… from the ChinesePod factory
ZH site update: We have fully restored zh.chinesepod.com and so for those using the advanced.chinesepod.com workaround still, you can now switch back!
Periods of inactivity: Some of you guys have brought up the fact that you were prompted to login again after a period of inactivity (whilst still remaining on the website). We have now set the cookies to last up until 4 hours to avoid this unfortunate situation.
Brand new ChinesePod policies: You can now expect a minimum of 48 hours notice before any major / server upgrade in the future; it will be posted on the forum as well as on the ChinesePod blog. You will also find updates on the maintenance page while you wait for the site to go back live. Our fellow CPod bloggers and forum administrators will also be provided the same information through email.
New bloggers: I’m proud to announce that our beloved Marchey (one of our forum admins) has finally joined the CPod blogosphere! Please click here!
Eileen
Thanks for the update, Eileen! Out of curiosity, what’s the reason behind the 4-hour expiration? Why not allow visitors to simply log in once a day?
And welcome to the new bloggers! Good luck out there!
I would think that most websites time out their sessions because users might be at public terminals (or anyplace where more than one person uses the computer).
Steve, I suppose that’s a good argument, but a day of full access isn’t going to do anybody any good, or ChinesePod any harm. Besides, anybody can get a free week of premium membership just by asking for it.
Hello,
Is anybody else who uses QQ from abroad also having difficulties with the connection speed these last couple of weeks? For me the frigging program has become more or less dysfunctional/useless, because the connection speed is so slow.
How about when you click on the Blogs link from the main site, instead of getting the CPod blog with small links to other blogs on the side, you get a list of blogs, each represented by a nice graphical banner, containing the person’s face, name, and a few words. Just think it’s a better way to represent the ChinesePod blogging community, and hopefully make it stronger.
I wanted to have a go at a Chinese blog for ChinesePod but I think John already has first dibs on that. So I started my own instead, shameless plug: www.bazzanet.com/blog
I applause the new automatic login out policy. The new timeout is better.
Has the hosting arrangement for the lesson archive changed at all? I kept getting “server temporarily unavailable (too busy)” when downloading old lessons, so I was forced to download the whole lot as torrents. Now I’m fine, but not everyone might want to get 4 gigs of old lessons at once.
Frank,
Steven’s explanation is exactly the reason why we’re limiting it to the 4 hour period. We’ve had people email us before about cutting short the cookies’ expiry time so we’ve decided to find a compromise.
Guelph Mike,
That’s actually a fantastic suggestion! It would definitely make the CPOD blogging community a lot better. I’ll keep that idea in mind when we re-do the blogs in the future.
Bazza,
Goodluck on that Chinese blog!!!:D
Coljac,
As far as I know, the hosting arrangement haven’t changed at all but I’ll check on that anyways, thanks for the heads up!
“Brand new ChinesePod policies: You can now expect a minimum of 48 hours notice before any major / server upgrade in the future; it will be posted on the forum as well as on the ChinesePod blog. You will also find updates on the maintenance page while you wait for the site to go back live. Our fellow CPod bloggers and forum administrators will also be provided the same information through email.”
What’s the Chinese for “pull the other one, it has bells on it”?
Hi AuntySue,
Sorry, this outage was not planned, it was our host server that went down yesterday. We are so sorry for the inconvenience, we will still alert you 48 hours before any planned changes!
Colleen