Meso

Glad to hear :) No worries.

I wonder if the liberals will kick me off their team if they knew I was a fan of guns.

Personally, I don't see why all the hoo-ha about this. Sure, it's a sad event and no child should have to worry about death, but it happens every day. I get pissed off when stories become a hot-topic and are all over the media and people's mouths because it was a pretty lil white girl who died. That's not to say that it's any less of a tragedy, but in poor communities children and even toddlers are raped and murdered by their parents all the time and yet you hardly hear a word about these cases. But when it's a suburban family suddenly the case becomes more news-worthy? It was a global news story and yet this is an every day occurrence in different demographics and different countries. Guess I'm pissed off partially at the media because they will jump on a case of a white suburban mother who kills her child but they won't even do a 10 second report on the drug dealer who murdered his child. And secondly at people in general who go crazy about this trial and the results and yet pay no attention to all the other incidents that happen outside of their neighbourhoods. A child's death should be equally tragic, regardless of the circumstances or what colour or income the parents had. Rant over.

The user is a classic example of the regular scammers that target online classifieds. They will contact you and typically use terms like "the item" or a visible copy paste of the item name. They will then ask you if they can send you a cheque for the amount. When you receive the cheque, in most of the cases the cheque will be for a larger amount than the gear item. They will then tell you that it is for the shipping or to send the difference back to them. These cheques are fraudulent and they will bounce if you try cash them. We recommend cutting all contact with this user.

Hah, I saw it with my ex-girlfriend when it came out. It was definitely a mood setter ;) The kind of mood I welcome. But it was surprisingly tame considering the way some were talking about it. Was pretty good though.

The following scam has been reported: Click here to read more about these kind of scams. Remember: DO NOT do business with anyone who offers to send you payment for a higher amount than your selling price with the understanding that you'll send back the balance. Be suspicious of anyone claiming to be acting on behalf of a "client" or another "customer". Be suspicious of anyone claiming to be from Nigeria or West Africa If you agree to accept a check payment, then do not send anything, gear or "change" before the check cleared. And be careful, if you manage to clear a fraudulent check then you may be liable for the damages if the bank finds out later. Make sure your bank authenticates the check. If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is.This username has been disabled.

It's something that I was actually on the fence about too. I saw a bunch of reviews coming in the one day for the dropzone in question and wasn't sure whether to validate them or not. I investigated whether the users writing the review were maybe just created to boost ratings but I saw that they were legit skydivers, so after a few days of procrastinating I validated them. I then got an e-mail from someone asking about where they do the survey for cheaper jump tickets, I had no idea what they were talking about, until finally it clicked. My decision was that it seemed to be okay, they weren't manipulating the rating values by telling people to only review 5 star ratings or anything like that (as far as I know). And people were still able to rate negatively, if that was their experience. And it's not really practical to say "Stop telling people to review your dropzone on our site". It's definitely a bit of a grey area and if there are objections by other DZs I may go to Sangiro with the topic and see what he has to say.

Very nice CG strikes there. Severe weather/storm chasing is a big hobby of mine, love a good thunderstorm.

Hmmm. I'll make a note of this and add it to the list of bugs that need tending to.

Highly highly unlikely that it is related to dropzone.com - we try to be as accommodating as possible when it comes to issues like ads and encourage users to speak up if there's a problem and there's no one else mentioning this, so until they do - I think it's fair to assume the issue is probably on your side ;) It could be a virus/malware on your computer which is trying to perform an action when you're on the site. The only files that should be gathered are cookie files as stated above. These cookie files are used by almost every website and is a non-malicious text file which helps with serving the ads. I'd recommend getting a good anti-virus program and making sure you don't have any malware or viruses on your machine. A change in browser wouldn't be a bad idea to, I find firefox great though some prefer Chrome. And lastly... Why is that screenshot in 8bit colour?!

Okay guys, let's try this again... I've spoken to those in charge of the ads, they have reached out to those actually serving the ads and they confirmed that they had mistakenly only removed 1 of the 2 Choice Hotel related ad campaigns. They say they have no removed the second one too and that you Canadians should not be getting any more of the annoying ads. But again, if you see anything - give me a shout and I`ll try to get it removed as always.

It's okay, it's not gay unless balls touch.

Thanks guys, apologies... I have already contacted the ad department and told them that the 'fix' that was performed didn't solve it. And upon typing this I have received the following reply: This back and forth is certainly a pain in the ass, but if you can clear your cookies, and let me know if you get it again. I want these things gone as much as you do :|

I feel you man, I know some of the members were very much the 'life of the party' and created the vibe. I guess what my desire is, is to try keep it as much of a friendly community as possible. And have the functionality based around what would be best for that and not to make it function solely on a business model, obviously for the site to stay up it needs to have ads and pay the cost of maintaining, but I've often seen signs go for the solely technical or business side and completely neglect the members, something I would never want to see here, not that there's any hint of desire for that from anyone involved. What I am getting at primarily is that I'd like to just make the site a pleasure to browse and a pleasure to post. Make things as user friendly as possible while incorporating some new features. And try to get the people that are here still to post more and actually enjoy it, I'm constantly thinking of ways to better the site and try make it a better experience for you people. As you say though, unfortunately some times when time passes things happen and you can't achieve that same feeling or atmosphere that was once there. This forum has an awesome history, especially bonfire, and while I may not be a big part of the community - I'd still hate to see the essence disappear.

