I use an iPad and a few threads have been squeezed really tiny into the left side of the page.

Safari has no pop ups and the ads don't bother me if that is the price to pay to keep it free. This look is cleaner and fresher and to my eye actually easier to read.

Works ok on my Android. I am used to resizing. The color choices are cool. The ads just a little creepy but I am used to google targeted ads.

I have been reasonable, however 10 companies attempting tracking you, and 75% of the pages devoted to ad space is not at all reasonable. End of story.

I have been here for many years trying to help people as best I know, which results in driving more traffic to this site. I have asked for nothing in return. I have posted hundreds of pictures, that, that also results in driving traffic to this site. I have asked for nor expected nothing, as I did what I wanted to do. I however will not be taken advantage of in this manner.

75% ad space, and 10 companies attempting tracking your every movement, is without a doubt attempting to take advantage of that good will.

Arktrees

I don't like "clippings" at the top of every post to a thread, taking space away from the subject line. On my computer, the subject line is now sometimes chopped up into 2 or 3 lines.

I have now broken every link to every picture I have ever posted to Garden Web.

Arktrees

Arktrees, how are ten companies tracking you? What companies?

No doubt zedoo, ad something and google as well as a few others.

Ever notice how well targeted them Google sponsor ads are every once in a while?

I'm not particularly paranoid but I have stopped using Gmail. That cool Google company and Facebook have become monsters.

Old and unassociated Mozilla is probably the way to go. Google Chrome I don't trust and everyone makes viruses for IE.

Omniture
Google Analytics
Google Adsense
Quantcast
Comscore Beacon
Netrating Site Census
Vibrant Ads
ChartBeat
BlueKai
Knux Digital

In Comparison.
CNN = 5 trackers
http://www.arhomeandgarden.org/ = 1
Dilbert = 4

You get the ideal. No other that I have checked neared 10.

Arktrees

A new format is always hard to accept and initially assaults the eyes. Give it time. Seems OK to me & perhaps slightly easier to read.

I have Firefox w/Adblock and NoScript.

Hi Arktrees,

I knew the existence of trackers but didn't know you can track the trackers. So It's good to know. I've just installed do no track add-ons (two of them actually.)

Whether GW is particularly bad..I got interested and read an WSJ article titled "The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets"
This is an excerpt.
" The study found that the nation's 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites each installed more than a hundred. The nonprofit Wikipedia installed none."

So to me, it seems that gardenweb is not the worst. But you're right CNN is much better. And I cannot find myself an website that has more than 10 trackers. That article is a few years old so maybe it's not true anymore.

I think in general it will be fine, for now, if a user tries not to be tracked with those add-ons (although it's like a virus, there will be new trackers all the time and add-ons play catch-up), block ads (so that even if you get tracked, there's no real consequence of viewing those targeted ads), and hope that those tracking companies stick to the current anonymous tracking and do not get into the real personal info like names and addresses (but who knows?) One can also set the browser at "private browsing mode" so that every time one turns off the browser, cookies will be deleted.

But you did get me thinking whether we should post our yard pictures on web.

This post was edited by ttonk on Tue, Feb 12, 13 at 11:22

They definitely gave up qutie a bit of additional ad space. Pictures are now overlapped with ads.

I don't get pop ups but damn this site has alot of ads running on it.

{{gwi:330722}}

Well to be fair, I have been on the internet longer than most people have know it existed. My very first experience you had to hit return on the email to keep it from going off the text area. Was VERY primitive. Point being, is I have watched most all the dirty tricks that get pulled develop, and how many companies radically abused trust and good will, so that I am now very cynical of them all. If your not sure why they are doing something, you can count on it to be harmful to you in some way. That is why I don't do facebook, and most everything else. Also why I tend to stay to posting public spaces, nor give out personal info on here, not even my real name. Pictures from my yard tend to be close up making it very difficult to ID anything. No license plates etc.

That certainly does not take care of everything possible, but it does make it allot harder for them. For example, my true personal email account I have had for probable 13 years, and have gotten maybe 15 SPAM messages on it during that time. While I have several "bait" throwaway accounts that get hammered.

