g'day roysta,

mmm interesting ask?

these aussie forums have been running on the pretty much defunct fashion for over a year now and they are still here.

i would say lack of participation over this side of the pacific is of no concern to the site owners, in their overall picture i would suggest we take up very little space, and lack of posting means we aren't using bandwidth plus i think their banner ads are set up in such a way as to give them a hit credit each time we open a page, so we may inadvertantly be making them a little money.

i am in other forums on this site and they can be just as quiet but still there.

so i guess the best thing we can do is chat about gardening, and let the site owners be concerend or not about attendance.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

Sad. I miss the old people. Shame no new ones showing up. I'm just really sad. Used to get on GW especially on Friday nights, watch Gardening Australia, Burkes Backyard. Spend the weekend out in the garden.

Computer crashed again yesterday. Fifth or sixth time. DS pointed out it only happens when I'm on GW. Not that often. Once every month or two I guess. It's starting to be another discouragement.

macbirch,

do run any antispyware?

also other things to look at is cleaning out the cookies folder only keep those that you need for special sites, do you do say at least monthly housekeeping ie.,. defrag & disccheck/scandisc?

another is we find we get a better run in these sort of sites by using firefox instead of msie.

len

Same here, macbirch. Crashes, only on Gardenweb, and I use firefox. I suspected that members posting lots of photos might be the problem, but we definitely get something dirty from Gardenweb, as I found that other programs seemed to be affected even after I turned the modem off. I often needed to close down the computer and start again. Closing down always produced an "end task" message, so I don't know what task I picked up from here that had my computer so busy that it couldn't function properly. It became quite impossible while I was still on dial-up, but has still been a bit of a problem since we've gone to broadband.
The housekeeping is a good suggestion, Len, but maybe I'd just be better off keeping away from a dirty site?
It would be a pity, as I enjoy hearing from others.
Trish

I can say that I havnt really had much trouble with my postings to GW.We have bband and had a few problems but the last fortnight its been a good service (I think the server was having trouble) and now ok.i also seem to have my own gallery for my pics,but i have'nt got too lonely yet,but i think someonehas a look now and then. I wonder though if anybody else has any Autumn pics.
regards chas

g'day trish,

housekeeping is necessary regardless of what site you do or don't go to, i have no problems from here, i run ccleaner at least once a day and about weekly or when it is obvious the machine isn't happy do the registry scan.

you need to clean out those cookies that are un-needed.

the registry needs checking/cleaning at least once a month, and we run our anti spyware (4 different programs as they all do thngs differently and have updates at varying times) at least once a week when they have upgrades and virus scan every day with update automatically. i do defrag around monthly and at that time do the scan/check disc function as well.

like i say we have no problems, so i'd say apart from ccleaner daily anti virus daily and the others once or twice a week depending on updates, and i do a manual clean of cookies daily.

len

Hi Trish, Len and everyone. I love Gardenweb but it crashed once too often, and it crashes the other computer too which is a problem if someone's writing an assignment on it, so DS has blocked it at home and I'll only be able to catch up with you all at the library occasionally :(((

g'day macbirch,

we would like to see more of you, reckon you may need to look closer to home for the crashes, in past years i had heaps of problems too but since moving to firefox and being more pedantic about housekeeping i get none at all now, those anti-spam programs are great as is the cleaner program.

nto sure about your pooter stats we have 2 machine 1 has 1gig or ram and 200gig hdd, the other has 310 meg of ram and a 10gig hdd ok the old machine is a lot slower but! we recently bought a 250meg ram chip set for the oldy for around $15 second hand it works great. also m$ o/s's are very shaky especially if not continually updated, we are moving to linux products which appear to be more user friendly and reliable and cheaper than m$ if you want to purchase.

len

Good to see you all even it is about pesky things.

We are on broadband, have no trouble at all viewing any of the GW forums. Never crash. I would love for this one to get busy again, I'm sure it could happen. I haven't got the details of our security off hand but could check with the techno son. Certainly had Firefox as the main browser for a long time now.

Thought of you the other day, Trish, when the neighbours' *controlled* burn that was thought to be out for 2 days entered our place. The weighs-a-ton dedicated knapsack sprayer has mysteriously vanished from the shed too. No harm done but I was a tad cross with the lack of definite notification.

Cheers
Rose

g'day rose,

good to see you still here and doing your thing so to say hey chuckle.

i wouldn't be too concerened about contributors this is not the only group of forums suffering from that syndrome there are forums on the US of A side just as quiet if not so more. and the same on the usenet.

maybe people too caught up in getting hit around the ears with this climate change mumbo jumbo? too much reaction and not enough proaction.

anyhow we got some good rain going here at present had 54mm up to yesterday too dark to squiz at what is there now, but our 25k/l tank is a brimmer again.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

Well, one thing I'm sure of, is that GW couldn't care less about a little OT chat.

So.....it can rain cats n dogs now the shed at the acreage has been reroofed!!! Actually, who'd have cared if the contents drowned :)

I don't what know has fallen there last two days, 10 ml the first damp 24 hours.

Pretty good feeling having a full tank, Len

Rose

This seems to be a particularly user-unfriendly site. You can't post more than one follow-up to a thread; nor can you start another thread on the same subject.
Also, there are no visible moderators, unlike the UK Oasis and PalmTalk. It's like your words are echoing around an empty room. I think I'll stick to friendlier sites.

g'day phil,

you can post more than one reply to a thread and yes you can also post more thna one thread on the subject matter, it takes a play with words eg.,. to post a second reply in the same day insert the words in front of the subject line topic.

the same if posting another similar post, but on the second day you can answer a post again as normal.

so with some manipulation of their robot the forum is as friendly as you want it to be.

under past managements they would pull o/t's like this as the past manager had a ready supply of "no life" who pretty much read/scanned every post on every day and took great pleasure and satisfaction in seeing someone sent to and then have to "grovel" to be allowed back or to simply see another persons posts pulled without any notification, now they where the unfriendly days.

len

Thanks, Len.

I spat the dummy after trying to put a sequence together on Callitris rhomboidea on the Conifers forum.

Hi everyone,

I do try to post in the OZ forums first when I do find time to log into GW, can relate to local opinions a bit more :) 1 or 2 years ago I remember so many OZ GW regulars who have helped me heaps while I picked up gardening for the first time. It has been excellent! I hope everyone is enjoying this spring being outside as much as I am, gardening or not. Now if we'll only get more rain.

Kat