GotApex? Home Improvement Tie Breaker Thread!

[flyawaydog]

Well, I am in exactly the same boat with Renzhao. Never heard of this place, and it's really good. After scouring the entire site for the bell pictures, I am really suprised I have never heard of this place. I have been researching computer stuff online for 4 months 2 or 3 times a day and this contest is the first I have heard of it. The information in the non-linear editing article was very useful and I will be able to refer confused BBS users at other sites to it.

As far as a suggestion I would make, have massive numbers of contests to bring in more readers. A site I frequent, GAHardware.com, gave away 10 Matrox G400's. Loads of people stuck around for that, and left after the contest. That was pretty obvious when forums died after they announced the winners, and of course when they added a new contest the activity picked up.

And a second suggestion would be to add a link from the news articles on the front page to a thread in the forum that people can respond to directly, but make it start in a new window so you don't have to click as much to keep the front page or get back to it.

Thanks for the great site, I will send my email in after searching for Bells through as many forums as I can stand to.

[This message has been edited by flyawaydog (edited 06-24-2000).]

[JoeSmooth]

How about a Car Talk like section. Remeber the brothers on NPR (national public radio) that host a call in show to help people with their calls?

You could do the same for tech support.

I know you have a tech support forum so maybe find some people willing to devote some time to their particular area of expertise to answer question on a regular basis. Amongst our little group we gotta have some experts right?

I myself am the world's leading authority on proper hemorrhoidal care and feline belly massages. I would be more than willing to answer any question on the topic...

Joe, if it aint sandpaper it's, Smooth.

[BADFlSH]

LoL prank calls!
(Calling Intel with little old lady voice) I just purchased one of your iMac computers for my grand kinds and it wont work right......5 min later...Oh for heavens sake..I forgot to plug it in.


------------------
<*{{{{<( ßÅÐfϧH )>}}}}*>

[This message has been edited by BADFlSH (edited 06-24-2000).]

[bubbagump]

I think it would be cool if you could get e-mail notification on topics you did not start. Also, it might also be cool to have a deal alert e-mail feature that would sends you an e-mail when a certain topic got over 50 posts or someother number you set.

[CluelessSi]

i agree with a lot of the above.
i think email option would be great but not sure if UBB supports that
A chat room would be nice for those of us that have nothing better to do during work

[P1mpSlap]

Hmmm In the about us section... well I again think (seem to do that way too much) that the Apex guys should have their own little rants section and tell alittle about them selves.

Maybe post a pic or two. Just to make it sorta like a corporate profile or something. That would be kidna cool. And you could like .plan update or of the like.

-P1mpSlap

[flyawaydog]

There is a chat room.

[DarkNova]

I think that the best way to increase traffic to this site, and increase the quality of use for the users, is to improve the system of posting deals.

Ideally, all deals should be categorized. Many times deals are posted for computer parts, or health/beauty, or free T-shirts, and users should be able to display only deals which fall in the categories that they care about.

All these deals should be placed in a database so that queries could be set up to select only deals for certain categories, deals from certain vendors, deals of gift certificates, deals of free goods, etc.

The deals should also include the date which they expire, at least if that is known. This way, deals could be sorted so you could see the deals which will expire soon first, and also so the deals which have expired already can be removed from the database automatically.

The database of deals could also allow people other than the Got Apex administrators to submit deals. A registered user could submit a deal, filling out all of the necessary information such as vendor, expiration date, category, etc, and it would be immediately available for viewing on the website. Next to a posted deal there could be a drop-down box which allows registered users to select how good of deal it is, on a scale from, say, 1 to 5, with 5 being the best deal. All of the deals could be sorted with the best deals on top. This would let people find deals more quickly and decrease their frustration in hunting through the site to find deals and also eliminate spam deals because they would be quickly moderated down to the bottom of the list. This kind of database and moderation system could be used to consolidate the deals page with the deals forum, as each deal could have a link to a discussion about it next to it.

It would also be useful to allow people to submit product specific deals in a different section, like if they find an unusually good price on an Asus V7700 GeForce 2, either with or without another deal like a gift certificate, they could post it and it would appear on this special section, and then users could look through a list of video card deals and see it.

All of these concepts could be implemented quite easily with a little programming and SQL and would position Got Apex as the #1 site for finding deals, greatly increasing the amount of visitors and correspondingly the volume and quality of deals posted.

[Booyamos]

Thanks Thorin78, had never noticed that before, that will make things a lot easier.

[Kenas]

I said this before and i want to say it again
WE NEED A CHAT ROOM. To support it, please visit http://www.gotapex.com/ubb/Forum9/HTML/000345.html
forum, and check the chat between hapoo and NiceMann, it is so entertaining! I want to see it life!!!
100 posts in 2 hours?!!?
he hehe

[flyawaydog]

http://www.gotapex.com/chat/


It's there, but I don't know if it works.

