Migrant server? I hope its paperwork is up-to-dste.

The shiny new server seems to have reduced the daily maintenance routines from 15 minutes to 6 minutes. Maybe time to change the warning just before midnight which still reads:
WARNING: Daily system maintenance will begin any minute. Please do not start playing a new quiz now, as you may not be able to submit it. Try back later. Thanks!
Daily maintenance runs daily from just after 3 AM CST to approx 3:15 AM CST.

Daily maintenance only runs to 3:05am or 3:06am.

I didn't realise anything new had taken place at all. Just read this thread for the first time.

I catch up eventually

Oh - but that isn't my avatar - what happened to it?

And how do I update my account if that's a message I'm supposed to do something about?

Creedy, Photobucket wants users to upgrade their accounts now to use their services. It has nothing to do with the server upgrade. You will have to use another photo sharing site. I think there is a conversation about it in the Tech forum.

Er, actually I am not exactly sure where that convo took place before sorry.

It's in the Photography forums, in this thread:

http://www.funtrivia.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/1149759

Start reading at message #1169842, dated 6th July.

Creedy --

I am almost complete a new feature that will host avatars here on FT for GMs.

I'll mail you tomorrow with directions on where to test this out. Hopefully should have it up and running for all by the end of the week.

The ultimate goal is to have ALL avatars on FT hosted on FT.

Terry

Thank you

Photobucket seems to be working ok now, apart from a whole pile of dubious looking advertisements we never had before. I just changed my normal FT avatar to test it.

Flickr is much easier to use than it used to be. Need help?

I thought someone in this thread has asked about that? Flickr for photo quizzes etc?Now I can't find it. Doesn't matter.

Information about Flickr is given in the thread I referenced above.

"I hope you won't make that a requirement for avatars. "

100% hosting on FT is the goal. Even now some people link to massive JPEGs as their avatar. Yes, we scale them down for display, but your computer is loading the entire massive thing when you view their profile or a chat board post! We simply have no control when people link externally.

Us linking to images on thousands of websites causes all sorts of headaches. Slow loading times, inaccessible gifs, hugely varied sizes, unwanted linking, copyright complaints, etc. It takes 2 seconds to right click an image, save as, and upload it here. This photobucket thing illustrates exactly why we need to move away from external links.

If any GMs want to give FT-hosted-avatars a go, please test drive it here:

http://www.funtrivia.com/avatar_upload.cfm

Let me know if you get one uploaded.

[ External linking will always be allowed in the forums for photo threads, etc. This is avatars only. Avatars are supposed to be small and consistent. ]

Done Terry. Less than 60 seconds.

Hurrah! That's great, Terry, and totally painless.

I agree with CmdrK and Flopsy - totally easy. The hard part was deciding which photo to use. They were all too large, but the program scaled the one I chose down nicely. Thanks, Terry!
[Edited to say that I couldn't figure out how to change the one in this forum. Not concerned, but curious]

So, flopsy, you'll help me load my flopsatar onto the server? (Picture the batting of helpless eyelashes.)

Maybe. What's it worth?

Hmm, if Photobucket can hold people's avatars hostage and demand $399, so can I! How about £50 or the duck gets it? £5? 50p?

I'll send you a note on quizzyland, LT.

So we have to save an image from the net to our person computer - and then, if we want to use it as an avatar, we have to then upload it to here?

I get a lot of my images from deceased famous painters such as Monet etc. Beautiful old-fashioned images. It doesn't say whether they're copyright any longer or what. I sure as heck don't own them as I can't paint for nuts. Are they safe to use?

Testing..

Blimey, now there's nothing there at all