This is a bit long I know, but please take a moment or two to read it! It contains some important site info.
As you know, I've been working on building us a new home for some time now. The main motivations for making the move, have been to get us running on better message board software, running on a bigger server, with a different hosting service.
So, what I've been working on is moving us to a different server, running vBulletin message board software. I've been at this task for over a year now. The main obstacle to us moving has been the inability to import our current board info, posts, threads, users, etc. into the new message board. Thankfully, most of the import challenges have been rectified at this point with a few exceptions.
The following is a list of the key issues that may require your attention before the move.
-Because your current password is encrypted, it can not be imported into the new board, and it will therefore not work on the new message board. Quite simply, it will not import. Therefore you will not be able to sign in as you usually do. But, thankfully, all that should be required, is for you to do a request for a password reset on the new board. This will involve clicking a link that is normally used for recovering lost login and password info. Once you make this request, the new board will send a email to you, which will contain a temporary password. With this password, you will be able to sign into the new board. You will then either have the choice of keeping this password (which you probably won't want to do) or resetting it to your old one or another of your choice. This is something that you perform in your new control panel profile area, on the new board. Please make sure you have your current email address entered here on THIS current board! If you don't, you will not receive the email from the new board as the email from this board is going to be imported into the new board.
-Unfortunately, most of your Private Messages will be lost. This is an issue we've tried to resolve, but it just can't be. The issue has to do with the way the current board currently stores private messages. Although, some of our older members might find that a few messages from some time ago either reappear or transfer over with the migration. The reason for this, is that the older messages were stored in a different manner which makes them transferable. Please bear in mind, that because I don't have access to anyone's pm section here, other than my own or course, it is hard for me to give you a more precise synopsis of what to expect with regard to pm's. So I'm basing what I'm posting on what happened with my PM's. And what happened with mine was that a number of my old pm's made the migration over but the most recent ones did not. The ones I saw for me, appeared to be just older ones that I've never deleted. But I didn't go check every one to be honest! The bottom line is if you have vital info in your pm's, please copy it out so it doesn't get lost!
-Expect that your avatar will probably not make the migration. But once you are on the new board, you will be able to reload it. So the key here is to make sure you have a copy of it, so you can just easily reload it. This will only effect members who have their avatars hosted here on this server. If you host your avatar off site, it should be fine. At most, you might have to put the url back into your profile.
-A lot of the info in your profile will probably not make the transition, but some will. And expect that some of it might be a bit squirrelly. So when you make it over to the new board, you will most likely want to go through your control panel area and update anything you like to tell the other members about yourself. Like your location, interests etc. You'll probably quickly notice that the new board has a lot more features in the member profile area, so this is an area that you may want to play around with a bit.
For example, there's a feature that posts your birthday in a special birthday section if you make your birth date public.
Here's what you can expect as far as the key steps involved in the migration.
You can expect that once the importer is as good as it is going to get, I will shut down this board. So when you visit, expect to see the board is not operating message. At that point I will do a final import of all the posts and threads from here, into the new board. After that if all goes well!, I will repoint the url to the new server. This involves me changing the numeric, I.P. address checkmate-boats.com is associated with. From my experience, what usually happens is that there's a transition period where oddball things happen like you may arrive at either the new site new or the old. After a few days the url will get updated everywhere and things should go back to normal.
Once the url is repointed, expect to arrive at the new board, most likely with it's board closed message. At this point, I will put the finishing touches on the new board and we should be able to open up.
Please keep in mind there will be issues to work through with the new board. It's unavoidable. So please try to show some patience as we work though them. Expect the graphics to be a little rough, the odd one missing etc. Where possible, please use the board feedback forum on the new board to post the details of whatever problem you're having and I will try to rectify things for you as quickly as I can.
At this point, some of you might be wondering what the point of moving is. Well, simply put, we have to. We've long outgrown the hosting plan we have with Infopop and just changing the hosting plan we're on will necessitate a number of changes, some of which I quite frankly don't think are positive for our community. So we're in the proverbial place in life, where we have to do something, one way or another! So in order to move ahead, we may have to move back a step or two first. BUT, once we get everything worked out, I think you will see the see many of benefits for moving. I'm hoping you probably won't notice too much of a difference with the look and feel of the new board as I've tried to make it operate like this one as much as possible. BUT, expect that more features will be added to the new board after the initial kinks are worked out. I guess you could say we're employing the KISS methodology to start with. That being KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!
But after the initial KISS settling in period, expect to see new features get added. And that is where I think you'll really see the benefits of moving.
Rest assured, this current board will be saved for a reasonable amount of time, so if something is really needed from here, I can probably retrieve it.
Finally, the timeline is getting critical. Expect this board to be shut down anytime now. It could be today, it could be in a few days from now, or by the end of next week. The timing will be determined by the importer being perfected as much as possible.
For those of you who are not familiar with the software we're moving to, it's the same package Greg uses for Scream and Fly. So many of you will probably hit the ground running I hope.
Also, Coop has also graciously offered up the use of his message board for the transition period. So while we're down, please pay Coop's site a visit. Coop's just starting out, so it would be nice to give his site a kick in the server! I know he'll do a great job and his site will become a great resource for boat restorations and whatever else is going on in Coop's garage!
