last modified May 29, 2008
No, this is not my personal blog. This is where you can look to see the latest PULPchat
development notes. When the version number of PULPchat changes, check here to see what's
new. When I find bugs, they'll be reported here. When I have ideas for new features,
I'll tell you about them here and hopefully I'll get some feedback.
PULPchat.com was restored from a backup after the server hard drive
crashed. Only the PULPchat.com web site was affected. No PULPchat accounts
were affected because they operate on separate
dedicated servers. Everything should be back to normal, but if you see
anything missing on the web site, please contact us.
Please Note: We have a backlog of support requests and some support emails
may have been lost. If your support request has not been answered within 72 hours,
please send another one. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Mobile devices are everywhere! From Apple's iphone to Palm Treo to Blackberry,
everyone loves the new handheld internet devices. PULPchat has delivered by updating
its mobile version with auto refresh, better menus,
and faster response times.
One of the major hurdles we are working on is the fact that many mobile devices try
"compensate" for web pages that were not originally designed for small screens.
We've had PULPchat working on mobile phones since 2004 so be sure to look for further
updates in the near future as we tweak PULPchat Mobile for all of the new
internet gadgets out there!
Due to a massive spam attack, we have updated all of the contact and support
email addresses on PULPchat.com. The customer support
system is fully operational for all existing accounts.
Please see the contact page
to contact Robert Giordano or anyone else here at PULPchat.
Thanks, PULPchat Support
The following terms were added to the Chat Slang Dictionary:
The following are new features in the production release of version 1.74:
A Javascript bug that only affected Opera 7 PULPchat users has now been
fixed. Also, several minor cosmetic issues affecting Opera users have been
fixed as well.
Recently, more and more people
are using the Opera browser
instead of Internet Explorer. In order to continue to provide the best
messaging products, we'll be paying close attention to the
operation of PULPchat within Opera.
PULPchat Mobile has been made available to all PULPchat accounts. Anyone with
a PULPchat account can now let their members join the chat from any WAP mobile
phone or device. Webmasters, learn how to create links to the
mobile version of your PULPchat account. Also, visit pulpchat.com on your mobile device and get full access to
this site on a small screen!
PULPchat Mobile™ v1.02:
"Mobile" icon
shows others that you are using a mobile device.
Version 1.73 represents a tremendous improvement in bandwidth without an increase
in server cpu utilization. Dramatic changes to the messaging engine are similar to those
used in v1.67 but unlike that experiment, this version has proven to be completely
stable. The following are new features in the production release of version 1.73:
Once again, version 1.72 was a major rewrite. The new features are listed in the previous
section. I have always viewed code as an art form although many do not see it that way.
As I add features, I also look for ways to make PULPchat more efficient in terms of load
time and server bandwidth. We have rebuilt several sections of code and have replaced
several others with a single, more efficient module. This produced the following
results: 
Version 1.72, 46,649 bytes (smaller + more features)
Version 1.70, 48,948 bytes
Version 1.69, 48,665 bytes
Version 1.62, 45,759 bytes
(these sizes represent the amount of html code that must be downloaded to the browser, and
does not count the size of PULPchat server-side scripts.)
The following are new features in the production release of version 1.72:
It can be extremely frustrating when another app loads a page into a PULPchat window,
especially when I've been having an important conversation with someone. This has
been fixed in v1.71n. If another app tries to load a page into your PULPchat window or
if you accidentally hit the close window button, you'll get a warning dialog box.
Simply click the "Cancel" button to keep your chat session running.
Unfortunately, this feature only works in Internet Explorer on Windows. The good news
is that I've only seen this problem with Internet Explorer on Windows...ha!
I decided to post an update about what we've been doing since it appears not much has happened since the end of April. At the moment, PULPchat has proven to be very stable. Because of this we have been concentrating our efforts on marketing and improvements to customer support. We have also made improvements to the efficiency and security of our servers. Finally, we've been working on our very own instant messaging application, PULP Messenger. Like PULPchat, PULP Messenger will not require any java, plugins, or cookies. Keep an eye open for a fully functional test version to be released soon.
The following are new features in the production release of version 1.71:
New pricing has gone into effect. In order to provide additional servers, bandwidth,
and customer support, we had to had to make some changes. The 20 and 40 user accounts
have been replaced with 25 and 50 user accounts. The 60 and 80 user accounts have been
eliminated and a 200 user account has been added, due to several requests. All of our
accounts are still less expensive than our competition. Besides having the best user
interface, PULPchat does NOT use Java, so it works across firewalls without compromising
security.
The cost of PULPchat is only pennies per user per month. For example, say your site has
100 members that have paid a fee of $12 per year, or $1 a month. That means you are
making $100 a month. A 25 User PULPchat only costs you $16 a month, or 0.64 a month
per user, and will dramatically add to the enjoyment and loyalty of your members.
