Messages

Greetings Adept of Light!

You make some exceptional points, that I cannot really add anything to.

However, werewolves exist I am sure, but not in the Hollywood sense.

Shape-shifting is real (in my opinion), and various Magicians, Adepts, Shamens etc. are capable of it. I believe that it is highly likely that werewolves could be black magicians, taking an animalistic form to do their work.

And as for:

quote:
There were also stories about certain Yogis who like Christ could materialize food out of "thin air", or "teleport" themselves and even other people around them to anywhere on Earth.

.

Absolutely correct - Sathya Sai Baba is just such an example. You can ask Robert Bruce about Sathya Sai Baba, he has quite literally materialised from another plane as a real flesh and blood like person (also called an Avatar) before Robert  on at least one, and I believe several occasions. Sathya Sai Baba has been associated with "miracles" of the type usually associated with the person known as "Jesus" from a couple of thousand year ago.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings David!

Perhaps you could be more specific as to what your experiments are for?

I would check on your web site, but your URL isn't working.

Best regards,

Adrian.

Hi Distant Bell!

Thanks for your kind remarks http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

But you don't have to apologise I assure you! I need to know about any fault so I can look into fixing it. If I don't know, i can't do anything about it.

There is no danger of upsetting me I assure you - after 23 years dealing with users in the computer and Internet industries I have seen most things  http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

The main problem is that there are so many different types of Internet connection, PC's web browsers, and many other things being used to access these forums, which consist of hundreds of thousands of lines of code to e very big and powerful SQL database, that getting it right for everyone is well nigh impossible - all I can do is the best average configuration to meet the requirements of the most possible members.

Of course, I will continue to tweak things as we go along http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

I am looking to increase the size of the fonts, but that could cause a whole new set of problems,  so I am being cautious there as well.

It is a pity Winged Wolf isn't around right now, but by her own admission the equipment she was using was very low spec - just one of those things.

Bye for now,

Adrian.

[Originally posted by distant bell:]

Hi Distant Bell!

quote:Originally posted by distant bell:
I realised that I never really log out when I leav the forum. Every time
I go to the forum the practical cocki recognices me and, there I am recognised by the site ready to writ my posts- well is this wrong, should I log out every time I leav the site? Might it be that the site thinks that I am am present al the time otherwise?

Be Blessed!

-- Love is the Law - Love under Will --

Thanks for your question, but this is a feature http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

Unless you are on a PC shared by others, or at am Internet Cafe, library, work, university or whatever you can leave it logged in. So if your PC is your own home PC,  there is no need to logout at all.

Best regards,

Adrian.
 

Greetings cainam_nazier!

Most problems of that sort are due to cookies. I know it is easy to blame something else, but cookies do cause alot of problems at the PC end - sometimes manually deleting all cookies in the cookie folder works wonders.

The other factor which causes a problem is people accessing the forums from the main web site, so the forums are running in frames. This definitely causes all sorts of problems!

To use forums, it is always best to go straight to the forums at:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums

Thanks for your input.

Best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Nightflier101!

You are entitled to your opinion of course, but for most members here, the reality is the opposite to your own viewpoint.

Since the enhancements, message numbers have increased substantially as have numbers of members. I have received many more positive messages than negative ones, and the latter have been almost always due to non-standard browsers and low powered PC's, neither of which we can do much about. Unless your browser has a bug, the entire forum fits on the screen without having to scroll left or right, and has been thoroughly tested at 800X600 and 1024X768 resolutions in order to ensure that.

We need the enhancements in order to provide a wider range of member services.

Thank you for your opinions, but as always, when it comes to taking advantage of these free services, you always have two choices  http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

We will not be reverting back to the basic forum - that much I can say.

Best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Chris!

It will be most interesting to see if the voices you heard were indeed precognition regarding the condition and immdiate future of the Pope.

I am particularly interested in what level and type of meditation you place yourself into to achieve this state, and also the out of body state which you say you usually proceed to achieve. Could you possibly tell us a bit more?

Thanks!

Best regards,

Adrian.