Coop's Site
As always, please feel free to ask any questions you may have.
As you know, I've been working on building us a new home for some time now. The main motivations for making the move, have been to get us running on better message board software, running on a bigger server, with a different hosting service.
So, what I've been working on is moving us to a different server, running vBulletin message board software. I've been at this task for over a year now. The main obstacle to us moving has been the inability to import our current board info, posts, threads, users, etc. into the new message board. Thankfully, most of the import challenges have been rectified at this point with a few exceptions.
The following is a list of the key issues that may require your attention before the move.
-Because your current password is encrypted, it can not be imported into the new board, and it will therefore not work on the new message board. Quite simply, it will not import. Therefore you will not be able to sign in as you usually do. But, thankfully, all that should be required, is for you to do a request for a password reset on the new board. This will involve clicking a link that is normally used for recovering lost login and password info. Once you make this request, the new board will send a email to you, which will contain a temporary password. With this password, you will be able to sign into the new board. You will then either have the choice of keeping this password (which you probably won't want to do) or resetting it to your old one or another of your choice. This is something that you perform in your new control panel profile area, on the new board. Please make sure you have your current email address entered here on THIS current board! If you don't, you will not receive the email from the new board as the email from this board is going to be imported into the new board.
-Unfortunately, most of your Private Messages will be lost. This is an issue we've tried to resolve, but it just can't be. The issue has to do with the way the current board currently stores private messages. Although, some of our older members might find that a few messages from some time ago either reappear or transfer over with the migration. The reason for this, is that the older messages were stored in a different manner which makes them transferable. Please bear in mind, that because I don't have access to anyone's pm section here, other than my own or course, it is hard for me to give you a more precise synopsis of what to expect with regard to pm's. So I'm basing what I'm posting on what happened with my PM's. And what happened with mine was that a number of my old pm's made the migration over but the most recent ones did not. The ones I saw for me, appeared to be just older ones that I've never deleted. But I didn't go check every one to be honest! The bottom line is if you have vital info in your pm's, please copy it out so it doesn't get lost!
-Expect that your avatar will probably not make the migration. But once you are on the new board, you will be able to reload it. So the key here is to make sure you have a copy of it, so you can just easily reload it. This will only effect members who have their avatars hosted here on this server. If you host your avatar off site, it should be fine. At most, you might have to put the url back into your profile.
-A lot of the info in your profile will probably not make the transition, but some will. And expect that some of it might be a bit squirrelly. So when you make it over to the new board, you will most likely want to go through your control panel area and update anything you like to tell the other members about yourself. Like your location, interests etc. You'll probably quickly notice that the new board has a lot more features in the member profile area, so this is an area that you may want to play around with a bit.
Here's what you can expect as far as the key steps involved in the migration.
You can expect that once the importer is as good as it is going to get, I will shut down this board. So when you visit, expect to see the board is not operating message. At that point I will do a final import of all the posts and threads from here, into the new board. After that if all goes well!, I will repoint the url to the new server. This involves me changing the numeric, I.P. address checkmate-boats.com is associated with. From my experience, what usually happens is that there's a transition period where oddball things happen like you may arrive at either the new site new or the old. After a few days the url will get updated everywhere and things should go back to normal.
Once the url is repointed, expect to arrive at the new board, most likely with it's board closed message. At this point, I will put the finishing touches on the new board and we should be able to open up.
Please keep in mind there will be issues to work through with the new board. It's unavoidable. So please try to show some patience as we work though them. Expect the graphics to be a little rough, the odd one missing etc. Where possible, please use the board feedback forum on the new board to post the details of whatever problem you're having and I will try to rectify things for you as quickly as I can.
At this point, some of you might be wondering what the point of moving is. Well, simply put, we have to. We've long outgrown the hosting plan we have with Infopop and just changing the hosting plan we're on will necessitate a number of changes, some of which I quite frankly don't think are positive for our community. So we're in the proverbial place in life, where we have to do something, one way or another! So in order to move ahead, we may have to move back a step or two first. BUT, once we get everything worked out, I think you will see the see many of benefits for moving. I'm hoping you probably won't notice too much of a difference with the look and feel of the new board as I've tried to make it operate like this one as much as possible. BUT, expect that more features will be added to the new board after the initial kinks are worked out. I guess you could say we're employing the KISS methodology to start with. That being KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!
Rest assured, this current board will be saved for a reasonable amount of time, so if something is really needed from here, I can probably retrieve it.
Finally, the timeline is getting critical. Expect this board to be shut down anytime now. It could be today, it could be in a few days from now, or by the end of next week. The timing will be determined by the importer being perfected as much as possible.
For those of you who are not familiar with the software we're moving to, it's the same package Greg uses for Scream and Fly. So many of you will probably hit the ground running I hope.
Also, Coop has also graciously offered up the use of his message board for the transition period. So while we're down, please pay Coop's site a visit. Coop's just starting out, so it would be nice to give his site a kick in the server! I know he'll do a great job and his site will become a great resource for boat restorations and whatever else is going on in Coop's garage!
Coop's Site
As always, please feel free to ask any questions you may have.