The scrollbar functions were upgraded to the latest version from Design215.com, PULPchat's parent company. You'll notice that the scrollbar buttons no longer make a "link clicking" sound in IE when you click them. The new code is also more compact and shares functions used by other components. This reduces the amount of code overall. Not that it matters much, but PULPchat is still backwards compatible with Netscape 4.
It was reported that there was a slight problem when clicking "private message" in
the drop-menu. It seems the correct @screenName was inserted but the cursor remained at the
beginning of the line. This has been fixed. It was only a problem in IE / Windows, which
is why I didn't notice it right away. (Rob uses a Mac) 
Also, a shortcut for sending private messages has been added. If you type your message
first, then select "private message" from the drop-menu, the message is sent immediately
to that person.
Last but not least, the smiley menu in private windows is fixed...I think lol.
Version 1.70 was a major rewrite. As you can see, many new features have been added.
When we add features, we don't simply add more code. PULPchat would turn into a big
fat dinosaur if we did that. We constantly look for ways to optimize and improve the
code. For this version, several sections of code were completely rebuilt from scratch
so the new features could share code with existing features. Here are some interesting
stats:
Version 1.70, 48,948 bytes
Version 1.69, 48,665 bytes
Version 1.62, 45,759 bytes
(these sizes represent the amount of html code that must be downloaded to the browser, and
does not count the size of PULPchat server-side scripts.)
The following are new features in the production release of version 1.70d:
The next version of PULPchat has been released and it contains a number of important new features and options. We are currently getting feedback and suggestions from one of our latest clients, MuseCube.com, a leading Portfolio Hosting and Talent Directory site. They are currently using many of the new features in this version. If you find any bugs or have any suggestions, please contact us.
Someone brought to my attention that if you had your PULPchat configured to only
allow logins from your domain name (using a form POST for example), a few sneaky
people were getting around this by adding the allowed domain to the end of their
own url. For example, if gallery215.com only allowed its own members to access its
chat room and did so by posting a form to its PULPchat, a sneaky person could
have tricked the system by posting a form from their own web site, along with
"?x=gallery215.com" at the end of the url. This has been fixed now, or I wouldn't
be telling you about it. 
Fixed a bug where some "Signed Off" messages were not being displayed in some chat windows while they were seen in others.
A column has been added to the database that tracks the progress of logins. This will help trace the problem when people are having trouble logging in. This new column shows "ok" once a person has successfully logged into PULPchat, otherwise it contains an error code that indicates where the chat stopped loading.
New features have been added to the admin control panels. First, there is a new control
panel called Editors, where you can enter a greeting that is displayed when the chat first
loads. You'll notice the other editors for rooms, smileys, and actions are not finished yet.
Second, in the preferences control panel, you can now set permissions for private messages and
private windows. For example, you could let everyone send private messages to each other but
only allow registered users to use private windows. Naturally the private window permissions
menu only appears if private windows are available for your account. If you use the new
remote database feature, there will be additonal options in the your menus. You could deny non-registered
users from sending private messages, while allowing users in your database to send them, but only
allow your moderators to open private windows. Note that a user with no permissions may chat in a
private window if another user with permissions opens it.
The pulpchat.com site was down earlier today due to a change in hosting companies. Hosting
for this site is now provided by Nexpoint.
None of the chat rooms were affected, because they are on dedicated servers.
The "Who's Online" popup is available once again. It was removed from the site several weeks
ago because people were abusing it. This popup simply provides a list of users currently in
some of the many PULPchat chat rooms. You can enter each chat room by simply clicking on its
name. We do not run any of the chat rooms in the list. We provide chat rooms for other web
sites. Many of these sites do not want their chat room to appear in the Who's Online list
because they want people to visit their site first. We have provided this functionality in
each chat room's control panel.
This is a conversion from 1.68 to the new database driven configuration. Basically, there
are 32 new configuration options for each account. One of the most important new options
is the ability to link your existing user database with PULPchat. In the past, you could
send a username to the login page via the link to the chatroom but you couldn't send the
password. With the new remote database option, a user can click a link on your site that
sends their username and encrypted password to PULPchat.
The following are new features in the final release of v1.68i:
This was an experimental version to test a completely new method of rendering messages as
they are delivered to each user logged into a chat room. This new method resulted in a 63
percent reduction in server bandwidth! During an average day where between 60,000 and 80,000
messages are sent in various chat rooms, roughly 1GB of data is transferred. Using this new
method, data transfer dropped to around 600MB for the same number of messages.
Unfortunately, this new code caused a dramatic increase in server CPU load. Because of this,
it had to be abandoned. Version 1.68 will begin where v1.66 left off.
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