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vuurrobin


Advanced Member


Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Posts: 428
Posted: 21 Apr 2008 09:29:32 am    Post subject:
after spending some time looking around ticalc.org, I notised that a lot of things are outdated, missing, or not working. because of that, I made a list with all those things so they can fix it and improve the site. I have already send this as a email to feedback@ticalc.org, but I want your opinions to, therefore I'm posting this.


the mail:

Quote:
dear people of ticalc.org

first of all, I would like to say that ticalc.org is a great site. it helped me when I first started to program of my calculator and whenever I need a program that I don't wan't or can't make, I'll look in the ticalc.org archives. its archives are the biggest in its kind and the site is a big part of the communitie. but, the bigger the site is, the harder it is to notise the bugs, mistakes and flaws. because of that, I have a list of all the things that I think that needs to be changed. I hope the list will be usefull so ticalc.org will become even bigger and better than it already is.


1. http://www.ticalc.org/community/newsletter/index.html
I don’t know if there are any mails after beginning 2006 or not but they aren't in the archive. if there are mails, then put them in it and if there aren't mails, then the mailing list is probably no longer in use. Then say it at the subscribing page, so that people won’t unnecessarily subscribe to a list.


2. On the homepage, by other sites, I would put some more sites, like unitedti.org, tigreakware.net and cemetech.net are good sites with a lot of information. And some aren't even in the list of links. If you put sites like that with the others (which currently is only Texas Instruments and CalcGames.org), you will be a bit more connected with the rest of the community.


3. http://www.ticalc.org/services/sitelist/
with searching for sites, there are some subjects missing, like TI 83+/84+ or basic. It would also be handy if there is an option to just see a list with all sites. I would also check every link, because I think a lot of them aren’t working.


4. a LOT of the hosted sites don't exist anymore or the links aren't working, and pretty much the rest is extremely outdated and haven't been updated for years. I would check every hosted site and see which one is a bit active and which can go. This way, newer and better sites can get a chance again.


5. in the basics and in the hardware is a page about link cables. Seems pretty strange to have 2 pages about the same subject.


6. http://www.ticalc.org/hardware/expanders/
there is a link to another site here, but the site is gone and replaced with another site. Remove this kind of links since they don't add anything anymore. There will probably be more links like this. Of old news messages and the like isn't that bad, but pages like this should stay updated.


7. http://www.ticalc.org/hardware/overclocking/
there are some calculators missing here, like the 83+/84+, the 89 titanium and the ti nspire. If the over clocking is the same as predecessor, I would state it there so there wont be any confusion about it. If it isn't the same, I would add a page about it, or, if you don't have a page about it, say that it is missing and that you would like to have one, in case anyone is interested in making a page about over clocking. And here are also links that aren’t working or where access has been denied.


8. http://www.ticalc.org/programming/emulators/romdump.html
there are some calculators missing here to, like the 83+/84+, the 89 titanium (I don't think there are any emulators for the nspire yet). For the 83+/84+ it’s really easy to get a rom image if you use rom8x (http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/373/37341.html). For the other calculators, I have no idea, but if you ask on some sites, I'm sure they would like to help you out.


9. http://www.ticalc.org/programming/emulators/software.html
there are missing a lot of emulators here, especially for the newer/more used calculators. I would certainly add the following emulators:
PindurTI ( http://users.hszk.bme.hu/~pg429/pindurti/ )
tilem ( http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/355/35552.html )
wabbitemu ( http://www.revsoft.org/wabbitemu.zip )
TiEmu ( http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/370/37014.html )


10. http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/recent.html
this isn't of the last 10 days, some programs are added months ago.


11. http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/
the upper 2 links on that page aren't necessary, because they link to the same page as you are on, and the page is to short for the links to be of use. People will ask themselves why the page hasn't loaded yet, while they don't realize that it has already loaded.


12. http://www.ticalc.org/community/directory/
here, people can look for other people who can help them. But seeing as there are a lot of members and most of them aren't interested in calculators (anymore), the chance that you will find someone that wants to help you is really small. Also, most people won’t like it to get messages from people that they don't know, let alone that they want to help them solve their problems. A message board is a lot better for this.
If you do decide to keep this, there are some subjects that are missing.


13. http://www.ticalc.org/community/irc/
the IRC FAQ doesn't exist anymore. And I have seen on a number of websites that they have a online java program so people don't need to install a IRC program. Maybe handy for ticalc.org?


14. I saw on like 5 different parts of the site a link to the mailing lists, and I can say the same about the news messages. Many parts of the site point to another part which causes you to go to the same page over and over. Because of this, you get lost easily or it takes some time before you found the correct page. I suggest you carefully look to the layout of the menu en change it if necessary.