[Originally posted by Daniel:]

Greetings Daniel!

quote:Originally posted by Daniel:
According to the amount of posts one has made on this forum, they are assigned a certain "level" of membership.  For example, some are "starting members" and others are "Silver members" or whatever... does anyone know the order of this "ranking".  What comes after silver?  After that?  If you think I am just wasting my/your time asking...I'm sorry!http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile_blush.gif" border=0>

fides quaerens intellectum

This is one of the great forum mysteries that will be revealed to you at the appropriate time http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

I can tell you that so far I am on 277 posts, and rank 3 stars!

With best regards,

Adrian

Greetings Richard!

Thanks for your input http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

However - no post will get deleted from here over time - so there will always be a constant knowledge base to refer to.  You can display as many messages as you want to over any time scale by using the time filter on the forums pages.

The search engine will find anything you want, and that is what makes the forums such a good knowledge base.

There are other things we can do, for example, there is an articles feature, where, once everything is setup, people write much more extensive articles than they would do in a normal post. This forum goes way further than UBB in capabilities, not the least reason because it is SQL Server based.

I am not sure about Wiki, and if it is CGI based, I would not use it anyway - it is my policy not to use CGI for anything. We could consider a seperate SQL based knowldege resource, but I don't see what it could do that the forums cannot already do. Perhaps you could explain that more.

At the final analysis, we want to provide the best possible resource for everyone, so keep the suggestions coming!

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Richard!

It isn't a bug - it doesn't currently allow those file types http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

I will fix that tomorrow (it's 01:00 here on Friday).

But you need to send Avatars to me by email at:

forums@astralpulse.com

And state whether you want to be your own private Avatar, or open for others to shares - entirely up to you - Avatars are usually associated with individuals I would add.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Hi Qui Gonn!

I am pleased it is running faster for you now http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

I am sure it is your browsers cache, and probably cookies catching up, but I am not sure why it should take so long?

But the other things you mentioned should work - the smilies etc. certainly work - and many people are using them I believe.

Please let me know if that continues to be a problem, and I will look into it further.

Lets hope you speed increase remains so!

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Qui Gonn!

I have had  people who thought it was slow at first, mail me to say it is fast now. I also have people with low powered PC's and modem connections in Australia say it is fast - so go figure!

The speed is definitely dependant on the PC and in particular the Web browser I think. It is not bandwidth or the server. It would be interesting to find out what browsers people are using. I would certainly suggest upgrading to latest versions, because they are more efficient with javascript etc.. - many people seem content to use browsers a few versions out of date, and it is not surprising those people have problems. IE 6 is the latest I think - at least - that is what I use right now.

As for the features - we do need them in conjunction with the new main web site that is coming along.  File downloads and Polls for example. And the Private Messaging is proving to be very useful and popular, and I am sure people will use the Avatar facility as well. Classifieds are not strictly necessary, but they certainly will not slow things down at all.

I guess it is the same situation that one can't please everyone all the time - especially when there are so many different specifications of PC's and connections out there. But we have a definite mission here, and the enhancements are a part of it, and there it is is.

I have had adverse reports on speed from about 6 members out of nearly 400.

I would definitely suggest that people upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer - it is free so there is no excuse http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Winged_Wolf!

I don't disagree with what you are saying in principle. But there is always a balance to be drawn between offering a feature rich service which is of use to users - and there is more planned - and remaining very basic to account for the lowest common denominator of hardware and Internet connections out there.

I have been in the computer business, running by own companies, including national ISP's, for 23 years now, and this has always been a problem. It was a problem when Windows 1.0 first came out - because of the resources it demanded on the then basic PC's. People demanded that we should stick to MSDOS. Where would we be now if that had happened?

The same with Web browser with ever more features such as frames, Java and so on - what do you do - design a basic boring site to for the sake of those that did not want, or could not be bothered to upgrade to the latest free Web browser - I have seen many of those as well.  In fact there are hundreds of cases like that I could mention believe me.

Of course, I want to make the site accessible to as many people as possible at the same time, and as it is, I have only received six complaints - 3 for speed, and 3 from people who use Apple Mac based Web browsers. Well I can't build services to account for the 0.1% or whateever of people with Macs. And speed clearly is not an issue for most.