[flyawaydog]

Had a problem but fixed it.



[This message has been edited by flyawaydog (edited 06-26-2000).]

[rgrdles]

I think you should increase the size of your standard font. In high-res situations, your text (especially on the front page) is incredibly small and hard to read.

And, although I think this has been mentioned, organizing the deals section is a great idea.

[gear02]

I think there should be a more systematic review section. The current one is great, but there are too few. Now, most of the reviews are linked to other pages, forcing users away from the page. You need more people doing quality reviews of everything, not just focused on hardware. I'm sure there would be a number of volunteers who would love to review for you guys.

[damonal]

Seems to me you could combine and categorize the Advertisement and Deals sections. This could lead to exclusive deals for the Got Apex? community....

[CluelessSi]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jedi Slayer:
1.
5. Disable HTML in the forums, because it is very easy to use javascript to retrieve the forums cookie, which contains username/passwords.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I agree with this one.....

BTW I don't think I have a chane at winning the contest but I post here because I see that things are being done to make this forum better

[hapoo]

I think we should give a nice 21 inch monitor to the person who currently has the most # of posts

[speedracer120]

That wouldn't be fair now, would it?

[P1mpSlap]

Again I think for the news section... I'd be tite if the news were in like a real audio format too. So instead of reading it you can just click "play" and have say Leon read it to ya. That'd be interesting and he could make comments on the news and stuff. Kinda like radio journalism but on the net and what not.

Yeah I know people think I'm lazy, but I do read the news....

[Thorin78]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rgrdles:
I think you should increase the size of your standard font. In high-res situations, your text (especially on the front page) is incredibly small and hard to read.

And, although I think this has been mentioned, organizing the deals section is a great idea.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


What kind of friggin high resolution do you run it at and on what kind of a monitor? I've got mine on 1240x864 and it's perfectly fine on my 19".

And if it's too small, how do you read the rest of the words on your screen?

[AltonDubard]

I think a coupon search would be nice, or a setting where you could view deals by the store. I also think the person who gives the best deal of the day in the forums should recieve a free milkshake and hamburger. Or maybe a chicken sadwich and a frosty, but I digress...

Vive la GotApex!

[darein]

Have contests available outside the continental US so people from Hawaii (like me) can win cool stuff =)

[attgig]

I don't have too many suggestions this being a great site and all (wiping my brown nose), but one thing that I would like to see is you. I've been at this site daily for almost 10 months now, and have e-mailed and stuff, but I have no clue who you are, or what you look like.
so, =), and let's see your faces=). Let's hear a little about yourselves.

[hapoo]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Thorin78:

What kind of friggin high resolution do you run it at and on what kind of a monitor? I've got mine on 1240x864 and it's perfectly fine on my 19".

And if it's too small, how do you read the rest of the words on your screen?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hell i'm at 1600x1200 on a 19 and its fine, my suggestion, either get glasses or <font size="5">Decrease your Resolution</font>




[This message has been edited by hapoo (edited 06-28-2000).]

[Thorin78]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hapoo:
Hell i'm at 1600x1200 on a 19 and its fine, my suggestion, either get glasses or <font size="5">Decrease your Resolution</font>


[This message has been edited by hapoo (edited 06-28-2000).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well Hapoo, he'll have to get glasses in the future if he can't read the small print on his monitor.

[damonal]

Thanks guys! I didn't think I'd be crapped on in a simple feedback page.

Let's see........

"I think we should give a nice 21 inch monitor to the person who currently has the most # of posts"

Ggggggggggreat suggestion....keep up the good work! That's sure to win a prize.....

"I've said this one before, how about a page that lists the top 10 (or any other #) posters on the forums, either by how many posts they have or how often they post."

JUST what the site needs....a way to fuel everyone's vanity even more....as if the title and posting statistics next to your names aren't enough.

"How about a section that rates online and B&M companies that we all buy stuff from?
everyone can vote and rate their experiences with those companies. ratings go from speed of delivery, customer service, and service in general. I think this would help people in knowing if they can trust a company they're thinking of buying a product from."

WOW! You mean like resellerratings.com! Hoohoo....! No one EVER goes there, right?

We're all just trying to win a 21" monitor...chill out guys and stop crappin' on simple suggestions! Yours aren't that great either....

[This message has been edited by damonal (edited 06-29-2000).]

[austnpwrz0]

What I think would be cool is to set
cookies with info on what categories we click
on most.
Example: if we click on reviews of computer
hardware and deals on computer hardware,
then give us a cookie with PREFS=computer hardware.

Using this info, you can order deals/reviews
according to our prefs.

/JB