[rbalch]

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the last *many* hours of downtime. I was upgrading a lot of software on the server.

I think everything is working now. Please reply to this topic with any issues you find.

Cheers,
Rob

[rbalch]

Test

[dorio]

Test successful.

[rbalch]

Test again.

BTW, I will fix the colors as soon as possible. Right now my concern is making sure everything works.

Please reply with any issues. Thanks for your patience.

Cheers,
Rob

[el_burton]

GTU's looking great in my opinion. Leave the colours as they are, save yourself some extra work.

[nealmac]

GTU's looking great in my opinion. Leave the colours as they are, save yourself some extra work.

+1 to that.

I think it looks far better. A change was needed. We deserve that much after being shut out over the last few days.

[rbalch]

Back online again. Hopefully for longer this time. And I'll keep the style being used right now if that's what you guys want. That's no problem

Cheers,
Rob

[Captain_Trips]

I love the new style, please leave it.

[AcousticSmash]

Yeah, don't change it, something new never hurts.

[jenniferdurst]

....GTU has hardly changed in over 8 years. I don't even remember the old forums being that much different. DAMN YOU. CONSISTENCY! *laugh*

[billy16]

I think it looks pretty good like this. Still easy to navigate, post, and all that. And that's awesome.

[woggie]

no i like the old style better. plus another forum i visit uses the same style as this one. the styles need to be separate. separate but equal.

[frankyz84]

I love the new style, please leave it.

+1. It`s sharper, clearer, and that is a good thing for my fading eyesight.

[guru of rock n roll]

Looks fine.

[surfwhammy]

I think that there is a BUG in the software that handles links . . .

[NOTE: I use an Apple computer running OS X 10.4.11 ("Tiger"), and the problem occurs in Firefox 3.0.3 and Safari 3.1.2 (4525.22). Folks who use Windows started reporting that they could not play songs, which initially led me to think it might be a Windows Media Player problem with streaming audio, which can happen, but they cannot play the MP3 files, either, and the error message maps to not being able to get to the URL, hence the focus on determining what was happening to the URL, since I know they are valid URLs when handled correctly by browser software . . . ]

Specifically, it appears to happen when a URL contains special characters which require an escape sequence . . .

For example, in C and JAVA such special characters include the apostrophe, exclamation point, null terminator, and a few others . . .

What happens is that the URL gets garbled, hence does not work, because the C and JAVA escape sequence is replaced incorrectly with different characters . . .

I have been posting links to some of my songs and audio examples for quite a while, all with no problems, but recently I posted a link to a song which had an apostrophe in the URL, and nobody could get to it . . .

At first, it appeared to be a problem with Windows Media Player not being able to handle streaming audio correctly, but I did some tests and discovered that while there can be problems with Windows Media Player (for example, not having a sound card or the correct drivers), the real problem is that URL is garbled . . .

Consider this example, where the URLs first are displayed in a CODE section so that they are not automatically reformatted:

CODE

http://www.surfwhammys.com/music/12_It_Don\'t_Add_Up.m3u

http://www.surfwhammys.com/music/12_It_Don\'t_Add_Up.mp3

So long as you have a media player that can play MP3 files, you should be able to play the MP3 file. Whether you can do the streaming flavor (the ".m3u" file) depends on whether your browser, plug-in(s), and media player support streaming audio, which really is a separate thing . . .

If the same URLs are copied as non-quoted text, then when you Preview the post, what you discover is that they have been changed to links with garbled descriptive text. The underlying URL is correct, but the descriptive text is garbled.

http://www.surfwhamm...39;t_Add_Up.m3u

http://www.surfwhamm...39;t_Add_Up.mp3

The following image shows how the above two links appear in Firefox 3.0.3 on an Apple computer running OS X 10.4.11 ("Tiger"):


Screen Capture of the Two Links with Garbled Descriptions

If you use the link creator button, then the reverse happens when there is an apostrophe in the URL, in that the descriptive text is correct, but the URL is garbled, except that it does not happen all the time. It happens with the first URL, which contains two special characters, but apparently does not happen with the second URL, which contains only one special character:

CODE

These are the actual URLs for the following two links.  The first URL becomes garbled, while the second URL is not garbled . . .

http://www.surfwhammys.com/music/01_Can\'t_Take_It_No_More_(Don\'t_Stop!).mp3

http://www.surfwhammys.com/music/12_It_Don\'t_Add_Up.mp3

"Can't Take It No More (Don't Stop!)" (The Surf Whammys) -- Streaming Audio

"It Don't Add Up" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3

However, when the URL is revised so that it does not include a special character, everything works, which in the following example was done by creating a new audio file without the apostrophe in the name, which in turn maps to generating URLs that do not need the escape sequence to handle special characters:

It Don't Add Up (The Surf Whammys) -- Streaming Audio

It Don't Add Up (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3

For me, the work-around simply is to avoid using an apostrophe or other special character in the base title of a song, so that for example a song titled "I'm Happy!" needs to be named "Im Happy" for purposes of generating a URL. It can have the descriptive title "I'm Happy!" but not a corresponding URL . . .

If you need more information, let me know . . .

Thanks!

P. S. I like the new look, and so far this is the only problem I have encountered . . .

[AcousticSmash]

I have no problems with the latest version of Safari on my computer when it comes to links and stuff, might be on your end.

[surfwhammy]

I have no problems with the latest version of Safari on my computer when it comes to links and stuff, might be on your end.

Great!

For now, I am not using special characters in the names of songs, since this appears to be part of the problem . . .

It could be something on my end, but some of the other folks could not play any of the links at the Surf Whammys website, and none of those links have changed in months, so this tends to suggest that whatever happened was recent, which as best as I can determine is a short list of possibilities, which include a recent update to iTunes, Firefox, and QuickTime, although I do not recall any recent updates for Safari (OS X flavor) . . .

The only other recent change is the new software for GuitarZone.com, so it certainly is on the list of possibilities . . .

I test a few things on a Windows machine every once in a while but not so often really, because Windows is annoying, so I only work on it to make money to get more music stuff, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

Not using special characters in song titles appears to work nicely, and it is easy for me to do, plus it probably makes more sense when one considers everything from an international perspective, which I think is important, really . . .

Really!

Yet, I do not think that it makes so much sense over the long run not to be able to use an apostrophe in the title of song, so I need to get more information no what is happening, at least to determine what causes the URL to be garbled . . .

Thanks for the feedback!