We have many people, including Robert Bruce, accessing by modem from Australia, and they all report the speed is fine. There is no doubt that many Internet sites use alot more Javascript and graphics, and are also loaded with advertising banners, pop-ups and so on.

Don't get me wrong - I don't mind the time and resources I put into this, in fact I believe it is an extremely important service, and one which I offer willingly and enjoy doing so, but I only have so much time, and the best I can do is to offer the best service I can, with the time and resources I have at my disposal - and of course in conjunction with Robert Bruce who this site is here for.

Your problem is not modem speed or CPU speed but RAM!  My PC wouldn't even boot with 26Mb, much less do anything worthwhile. I am sure you appreciate that most people have at least 128Mb RAM these days as a minimum - 64Mb is OK for most Internet purposes. But I am sure you can see that you are the exception rather than the rule - which is unfortunate.

I will continue to see what I can do though to speed things up - in the meantime you might like to consider treating yourself or your credit card, or better yet getting your other half to treat you  to a nice new Gateway or Dell  http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

Thanks for your feedback and participation - it is appreciated I do assure you.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings!

I understand what some of you are saying regarding the speed as compared to the previous site. The problem though is not a server problem or a bandwidth problem.

You will notice at the foot of each page is a number  - that number is the time taken to dynamically generate the page from the database. The slowest page is the forums home page which takes 1 second on average to generate, and most of the other pages are taking on average about 0.25 (quarter) of a second to generate. We have massive bandwidth.

In all reality it is down to  the Web browser and the capabilities of PC of the people viewing the forums pages- i.e. the time it takes it to load and display the information. The new site might seem slow - but it is in fact very fast, and only slower compared to the old site when viewed on lower bandwidth or older PC's.

I will certainly see if anything can be done, but you could try going straight to the forum cataegories page here:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/default_category.asp

Finally, for those of you who say you don't have the time to use the enhanced facility, I have to say, with respect, that holds absolutely no sway at all with me whatsoever!

I am a full time *single parent*, with three sons aged 11, 10 and 9 years, to raise myself and with absolutely zero assistance, and with many other responibilities as well.  I spend a huge number of hours of my own time, working long into the night sometimes, to provide this site absolutely for *free* to everyone. I don't get paid anything for doing this work,  in fact it costs me  money I don't have.  Robert and all the team also equally provide all of their own valuable time for free, providing people with the benefit of their vast knowldege, advice and experience in all of these matters. I also provide all of the Internet resources including servers, software and expertise for The Astral Pulse Web site,  forums email and other resources, in order to, with Robert and the team, make these services available for the benefit of *everyone* who finds them of some value. And neither do we derive any revenue from any other source, e.g. by displaying advertising banners, or use popup browser advertising screens to slow things down and annoy people like most free sites do.

So for those of you who say you don't have the time or patience in waiting for your browsers to respond, I suggest you think hard again about the true meaning of time, and whether you have the time for this free service and of its potential or real value to you.

All I, Robert and all of the Astral Pulse team want to do is to provide the best possible service we can do, and for free, on these complex and not widely appreciated subjects. We will of course always try to achieve the aspirations of everyone as best we possibly can, but technology will just have to keep up with us, and people will just have to obtain faster PC's and Internet connections as services and the technologies that facilitate them become more advanced http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

As ever, we really do greatly appreciate all suggestions,  observations and problem reports, and you can be absolutely assured that we always do our very best to sort them out.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Winged_Wolf!

I hear what you say. But there is always a balance between progress and technology http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

The new forums  goes way beyond the java menu's and is part of a greater thing happening with the Astral Pulse site in general - the main web site that is.

Obviously those with broadband connections will be fine, and I suspect that once the server and your browser cache catches up, you might find it alot quicker as well.

However - I am looking at a solution which I am sure you would find to be just what you need, but until I have thoroughly tested it, I don't want to say much more.

Thanks for your feedback - it is much appreciated.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Hi Antiloop!

