Old Posts

[Bill DiPietra]

I was trying to access one of my 2015 posts just now and it was nowhere to be found. A few days ago, I was able to access archived posts from 2007.

 

Anyone know if Tim Tyler did a massive message dump?...

[Gregg MacPherson]

Are you refering to your ASC masterclass post? I searched those words looking for your post yesterday, didn't see it, but found a post by David Mullen linking to that. So the data was there, just didn't find it as directly as I thought. There may be a way to use the search tools that help. Google often works the best. I just tried "asc masterclass bill depietra" and went straight there.....

[Bill DiPietra]

Thanks, Gregg.

[Keith Walters]

Best trick is to use Google search but add a site identifier like this:

 

"master class" site:cinematography.com

 

That will restrict the search to the site named.

Or used the advanced search option:

 

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

 

where there's a box you can add the website name.

This routinely finds things a site's own search engines can't.

[Gregg MacPherson]

Keith, adding "cinematography.com" to the Google search words would have been my next step, but didn't need to on this occasion.

[Bill DiPietra]

Respectfully, guys, I know how to use search engines. My original point was that we shouldn't have to use Google. As I said, last week I was able to find posts from 2007 using the forum search. And yesterday the forum was down for maintenance so I suspect Tim has been working on it.

 

Check the "Find content" sections of your profiles. Last week I had 13 pages - now I have 4. Anyone else notice the same?...

[Gregg MacPherson]

Respectfully Bill, I've been using Google to find things on the forum for a long time. My comments weren't about how to use Google, they were to remind us that we may have to.

 

Whether or not we should or should not have to is another converation. One could explicitly initiate that, invite Tim early and see what happens. Google have enormous cash to develop or access search tools if they want. I don't expect that from Tim.

[David Mullen ASC]

I find the search function of most web forums to be really poor.

 

Plus some older posts aren't searchable any more because they've been moved to a separate archive.

[Tim Tyler]

I have not been removing old posts.

 

The forum's search feature is pretty lame, I agree.

 

If you click the gear icon to the right of the search field on the top right of the forum you'll access the advanced search features. There are options to search by date ranges but the Date selector is cumbersome. It's easier to just type a xx/xx/xx date in the Find by Date field.

 

As other have suggested Google can be directed to search just this site:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:cinematography.com+FILM

[Tim Tyler]

The "My Content" search in Profile is designed to only show the last six months worth of a member's posts.

 

Click it and then look at the fine print under "Your Name's Content". Its says:

There have been xx items by Your Name (Search limited from [date six months ago])

[Keith Walters]

I find the search function of most web forums to be really poor.

 

Plus some older posts aren't searchable any more because they've been moved to a separate archive.

The best thing is to set up a Google Imbedded Search:

https://cse.google.com/cse/manage/create?Get+Started=Customize+Your+Own+Search+Engine

 

This actually creates a custom search engine on Google's server, and they give you a block of JavaScript which has to be added to a web page.

 

Here's the JS code they sent me from one I did just now:

 

<script>

(function() {

var cx = '011089263614666430763:y7i94vttdhs';

var gcse = document.createElement('script');

gcse.type = 'text/javascript';

gcse.async = true;

gcse.src = 'https://cse.google.com/cse.js?cx='+ cx;

var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];

s.parentNode.insertBefore(gcse, s);

})();

</script>

<gcse:search></gcse:search>

 

You can make a simple web page on your desktop by pasting the following into Notepad (Simple Text on a Mac):

 

<Head> </head>

<body>

<script>

(function() {

var cx = '011089263614666430763:y7i94vttdhs';

var gcse = document.createElement('script');

gcse.type = 'text/javascript';

gcse.async = true;

gcse.src = 'https://cse.google.com/cse.js?cx='+ cx;

var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];

s.parentNode.insertBefore(gcse, s);

})();

</script>

<gcse:search></gcse:search>

</body>

 

And then saving it to your desktop as any name followed by ".html",

for example Cinematography Search.html

 

When you open it you'll get a largely blank page with a single search box at the top.

Type your search terms into that and Google will look for everything it can find related to those terms on this site.

 

The company I work for recently received a nasty letter about using a trademarked word to describe "clone" products that we sell.

The embedded search found 11 instances of its usage on our website that our IT department failed to pick up. It's a far better search engine than most websites use, and Google let you embed it for free, but there inevitably seems to be a "turf war" with IT departments that don't want to admit to their incompetence :rolleyes: