Noticed that the empty place holder for pics in albums have a near 0 file size (43 bytes). Still doesn't explain why sometimes the empty place holder may open when clicked or conversely why a pic doesn't open when clicked. If a pic or empty place holder doesn't open it doesn't load at all...you just get the caption and there is no image place holder or properties available. It is curious why some people don't have this issue while some do... I need to go back to work as it appears I have way too much time on my hands while I am on sick leave, lol.
I'm aware of the issue although have only very rarely seen it myself. I keep checking in Firefox, IE, and Chrome and have only seen it a couple of times. It is to do with the CDN system (Content Delivery Network) which speeds things up since an oft mentioned complaint was the site was running slow, so speed was something I was trying to improve. What a CDN does is it caches content like avatar pics, photos, forum graphics and then when your computer requests those files it looks at your location and serves the cached content from a server as close to your location as possible, rather than your computer downloading it afresh from a distant location via a complex network (the server is located in Atlanta, GA). This speeds up response times, saves bandwidth and also reduces server load. Next time I see it I'll grab some data and send it off to the CDN company and see if they can resolve it.
Depends. For 100% free sites such as this, ad revenue is directly linked to the amount of traffic. However, it is possible to offer an option where ads are hidden in exchange for a paid subscription. You'd just make sure that the price of the subscription matches or exceeds the amount of ad revenue lost by not showing ads to those that subscribe.
I closed that thread at the request of the person who started it. It was years old and kept being bumped, the OP felt it put them in a bad light and after 5 years or so had gotten tired of the repeated attention.
I don't organise the albums myself, I just let the software do it. There aren't any options in the back end to instruct how the recently updated albums are calculated, and to be honest I have no idea how it works or what rules it uses.
Steve, thanks for your replies I pretty much figured these things were beyond your control and I get the need for automation / CDN. It probably doesn't help that I have my system / browsers (mostly Firefox) wired pretty tight on the security side of things...some of these settings affect a lot of other sites as well (oddly enough mostly news sites).