Thanks very much for your feedback - I can respond as follows with reference to your questions:

1) I have been pleasantly surprised about the stability and speed so far. It has been extensively tested and bug fixed, but there is nothing like live users to test things http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

The biggest problem so far are Mac IE browser users  due to font size interpretation on that browser - it seems very different from most other browsers - could be difficult to fix that.

2) Avatar capability exists now, we just need some Avatars. That is something I will be looking into later - I want to get the site working first.

3) The poll that should appear on the home page the first time the page is opened with a new poll should disappear after answering it. If it doesn't appear or disappear, please let me know - it does appear to be working though. The poll in the forum itself is a different matter - I will look into what can be done there.

4) The guest book is for all visitors, so that will be why it vcan't be edited - it cannot easily, now anyway, differentiate a logged in user from a visitor.

5) You are right about the Register link. I don't know why it is doing that - the link is derived from state information  - but I will look into it. Fortunately there are two other bigger and more prominent Register links that do work.

All of these pages are dynamically generated on the fly from the database, so it isn't just a matter of fixing static HTML for mos tof these things.

6) The "Important - Read now" box is clickable - that is the whole point - if you cannot click the headline to go the the message, please let me know - but it works for me right now.

7) We haven't formally opened the file library yet - that is something we will be doing soon.

Same with the Classified - we will have many more sections - I will probably ask for suggestions when the time comes - hopefully soon.

9) The events needs twaeking as well - that will be sorted with 7) and above.

10)  I am not sure about the active topics - it should work - it could be a cookie problem - I will check that.

11) The software is heavily modified. If you are interested let me know. I am also considering offering a full hosting service for anyone, using this software, and including Web site, virus scanned email, domain and DNS hosting etc. etc..

Thanks again!

With best regards,

Adrian.

Hi Daniel!

Thanks for your comments on the speed.

I haven't noticed much difference here  - but my home connection is xDSL so maybe I wouldn't http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

The speed difference won't be due to graphics, but as you suggest, the new features. There is, what is now, a huge SQL Server database that drives this, and everything you see is generated dynamically on the fly  - there are no static HTML pages at all.

It might get quicker as your browser caches them - but we are in unknown territory here. The new features will certainly come in useful for the most part, we will have to decide later.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[Originally posted by Qui-Gon Jinn:]

Greetings!

quote:Originally posted by Qui-Gon Jinn:
Well, I got the same result, so I just gave my "profile" up - no big thingie but still...  one kinda feels the obligation to report it..   take care //Qui-Gon

- Your focus determines your reality -

Hopefully that bug will have been fixed with this new version of the forums.

Please let me know if it has not.

Best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings!

Thanks for your rapid opinion http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

Yes - the portal was initially the default page, http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

With kind regards,

Adrian.

Greetings!

quote:
I have been dealing with this stuff all of my life.  As far back I as I can remember.  I was truely awakened at about age 8.

It has been stated many times that children can see and hear things beyond what the normal adult can.  But it is not a matter of you use it or loose it.  I think it is more of it being schooled out of you.  You are taught beging with your parents that certain things to not exist.  Ghosts, boogie men, the infamous imaginary friend, and so on.  Then school does the rest when you start taking science classes.
David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com

And of course the older you get, the more your physical mind becomes full of the mundane trappings of the physical world.

Deep meditation/trance is of course an excellent way of distancing oneself from these things, and connecting with the realities beyond the physical in all of their forms.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greeings all!

Someone above mentioned peanut butter sandwiches - yes - really like those

As for junk food - who says it's cheap? We have a McDonalds here, and I haven't been to it in over a year - even with the kids. To me it tastes like cardboard, and costs a fortune!

I really like vegetarian based food of all sorts - the only thing I used to find was that it wasn't very filling at all. But as I have started eating less and less anyway, it isn't much of a problem anymore.

Good for keeping the weight down as well for those that put in weight easily - I am 6' 3", and weigh about 12 stones (168 pounds) which I figure is a good weight for my height, and definitely feel much healthier - especially after cutting out all alcohol as well.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Everyone!

OK - I think this problem is fixed now - this function has about 30 lines of code associated with it, so only time will tell that the problem is solved.

