On Friday I noticed that I was still logged into OLO having not been here for a few days. I was pretty sure I logged out after my last visit but of course with middle age creeping in I may have forgotten.

Would it be helpful if the OLO site logged you out automatically if there was no activity after a period of time?

(On the assumption that the person had forgotten to logout)

Good question Pelican, especially in the light of the fact that on one of the pages, I think its the 'New Post' page, the site tells you "Welcome, you are logged in as 'userID'. You will be logged out after 120 minutes of inactivity.", or words to that effect.

Some time ago on the OLO site the automatic logout purportedly took effect after only 45 minutes of inactivity, resulting, for those who type direct into the pane, in frequent losses of irretrievable, unrepeatable literary gems. I think the longer period is better for a number of reasons, but I suspect that other software dependencies may not have been exhaustively adjusted when this change was made.

Perhaps this apparent glitch has something to do with the automatic log-on cookie, or the absence thereof.

Another thought I have had is that the apparent failure to log a user out after a period of inactivity may be in some way connected to the recent adoption of animated advertising. Are the incessant transfers of data to your computer from this animated advertising in some way eliciting some feedback transmission of data that is read by the OLO site as user activity?

I am suspicious that my broadband usage rate has recently shot through the roof because of this. I frequently have had different OLO pages up in a number of tabs at the same time, and I have noticed that in some the load-up indicator remains on even if I have not switched to that tab for a long while.

I have been of the habit, running Ubuntu Linux as I do, of leaving my computer on and my browser (Firefox) with OLO on multiple tabs for weeks and months at a time. The broadband usage has only rocketed since the animations began, I think.

When I have viewed OLO from a different user account in my Linux, and not clicked 'set a cookie' but have logged in as if I were at a public terminal, I have experienced erratic inability to post on occasions.

I sometimes wonder if OLO understands why?

Interesting Forrest - I didn't think I had imagined reading about the automatic logout.

I don't click on the Ads but their existence on the site may have an effect as you say but as a bit of a technical Luddite I wouldn't know the answer to that one.

OLO might be able to offer some insight. I guess it does not really matter in the scheme of things except possibly the effect on 'traffic congestion' for others wanting to use the site.

This observation made by Ludwig may not be out of place in the context of your question, Pelican. See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1954#40527

I have noticed too that whilst I have clicked 'set a cookie' when first logging in to OLO after an operating system installation (something not infrequently done if one is into Linux, just to test new distros), my userID does not always show up in the 'Users Currently Online' area on the 'Welcome to the forum' page, even though I may still be online and active. I don't understand this.

Should it be that I am using someone else's computer to just view OLO, my userID as being online naturally enough does not show up unless I log in to make a post, and then it only shows up for that session. If I do log in under these conditions, I do not click 'set a cookie', but 'do not set a cookie, I am at a public terminal'. That way I leave no cookies on a borrowed computer, nor do I run any risk of some other person subsequently using that computer being able to post on OLO in my name.

Explaining the behaviour of such OLO features is where a page page button on every page would be really useful. That idea is suggested in this summarized list of ideas for OLO. (Had a hard post number facility existed, I could have listed the post number in which each idea was first proposed beside the summarized description, so contributors could check the faithfulness of the short description in this list, but it doesn't and I couldn't.) See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1954#43279

I sometimes wonder whether, via spyware inserted in advertising, or by other hacking (cracking) activity, the smooth operation of OLO is not interfered with from outside when sensitive subjects start attracting posting (or viewing) activity. I suppose that's just my paranoia and lack of proper understanding of computers talking.

But thanks for opening it up anyway, Pelican.

Pelican,

Further to the curious absence of one's userID from the 'Users currently online' display at times when one IS online and actively viewing pages, is this irritating little consequence.

When your userID IS displaying, you can, by clicking on it, be taken direct to your posting history page.

When the userID is NOT displaying, this little convenience is not available.

You then have to get to your (or any other user's) posting history via the 'Users' button near the top left of any thread, which takes you first to the alphabetical summary, then to the users index, a page that takes forever (even on Bigpond Broadband) to load. When eventually the users index is loaded, you then have to find and click the userID you want in order to be taken to the posting history page.

This is a pain.

Surely, if you are online, and do at least one thing every 120 minutes on OLO, your userID should continue to display for both your convenience and the information of other users? Why is this only partially occurring?

Should it be that one wishes deliberately to only lurk, and not have a userID display reveal that lurking, then that is easily enough achieved (at least under Linux) by simply having a different user account from which one views, but never posts. No cookie gets set in this account, so no userID display ever comes up in the 'Users currently online display' any time you may look in on OLO.

I've tried to work around the ease of access problem to the posting history by bringing up OLO in a separate tab in my browser (Firefox), getting to, and then leaving my posting history page on display there. It seems these days that second or subsequent tabs displaying OLO pages are slow as a wet week to load up or move between. It was not previously so. I have made no changes to my OS or browser, and am using the identical hardware upon which OLO formerly worked well.

All this makes me wonder, why, why, why?

Forrest

You can directly access a poster's posting history by clicking on the first icon at the bottom of each post.