Avatar's...frozen in time

I think it would be cool if our Avatars were like our signatures and were frozen to the post.

I know not everyone will agree, and that's cool...

Right now, if you update your avatar, all your old posts have the current avatar. That's the way signatures and avatars are handled in most forums I've seen.

Too much coffee does this to me I guess...
Clem

Hmmm.. it would have a benefit to me..... it would let me store the avatar with the post rather than have to make an extra database call to go get it.

[stoner]woah[/stoner]

I'll be the dissenting vote here.

Good point.

I was going to bring up a recent incident, but see it's handled.

BTW, poopie's new avatar is simply outstanding.

Margie

But it is NOT a fornicorn.

I say "Neigh" to the proposal. Too confusing.

I heard the term "Unicorning" for the first time yesterday, in reference to acts performed by ladies who don't dig on the fellas. Mrs. Poop said "I just keep picturing a retarded kid in a helmet slamming his head against the wall."

confuZion3 wrote: Too confusing.

Hmmm...I'm confuzed ;)

ClemSparks wrote: I think it would be cool if our Avatars were like our signatures and were frozen to the post. I know not everyone will agree, and that's cool... Right now, if you update your avatar, all your old posts have the current avatar. That's the way signatures and avatars are handled in most forums I've seen. Too much coffee does this to me I guess... Clem

And far, far too much time on your hands...

I think it would be cool if everybody's avie changed on April Fool's Day.

Tim Baxter wrote: Hmmm.. it *would* have a benefit to me..... it would let me store the avatar with the post rather than have to make an extra database call to go get it.

Doode, You don't need an extra database for avatars. You need an extra table. Two fields, an ID and the graphic. You link the tables: Message to user to avatar. You could even add the avatar field to the user database and not have a separate table. Make it some kind of variable length field and it won't add much space at all. Putting the avatar in each message would increase your storage/database size quite a bit. I mean, this particular posting takes, what? 512 bytes of text? Add an avatar to that, even a small one like mine, and you just added 5,660 bytes to what would have been 5-600 bytes, increasing the size of this message 10X. Now, if you create a separate avatar table (not database), you could do like this:

User has current avatar_ID avatar table has: avatar_ID, avatar_graphic message has: various message attributes like time, text, and avatar_ID, linking to avatar table and you retrieve the avatar from there. That way, storage space is minimized and you could "freeze" avatars in time. People change their avatar and you just add an extra record to the avatar table and update their user data table with the new avatar ID.

I didn't say separate DB.... separate DB call.

As it is, I just store a pointer to the avatar file, not the actual file.. as you said, variable length field stores the location. That's stored in the user table. What I was saying is that when I build the topic I'm pulling from the topics table, and grabbing the avatar would entail an extra call over to the user table--at least as I understand what's going on.

Doesn't matter, though. I don't see us creating permanent avatars.

Tim Baxter wrote: Hmmm.. it *would* have a benefit to me..... it would let me store the avatar with the post rather than have to make an extra database call to go get it.

But storageusage+infinity :(

If the database query rate is that high, store a cache of avatar location/user id mappings in a file. I made what's essentially a very fancy data import application and in order to keep it from assaulting the database on every record during the import process when looking up data in a commonly used field, I had it keep a cache of everything it's queried so far in memory. Every import only takes a few seconds so it was no big deal, but I didn't query the whole table up front because it's massive, so it only caches what has already been pulled. You could have the cache file update itself every few hours.

I like jam.

NERD FIGHT!

poopshovel wrote: NERD FIGHT!

I'm in.

Is this a PHP database call or is it an apache (tomcat) call to the database? Is the MySQL running on the same server as the web server or is it someplace else. Are you cacheing it in apache or does it dump once the PHP expires?

What if we delete the old avatar altogether, will there be an error in the place of the avitar?

more importantly, is it the digital Devide that is driving globalization to expand? or is it that the growing globilization of computing that is generating the digital devide; that is the peoplw who have Technology and those who do not? If you could write that up in about 1000 words with three quality references, I and my MIS 513 Professor would apprectiate it.

Thanks

Eric M, CISSP Full time Data Security analyst Part time Grad Student in MIS

How about a button where we could change other peoples avitars at random. You would put in a picture and the computer would choose who it was given to.

EricM wrote:

poopshovel wrote: NERD FIGHT!

I'm in. Is this a PHP database call or is it an apache (tomcat) call to the database? Is the MySQL running on the same server as the web server or is it someplace else. Are you cacheing it in apache or does it dump once the PHP expires? What if we delete the old avatar altogether, will there be an error in the place of the avitar? more importantly, is it the digital Devide that is driving globalization to expand? or is it that the growing globilization of computing that is generating the digital devide; that is the peoplw who have Technology and those who do not? If you could write that up in about 1000 words with three quality references, I and my MIS 513 Professor would apprectiate it. Thanks Eric M, CISSP Full time Data Security analyst Part time Grad Student in MIS

If I were you, I wouldn't give anything to that professor I hadn't spellchecked first.

(I'll see your computer nerd, and raise you an editor nerd.)

Margie

WELL if you are offering to Edit my papers, I accept.

(I spell check, grammer check and edit papers and all corrispondance with my professors, on line boards, not so much)

BAM! That JUST happened!

Marjorie Suddard wrote: If I were you, I wouldn't give anything to that professor I hadn't spellchecked first. Margie

I was sitting here thinking "devide" was some sort of programming jargon.

It's a reference to Eric Devide, an early pioneer in ASCII porn.

poopshovel wrote: I heard the term "Unicorning" for the first time yesterday, in reference to acts performed by ladies who don't dig on the fellas. Mrs. Poop said "I just keep picturing a retarded kid in a helmet slamming his head against the wall."

That's kinda funny...