Yet another upgrade

[Mike]

Just a heads-up to everyone that I have a forum software upgrade in my hot, little hands pudgy, grimy paws. At some undetermined point, from now through the weekend, I will close the forum down to perform the upgrade. So if you arrive to find the door is locked, not to worry, as I'll get her opened back up as quickly as possible.

 

[Carolina Man]

Mike Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Mike]

We'll be shutting down in about 2 seconds. Check back in about 15 minutes.

 

[Mike]

And we're back. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I do not like running outdated scripts on my Web sites. It's always best to stay updated, which nearly always equates to remaining secure. I like secure.

 

[Mike]

Well, it's time for yet another forum upgrade. I really don't know when I will be doing the upgrade, but most of you already know the drill. If you arrive here and see the forum is closed, check back about 15 minutes later and everything should be good to go.

 

[Mike]

That was quick and painless. We're all updated and ready to rock-n-roll.

 

[choppedtop]

I didn't feel a thing.
Lee

 

[Mike]

How's the old line go?

"This won't take long, did it?"

 

[Mike]

As a word of warning, at some point in the next couple days, the site will be going down for yet another upgrade. We will be making a point upgrade to a Beta release, so there is a chance (somewhere around one in a gajillion) that we could see some 'breakage' in some functions. I've been wringing the release out on a test site and it seems solid as a rock, so we're going to wade in and help test it.

As always, I will try to select a time when not many people are logged in and the process will take about 10 - 12 minutes. So if you arrive here and find the forums are closed, check back about 15 minutes later. I think everyone, from top to bottom, will appreciate some of the new functions we we be seeing.

 

[RPM]

Just how much better can it get???

 

[Mike]

Just how much better can it get???

I think everyone will be pleased with the changes that are on the horizon. This latest upgrade will move us to XenForo 1.4 Beta 1, but the devs are already talking about their plans for XenForo 2.0. So we're not at the end of the line, not by a long shot.

I had a vision for this place, but the results are far outweighing any expectations I ever had. I made a really poor business decision, when we migrated from vBulletin software to the Invision Power Board software. I thought that was the direction we needed to move, to ensure continued growth, but that decision really had the opposite effect. When I decided to try XenForo software, the situation was a lot worse than anyone ever imagined. And XenForo was more of a Hail Mary move, than anything else. But that move put us right back in the thick of things and allowed us to experience the phenomenal growth we've seen in the last couple of years. We're coming up on four years since we moved to XenForo, and I'm still trying to find the negative aspects of the move.

Apparently, dickofficer has abandoned his forums and his users, citing a software change that killed his site. I'm sure thankful to be forged of stronger material than that, because if I had allowed the import to Invision to kill this place, it most certainly would have. When the going gets tough, I dig my heels in and fight, rather than throwing up my hands and walking away. When I imported this place to XenForo, I had zero expectations this site would last another 6 months. That import took place on Thanksgiving Day, 2011. And with the exception of only 3 or 4 months, we have been setting new traffic records, ever since. Some people are quitters. I am a fighter, and I refuse to lose. I don't want to let any of you down, but I particularly don't ever want to admit defeat. These last 3 years have taken a pretty heavy toll on me, but I am still here and I am still swinging for the fences, so don't any of you give up on this place, either.

I've been looking into doing some new things with this place. Not changing the formula for the forums themselves, because I can't see any reason to screw with success. But I have been looking into maybe adding some new aspects to the site. The advertising income from this site is pretty woeful, to be honest, so I am not sure if our budget will support some of these plans, but I'm still kicking the tires. I am trying to find a way to do some podcasting, where we could invite in the forum sponsors and other key members to do some online chats. And don't get too excited quite yet, but I am looking into a way to do crowd funded forum T-shirts. Just to throw cold water on you, IF this plan comes together, there will be a very limited run of shirts, and they certainly won't sell for $6.95. But maybe, just maybe, I can parlay the profits from the shirts into everything that would be required to do the podcasts. All of this is still in the very early planning stages, so don't be expecting any announcements about any of it, within the next several weeks. But now might be a good time to start playing with Skype, because you never know what might fall out, as I'm shaking this tree.

