posting this message.

Thanks, at least, for not posting another test image.

[AndyH]

[Belgarath]

Looks like a girl I used to date in high school. She was a lot better looking than I am...

[AndyH]

Guess you really are the outdoorsey type, B.

[Lame Duck]

Except for the water, it looks like my driver's license photo.