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Howdy All. So SSV looks a bit different lately. Things aren't where they used to be, other things I can't just find. What's going on!? Well, let me explain for those who haven't been keeping up with the different threads scattered around SSV. I thought I'd pull it all together in one spot, so you all know what's going on. Last week, my hosting company sent me an email saying that SSV is taking too much server resources and they are limiting our server load. They basically told me that I have to optimize the website so it requires less resources. If I'm unable to comply, I'll have to upgrade my server, move my website somewhere else, or they will lock down the site. While SSV seems like a small community, we have over 250,000 posts, 10,500 images, 6,500 members. There usually is anywhere between 40-120 people on SSV simultaneously. So we do use a lot of computing power. The thought of a dedicated server is certainly appealing, however, it's tremendously expensive. I can barely afford to keep SSV running on it's own. And moving to a new server would take the costs of running SSV from a few hundred dollars a year, to a few thousand dollars a year. And while SSV Supporter Badges help me offset the costs, it comes no where close to paying for a dedicated server. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of a large publishing company to flip the bill for us. So my next best move is to do my best to optimize the website the best I can. I've cleaned up the databases and updated our PHP. Our software is a few years out of date and inefficient. So I had to update the forum software too. As you can imagine, when you upgrade software, they introduce new features, remove old features, update the look and fix performance issues. During this move, it re-arranged certain things, but I'm getting them back to their right place. The forums are in place and work the same way as before. They have a slightly different look, but nothing too dramatic. The Gallery and Pattern Library is also in place. I have some more tweeking to do to that, but it's completely functional and seems to work well. Blogs and Chat Room are still there and work the same way. The Articles section is still intact, however the new software treats them differently. So I have to figure out how to organize and update them before I make them public again. The old pages are still there, but I have to fix them to work with the new software. After that, it's mostly cosmetic. I have a huge list of things I'm working on. Some have higher priority than others, but I'm getting to them as fast as I can...I promise. This move came very sudden and I had to act quickly or risk losing SSV forever. I drained my scroll saw fund to save the Village (I was a only couple weeks out from getting the new Jet scroll saw). But it is worth it if we keep the lights on. I poured my heart and soul into this community over the last 8 years. I do not want to see it go away. Rest assured that I will do everything I can to make SSV a great place to be. I've already received a number of angry emails and even one rage quit. While I understand that things have changed, I didn't do it out of spite. I did it to save SSV and the wonderful community we have built. I'm just a regular guy. I go to work every day, take care of my family, and I enjoy making sawdust in my garage whenever I can sneak away. I'm not an expert IT guy. Just someone who knows enough about computers to be dangerous. I'm doing the best I can as fast as I can. If you need to post or send me an email, take a moment to realize there is a regular person on the other side of that email doing everything he can to make it right. I'm happy to answer any of your questions here. Please be nice to me. I've had a rough week.

Had afternoon spare and wanted to use this picture I had so came up with this Frank

Howdy all. Here's a little update of where we are. I've been trying to track down the login issue for the last couple days. What I think is going on is when you click a link, the web server is returning a cached version of that page. When it does that, the cached version does not have you logged in, and may not have the most up to date posts. I found if you click the Ctrl+F5, it forces the web browser to retrieve a new page, not a cached page. It works for me (I'm using Google Chrome and Firefox on PC, and Google Chrome on Mac), but other folks are not having as much luck. So the solution is to have the web server stop cacheing the pages. There's the rub. The hosting company put a restriction on SSV because we're using too many server resources. During this lockdown, a caching system kicks in on the server to save CPU. That, in turn, causes all of our problems with the logins and webpages go haywire. Once we are no longer using too many server resources, the caching stops and I think our login problems go away. That's great! Let's do that! Well, we go back to our original problem: using too many server resources. I thought updating PHP, optimizing MySQL tables, and updating the software would help. While it helps, it turns out it's not enough. So we gotta reduce our load. SSV is a great place. We all know that. We have a great forum, tons of information, and a huge pattern library. As such, lots of folks like to stop by. At any one point, we have anywhere between 40-120 people browsing the website. However, the vast majority of them are not members of SSV. They pop in to read the forums and grab free patterns. As of this writing, we have 100 people online. Only 15 of them are signed in as members. Everybody else is browsing as a guest. Here's the difficult part. When I started SSV in 2009, I wanted to share as much information about this wonderful hobby as I could. Share patterns to anybody who wants them. All of this for free, without registering or logging in. I was really in love with the idea of a free society and wanted to help as many people as I could. That mission worked great, up until last week when we hit critical mass. 85% of our traffic is taking up valuable resources. And the 15% of us who care enough to register for an account and participate in this awesome community are paying the price. That doesn't seem fair. In order for me to bring down the server load so we can get SSV back on track, I have to limit what we can share with Guest browsers. It pains me to do this, but here's what i'm going to do. The Gallery and Pattern Library will no longer be browsable unless you're logged in. I think this will make a big difference on our server load. Guests will be able to see the forums and the topics, but they won't be able to read the topics unless they're logged in. The blogs, chat room and articles will also be for members only too. I'll bring back some of the other pages on a case by case basis. I still want to share information to the general public, as long as it's not taking a toll on the website. Eventually, I'll release parts of SSV to the general public. I still think it's important to serve the whole scrolling community. But we gotta get our house in order first. SSV is still free! You can still register for a free membership. You'll just need to be logged in to access all the great stuff SSV has to offer. If we reduce our server load, the hosting company will lift the restrictions. Once the restrictions are lifted, SSV will operate properly. Once SSV is working the way it needs to, we can continue to share and chat and enjoy eachother's company. And hopefully, everything will be back to normal.

