I don't know if the survey's causing this or not as PremEx suggested in the other thread, but it's taking a long time (around 30 secs) to open the FT home page. Usually takes 5-10 secs.

The long load time happens both when I start FT and when I hit the "back" button on my browser to go back to the home page.

BTW, if anyone else is experiencing this problem, pgupta011 gave me a tip which I am going to use today so I don't have to go "back" to the home page so often. The tip is: keep the home page open in one window, then when you want to go to one of the forums, right click on it and select "Open in new window" so you have two browser windows, one with the home page and the other with the forum you want to browse through. If you keep the one with the home page open all the time, then you don't have to worry about it taking a long time to load. I have tried this successfully with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5; can't vouch for whether it works with earlier versions of IE or with Netscape.

sure - works with Netscape too (my Netscape 4.6 US version Macintosh).

but the nasty slow-down effect of that survey-surfer persists - less then yesterday, but still.

Now on Main Page getting "error in reading a script" message. Probably due to the survey problems.

Dgolds - that is a great tip but only if your PC can handle it! For those still using pre-pentium models (and you know who you are), more than 2 or 3 windows can cause horrific crashing

dgolds, it definitely works with Netscape 4.6 on a PC. Right-click is the best way to keep your machine from slowing down.

dgolds thanks for the reminder regarding that tip. It is rather frustrating to have that long load time, even when simply going back to the main page. I could understand if the wait was followed by the survey, but that doesn't seem to be always the case.

I've been through this for 2 days now and still haven't seen the survey!! Lucky?

The number of windows you can open safely is more a fuction of browser RAM than of CPU. (The two are related, as older systems with older CPUs will tend to have less RAM, but they're separate issues.) If you experience this problem, trying increasing the browser's RAM allocation if your system has enough and the other applications you want to have open concurrently permit.

On Macintosh, to open a link in a new window, hold the mouse button down for a second or click with the Control key down. Either gets you the same pop-up menu that Windows users refer to when they mention clicking the right button. Works with all recent releases of IE and Netscape browsers.

For what it's worth, I haven't noticed a recent slowdown and I haven't gotten the survey in opening a dozen forums, most of them more than once, in the past few days.

Efrem: Unless I misunderstood you, I believe your tip applies only to Mac users (in which case, you might want to label it as such so as to not confuse others). In Windows, you don't configure the memory allocation for applications like you do on a Mac. So you can't increase the "Browser RAM." I presume that what you are referring to is changing the memory allocation in "Get Info" for the Browser app. There's no analogy in Windows.

I apologise if it's my comment above that's caused the confusion. You are right that RAM is also very important in how many windows you can safely open. At home I use a 486 with 36M of RAM running Windows 3.1 and more than 3 windows is a struggle. Before I upgraded from 4M (yes really) accessing the internet was virtually impossible.

[This message has been edited by james (edited 08-18-1999).]

Actually, I have remembered another method - one that I use on the computer described above. Once on the main menu page, I make a handwritten note of all the forums with lightbulbs that I read and then navigate them using the scroll bar at the bottom of the page.

Old fashioned to use a pen I know, but perfectly effiecient and much quicker than ducking to and from the big main menu.

Oooo, Ouch. So many problems. I'd like to apologize one more time for all of the problems that we've had and to let you all know that we beleive we have it all under control now...knock on wood.

For those of you who might still be interested in the survey you can now find it at the following locations:

http://talk.webflyer.com
http://www.webflyer.com/bonusconnect/bonusconnect.htm
http://www.webflyer.com/@10/fr10.htm
http://www.webflyer.com/@accounts/fracct.htm


Please note: The survey is still on a random timer and so you will need to hit "shift+refresh" several times in order to get the survey.
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ThanX...
Michael at WebFlyer