15. http://www.ticalc.org/programming/columns/
I haven't looked with every calculator, but there are some sites that are really handy to put there. The sites have a lot of information about programming and about the calculators itself. I would at least put these sites on it, but there may be other sites that can also be put there
ti basic developer ( http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/ )
wikiti ( http://wikiti.denglend.net/index.php?title=WikiTI_Home )
tifreakware tutorials ( http://tifreakware.net/tutorials/ )


16. http://www.ticalc.org/pub/text/misc/
the rest of the archives is pretty good organized, but in here it looks like a mess. Every calculator, every languages and every subject is put together. I would at least sort it by calculator family (the things about the 83+ also apply to the 84+) and then sort it by subject.


17. http://www.ticalc.org/programming/ideas/
and http://www.ticalc.org/programming/upcoming/
this is the message boards of ticalc.org. In here, people can post information about their projects or post ideas. But there are a number of problems that is hindering the use so much, that it is pretty much impossible to use it good.
First, the message board is split in 2 parts, as evident to the 2 links. Since it is supposed to be 1 message board, I would put the 2 parts together.
Second, with the upcoming projects, everything is sorted by calculator. Not really useful, because there isn't much being made for the older calculator models, like the ti 80-83 and the 85 and 86, and everything that is made for the 83+ will also work for the 84+. So sorting it per model isn't useful. But throwing things together isn't useful either, because then you'll see a program that you really like, and it turns out that you don’t have the correct model for it. I would first sort it by the processor of the models (Z80, 68K) and then sort it by subject, and besides having projects and ideas as subjects, I would add subjects like general, assembly, basic ect.
And third, every news message, every survey, every article has its own topic. Then why should every project be put in 1 topic. This way it becomes very difficult to view, and after a while you won’t know who is replying to which project. Make it so people can make there own topics so you will have 1 topic for every project. This way it will be a lot better to view.


18. There is no easy way to see if you are logged in or not. A message on the right side of the homepage that tells you that you are logged in (or give you the option to log in if you aren't) would be really handy


PS: I'm sorry for any spelling mistakes I've made, englisch isn't my first language and although I try to make no mistakes, I'm not perfect.
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DJ Omnimaga
http://i-lost-the-ga.me


Calc Guru


Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 1196
Posted: 21 Apr 2008 02:23:44 pm    Post subject:
sometime in 2007 they deleted about half of the hosted sites, with no announcment or reason stated for it. They almost all worked before, then I come back this summer and half are gone. Idk if they got a database wipeout or something. It's true that a lot of stuff on the site is outdated though. This site is pretty huge and must be hard to manage by maybe two or three active staff. It would be cool if some stuff were put up to date though.

I don't check ticalc.org forums, because all posts are scrambled it seems and they are so hidden that few ppl uses them and it's hard to read posts there. I wish they would make them look like a real forum, or almost like a real one.
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Ben Trettel


Member


Joined: 17 Jul 2003
Posts: 153
Posted: 21 Apr 2008 02:58:23 pm    Post subject:
I doubt they will respond to your email. I sent an email months ago about me bringing calc.org back and I never got a response. You should have better luck emailing individuals.

Last edited by Guest on 21 Apr 2008 02:58:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
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DJ Omnimaga
http://i-lost-the-ga.me


Calc Guru


Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 1196
Posted: 21 Apr 2008 03:14:35 pm    Post subject:
altough they say to not do so on their page x.x

EDIT: I reported this file about one month ago because he uploaded it without my permission (it's one of my RPGs) and it's still there. The original is there.

I also sent an email to filearchive@ticalc.org about 4 months ago regarding my author profile and files, and after two months without responses I sent another one, and today still no replies.

Last edited by Guest on 21 Apr 2008 03:17:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Xphoenix


Elite


Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 756
Posted: 21 Apr 2008 11:12:24 pm    Post subject:
You might want to email Michael V or one of the active staff members directly. I sent them an email a few days ago about my account, and it wasn't noticed until I emailed a staff member about it.
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kermmartian
Site Admin Kemetech


Calc Guru


Joined: 20 Mar 2004
Posts: 1220
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 07:49:20 am    Post subject:
Xphoenix wrote:
You might want to email Michael V or one of the active staff members directly. I sent them an email a few days ago about my account, and it wasn't noticed until I emailed a staff member about it.
[post="122708"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

I sent them emails months back about my account, but only received a response when I IMed one of the staff directly.
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Fryedsoft


Newbie


Joined: 03 Dec 2007
Posts: 13
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 08:00:46 am    Post subject:
DJ Omnimaga wrote:
EDIT: I reported this file about one month ago because he uploaded it without my permission (it's one of my RPGs) and it's still there. The original is there.

I also sent an email to filearchive@ticalc.org about 4 months ago regarding my author profile and files, and after two months without responses I sent another one, and today still no replies.
[post="122681"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Good luck with that.

