• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    1. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      9 votes
    2. Fitness Weekly Discussion #2

      What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started...

      What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

      9 votes
    3. New search capabilities available: phrases, excluding terms, alternatives ("or")

      On Sunday, I took the site down for a short downtime to upgrade the database from PostgreSQL version 10 to 12. One of the main reasons I wanted to do that upgrade was to get access to a new search...

      On Sunday, I took the site down for a short downtime to upgrade the database from PostgreSQL version 10 to 12. One of the main reasons I wanted to do that upgrade was to get access to a new search function, and I've updated to using it now, so we have multiple nice new search capabilities available.

      These should all be pretty familiar since a lot of other search systems and search engines have similar capabilities with the same syntax:

      • As before, by default, searching for multiple words will be treated as "all of these terms". So if you search ~games for steam play, you'll get all topics that have both "steam" and "play" in them.
      • Phrases can now be searched for by putting double quotes around them. Searching ~games for "steam play" in quotes will only find topics that specifically have "steam play".
      • Excluding terms can be done by putting a minus sign in front of it. For example, if you wanted to try to find ~games posts about Blizzard and exclude the recent China controversy, you could search for blizzard -china.
      • Alternatives can be searched for by using "or". This changes to "any of these terms" instead of "all of these terms". For example, searching for overwatch or diablo will find any topic with either of those terms, instead of both.
      • These capabilities can be combined, so you can exclude phrases, use "or" with phrases, and so on. For example: blizzard -"hong kong" or diablo.

      This all works both through the main site topic search (at the top of the sidebar) as well as the new search for your own topics/comments.

      I'm going to write a page for the Docs with info about these capabilities, but I think I want to try to find a full specification of what's supported first to make sure I cover it properly. The PostgreSQL docs are pretty vague about it, so I'll probably need to take a look in the actual code.

      Please let me know if you notice any issues with it, or if anything's confusing that I should make sure to document.

      And as usual, I've given everyone 10 invites, accessible on the invite page.

      52 votes
    4. Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.

      Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:

      Here is my schema:
      
      ```sql
      CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse (
        article_id   INTEGER
      , warehouse_id INTEGER
      )
      ;
      ```
      
      How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
      
      9 votes
    5. Unusual conversation with Meetup support regarding profile image uploads

      I had a problem uploading a profile photo to Meetup today and so contacted support: I can't upload a profile photo so am unable to join a number of groups. The photo just fails to upload and have...

      I had a problem uploading a profile photo to Meetup today and so contacted support:

      I can't upload a profile photo so am unable to join a number of groups. The photo just fails to upload and have tried a number of different sizes (from 400x400 to over 2000 x 1000) and formats - jpg and png. Something seems to be failing!

      I got a fairly quick reply:

      What problem do you see when you try to upload a photo? Are you seeing any error messages?

      The first thing to check when uploading a photo is the size and format of the image.

      Images should be .jpg, .gif, or .png format.
      The file size limit is 10MB. (If your file size is already below 10MB, try reducing the size further.)

      If your image meets these specifications, send the photo to me as an attachment and I'll take a look. I'll also need the link to the page where you're having trouble uploading the photo.

      So I sent the image I was trying to photograph (a photo of me with a camera wearing my Refused tshirt) and received this reply:

      Profile photos can't have text in them at all (even words written on clothing). It's one of the most common reasons you might have trouble uploading a profile photo. If your photo has any text or lettering, try uploading a different photo.

      If that still doesn't work, the next things to check when uploading a photo are the size and format of the image.

      Images should be .jpg, .gif, or .png format.

      The file size limit is 10MB. (If your file size is already below 10MB, try reducing the size further.)

      If your image meets those technical specifications and is free of text, send the photo to me as an attachment and I'll take a look. It's also helpful if you can send the link to the page where you're having trouble uploading the photo.

      What? "Profile photos can't have text in them at all (even words written on clothing)"

      I pixelated the word "Refused" from the photo and sure enough after uploading the edited photo, it uploaded.

      Confused, I sent a reply:

      I've pixelated out the text on my tshirt and that seemed to resolve it. It seems to be strange policy? Any reason for this?

      And got this bizarre explanation:

      To keep our design consistent across all devices, rich text formatting, embedded images, and embedded videos are not supported.

      I've replied back to see if the support person can explain what they mean.

      10 votes