So, I've never cut a nickel nor dime before. The dime is the smallest and most intricate cutting so far. I thought some of you might find the picture with the entry holes (#72 bit) interesting. Not much room for error there. I also put a FDUR #5 on top the dime cutting to show perspective. Hope you got a kick out of this:

Size of memory box is 6 ¾" x 6" x 2"

I have gotten a bit of saw time in the past week or two. Here are 2 of them. The first one for me (Ace of Spades Design, from here at SSV), the second for my wife's B-day (found online).

My wife really enjoyed cutting these thank you Bobby

a couple of bandsaw boxes i done

I was asked to design a piece for a birthday gift for a boy that likes monster trucks.......here is what I designed.....5/8" red oak.....clear gloss Deft.....comments please. Thank You!

http://www.pinalcentral.com/coolidge_examiner/news/scrolling-through-wood-helps-coolidge-man-reach-expensive-goal/article_142c95c6-7961-59eb-a098-1a1a6119a8bf.html John Old Dust

Travis all I can say is THANK YOU and I appreciate all that you do for us. If there was anything I could do to help I would but lets face it, you would be in a bigger mess if I did that. Don't forget to take time out with your family, they need you too AND breath. Marg

While reviewing the forum and some of the posts about the changes to the forum with the update - I had an idea - while we wait for Travis to "fix" some of the things behind the scenes - why don't we share features and tools that we find/figure out so others can know too. Also, we can use this same thread to "ask" where something is or how it works if we need help with it. That way we help each other out in learning how to better function in the updated forum. Sound Good? For example - I used to could mark the sub forums "read" but had not seen how to mark the entire site "read" - (not saying it wasn't there - but I never figured it out. ) Now, you can easily mark the entire site as "read" Look up along the top right below the search area - there is now a "Unread Content" and "mark site as read" (its also at the bottom of the page). If you click on the "Mark site as Read" - it will now do that. Also, check out the "Unread Content" - click on that - you then get a page with all the content you have not yet "read" - It will show you posts from last hour, earlier today, then yesterday, etc. then there is an area above the posts where you can add in choices on what you want to show - content type, read status, ownership, etc. to let you pick and choose some items to see. Then just below that bar to the right is a "Results as" and you can choose "Expanded" or "Condensed" - click on each to see the difference in what is shown. Expanded shows the text of the post made. Condensed shows the post title and original poster and who replied to it but not any of the actual reply. I think this will be helpful to me as when I come onto the forum, I used to hit every sub forum to see what was newly added since I last visited - now I can just go here and see and read. I think I would use the "expanded" results. Now - about those notifications though . . . . .

At our Dayton Spring Fling, I scroll sawed the word 'HUGS'. I really enjoyed giving 'HUGS' to kids. Their reaction was priceless.

Bobby, are the patterns available?

A little update. I think I got some good work done. The login issues seem to be doing better. I hope you are experiencing the same. Let me know if it's still acting up for you. As I mentioned in this post, I'm going to restrict access for guest browsers. This will help our resource consumption and stabilize SSV. If you're logged into SSV, you won't see any difference (did I mention membership is free!?). But if you're a Guest browser, you only have access to certain areas. Here's what I did: Guests have access to read the following forums: Introductions, General Scroll Sawing, SSV News, Help & Feedback. Guests can read topic titles in the rest of the forums. But if they want to read the messages, they'll have to log in. Guests can see recent uploads in the sidebar of the forum. However, they cannot view the image directly. They'll have to log in. Guests can't browse the User Gallery. Guests can see the categories in the Pattern Library, but cannot browse. Guests can't access the Activity feed, Chat Room, or Blogs. As I bring back the other features, I'll decide on a case-by-case basis. I also fixed some Gallery functionality. It should be working the way we want it to. I also put a couple quick links on the top of the Gallery and Pattern Library tab where you can upload either project photos or patterns to the Pattern Library. Gallery also had this strange function where you didn't have to post in an album. I removed that option as well. Off to the next task.