It only took them 2 years to fix FF7 when there was an unofficial version of it. They finally did it when they started cleaning the archive of multiple versions and they still managed to screw it up (Thats why "(modified)" is in the title). Whats worse is that other archives adopt this naming scheme and make the problem worse. For example this was posted in the calc.org archive because I was sick of getting bug reports for a version that should have no longer existed.

From the Calc.org archives circa 2001 wrote:
For those of you confused as to why there are two of these programs on the site, Here's The Explantion. The file FF7-2.zip is the Official Version 1.4 of FF7. The one called ff789.zip is also an official version, but it's 1.3. I have no clue why Every Ti archive on the planet decided to set it up this way but I believe that it was because an unofficial program was released by Tip DS to add a map feature and fix some graph problems. A map was planned to be in the 1.4 release. We were testing various ways of incorporating it when the unofficial version was released without our knowledge. Me and Hiryu studied it and decided to use the map system in the unofficial release and apply the bug fixes that cropped up during the 1.3 release schedule. That is why Tip DS was added to the credits in Version 1.4. When We updated the Code on Ticalc.org, they decided to replace the Unofficial version with the Official version instead of Deleting the unofficial version by our request and replace version 1.3 with 1.4. and of course every archive on earth followed this design. We have E-mailed Ticalc.org as well as other sites to try and fix this with no replies let alone results. So we just accept this as the way it's going to have to be.


Last edited by Guest on 22 Apr 2008 01:49:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Ben Trettel


Member


Joined: 17 Jul 2003
Posts: 153
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 09:37:57 am    Post subject:
Fryedsoft, I just checked out the calc.org archives and I've found the old version you're talking about. It has no author assigned to it so I'm sure it's the one you're talking about (your programs were for the most part assigned correctly after some work). If you want me to delete it, fire me an email or post here.

Part of my plan is to allow authors to soft-delete their programs with little admin intervention. It will disappear, but the database entry won't pending approval from an administrator.
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DJ Omnimaga
http://i-lost-the-ga.me


Calc Guru


Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 1196
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 01:29:14 pm    Post subject:
i just sent an email directly to Michael_V now, I will wait to see how it goes
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Fryedsoft


Newbie


Joined: 03 Dec 2007
Posts: 13
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 01:49:08 pm    Post subject:
Hmm. That post was from 2001 and I'm pretty sure Adam took care of it shortly after I posted it. Maybe the backup calc.org used predated the fix. Anyway, currently on calc.org...

* ff7.zip (92 Basic) and ff789.zip (89 Basic) are the official latest versions.

* ff7-2.zip (89 Basic) is the unofficial version entry and can be deleted, since all of the updates from ff7-2.zip were incorporated into ff789.zip. It also looks like what may have happened is that they copied ticalc.org's ff7-2.zip file, which was the official release but ticalc.org assigned it to the unofficial archive entry. Calc.org also must have updated the official release as well since I submitted it to them.

* ff7.zip was written by Fryed Software and Nomad Software, and the archive entry appears to be correct

* ff789.zip was Written By Fryed Software, Nomad Software and TipDS. It's currently assigned to Fryed Software only.
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Agent84


Newbie


Joined: 20 Feb 2008
Posts: 18
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 02:02:29 pm    Post subject:
i requested to open a new account about 10 months ago. I still have not received any e-mail confirmation or anything. I really want to get my programs to the ticalc.org archive, but since i dont have an account, i cant upload anything.
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Ben Trettel


Member


Joined: 17 Jul 2003
Posts: 153
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 02:22:39 pm    Post subject:
The "backup" we have (if you want to call it that) is unusual and contains a mix of old and new. There was no calc.org database backup from before 2002. We parsed everything up to program 2800-something straight from archive.org. I downloaded the all the program data from archive.org with wget, Reilly Miller parsed it into a text file database, Barrett from CalcG parsed that into an SQL database, I corrected parsing errors in 500+ files, checked them for broken files, then added calc.org programs with no database and most things from TI Files. It was a long sloppy road but it's necessary to bring calc.org back in my opinion. I'm sure there are numerous errors and duplicate programs in there.

I was referring to this program Fryedsoft: http://www.calc.org/program/4255

You can't download it because I don't have that part of the program archive online yet, but I think it duplicates what was uploaded before. I'll check it out and compare later. This program was added from the calc.org programs with no database entries, so there is no information about it and even the category is wrong. Someone must have uploaded/moved it to the wrong category.

I've deleted ff7-2.zip from the database. Right now I can assign programs to only one author, but I should remember to add those other authors when more functionality is added.

Quote:
i requested to open a new account about 10 months ago. I still have not received any e-mail confirmation or anything. I really want to get my programs to the ticalc.org archive, but since i dont have an account, i cant upload anything.


As others have said, it's probably best to email people at the site directly about stuff like that. I'm not even sure if anyone checks the other email addresses any longer.

