Message for the administrators

Skyzoomer · January 20, 2017, 01:20:32 PM

I'm a new member and wanted to let you know of two problems that I experienced with the networking-forums. I don't see a way to let you know privately so posting here. This is not a complaint but just wanted to let you know for possible improvement.

After registering, I was immediately allowed to post my question. That was fine.

Problem-1:
When I accessed the networking-forums the next day, I was not able to find my post in the security forum. I had no clue why it disappeared. Later, after a bit of searching, I discovered that it had been moved to the "Home and small office networking" forum. Maybe having a post in the security forum when posts are moved would be helpful. (I was in guest mode during this time as I was unable to login per problem-2)

Problem-2:
After registering, the first time I tried to log in the next day, I was unable to. I kept getting a password error. I clicked the forgotton email link, entered my email address to send my forgotton password to my email but I never received any email. I tried that 3 times but still never received any email. ----- Then I had an idea. Maybe my caps-lock was on when I created my password when registering. Entering my password with all caps worked. ----- What I never was able to find was a way to contact the networking-forums admin to ask for help and why I wasn't receiving the email for a forgotten password. If I hadn't tried the all caps password, I would still not be able to post on the networking-forums.

If it helps, I have not been receiving email notifications of responses to my thread. I see "UNNOTIFY" at the top which I believe means that I should be notified of responses.

Just wanted to let you know. Feel free to remove this post if you want to.
Skyzoomer

deanwebb · January 20, 2017, 03:36:21 PM

Hello Skyzoomer,

First, no worries about removing the post: we welcome constructive criticism.

As for the Problem-1, I would recommend checking posts via the "New Unread Posts", "All Unread Posts", "New Replies" and/or "Recent Posts" links. Any of these can find new responses to old threads. As for the thread location, we do try to keep things sorted out around here, and the issue was more of home networking than actual network security in a production environment. We don't leave stub threads to point to where the thread was moved to, which is why the move wound up hiding the post from your view. I made the move, and I do apologize for the inconvenience. I might revisit the idea of leaving a stub thread behind, in particular for new users such as yourself. Point taken, and thank you for making it.

Second problem... well, emails work fine for me. I've sent you a test email, please let me know if that arrives. If it does, there may be an issue with the code as regards the updates email. Moving the post may also have affected updates, which would be something I'd like to test, as well.

As for the password issue, there is a link for "Forgot Password" that will allow you to enter your email address and click submit, which kicks off an automated password recovery feature. No need to contact the admins for password resets.

SofaKing · January 20, 2017, 05:22:12 PM

Welcome to Skyzoomer -

For problem 2 you could also use a password manager like Lastpass which will save all your passwords for you.

Skyzoomer · January 20, 2017, 05:45:33 PM

Quote from: deanwebb on January 20, 2017, 03:36:21 PM----- snip -----

Second problem... well, emails work fine for me. I've sent you a test email, please let me know if that arrives. If it does, there may be an issue with the code as regards the updates email. Moving the post may also have affected updates, which would be something I'd like to test, as well.

I just checked the email address in my profile on the networking-forums. It is correct. I checked my email but no email from you. I have received email from other websites today on that email address, so I know that email is working.

QuoteAs for the password issue, there is a link for "Forgot Password" that will allow you to enter your email address and click submit, which kicks off an automated password recovery feature. No need to contact the admins for password resets.

Yes, that is the link that I tried 3 times. Never received any email from the networking-forums at all, at any time.

Oh, just thought of something. As I recall, when I registered, entering my password showed dots and not the actual password. I'm not 100% sure about this but to the best of my recollection. If it is indeed showing dots, maybe show the actual password being entered. In my case I would have noticed that my caps lock key was engaged when I thought I was entering lower case alphas. Just a thought.

Thanks for you kind attention to this matter. Hope it's not something wrong at my end, or with my gmail account.
Skyzoomer

Skyzoomer · January 20, 2017, 06:26:46 PM

Quote from: SofaKing on January 20, 2017, 05:22:12 PM
Welcome to Skyzoomer -

For problem 2 you could also use a password manager like Lastpass which will save all your passwords for you.

Thanks for your suggestion. I'm currently saving all of my passwords in an Excel file encrypted by truecrypt. I'll check Lastpass to see if it suits my needs better.

Best regards,
Skyzoomer

Dieselboy · January 20, 2017, 08:51:55 PM

For what it's worth I've been using keepass since 2012. If there's anything better than that then I'm all ears but I have this on my computers and my phone with the encrypted database in cloud storage. So the password must be something I can type in without it being saved in keepass (all my passwords are very long and you couldnt easily look and type it out).

My easy password is the name of my sisters friends dogs uncles fathers nieces human owners daughter.

deanwebb · January 21, 2017, 08:47:32 AM

I never got my test email, either, so I'm going to check settings here later today.

And trust us, Skyzoomer, when we hear about a problem, we don't get offended. We start engineering!

Skyzoomer · January 21, 2017, 03:11:47 PM

Quote from: Dieselboy on January 20, 2017, 08:51:55 PM
For what it's worth I've been using keepass since 2012. If there's anything better than that then I'm all ears but I have this on my computers and my phone with the encrypted database in cloud storage. So the password must be something I can type in without it being saved in keepass (all my passwords are very long and you couldnt easily look and type it out).

My easy password is the name of my sisters friends dogs uncles fathers nieces human owners daughter.

After some Googling, I discovered that LastPass is very popular but was hacked plus requires a premium subscription of about $12/year to use its mobile app. KeePass looks good, is open source and is totally free.

Could you explain how you keep your KeePass encrypted database in cloud storage for use on your computers and phone?

Skyzoomer · January 21, 2017, 03:13:54 PM

Quote from: deanwebb on January 21, 2017, 08:47:32 AM
I never got my test email, either, so I'm going to check settings here later today.

And trust us, Skyzoomer, when we hear about a problem, we don't get offended. We start engineering!

Looking forward to what you find about test emails not working. Thanks!

deanwebb · January 21, 2017, 04:41:21 PM

Quote from: Skyzoomer on January 21, 2017, 03:13:54 PM
Quote from: deanwebb on January 21, 2017, 08:47:32 AM
I never got my test email, either, so I'm going to check settings here later today.

And trust us, Skyzoomer, when we hear about a problem, we don't get offended. We start engineering!

Looking forward to what you find about test emails not working. Thanks!

Looks like I never set it up, lolz. I'll work at it some more, later on...