Hey, in the place of the Shout Box, we now get ads! Looks like they are Google ads.

Interestingly, one of the ads I saw this morning was for Bang & Olufson's Beolit 12. Maybe I should get it instead of those Audiobytes I was pondering? Ha.

I'm seeing Orb Audio ads right now.

If one of my patients said that, I'd have to updose something.

It's all about context, eh?

Adblock Plus is a beautiful thing.

I don't see any ads.

I see minuses.

Mazda 3 with Skyactive.

I've disabled AdBlocker to see the ads, and I've seen several ads for speakers. Gallo, earlier, and now exterisaudio.

I don't know how this works with these Google ads, but I don't know that I would want to lead potential customers away to another speaker manufacturer. At the very least, some might find it confusing and think the ad is an Axiom-made product.

Not to mention that sometimes the ad doesn't open in a new window or tab...but leads you off the Axiom page completely.

Motorcycle tires are showing now. I just bought some yesterday, a day late for the add LOL.

I was a bit surprised by this decision.

Bang & Olufson's Beolit 12

I'm getting that ad, as well as a hyundai cars add... I have No interest in either of these products, and have never searched either of these products.. So, i don't know why they are showing up.... If google would be smart they would be showing me adds for used Ram 3500's!!... As that is about the only product that i may be buying in the near future.

But then JP would get nothing but ads for porn sites.

" 2011 speaker of the year " Orb!

I saw a BOSE ad earlier this morning - and they thought the Shout Box was offensive!

You must have missed the thread where Ian went on a drunken binge and bought up all of those other companies.

Ooooh, Canadian porn! Its a Timmies ad.

I hope Axiom will work to fine-tune their arrangement with the advertising provider so that it works optimally for Axiom.

I don't have a philosophical problem with ads on the forum. I agree with Mark and JP that having competitors' ads seems odd. But I don't really (want to) understand internet advertising, so it could be that the revenue generated by accommodating the ads is proportional to the perceived target market. I mean, Axiom would probably get much less for the space if they tried to restrict the content to non-audio (i.e. less relevant) advertising.

I suppose forum users should be happy that the number of hits, conversations, threads, posts, etc. has finally been monetized by Axiom in some way.

Where'd they go?!?!

Yes, as much as I dislike advertising, I have less of a problem with it here because I know where the money goes. To support my message board addiction.

But then, as you said, they're gone now!

I'll await word from the mothership.

Maybe it was google graffiti and Amie decided to wash the wall?

Too late.

I bought enough speakers from other companies to plaster my wall. Cat will be envious.

I believe that Amie removed them and that they may have been an accident.

"Mothership" here - it looks like something went wonky with the 'Meanwhile on Facebook' code. I've removed it and we're looking into it now. Many apologies for the affront! We certainly don't intend to put ads on the forum.

Darn it, I was looking to buy some more shaving products

Odd... though now I've got the overwhelming urge to buy some Ford products.

Bren R.

(Wall of Smilies)

Actually, after the TV upgrade, I'm going to need 3 more M22's.

Then it will be:

M22..M22..M22
...................
.......TV.........
...................
M22.VP160.M22

Probably just do them all in black. I think I'll call it version 3.


Version 1

M22...TV...M22
......VP100


Version 2

.......M2
M22........M22
.......TV
M22........M22
.....VP150

Dang it, Cat, you broke the boards!

Glad to see the boards are up again.

Yeah, this happened about then.

I just added 2 items to the auction and they are both gone now too. I guess I should of waited.

So sorry about that - we have just finished moving the site to a new server file-by-file and we lost some data in the transfer. I'm sorry for the inconvenience!

So.. Facebook world domination is a true phenomena then?


I think quite a few of us were enjoying the randomness of the Add's Yet another distraction 2 for 1, thats a pretty good deal.

I just wonder how you found out amie.. was it

"hey, Amie, you should see what the guys on the forum are gossiping about now......"

No problem. I should of added pictures anyway. I don't think it'll allow me to add pictures later.

Well, maybe I shouldn't mention it at this point and all, but... I put new speakers in a shopping basket for each member that posted today as a surprise gift.

The basket was lost when the site went down.

And now I've simply changed my mind.

Ummm....I just got confirmation on the new speakers...in your name, Mark. Thanks pal!!!