Last edited by Guest on 22 Apr 2008 02:23:59 pm; edited 1 time in total
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vuurrobin


Advanced Member


Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Posts: 428
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 02:23:44 pm    Post subject:
IIRC, creating an account is automated, so if you don't get an email within a few hours at most, something went wrong.

I suggest you try again.


and I'll wait a few days. if I dont hear anything from them, I'll send an email to one of the staffs dirrectly.



edit: cross posted

Last edited by Guest on 22 Apr 2008 02:35:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Agent84


Newbie


Joined: 20 Feb 2008
Posts: 18
Posted: 22 Apr 2008 02:44:20 pm    Post subject:
well, i cant sign up more than once, so i cant keep on trying over and over again (there is an error screen, stating either the account exists, or the e-mail address exists). I have sent ticalc.org an e-mail, but no response yet (all of this happened many months ago). Does any one know the e-mail of the main person over there at ticalc.org?
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kermmartian
Site Admin Kemetech


Calc Guru


Joined: 20 Mar 2004
Posts: 1220
Posted: 23 Apr 2008 10:36:27 am    Post subject:
Agent84 wrote:
well, i cant sign up more than once, so i cant keep on trying over and over again (there is an error screen, stating either the account exists, or the e-mail address exists).  I have sent ticalc.org an e-mail, but no response yet (all of this happened many months ago).  Does any one know the e-mail of the main person over there at ticalc.org?
[post="122734"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

You want accounts@ticalc.org (see http://www.ticalc.org/about/contact.html)
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DJ Omnimaga
http://i-lost-the-ga.me


Calc Guru


Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 1196
Posted: 23 Apr 2008 05:23:01 pm    Post subject:
On calc.org I only had one file and it was Illusiat. IIRC I asked for it to be deleted, but I am not sure anymore. It was so old that the readme was written in french.

As for the topic description I think it should be changed to something like "lot of stuff are outdated on it", cuz to me ticalc.org isn't really that outdated compared to some other sites which still have MirageOs 1.0 as most recent version avaliable in their archives. Razz

Last edited by Guest on 23 Apr 2008 05:54:36 pm; edited 1 time in total
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vuurrobin


Advanced Member


Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Posts: 428
Posted: 25 Apr 2008 05:46:15 pm    Post subject:
I've send the email to michael and added a point about the email adresses.


Quote:
dear michael

a few days ago, I send an email to 1 of the ticalc.org's emails, namely feedback@ticalc.org, and I haven't gotten an answer yet. I have also posted the email on the unitedti.org's forum, and according to them, I have more chance emailing one of the staff directly than to send the email to one of the ticalc.org's contact emails. and thus I am sending it to you.
I have also added a point 19 about the emails, because I get the fealing that they aren't checked that often.

I hope to get a reply and that this will help ticalc.org

greets, robin (vuurrobin)


the topic on unitedti.org:
http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=7892

the original email:

........

19.(new) http://www.ticalc.org/about/contact.html
how often are these emails checked for new messages? because with more email adresses than active staff members, and seeing the responses I got on UTI, I don't think that they are checked that often. I don't know how things are aranged, but I asume that the emails recuire separated logins to view the messages. may I suggest that the emails are forwarded to 1 adress with in the subject the adress were the email came from. so if someone would send an email to feedback@ticalc.org, it would be forwarded to contact@ticalc.org, and the subject would be "[feedback] original subject". this would checking new messages easier for the staff and people would get replies sooner. you could also delete every email adress and only keep contact@ticalc.org or something. it would also help if people would get an automated message saying that you got the email, that you will read it and that you will send a message back if nessesairy.
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DJ Omnimaga
http://i-lost-the-ga.me


Calc Guru


Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 1196
Posted: 26 Apr 2008 03:03:36 am    Post subject:
It seems like sending directly to staff is really the best solution. I did, and within 24 hours I got a reply, then within 2 days my request was acknowledged
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elfprince13
Retired


Super Elite (Last Title)


Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 3500
Posted: 29 Apr 2008 06:31:48 pm    Post subject:
i haven't been able to use my ticalc.org account in a couple months, because the account reactivation thing never appears. I hate having to reactivate every 4 months as it is, this is just getting to be a pain.
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DJ Omnimaga
http://i-lost-the-ga.me


Calc Guru


Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 1196
Posted: 29 Apr 2008 09:57:48 pm    Post subject:
ouch this sucks, and imho the account activation thing is a bit annoying too, because sometimes you have to click send validation email multiple times before actually getting an e-mail. On top of that ticalc is the only calc site that does that. Only TI-Freakware and Omnimaga did as well once, but it was because of the new anti-spambot system implemented last fall, which caused the default member group to change into a validating group and moving all alerady existing accounts to a new member group would have been a pain, as the system only let us do it one by one.
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