And all the time I thought it was my computer . .... loaded up with good knows what over the past two years.

However, quite obviously I am not understanding much about computers. I would like to ask someone to carry me through Chienworks suggestion thus where do I find / how do I open C:\window, directory etc and how exactly do I create the 'hosts' file ?
Could someone please explain this step by step. Thanks a lot.

My preferred method is with the DOS commandline prompt.

Start -> run, type in command and click ok. In the dos prompt window that shows up type

cd C:\windows [Enter]
edit hosts [Enter]

In the editing window that appears, type

127.0.0.2 2o7.net

press Alt-F, S to save
press Alt-F, X to exit

type exit to close the dos window

----------------------------------------------------

You can also do this with notepad. Open notepad, go to File / Open, change File Types to all files, browse to My Computer / C:\Windows. Look for a file named hosts (with no extension). Open it if it's there, or cancel if it's not.

Type in, as above,

127.0.0.2 2o7.net

File / Save as ... make sure to remove the .txt extension.

>My preferred method is with the DOS commandline prompt.

Start -> run, type in command and click ok. In the dos prompt window that shows up type

cd C:\windows [Enter]
edit hosts [Enter]

In the editing window that appears, type

127.0.0.2 2o7.net
<

I can't say I completely like that description. My win2K and XP systems both have an existing hosts file but it is not at the top of the system file tree. It is down a few levels. The method described would create a second file in a different place. Not sure what the OS would do with that.

Here's an alternative way to get to hosts.
Open 'MyComputer' -- it should be an icon on your desktop.
Click into the Address box (near the top) and type in %systemroot% and hit enter.
This should take you to the top-level system folder and now show it's actual location in the Address box.
On my older Win2k system this is C:\WINNT
On XP it is C:\Windows
Now that you know the folder name, go up one level to 'C:\' You can either hit the Up button in My Computer or edit the address to 'C:\'.
You should now see a list of folders and files that includes the system one (Windows or WINNT).
Put the cursor over it and right-click (right-side mouse button) to get a list of choices. Select 'Search...' and hit enter.
A search box will open. In the 'Search for files and folders' box, type hosts and hit enter.
(You could actually perform this search on the whole C: drive but it will take longer.)
In a little while you will get a list of results. One of them should be just 'hosts'. To its right is the path where the file lives -- on my 2K machine it is: 'C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc'
[Edit:] You may need to select 'View' in the top menu and change your display from some kind of icons to 'details' to see this path displayed.[/Edit]
If you click on that 'hosts' result line, you will probably get a list of programs that could be used to open it. Find 'Notepad' in that list and click on it. You should now be editing the file as Chienworks described.
Add a new line at the *end* of the file and add your new entry. Select 'File - Save' to save it.

---

The forum was really slow for me again today, so I tried this on my Win2k system. I can't say that it has helped. I can't figure why some of us see these long delays (sometimes) and others do not.
I check my XP system and it is slow today too.

Its the forum software, nothing else. Specifically the database queries/indexes they're using behind the scenes that need some tweaking. The speed of a forum on this site directly correlates to the size of the forum. "Vegas - Video" being the biggest is the slowest. Go to one of the others, and you see they're a lot snappier. It shouldn't be this way. I wouldn't be surprised if the queries just to show those first 10 or so topics are actually resulting in what's called by database developers as a full "table scan", i.e. unnecessarily reading data that's going to be ultimately filtered out.

It's only an issue now because databases like SQL Server are really fast at running non-optimal database designs/queries, when the amount of data isn't huge. But there comes a point when a forum grows to such a size that it starts becoming noticeable.

This is about the fourth time I've seen a thread about the speed of Sony's forums. They're always slow for me, whether at home or at work. At home I have super-fast Comcast.
Sony's site is the only one that lags for me, and I frequent about 10 different forums.
Plain and simple, they ARE slow. It's not the browser, the PC, or anything local to me. I really don't care what causes it, but they need to fix it.

FORUMS = S L O O O W F O R M E T O O!

I made the change to my HOSTS file and rebooted. I can't see any improvement - still SLOOOOOOOW.

Jerry

Oh boy. Leave it to me to speak up. After years of never having any troubles to speak of, the slow bug bit me this morning. My forum page loads were probably 15 to 20 seconds instead of the usual 1 or 2 seconds.

It's fine again now though. *shrug*

Hi all,

Duncan hit the nail on the head - we had some queries and stored procedures that needed work. Sorry we didn’t get to this sooner. I’ve noticed the Vegas board in particular getting slower and slower, but we’ve been really swamped.

Regarding the Omniture javascript on these pages - the 127.0.0.2 2o7.net stuff - those scripts are on every page of our site, so I don't think it's the cause of the slowness you were seeing here. It's a web analytics package - nothing sinister just your typical web stats - aggregate page views etc. Your choice if you want to block them of course, but the analytics we get from this system are very helpful for showing what a great Vegas forum community we have.

Anyways, I took a crack at making some improvements last night and today. I just rolled the changes out, and am anxious to hear if it helps or if you see anything out of the ordinary.


SonyKSA

Sounds like one of those new fangled, Rootkit thing-a-majiggies made especially for the Forum

It does seem a little more responsive down here in Australia today.
But it's hard to say for certain, at its fastest it seems faster than its been for a long while, at its slowest, just as slow, although yesterday it oftenly just didn't work, at all.

Bob.

"Sounds like one of those new fangled, Rootkit thing-a-majiggies made especially for the Forum"

Doesn't sound like one of those to me.

The forum is a fair bit snappier since tonight's tweaks. Thanks!

John

That was meant as a joke.
But it did affect my performance.

Yes. The forum snapped right up--versus a 1 or so minute delay.

Thanks!

By golly, it's consistently fast today (3 seconds). If it stays this way for a couple of days I'll oblige and take the hosts 2o7 thingy gladly off.

Wow, that is an improvement! Loaded quickly and browsing within the fourm feels much more responsive.

Thank you!

And thanks to you, Jay, for starting this thread.