I guess only yours went through, then. I was surprised that 2 EP800s in Rosewood would have come up to so much, but I decided you were worth it Adrian.

Too bad about everyone else, though...huh?

At about 3 o'clock, I was composing a PM to Mark. When I pushed "submit" nothing happened. Usually, if I submit, lots happens. I tried again and got a message that said "Down for routine mainentance." Been there, done that, but I don't stop the entire world for it, now do I?

When people start refering to it as maintenance, or worse yet, routine maintenance, I think it's time to see a marriage counselor.

I'm NOT writing that thing to Mark again! He's gonna have to listen to my sniffley voice, and he can blame Mark Zuckerberg. Do you think that annoying little Facebook twerp has personal sercurity people, or could we get away with a flour bomb?

I think that it was those ads (and other things) that have been causing the forums to run slow/lock on me, so I added an entry to my HOSTS file and "blocked" them essentially. I see no ads.

(They're gone now, Nick. None of us see them!)

Is there any truth to the rumours from Canuck Audio Mart that the website may have been compromised?

I was just reading this too.

I had to cancel my CC because of charges from EA and Blizzard.

We've just finished the testing of the new server and we think things are running smoothly now. Several of you noticed the boards going down, as did other parts of the website, as we made the transition today.

Here is the gist of what I posted at CA just now:

In order to eliminate all possible threats, we made an emergency site move to a new brand new machine, moving our content file-by-file and auditing each file as we went. In doing so, we located a hole in one of our vendor’s APIs that was the root cause of this situation. We have now rewritten the offending code completely and added additional security measures on our new server environment to ensure your information's security.

You may have noticed the website go down during the transition. It is back up now and secure.

My deepest apologies for this problem - SBrown especially. Please rest assured we take this problem very seriously, and we have implemented a number of extra security measures today to ensure that we don’t have any compromises in the future.

I hope you’ll understand the lack of technical details around the issue – unfortunately this is a case of ‘the less said the better’ for security's sake.

Wow, the Chinese and Soviets must be after the new DSP algorithms.

Thanks Amie, I am glad you got it figured out.

I don't like the "the less said the better". Sure, the details of the hole aren't needed, if our personal information was compromised we deserve to know, so protection can be put in place. How long has the hole existed? I know my credit card number, and at least one other member's were stolen within the past 6 months. Additionally, I use a unique e-mail address for every place I sign up. The one I use here started receiving spam not long before that.

As I said, I'd just like to know what actions if any need to be taken.

I can't get Blu-ray.com to come up at the moment, but there was a link to a thread on another site about people buying from Axiom and subsequently getting EA charges on their cards. I also got an EA charge on my card in February. My bank caught it as suspicious, and I was issued a new card.

I read briefly when I managed to access Blu-ray.com for about 5 minutes earlier tonight that they have been DDoSed and are working to resolve the problem - That's my go to site for while I'm at work overnight, hope they fix it soon

Chris, if I understand Amie, correctly, it is precisely the "details of the hole'" to which she was referring with the phrase "the less said the better." I'm sure Axiom would provide all information necessary for us to take adequate precautions to protect ourselves.

At this point our investigation is ongoing, but what we have found in every single case so far is that the cards were used immediately (within about three days of purchase) and exclusively for EA Games, and then dumped. We haven't found a case yet where that was not the case, but we're continuing our investigation. This seems to be so prevelant that the credit card companies watch specifically for that pattern and shut down cards immediately if they are being used in this manner. It does not seem to be related to the spam issue (aWeber, our newsletter provider, had their database hacked, and that's when that problem started. I think I posted about it at the time.) We are continuing our investigation already this morning but basically we haven't found a case where it wasn't caught by the credit card company, nor have we found a case where the cards were used after that short window. I can't say anything definitely since we are still checking, but that's what we have found so far.

See? Told ya!

OK, thank you. Do keep us updated.

As for the spam, also thanks, that closes that issue in my mind. I was probably MIA when it was explained here.

Those ba$terds got both my credit cards and charged lots and lots to EA Origin.com and Blizzard Entertainment, what a headace dealing with all that.

The thing is, one of my cards had already been replaced because of fraud. Flipping unreal!

I ran malwarebytes after the hack was confirmed and it found trojan.dropper in temp. I think it is a false positive though.

Let's hope That's what she said.

Bob would have preferred. "That's what he said"