Arktrees

Arktrees,
I agree with you and apologize if I sounded...you know...
Just tried to convince you so that you'll give the fall color pictures back. I don't have much sophisticated experience with internet and I'm very naive with those things. Should be more careful myself. In just one hour of blocking trackers, there have been 500 attempts blocked (and I got a bronze medal for it.) I guess things are scarier out there thank I imagine.

Its actually amazing how long the internet has been around. I consider myself an early user from the early 90s and that not really that early. The main email account I use now is almost 17 years old. The protection and security you have these days is actually much stronger than it was as long as your educated on it. I remember blowing through two computers in the early days due to virus. I'm lucky to have a good friend that heads up the IT department at his company.

ttonk,
Nothing to apologize for, as far as I'm concerned. Just trying to give some perspective as to my stance on this. Some will agree, others will not. Your trying to learn and help yourself, and many people can't be bothered to do even that.

As for the fall pictures, just go to my photobucket account with the same name as here, and they are all still there (see below for Fall 2012 direct link). I had not posted even half yet. I just reorganized them so as to break the links so that GW would not unfairly benefit from my work. There are also Spring and other pics there as well. All are public so that you can download any that you may want to keep a copy of. I have the originals at higher resolutions, which you can also have if there is something in particular you like.

BTW, photobucket is the only other site with 10 trackers that I have found. But I am a bit more understanding of them as they have very large storage and bandwidth demands.

Arktrees

Here is a link that might be useful: Fall 2012

This post was edited by arktrees on Tue, Feb 12, 13 at 13:37

Thanks for the link!! I wanted Fall Fiesta and I want it more now. Dreaming of having red/orange/yellow fall color maple, one each in my backyard. Currently I have red/red/red..

I like the font on the new format - easier to read.... I don't even notice ads on sites like this anymore. The pop-up blocker function seems to work well to block pop-ups (which are the most intrusive ads). My brain now simply ignores sidebar ads and I don't even register that they are there unless I consciously look at them! There are no ads on the side after the third post on this thread and the post texts use about 60% of the width, which is not cramped-feeling on my wide monitor.

I do worry a bit about the tracking issue and try to avoid posting too much stuff that could be used for identity theft. That's the only thing that really worries me and I check all financial transactions regularly to watch for things like that. I have not had an issue with spam in years, although the occasional junk e-mail sometimes slips through. I do have multiple e-mail accounts and only use my 'real' one on sites I trust. I do a fair bit of on-line shopping and keep one Visa card with a low credit limit just for on-line shopping. That way, if the info does get stolen, the theif could not run up many transactions before it would get flagged and stopped.

I did finally get cajoled by friends into opening a FB account. I provided very little info and find the whole thing trivial and boring so may drop it soon. I much prefer the 'conversations' on this site than the banal monologues of FB - my fear is that FB is killing sites like this because so many people aren't willing to put out enough effort to engage in a coherent dialogue!

Ok, I'm sold. They have an image upload now that someone brought up in another thread.

Its time to remove the shackles that photobucket has brought upon us. GOODBYE to you.

whaas,
Are you talking about FB?

Arktrees

I'm really sorry you're so upset, Ark, :(

Arktrees, I think the primary motivation for the new format is so that the interface is optimized for viewing on mobile devices. This has happened to a lot of websites recently (ebay, craigslist, weather.com, etc.)

I don't see ANY ads ever on GW, using Firefox with Flashblock and Adblock plus on both a Windows machine (my desktop) and a Macbook.

Firefox allows you to customize your settings so that you decide which cookies you want to allow on your browsing if you don't want to be tracked. On my Macbook I select: Firefox - Preferences - Privacy and then fool around with the cookies.

That said, I like the clouds and grassy stuff on the new header on top of GW pages, but I liked the old font better. There seems to be a LOT of white space now, might look okay on phones or tablets, doesn't look so good on a widescreen LCD!

I haven't experienced any difference in pop-ups, but I don't like change very much. What was wronge with the old fonts anyway?

Just to test (and the discussion on another thread about black walnuts), here's a fine B walnut where I was briefly in an apartment. It grows well in limestone soil:

The blue font is a painful assault on my retinas!
Other than that, I'm not disturbed(by the change).

I like the new feature where you can download photos without going through a server like Photobucket or the now defunct Webshots that turned into Smile.
Go to browse and get the picture right off your computer.
A really good feature.
Mike

The problem with the picture feature is that you can only add one picture. To add more, you need to do a post for each picture - which, of course, moves the thread down from the top of the list as it is no longer a post without a response. That's an issue in the Landscape Design forum for instance where people pay most attention to new posts.

