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KezT

pictures and moving pictures

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Just wondering if anyone can explain why it is that images are disabled on the site, yet apparently it's OK to inbed video images :unsure:

 

I can't watch the video's, although I am sure they are all perfectly appropriate :devil: But it seems a bit silly that I can't show a poster but can sow a video.....

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Hi Kez T -

 

I can't speak for 'now' but posting pictures was disabled on the forum for very good reasons (think hacks etc), and included videos too. After the last big forum update videos from you-tube started to 'embed' rather than 'link' as they had previously. I'm pretty sure this would have more to do with the software update than being an admin decision, but so far - thankfully - it hasn't resulted in any nasty stuff.

 

Linking to offsite photos or videos doesn't stop anyone from posting offensive material of course, but it does stop it being openly displayed on the forum and slows the whole process down, allowing the mods/admin to deal with it with a minimum of inconvenience/exposure to members. I'm not a 'techie', but I imagine it also helps to stop things like pop-ups and viruses, which can be packed in images, being directly spread.

 

There actually used to be a lot more photo sharing on the forum - all done with links to (i.e.) photobucket or flikr - and it's only a matter of clicking on the link. A bit frustrating, I know, but small beans compared to the upset of a major bout of internet nastiness, which this - or any other forum - can attract from time to time. The same applies to the forum's 'new member verification' system, again something that wasn't needed 4 or 5 years ago before 'bots' started appearing in significant numbers, but has become pretty much the norm for forums since.

 

HTH

 

L&P

 

BD

 

Oh PS - why can't you watch the videos? Is it your connection's not fast enough or some other prob? If some other prob post details and some clever sossidge (not me!) might be able to give you some pointers!

Edited by baddad

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Thanks BD - that kind of makes sense.

 

I can't watch the video's because my computer is both exctremely slow and has no sound :crying: If I REALLY wanted to, I could steal DHs comuter, which is fast & loud (how like a man!), but I've never felt the need :whistle:

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I don't prescribe to the view that images and videos should be switched off forums to reduce malware infection as pictures and video can only CARRY malicious content, they can't actually infect your system unless there is the counterpart trigger program to "inject" the malware from the carrier file. Both of these can and very much should be removed by antivirus/antimalware programs. I'm no salesman but always have the best you can get hold of which is not necessarily purchased. I used and recommend Avast Antivirus FREE version - it's as good as all the rest and the fastest at the moment. There is always a problem with antvirus programs in that viruses are being written all the time and programs have to be changed to detect them. This eventually leads to an inefficient program that needs re-writing so different programs seem to be in different phases. For several years AVG was the best, then Trend. I would always, always stay away from Symantec and McAfee. Very slow, memory-hungry and very difficult to remove once you have it. I also recommend three other programs but they are a bit geeky to use, Spybot Search & Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/) and Malwarebytes AntiMalware (http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free). Both of these are free and running these once a month or more keeps your system in check and will pull out all of the tracking programs that slow your system down.One last program is called HijackThis (http://www.hijackthis.de). This is now owned by Trend Micro and they may start charging for it but it is the best program for looking at all the junk that Internet browsers stuff into memory and throttle the life out of your computer.

 

Back to images etc .... I think the only reason for keeping images out is to improve forum performance and possibly reduce bandwidth. I guess someone pays for this forum and they pay for a certain amount of data to be transmitted from the web server, go over this and it gets expensive. it also slows everything down. However, if links to the images and video are embedded (rather than the image itself), they are served from another server and therefore have no bandwidth impact but can slow page load times. What does hit bandwidth is the use of dozens of smilies in your posts especially large animated ones!!

 

In terms of member protection, perhaps link that has the worst impact is a hyper-link other to sites. When you click a link you have no idea whatsoever what is going to be loaded and the link could load viruses, trogans and tracking cookies before the user sees anything - far more dangerous than an image or video can ever be. So once again use a decent anti-virus program and ensure pop-ups are disabled. :pray:

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I have to admit, I almost NEVER click linkies - no idea where it is taking me to, and I don't like that. Hence why I often quote snippets from articles and then leave a link to the same article

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I have to admit, I almost NEVER click linkies - no idea where it is taking me to, and I don't like that. Hence why I often quote snippets from articles and then leave a link to the same article

 

'Linkyplinkythings' on the forum are usually pretty safe because you 'know' the people posting them (assuming they've not been daft enough to give anyone else their log-in details and have a good password!) and are making a reasonably informed choice about whether to trust their link or not... Now there's a check before new members are 'approved' and can post it's even better in that respect...

 

Kez, not sure if something went over my head in your post (the " :whistle: " emoticon makes me wonder?) regarding your hubbies browsing habits :lol:

Don't let that put you off vids completely, though, 'cos you'll be missing out on lots of great music and stuff!

 

My son gets HOURS of pleasure from Youtube watching rubbish like 'nom nom' and 'piano' cats, sneezing pandas and other daftness and his facebook page is littered with links to clips from the Simpsons, family guy and all his fave x-box games.

 

Another plus was that I was able to prove the Pingwings were not an hallucination I had as a child...

 

 

:D

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Kez, not sure if something went over my head in your post (the " :whistle: " emoticon makes me wonder?) regarding your hubbies browsing habits :lol:

 

I think Kez was just having a dig at the male species generally - why, what were you thinking BD?. :whistle::whistle:

 

Regarding image posting on the forum - Baddad's explained the reasoning behind it and I don't know why it's like that now. It's always been disabled I think, since I've been here but that was before the days of YouTube etc. Maybe it doesn't make sense any more. Lufty is the one to ask.

 

K x

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HI Everyone

 

Sorry for the late reply however the main reason is for disk space requirements.

 

The current forum database is over 300 megabytes which is for the system tables and the forum posts.

 

Pictures, Images and videos will drastically increase the disk space requirements exponentially and we are simply not geared up for hosting this type of content.

 

This has always been a support forum for people touched by Aspergers and ASD and there are many other better alternatives for viewing videos and pictures such as YouTube, Facebook, Flicker etc.

 

Best regards

 

 

Lufty

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