How bright is our future? (Maybe we need branded sunglasses, to help keep down the glare.)

 

[RPM]

I could always use a few new T shirts. Still have the other ones.

 

[T-Test]

I could always use a few new T shirts. Still have the other ones.

I still have a few left from my stash also.
Hope? Mike can do a different design on the shirts this time and some? with pockets.

 

[Mike]

I still have a few left from my stash also.
Hope? Mike can do a different design on the shirts this time and some? with pockets.

I hate to dash your hopes, but I don't see either of these being an option. I am looking at a couple of shirt companies that will simply take a design and produce shirts, with zero investment on my part. I am not looking to invest anything in another run of shirts. Once bitten, twice shy and all that. Nor am I looking to invest any money in having new artwork designed, when our logo is already well-known and easily recognized.

The way this will work (keeping in mind that I've made no decision, one way or the other, on moving forward with shirts) will be like this. I would supply the shirt company with our artwork, and set up a sales goal, say something like 100 shirts. From there, we put shirts up for sale, for a limited period of time, say something like 2 weeks.. If User A wants a shirt, he would go to the shirt company's site and would pre-order a shirt, providing credit/debit card details and a shipping address. The shirt company would then put a hold on the card account for that amount of money, but nothing else happens. At the end of the 2 weeks, if the shirt company has only received orders for 60 shirts, then the hold is lifted from User A's card account, the sales campaign goes in the rubbish, and nobody is out a dime. If, at the end of the 2 weeks, we have sold 140 shirts, then the company makes up the shirts, charges User A's card account, ships User A a shirt, the company keeps their share of the sale and the profits would then be sent to me.

I have said it before and I will continue to say it - I am NOT going to get back into the apparel business. If there is enough interest, we MIGHT crowd fund a run of shirts. But this could, just as easily, be an idea that gets rubbished in the next few minutes. Remember, I am looking at the possibility of setting up to do some podcasts and would only be needing to do shirts to generate the funds to purchase some equipment to do that. Frankly, the more I look at what would be required to do a decent podcast, I am not convinced I want to invest that kind of time into anything. If that idea gets tossed, then there is no need to do any shirts, at all. So there is no need for anyone to hold their breath on any of this. If it happens, it happens, If it doesn't, well, there you are.

 

[Mike]

Whoopee, it looks like we have avatar issues. I love the smell of a beta release in the morning...

 

[Mike]

That was almost too easy to fix.

OK, the sharp-eyed amongst you will likely notice some avatars have a green corner, whilst others do not.

I could try to tell you that the green indicates the really super-intelligent users, but since you can see my avatar has that indicator, my explanation would never fly. Actually, at the time the screenshot was taken, both 409T and myself were logged into the forums, whilst T-Test was not. I find this stuff to be useless fluff, but some of you may enjoy the new functionality.

Effective immediately, all new registrations will be required to add their location to their registration. And, if everything works as designed, current users will have to do the same, if they want to edit their forum profile. This will help members sort where the rest of us are located.

The registration page now has some honeypots, designed to trip up the registration bots. Humans will never see those fields, but the bots will see them and will attempt to add information to them. And if a registration gets submitted with one or more of those fields filled in, then the registration will fail. Moderators, please hold your applause until the closing.

We have added KeyCAPTCHA to the registration form. Rather than showing you some obtuse text you have to copy, or some obscure questions you need to answer, now new users can just add a couple of pieces to a jigsaw puzzle and they will be in like Flynn.

I really don't know how to make this any easier for anyone, to be honest.

We will now be submitting sitemaps to the search engines via a new method, so I expect we will be seeing a lot of search engine bot traffic over the next few days.

 

[Mike]

And there, we now have our large avatars back in place.

 

[409T]

A lot of good new features. That jigsaw puzzle is also a great idea.

 

[Mike]

That jigsaw puzzle is a great idea.

Seems that way on the face of things, but I am quite confident someone will be howling about it before the week is out. Such is Life...

 

[Mike]

I've been tinkering, so not to worry if you've seen a site error or two. It's just me and my 'can't leave well enough alone' attitude. I'll leave things be, now. Well, for a little while. At least. I think.