Updating the forum software this week

[Robert]

Just a heads up that I'll be updating the forum software this week to vBulletin 3.6 which is the very latest release. So what does that mean? For one, I'm hoping it will rid us of all that spam registration and give us a more secure website. It will also give us some new toys to play with and a better user experience should be expected. I'll add a new skin to give it a new look, but nothing too radically different from what we have now. It should be a more professional look.

We might also loose some of our toys, at least for a little while. Some of the modifications that I have added to the forums may not be compatible with the new forum. I'll be backing out some of the added features this week in preparation for the updated, but I'll add many of them back. The one's I add back will be updated for the new forum software, so may work better for us.

One feature we may loose temporarily is the journal. I'm looking for alternatives since this is a very important feature IMO, and think I found a commercial product that I can integrate with the forum. I'll do some more investigating but it should be ready to go in September. I'll contact current journal owners about moving their journals to the new system, and I'm hopeful that no entries will be lost.

Another feature we may loose is the newsletter, but I'll replace that with something else. I'm just not sure what it will be yet.

This takes place starting on Thursday so the website may be unavailable for a good part of the day, but should be back towards the end of the day. That is, unless things go horribly wrong . Most of the planned changes should be finished by Sunday evening.

I'll use this thread to keep you updated on progress. Also, if you have any requests, post them here.

Regards,
--Robert

[mkirkpatrick]

Once again Robert,you are spoiling us,many thanks,and keep those spammers
at bay.

regards michael.

[Robert]

One feature we may loose temporarily is the journal. I'm looking for alternatives since this is a very important feature IMO, and think I found a commercial product that I can integrate with the forum. I'll do some more investigating but it should be ready to go in September. I'll contact current journal owners about moving their journals to the new system, and I'm hopeful that no entries will be lost.

I have found an alternative that is much better than what we have now. In fact it is a full featured blog with all the features you might expect in blog. It is currently in alpha testing and will be available in September. This on will cost me $$ while the previous journal was free, but I think it will be worth it. In more good news, if you already have a journal, I should be able to automatically transfer your content to the new blog.

I'm continuing to prepare the website for the upgrade and the website may be coming down around noon today (CST - in about 3 hours). It should be back up tomorrow, but could be unstable at times for the remainder of the week.

Regards,
--Robert

[Robert]

I made some practice runs today on the upgrade using a test forum. I had some problems, but changed my approach and I believe I have this thing ready to go now. The forum will be coming down at 8:30am CST tomorrow, August 25th, and may not be up again until about 6pm tomorrow.

[mkirkpatrick]

Robert,it has been a bleak weekend without the forum?It all looks a little different,thanks
for all your hard work.
Lets hope this will not be needed again soon!

regards michael.

[Robert]

Robert,it has been a bleak weekend without the forum?It all looks a little different,thanks
for all your hard work.
Lets hope this will not be needed again soon!

regards michael.

Thanks Michael. I hope you like the new look. If not, I'll have some other choices available by this weekend. The next extended downtime shouldn't be for another 6-9 months. I know these upgrades are a pain, but they do give us a better website - more secure, better usability, more options, and it's easier to manage. I'm adding a lot of the old features back, plus we have some great new features coming. Some of these were not possible without this upgrade.

Regards,
--Robert