I'm still trying to rally to get an upgrade to the forums and site functionality. Quite frankly, the site and forum need a revamp desperately. And if I manage to get my way, the forum would definitely incorporate a 'thumbs up' feature making the +1 process less retarded. It's standard on almost every website these days when social interaction is present. A 'like button' being related to threads, images and pages would also be nice. Everything is comfortable at the moment, people are used to it, and people often complain about change and it takes them a while to get used to it, but this 1999 style forum board just isn't sufficient for successful and enjoyable social networking in this age anymore, damn you facebook, myspace and twitter and your billion dollar empires. I'd really be bummed to see the activity of the site go down, I may not have been around from the early days of Bonfire, but I'd gone back and read the older threads, would be a pity to see that disappear. Remember, any ideas or suggestions on how to get the site more user-friendly and get things to 'how they were' - I'm all ears, and the more voice you guys give the more I'll be able to use it as a lever to encourage the guys 'up stairs' to invest into them :p

Oh my god... Okay, I'm going to hold off contacting them again just in case it took some small time frame for the request to reach the people who run the ad server or something... If you're still receiving the ads this week (any time from this afternoon), just shout again and I'll get in contact with 'em and find out why they're still up.

I'd like to take the opportunity in this thread to remind people to check the scammers database forum prior to ANY deal in the classifieds. We list every reported scam and disable the user as well, but some times by the time the user is disabled (12-24 hours from report typically) he has managed to message several users, and people are already in talks with them via e-mail, which would be not be affected when the user is disabled, naturally. Please check this forum before selling an item to a user: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?forum=44; If you see the buyer listed in that forum, they are a scammer and you should cut all contact with them immediately. And just a reminder that if you get a suspicious ad response, just contact us and we'll review it and perform the actions needed if it appears to be a scam.

The following scam has been reported. Note: If you have been contacted by this seller, cut all contact immediately. These users will typically send a fraudulent cheque. Remember: DO NOT do business with anyone who offers to send you payment for a higher amount than your selling price with the understanding that you'll send back the balance. Be suspicious of anyone claiming to be acting on behalf of a "client" or another "customer". Be suspicious of anyone claiming to be from Nigeria or West Africa If you agree to accept a check payment, then do not send anything, gear or "change" before the check cleared. And be careful, if you manage to clear a fraudulent check then you may be liable for the damages if the bank finds out later. Make sure your bank authenticates the check. If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is.This username has been disabled.

An update on the situation. I got just word that these ads have been removed. They were difficult to replicate since they only targeted Canadian users, but they should be completely gone now. There should be no pop-ups or interfering expandable ads running now. If you see anything, let me know.

Thanks for the summary. Interesting stuff. Though as a friend pointed out when I showed him, if you look at the image quality, all the images are quite soft, even at the focal points. If you're going to be spending a lot of money, in my opinion - quality sharp images will always trump over versatility in post processing. In fact, even one of my old budget lenses has a sharper result in the focal points.

I actually wonder how it works in terms of DOF, I was unable to read the whole article but I assume it will depend a lot on the lens that's used, I mean it may not make a different to most photographers anyway, since if you're looking for a shallow DOF, I`m assuming you'd still do it just the usual way, use your cameras lowest aperture number, set your focus point and go.

Pretty cool concept, wonder if it will take off and if other large companies will incorporate similar technology in the future. Though the downside is that the art of photography will become even more raped. I can just picture all the 13 year old hipster kids running around clicking and just processing their failure to understand the equipment to make them look more talented than they are. Photography would then completely rely on subject matter and composition. Still an interesting development none the less.

You offered a response to OP in support. I offered a rebuttal which included a hypothetical thought process to confirm my statement in a way that was easier for to understand. You failed to respond to my rebuttal. Which is of course your choice, but it shows that I put you in a position where you were unable to address my questions and thus unable to support your original claim with anything other than personal opinion. At no stage was this about you, the whole process of putting you in a thought process whereby you were asked to decide between the two scenarios was merely to back up my point. The fact that you were unable to reply to it is a good thing, it shows you understood and saw the point I was getting across. There's no desire for argument, just a discussion that is based off more than personal opinion.

An insult doesn't need to be directed at anyone in particular to expect a logical reason why such an insult was made. If I were to negatively address anyone, or their beliefs - even in a generalization. I'd like to think that I'd follow it up with exactly why I feel that way and bring evidence supporting my claim. It's what separates intelligent discussions from random uneducated opinions

I'd never argue that one has a choice over who they're attracted to, gender, race, hair colour, size. I think what gets you grief from people isn't the fact that you prefer skinny girls. It's that most of the time you're bringing down the big girls while you state your opinion and the fact that you seem to state it a lot. I haven't seen many threads by gay dudes saying that girls suck and they long for some good old cock! At least that's my assumption as to why you get bashed by people.