So there is a catch! Still nice to quickly upload one photo.

I'll only use photobucket when I need to upload multiple photos. Going from full time to part time with pb.

Although I don't have to zoom to get rid of the borders, this site on my tablet still has 40% wasted white space once you get through the top section of ads.

Lucky p, what blue font??

Pretty "vignette" Botann.

You can now upload more than one pic per post. So that's a bonus.

I like that I can edit my profile name.

Other than that, I hate the new format. Way too much space devoted to white space, useless links, etc.
And it's trying to be too much like FaceBook.

Yep, this new Houzz format is not looking very good so far. Graphics are about as pitiful as any commercially produced website I have ever seen. Having to change usernames is another big negative in my opinion. I am VERY disappointed with what I've experiences so far with these new guys. Maybe things can only get better from here???? .....well hopefully so anyway.

A main problem I notice is that whenever you try to edit a post, existing links and spacing get deleted with each edit and there is also no preview before resubmitting!!! WTH??? :/

People's zone information (a near necessity here on GW) is apparently gone. Also, at least as of now, everyone's exchange lists are gone or unacceptable. I just keep finding more problems and I've only been on here for a few minutes.

edit: some of the features that seemed to be missing (like the ability to include one's zone) are actually here after all, just a little bit hidden for those of us used to the old format.

It is different, that's for sure.

It's certainly going to take some getting used to.

Its different. is there a way to skip to new posts when selecting a topic? the Mustang board I belong to has that option. Makes following up in a large topic easier. seems like there is some weird new paragraph error.

I am having trouble guessing what spacing it will use here on the droid.

I recommend everyone go under 'Your Houzz' and check all your social media settings. There's a lot of default 'sharing' going on.

Hey, ArkTrees, we should find a way to hook up (if you'd like) before you (and possibly me too), disappear from GW forever. Since I now live in in Springdale...perhaps we could meet somewhere ?

Yesterday I was able to add four pictures. But I haven't tried today. I was annoyed because with PB I could add more, although it was tedious. Also labels have to be added separately whereas with PB the label came with the picture. You also need to remember that each picture is displayed above the previous one, not below it, which means you have to concentrate on making sure the labels relate to the correct photo. At least that was the case yesterday. I notice the background has changed today. It's grey now and slightly better contrast with the type.

Preview facility would be very useful.

I see no adverts at all using AdBlock.

I hate that I can't quote the original quote to address things specifically.

At least I could do that on the old age format in GW via HTML.

Houzz should have just stuck to showing pretty pictures & glam articles. There forums were already sucky & now we have to be part of it.

I had enough trouble just to log in.

And too much white!

My biggest concern is that the overall appearance of this new GardenWeb will drive newbies away at one glance. There is nothing that invites the confidence of someone needing help from a bunch of pros.

I'm having no problem with the site itself, but the planning and consideration for GardenWeb users was lacking and that astonishes me.

I could not log in from my work computer for the first couple days. No matter how many times I re-registered, re-logged in, it just kept rejecting passwords/user names/ etc. then suddenly, everything clicked into place-once I realized I'd changed my GardenWeb password somewhere along the line, and forgot until just then. Now it works!

+om

I got around the log in issue by adopting a new pseudonym (username). It kept rejecting my old one. Sure the old profile and data still survive somewhere.

Existing in parallel universes has its perks, I guess.

But all this white hurts my eyes. Do we need to go to settings each time we visit here to reduce luminosity?! I feel like I now know what it must be like to go snow blind!!! Maybe just wear a pair a shades.

Peeps, to add your zone information, go to your Houzz profile in the upper right corner. After you sign in, you will be able to add your zone or state to the line that is reserved for your LAST NAME.

Takes just a couple of seconds.

I definitely agree, I guess we don't have a choice but get used to it, though, Poaky1

I don't see a search function, how do I do a search with the new format?

Format is 100x better. The search is 2015, the pic upload is 2015, the ads are almost non existent, inserting multiple links is easier. Tons of other little features GW didn't have.

These are the top things people complained about to begin with.

How do you format your text? ...like bold or italic?

Can't use HTML tags anymore. Hmmm..