Site Updates

[Swoosh]

I love that certain members have already been added to my ignore list for me.   

[shavethewhales]

I'm getting setup to move to a new host by mid june. I'm so tired of time-outs and slow posts, and even having the site unavailable for days at a time. We've been on the same host for 9 years now and I guess our server isn't on the priority list anymore. Definitely time for a change, but moving a site/database this big will be a pain. Nothing too technical though, should be minimal downtime when I make the switch.

[Duelist]

Thanks again for your dedication to this site, Shave!  I don't think anyone could have done a better job.

[shavethewhales]

I got side tracked with switching jobs and other things over the summer, so I never did switch to a new host, and we've been paying for it lately. For awhile I thought the issues would go away eventually as GoDaddy worked through the server issues, but it seems that essentially they've stuck us on an old legacy server in a back corner and are forgetting about it.

Like I said on Facebook, aside from hosting issues, there are some other legacy issues adding up that are causing some of our issues with the forums not completely working right. At this point there's no other option than to completely restart on a new setup. I've been looking around at various forum softwares to see if there's anything better than SMF, but I'm not seeing anything that works better for our purposes. So I think I'm going to try to setup a new SMF installation on a new server somewhere and point the domain to that. I don't know if I'll be able to move all the accounts and old posts over or not...

The site might redirect to some sort of "under construction" page for a few days. I'll post updates on the facebook page if the site isn't accessible.

[Gilligan]

Thanks for all your work, Shave!  It's very much appreciated.  I'll be happy with anything you need to do with it, as  I just hope it never goes away.  SDC Fans is one of the few forums where anyone can log on and feel welcome.

[shavethewhales]

I've got a new host setup, but actually moving the site over will be a massive pain and will require a brief ~24 hour shutdown.

I'm planning the move for next Monday, unless I get home late or something. There will be three stages:

1. Site will be inaccessible for ~ 24 hours from Monday night till Tuesday night will I get the domain to propagate and the new forum setup.
2. "New" forum will accessible on Tuesday night (hopefully). I think I will be able to move all the user accounts and posts over, but we'll see what happens...
3. The rest of the site's old content will come back in a slightly reconfigured format that revolves around more automation and feeds vs. me trying to stay up-to-date with the seasons and latest news.

I have decided to stay with the SMF forum software. Everything else is virtually the same, or costs money. Plus I hope to be able to transfer everything over and keep the same look.

[biscuitcreek]

Thanks, Shave, for keeping us informed and thanks for everything you do to keep this site going.

[shavethewhales]

Well, we're running on the new host now and it looks like I was able to save all the user accounts and 9 1/2 years of posts, so I consider that a huge success.

What I couldn't save was the old forum theme, so I've had to go back to the drawing board a bit. I think a bit of change will be good anyway since the feel of the forum hasn't changed much in years. Avatars will probably need to be re-uploaded, but I'll see if I can move them over tomorrow. Attachments that were posted in the past will be moved over tomorrow. The forum statistics have been reset. I'm not sure if that can be overwritten or not, but I'm not too concerned about it.

This is actually a more-or-less clean installation of the forum software, so hopefully some of the bugs we were running into will be squashed.

Let me know if you run into any issues.

I'll continue to play around with the look and feel, and I'll eventually add the FB and news feeds back in.

[sdcfan88]

Looks like some user profile info will need to be re-implemented and the user avatars will have to be re-uploaded. (already fixed mine)

[WolfHunter]

Figured I'd take the time to update my profile a bit. I like the new design, but I wish the blue was a deeper color like a dark red.

[sirwillow]

Looks good to me!  I know moves like this are never fun, especially when it means a complete reinstall of everything on top of migration.  I'm liking what I'm seeing and it looks like everything important is there, so that's always a success in my book.

[joshblakebran]

Shave,
I appreciate all your hard work on this. Not to be critical in anyway but I much prefer the old look and theme. It fit the theme of the park much better. This new look feels more business like and not recreational. It just does not feel as nostalgic as the old look...not the same aura. Still I appreciate the site and all your hard work.
Thanks

[History Buff]

^It's a work in progress.  You should have seen it before he put the wood background back up.

[sdcfan88]

Another thing I noticed would be to fix the "new post" flags. The black is kinda obscure. Can it be changed back to orange?

[joshblakebran]

I definitely like the wood background. Regardless of how the site looks, I love it and appreciate Shave's hard work. I'm definitely a SDC Fan fan...