Please let me know if you see anymore problems from this date thing.

With best regards to all,

Adrian.

Greetings!

I have to agree with Robert on this issue of immunisations.

The health authorities do seem to play fast and loose with peoples emotions on this issue, and, sadly, rely on the fact that the vast majority of people simply meekly conform without the slightest thought.

I have three sons, and they have all had all of their immunisations up to date, and thankfully have had non of the unfortunate experiences James suffered. But a few years back, the health authorities suddenly decided that one MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) wasn't enough, and so they decided that all children should have a second one, a few weeks after the first, while acknowledging that children had been injured by this - some permanently. I put my foot down over that one! One MMR has always sufficed for 99.99% of children, who would risk injuring a child by having a second MMR on those statistics? But sadly, most parent meekly do as they are told, and subject the child to that risk

Now when it comes to child safety - the thing not to get me started on is the extreme importance of strapping children securely into seatbelts into the back of cars.  I get SO angry when I see children not firmly secured in *three point harnesses* in the back of cars And I reckon that at least 75%+ of all parents are extremely guilty of that!

The times I follow cars, and the kids are playing in the back seat or on the car floor, looking out of the rear window, and generally moving around on the back seat of cars without any restraint whatsoever! I despair of some parents - they just do not seem to understand that if a car hits something at 60MPH, then everything and everyone in that car, immediately travels at 60MPH as the car is bought to an abrupt halt. Any unsecured child in the car has NO chance of survival. Parents seem to think that because a child is in the back of a car, they are safe. I have often been tempted to stop cars, and challenge parents about this whenever I see it, but all you get is blank looks The sad thing is - if a child was killed in this way, the parents would blame the car manufacturer or anyone but themselves whos fault it really is.

And equally as bad are rear seat lap only straps - i.e. without the three point shoulder harness. In the 60MPH scenario, the child, or passenger, still moves forward at 60MPH, and what happens to that persons spine and internal organs when subjected to a 60MPH of sudden pressure in one place - think about it!

In case everyone is wondering abou the relevance of this to this topic - it is that MANY more children are killed or injured as a result of complete parental negligence when it comes to securing children safely in cars, than die through SIDS every year, and unlike SIDS, and psychic attacks, car deaths are completely avoidable!

Why can't people think about these things - especially when the safety of children are involved? I feel so sad and so helpless when I see these things

Anyway  - I will climb down from my soapbox now. When it comes to the complete safety and welfare of children, whether it is due to psychic attack, or parental negligence, I feel that I just have to say something, and also do whatever I can do, without intefering in the natural course and destiny of things, in the hope that it might save a childs life one day.

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Joe!

quote:
Guys - just noticed this myself and was about to post it separately (thanks God I looked to see there was already a thread on it this time).

That page seems to be reversing the day and month between universal and US formats. ie, it's now 04 October (04/10/02 in US) when the std format would be 10/04/02, which is why it's slowly incrementing the month as you go - just the date component moving forward.

Nothing major; small fix. However, once we get past the 12th of April, any affected ASPs might throw an exception when interpreting that date.

Edited by - joe on 10 April 2002  13:27:57

I am sure this is largely the problem. It is saying 4th October today.

What I can't understand is why it has only just started to occur when the forum code is the same in that respect. Previous months have been fine as well.

I will look into it anyway - I like things to be 100%

With best regards,

Adrian.

Greetings Bhikku!

quote:
I'm vegetarian. I do eat fish and dairy though. I started to become vegetarian almost sub-conciously a few years ago. Red meat just started appealing less and less to me until it was gone. The other meats soon followed, and I do think fish one day will be out of my diet too. I don't eat a lot of soy, mainly vegtables and pastas, and sometimes I buy those "fake chicken" frozen things- you really wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

"Look within, thou art the Budda"

Yes indeed. I must admit that the soy based food is getting tastier all the time.

I don't eat much in the week anyway, but at the weekends I like a cheese salad with lots fo different salad food, and I also had a Mushroom Stroganoff with Basmati rice - very nice it was too.

With best regards,

Adrian.