The internet is both a great and lousy vehicle for conveying information. It's great, because you have instant access to so much info and so many people with which to share it, but lousy because things like facial expressions and voice inflexions are non-existent. Smiley icons just aren't always an adequate substitute for the physical signals you get when you are in a conversation with someone face to face. We've all spent a lifetime interpreting these physical signals and generally can read someone's intentions much better in person than we can over the internet. We're limited to the words we type and often the absence of those physical signals can make these words come off much differently than they might in person and certainly different than the speaker may have intended. I suppose as time goes by, subsequent generations will be much more accustomed to and better at communicating in this electronic medium than some of us older folks, who have trouble typing with more than 2 fingers. It's going to be a bumpy ride, in the meantime though.

Travis this is more then reasonable. While someone folks for what ever reason prefer to lurk in the shadows the real heart and soul of this community are those that log in and participate. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO.

Have a good time .... My vacation in August will be at our cabin in Minnesota.... Since I am not hauling a scroll saw down there I am taking some wood burning projects with me to work on.... Just getting into another aspect of working with wood ... someday the wood burning and the scroll sawing will merge

Well said.... I am on our City Council... I know that even when things appear to be going smoothly and everyone is happy .... There is always someone out there who is upset and grumbling

She did a fantastic job on them Jerry.Bobby sure put those patterns together some nice.

Hey Falcon.I'm Honored. Your Wife did an Awesome job!!.Please give her my Thanks.And Thank the rest of you for the Great compliments.

Love it. really its very nice.

Great patterns by lawson and great cutting to match she is a keeper for sure lol Thanks for sharing Frank

Great patterns Bobby and your wife did a great cutting job Falcon. Marg

Took me a second or two to get my head around this one but once I focused properly, WOW. Simple but effective. Great work Frank. Marg

If you know Bill Gates, tell him I have a server problem I could use some help with.

thanks to the village with donated blades i'm still in blade heaven for doing projects

i don't know if this is the same problem ,but my home made foot switch burnt out my wonderful c arm craftsman.The switch would at times shutting off go into hyper mode and made the saw run like it was on 220 volt.It did this one to many times and i lot the mother board.so to the dumpster it went that was one of my best saws.

I'm looking nowgood find roly i needed that!

Very desirable portraits,She has exceptional talent,Keep after her,lol

Hard to believe just a short time you were still wet behind the ears with scrolling.Look at you now,A leader of the pack!

Well done Frank.

It's always heartwarming to watch a child's eyes light up. For sure Bryce's eyes will when he receives this. Very well designed and done Dan.

Looks great Dan.

Ron, I envy your craftsmanship. Awesome!

Very nicely done Frank. Thanks for sharing this with us. DW

You did good Frank,and fooled everyone to boot

Nice..I like...as Fab4 stated thought it was going to be the band.......................

Darn it Frank I was expecting the band, not you and the Mrs... That is a man and a woman...right??? Good one by the way Fab4

When you log into SSV, you'll get a popup that asks if you want to recieve desktop notifications. If you click yes, you'll get notified if someone posts in one of your threads. I haven't looked at it close enough to see what the notifications are or how often they happen. You can turn it off in your browser settings. Here's an article on how to do that, depending on your web browser: https://support.kona.com/hc/en-us/articles/210777186-How-do-I-turn-off-desktop-notifications-

That's one sharp box. Great job. Beautiful wood.

Beautiful work Ron. Love the use of the barrel hinges. Thanks for sharing this wonderful box with us. DW

Sweet !....Nice fit and finish !

Thank you,Travis for all you have done, continue to do and will surely do in the future. When possible I will try to help along the cause with a donation. I can't promise much, but maybe if those who can, contribute little bits...it will add up. TY again!

Thanks for what you do behind the scenes, thanks for the explaination, and I am really sorry to hear that you spent your funds for a new saw to save this site. I wish I were better off financially to help out but, somewhat like you, I am a regular guy trying to keep working to make ends meet and support my family. God Bless! Spirithorse

Yes Travis, the Village has chanced slightly and it might take us a few days to get used to it. But the alternative of losing the SSV was unthinkable. I, for one(and probably not the only one) would like to say THANK YOU for all the hard work you do to keep the SSV running and a great place to visit and to meet "my second family" . The help I have received and the patterns that have been made for me have been invaluable, and the friends I have made here are irreplaceable. THANK YOU again Travis Keefie.

Oh wow that is beautiful. Such craftsmanship. Great work Ron. Marg

Excellent piece love the inlay Thanks for sharing Frank

Inlaid,that is outstanding..thanks for answer

Thank you Dave and I hope I'll be able to return the favor. I already feel I'm in dept with all this incredible knowledge and incredible patterns!