Forum Maintenance and Upgrades

[Kirsten]

Earlier today we upgraded our forum software to SMF ver. 1.0.6.  The forum was down for the short period of time it took to install the upgrade.  If anyone notices problems/bugs with the new version, please post them on this thread.  I don't think most members will notice a difference, but from an administration standpoint it should offer a few more features and choices in addons, like themes.

[Kirsten]

The forum will be down tomorrow morning for an unknown period of time to perform maintenance and install new upgrades.  I plan to start around 10 am CST.

[Admin]

Upgrade is complete! Now running 1.1.rc2.

[Kirsten]

Maintenance was performed and a new feature added.  The new feature permits members to create a list of persons whose posts they wish to have blocked from their view.  Those who do not use this feature will see all of the posts made to the threads they view.

Sadly, it is not possible to ignore moderators or administrators  >

[Kirsten]

Maintenance was performed and a new moderating feature was added.  Now when someone runs afoul of the moderators they can receive warnings. 

[Kirsten]

The forum will shut down tonight at midnight, Central Daylight Time.  I will be reverting to an older version of the software, the version just prior to the installation of TinyPortal.  This is an attempt to remove some bugs caused by the conflict between various mods.  One of those bugs is that the "Show unread posts since last visit." one of our favorite features, is now suddenly absent-minded.

In theory, you won't see any differences in the morning.  IN THEORY.  According to the authorities I've consulted, we shouldn't lose any posts in the process.  Yes, I am backing up the entire forum, software, tables, data, posts, everything.  But you know how salsa can be, especially in the hands of a mere semi-geek like me.

I don't exactly know how long it will take.  If all goes well, I'd guess half an hour.  If it goes not-so-well, we may have to wait for my sister to recover it from the server end in the morning.  Posts between now and midnight might possibly be lost if it comes down to her having to do it since she's doing her backup right now.  So if you love it and you post it today, please keep a copy for your own records.

Please keep your fingers and paws crossed.

[Kirsten]

Turns out I will need server access to do repairs.  We'll have to shut down for a while during the day sometime Thursday (today).  I'll try to give you warning when I know.

[Kirsten]

We're scheduled to do some maintanance and upgrades this weekend.  Our main objective is to get more reliable access to the site by moving to a new computer to store our site.

I'm also planning to change the overall look of the forum and add a new smiley set.  Those who prefer the way the forum looks now will have an option in their settings to keep the look the same for themselves.  I'll just be installing a new theme and making it the default.  This is what guests and new registerees will see when they first enter the forum.  They too can choose different themes if they prefer (such as the large print version which is, yes, still under construction as I muddle through the modifications to the program code).  Purpleteers will be pleased to learn that the new theme has a color preference option to let you choose which color you prefer for viewing.  Yes, there are not one, but two purpley choices.

We'll also be upgrading to the latest version of our forum software and adding some new modifications mostly having to do with administration.  These changes are anticipated to help the forum run more smoothly and to improve forum security from hackers.

[Kirsten]

We shut down the forum to finish removing what we could of the spam attack and upgrade.  Again, I appologize to all who were subjected to the offending material.  We did learn from the experience and are better prepared to fend off such attacks in the future.

While we were down, I performed routine maintenance, changed servers, and upgraded the forum software.  You'll probably notice some features, like our chatroom, are missing.  These will be reinstalled over the next couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, in order to upgrade the software I had to abandon all the software hacks that gave us the fun little perks and I'll have to re-enter them.

Welcome back everyone!

[Kirsten]

This morning we upgraded forum software to SMF version 1.1 (final).  We had been using a test version of the software but are now using the newly released, fully tested version.

You will probably notice changes over the next couple of weeks as we customize the new upgrade, adding back some of the featuers we lost during the move, and even some new ones, like a photo gallery.