Rikki

@Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
@Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 

@Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
@Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 

@Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
@Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 

@Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
@Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 

@Mr 13 We've actually optimized all images in the suite too; the default coverphoto image is now ~280KB. Also, cover photos across the suite are indeed lazy loaded too.
@Joel R Yes there's a background task that will clean up the existing letter photos.
For developers, I wanted to add that our lazy loading utility is very flexible, so you can actually use it to lazy load whatever you want, and pretty finely control what happens (with preload, load and post-load callbacks). We hook into IntersectionObserver which is a new(ish) API in browsers that make it super efficient to check when an element comes into view. Of course, our regular content controllers already handle lazy loading images and videos in UGC for you, but if your apps have other areas where it'd be useful, you can do that quite easily 🙂 

I'm gonna challenge you on this idea, because I think the real process begins and ends with making the post.  That's the ultimate aim, and users want to get through the intermediate steps as seamlessly as possible.  Registration is a barrier here, and reminding users of that barrier is not the best thing to do.  
When you redirect users to a whole new page, there are two problems:
Visual interruption -- It's a major interruption, visually and behaviorally, to be taken to a whole new screen.  It breaks the ease of trying to post.  You're dragging on the registration form as a process on its own, when it's really an intermediary step to accomplish something far more worthwhile.   Time delay -- Every new page load is multiple seconds of delay.  And in a world where we're trying to make interaction as seamless and fluid as possible, we need to shave off seconds anywhere we can.  

But has the post been submitted yet?  I don't think so, right?  
You can maybe show an animation that the post closes, but I still feel like either an on-screen or modal pop-up is psychologically more welcoming and less of an obstacle than a full page refresh.  Because mind games.  Or something.  
 

I see travel being a common theme. Guys, having a pretty active travel community in the most undeveloped EU country I can definitely say that you don't need a million dollars to travel. Just don't let your life pass by while you wait for the million 🙂

Mark S, this is me at the SPA grand prix last weekend. Amazing race that is totally worth the 4h traffic jam after it:

I'm a big fan of Dan Brown, but I can't say I've been interested in the most recent books. They're so formulaic now: someone threatening the planet, rush to a museum/gallery, solve some clues, chase scene, twist, fin. I stopped reading Inferno halfway through and didn't bother buying Origin.
It's a shame, his non-Robert Langdon books are incredible, as is Angels & Demons and Da Vinci Code. I hope he writes some more non-Robert Langdon books in future so he can go off in a different direction but maintain the thrill. 

I've just started reading Jurassic Park again. I read the abridged version back in 1994 when the movie came out, but haven't read the full-length novel before.

You will have to tell me later as you're about to be cut off as Windows is updating 1 of 25343637 

A massive thumbs up to all the above.

Regarding Rikki - yes! I might have to edit him in. He didn't respond when I sent out the message for this blog entry so didn't include him, but he's a dead ringer for Ron Livingston.

funny idea ?  
Marc look-alike Roman Atwood

Charles:

Funnily enough, I just set up a Wordpress site for one of my colleagues on a subdomain of ours and hadn't given any thought as to how to cross-promote. Guess what's going to happen next? ?

I just removed Viglink.  I had 30 cents of activity from it in the last 12 months.  I don't know if there are other ways to impliment it, but it clearly wasn't doing anything for me as is.  I don't expect it to beat AdSense, but at least I get a large adsense payment every month, meaning more than the $100 minimum.

Nice article. I sell ads directly to advertisers and premium membership to members. IPS is offering a lot of features to attract people buying subscriptions.

I got involved with forums soon after I got married (in 2003). My husband had a job with extremely late hours, we had no kids yet, and I was home from my own job by 6:00 and very, VERY bored. My husband is an avid fan of the New York Yankees, and really wanted me to join him at the games, so I started to learn a little more about baseball. I wanted to sound halfway intelligent, so I began spending time on the YES Network forums to see what other fans were saying. (Solid choice, Esther, hang around with crazy trolls. Excellent decision-making skills.)
After a couple of months there, one of the more active members decided he was fed up with the sheer number of trolls and total lack of moderation - there was 1 moderator for nearly 1 million members. This guy was asking around to see if anyone could help him get the site up and running. As I mentioned, I was VERY bored, so I figured I'd do it.
The site was running IPB 2.2, and I started poking around and learning how to customize things. Taught myself PHP by implementing the modifications, then started making my own. 
Our site ran for nearly 5 years (and was really popular) before we had to shut it down simply because we had no time to run it. By then I was distributing my own minor modifications and doing really small custom pieces. 
In 2010, I quit my job to go out on my own and do this full time. I love this job. I love that my customers never ever want the same things twice, I love that nearly anything is possible with IPS. I'm really enjoying watching the framework "grow up", so to speak. 

16 years ago i was using XMB and the bigger the thread got the slower it became, so switched to IPB which worked very well. Never looked back.
 

Happy Birthday and Congratulations!
We hit 15 years on IPS last October but been going 3 or 4 years prior to that on, I believe, Ikonboard. According to Matt's recent podcast, we must also have been early adopters of that too. I wasn't on the forum at that time but I hope Matt doesn't think we're stalking him.
Looking forward to another 16 and more years of great products and first class support.
Glen

Just checked back on my records and I jumped on board in January 2004 - converted from a hosted UBB.x site to IPB, with a converter I wrote myself in a Lotus Notes (Domino) database using LotusScript. I've even managed to find the database itself and have been marvelling (i.e. horrified) at the code I wrote to perform the conversion - there's even a comment in there stating
We purchased our lifetime license at the time.

I have been with you guys for 15 years! And how it has grown and i definitely made the right choice back then.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I still remeber this AOL- and CompuServe-Clientprograms (To be honest... I never liked the AOL-Client, but CIM (CompuServe Information Manager)... It was just hard to remeber all the Compuserve-IDs 0972341ß985713245,9082734 
I run a lot of different softwares over the years... UBB (1998), vB, UltraBoard, YaBB, IkonBoard, Woltlab, xF and Invision... all of them had come and goes, dramas, Companychanges, etc.... That said, the most of my websites now running IPS
FunFact: A few days ago, i thought about the future.. I am 44 years old and thought:, i will run some of my websites, when i retire... Second thought: Ouh, how old is @Matt? Will there be IPS ?
GUYS: KEEP IN MIND: I WANT TO USE IPS WHEN I RETIRE... IN 20 YEARS (or so)... DON'T EVEN THINK OF STOPPING THE WORK ON IPS
That said: Thanks for all your work

Very nice design. As see - it is beautiful and more useful. But, did you improve secondary groups field? Now this select box is very uneuseful. If you have a lot of groups then you have a pain with scroll this list. And selecting multi-groups (and unselect only one from list) with Ctrl - is not a modern solution for that.

Nice job Mark and Team! Really clever use of space, nice design. 
I spent an hour deleting spam-flagged, banned members last night, one at a time from 280 members, down to 17 real member accounts. Will the bulk management checkboxes return in 4.3? Would have been nice to check all spam members and hit delete once!