Forum Upgrade

GoldenMotor.com
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erics

Administrator
Staff member
Mar 13, 2017
125
122
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Cincinnati, OH
Hi all,

I'm excited to share some news about an upgrade I've been working on for the forum.

I'll be upgrading the forum's software, and also moving the site to https which is more secure. The look and feel will be updated as well at the same time.

All old links and bookmarks you have will forward to the new versions.

There are many backend/technical benefits to the move. Below are some front end benefits you'll see as well.

--Mobile friendly - This is big. A large part of the site's traffic is from mobile devices. This upgrade will make the site easier view, post, and use across all devices. Posts auto save and can be picked up, and finished across devices.
--Better notifications - The upgrade will have real time notifications and a better thread watch system.
--Easier to use - For new folks especially, they'll catch on to things faster. Posting, uploading pictures (asked about so often), and other things are just easier to figure out.
--Security updates
--Https/SSL - No more scary, "this connection is not secure" messages in login boxes, etc.

Those are some biggies. There are many more.

Here's the upgrade plan.

Yesterday I did a test import and all went well.

I'm planning to start the final move on Tuesday at 2PM EDT. The forum will be taken down during this time. I can't be exactly certain with these things, but I'm hoping the site will not be down longer than 8 hours total.

Hope you all like it!

Eric
 
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crassius

crassius

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Sep 30, 2012
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the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind

I've lost access to many places because my win9x machine can't do html5 or css3, and the new s/w had no fallback for html4 and css2 : (
 
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erics

Administrator
Staff member
Mar 13, 2017
125
122
43
Cincinnati, OH
crassius said:
the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind

I've lost access to many places because my win9x machine can't do html5 or css3, and the new s/w had no fallback for html4 and css2 : (
Click to expand...
I agree "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I wouldn't make a change like this without the need. It's a big investment of time and cost. A lot of thought went into whether or not there were solutions to help keep the current software in place.

The old software is many years old and has been designated end of life. There are no new updates coming. This presents all sorts of problems. Some change had to be made.

In the end it comes down to this. Do we want the community to just survive or do want to help it thrive. This upgrade is an investment to help it continue to thrive.

Hopefully it will load okay for you. Don't want to get too far off topic, but you might find some solutions out there for very old browsers to help them digest newer content. You might try searching things like "windows 98 browser compatibility" if you haven't already.
 
crassius

crassius

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Sep 30, 2012
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I suspect that even a black-screen ascii board would thrive if it had the most complete collection of accurate info that folks need. Organization into read-only stickies of info on specific topics would help, as would a search function that returned relevant info rather than the current 400 posts of mostly gossip. In fact, organizing the info might eliminate the need for search functions completely.

If it comes down to a choice between the most useful board, or the most popular board, I'd guess that having the first would create the second.
 
Dan

Dan

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May 25, 2008
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Awesome Eric and Thank you! I got no idea how much this costs ya.But really thank you.

Is funny, Nashville Kat (super human and very long time member) was talking about the typing for a long time and going to post it. And BAMM Batman, its gone. Really, really frustrating. Think that was the most openly angry I have ever read her. Just really calm and sadet person oddly very angry. Calm but lil po'ed sort of deal thing. Is that whats refered to a "time out? or..

Man! Bought a blazing fast chromebook. Its blazing fast 'cause ya can't do nothing with it. Gave up posting pics of mine here due to the no matter what, they are too big. ya have to just resize em. Not a biggie but annoying and time consuming deal. So, like other folk. just stopped posting. Kinda sucks as I think of MBs as functioning art. And really enjoy the pics here.

Playing with the demo, it purty awesome.

Honestly, this was the shizzel and Paul, thanks so much for all your really hard and beautiful work! Just got long in the tooth, is all.

Just funny. Yrs back I called paul on our brandy new cell phone, telephones. Its a friday afternoon.
Paul is pulling his hair out doing some thing. Might have been creating/building the chat box.

Have to call him the following monday or tuesday. Still much cursin' but laughing, not so much. He is in the same spot and still working on it. This isn't his profession but figured all this out. All of this. And it was all just to hang out with like minded folks and ended up being number one across the board with Google and the like, stats. Always amazed me.

Paul, as your Baby grows and moves up in the world, we should give her some sort of celebration or a t least toast her as she moves on. Dunno Brodder. Must be an emotional thing. I know I'm gonna miss the warm sorta feel.

Culver, the picture posting is incredible! Loads instantaneously and vids show. As in it's not the link but it is migrated (dunno proper wording for any of this) All around super cool, easy.

Crass, I don't have a 9x machine to test for you but am positive you can get chrome to work and will actually speed things up. The PC is what it is and not gonna help with hardware issues, But I would be very surprised if you had any problems other than normal ones due to a legacy machine. But should be just fine. Please let me or any staff member know if you have any problems.


But again, Eric. Thanks for the considerable time, effort and expense!


har, lol. Just remembered, Paul. It was the chatbox and one of the first posts in it was a complaint about it. Didn't see or hear from you for a week.
 
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crassius

crassius

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Dan said:
Crass, I don't have a 9x machine to test for you but am positive you can get chrome to work and will actually speed things up.
Click to expand...
they don't make a chrome for 9x and if they did, I wouldn't be able to use it anyway as I have google blocked in my hosts file because of their intrusive spying
 
Dan

Dan

Staff
May 25, 2008
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The spying thing by corps is worrisome, fer sure.

Anyway, we will figure it out so your OK and if there are any problems.
 
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erics

Administrator
Staff member
Mar 13, 2017
125
122
43
Cincinnati, OH
Well, we're back online. The forum is ready to use again. I'm still working through some things but have to get some sleep.

Tomorrow, I'll post some tips for using the new software.

I still have a number of things to work through, but please let me know here if you come across any issues.
 
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crassius

crassius

Well-Known Member
Sep 30, 2012
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158
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USA
works some on the shop machine - for them as use adnauseam, the board needs to be white listed to get the download fonts

googleapi scripts & fonts are unavailable to me as my hosts file blocks all google domains

getting errors for the ssl cert not being registered yet, but board seems workable

will check again in AM on home machine

everything looks very white - any theme options for users?
 
Dan

Dan

Staff
May 25, 2008
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Tried it on every device I have and awesome! The picture thing alone is pretty great.


Thanks and get some sleep.
 
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