New Forum Software - HERE WE GO!

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jeff

jeff

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
9,003
Location
Westlake, OH, USA.
Read the upgrade status HERE

This Saturday, July 19 2008, we're switching to new forum software.

This is going to be pretty disruptive, but it will eventually be GREAT. You have no idea how much this will help me and the moderators with administration, and there are endless cool things we can do with the new forum software.

Read about why we're doing this HERE
Read some discussion about it HERE

Read about UPDATING YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS HERE

If your email address is correct, you have nothing to do but wait for me to do my job.</u> ALL member accounts and ALL topics and posts will be moved. We won't lose anything.

Of course, our URL will remain http://www.penturners.org

Here's what's going to happen:

On Friday (7/18) morning, posting to the photo albums and photo uploads to posts will be disabled. This is to freeze these files for upload to the new server.

On Saturday (7/19) morning, posting to the forum here will be disabled. This is to freeze the forum database for download from this server and upload and import to the new forum

I expect that we'll be off the air until Saturday evening.</u> Surfing to the site throughout the day may produce strange results - you may see the old forum, you may see the new forum, you may see me on my webcam banging my head on the keyboard. That last part is very likely - this is going to be a huge pain in the inkwell.

My goal at this point will be to get the basic forum back up and running, minus all the bells and whistles we are used to. The most important thing will be to help everyone get their passwords reset and get logged back on.</u>

Once the forum comes back up, I will post on its front page a link to get your password reset. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read the emails that the server sends during the password reset process. There are multiple steps in resetting your password.

I will also open a temporary topic in the new forum for you to check in once you reset your password and get logged on again. There will also be a spot to post "HOW DO I..." questions about the new forum. (If you are familiar with vBulletin, I encourage you to help your fellow members!)

Remember:

The new forum is totally different in form and function. It will be changing rapidly as I get things installed and configured. things may be not too pretty for a while.

PLEASE be patient with me and yourself. I will help you all as much as possible. Poke around and you'll figure things out quickly.

Many things will not be working initially. RSS feeds, the Yahoo! feeds, the photo album, links, etc. will be off-line for a while, maybe up to a week.

LASTLY: I have rehearsed this migration at least 10 times. I have written a detailed script of all the steps I need to do, I've reserved all the time I need, and I think I have it all nailed down. HOWEVER, it might still go into the weeds. If it does, I'll bring the old forum back up and we'll try again in a week.

Please ask questions here, I'll answer as best I can to address any concerns before the weekend. If you get absolutely desperate about a problem and have to speak to me personally, here's my phone number: 440-829-1829. I am in the US Eastern time zone, which is GMT -4, so try not to call me between about 11pm and 8am. Gotta get my beauty rest!
 
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Originally posted by jeff

Surfing to the site throughout the day may produce strange results - .... you may see me on my webcam banging my head on the keyboard.
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I hear that works well. So far I've only tried my fists, sometimes one, sometimes two. I've toyed with the idea of using a DeWalt sawz-all, but I'll try the head thing first.


Oh, and I'm already getting "shutdown in progress" notes when I try to post. If you are reading this, I got very lucky that time.
 
Here's how the password reset will work at the new site...

You will go to a link at the new forum. I will probably email the link to everyone, but it will also be posted on the new front page.

When you bring up that page, it will ask you for the email address associated with your member account. Then it will send you an email which looks like this:

Dear jeff,

You have requested to reset your password on International Association of Penturners because you have forgotten your password. If you did not request this, please ignore it. It will expire and become useless in 24 hours time.

To reset your password, please visit the following page:
THERE WILL BE A LINK HERE WHICH YOU CLICK

When you visit that page, your password will be reset, and the new password will be emailed to you.

Your username is: jeff

All the best,
International Association of Penturners
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Clicking the link in that email will take you to another page at the site and actually reset your password to a random string, and you'll get an email that looks like this.

Dear jeff,

As you requested, your password has now been reset. Your new details are as follows:

Username: jeff
Password: A RANDOM STRING WILL BE HERE

To change your password, please visit this page:
HERE WILL BE A LINK TO YOUR PROFILE

All the best,
International Association of Penturners
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Then you can log on with that new password.

Then you can go to your profile and change it to something easy to remember.

You can also leave it as the randomly generated string if you want to remember that.

Remember - Links in email get a SINGLE CLICK. Multiple clicks will generate errors.

This process has been tested by a number of people who have visited the test site. The emails in the quote boxes above were just sent to me when I tested out the process (for the bazillionth time!)

Final Tip: MAKE SURE that you can receive email from admin@penturners.org !!! Add our domain penturners.org to your whitelist, or whatever means you use to allow legitimate, non-spam emails to go through. If you are using an email system which requires sender verification (very few ISPs do) you are going to be out of luck unless you allow that email address, admin@penturners.org before you try the reset process. If you can get private messages here, then you are fine as it's the same address.
 
Originally posted by redfishsc

Originally posted by jeff
Oh, and I'm already getting "shutdown in progress" notes when I try to post. If you are reading this, I got very lucky that time.
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That just our (current)MS SQL server with a cramp. One of the many reasons we need to upgrade.

BY THE WAY: I was playing with advanced searching last night on the new forum and it ROCKS. I did a multi-keyword search on all 428,000 posts in under three seconds.
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Jeff

Good luck with the upgrade I have being down the road many times in the past. With a little luck and your hard work it should go smooth. If you need any help just pm me.

Alan
 
Jeff,

I'm the IT manager in a medium sized company and I've been in the same boat many times. I feel your pain. By the way, beating my head on the keyboard seldom helps but swearing does! :)

Good luck!!
 
Good luck Jeff... It sounds like you have it right.. You've got the deployment practised and scripted, plus a backout plan and backup dates. I have to say, after reading that I had to look at your profile for the first time. Between your listed profession and your home page, looks like you've got the right background.

Don't forget to holler, though if you want some help or a second set of eyes... Sometimes when you do hit an issue, you can look at something far too long.

And watch out for the the 'worst' part - all of us users who will be in withdrawl after missing this site for a couple of hours.[}:)]
 
jeff, i hope all goes well for you, you have done a fantastic job up till now. i am sure you will give us members another great and wonderful forum.
 
Can't wait to see it, Jeff. And thanks again for all your hard work, buddy! To help with the migration, I'll be fishing Saturday so as not to hinder the process.[}:)];)
 
Thanks for all that you are doing Jeff and I wish you the best of luck in this endeavour.

I am by no means an expert but I have always found yelling and cussing at computers to be very helpful and its free. Punching, slamming, and throwing cumputers, or any of its parts, can be very expensive.:D
 
Jeff,

I can't wait to see penturners.org be clad in the power of vBulletin, having run and running a forum with this OS, is a great thing, very smooth, fast, and very easy to use.

Rick
 
Jeff, good luck with the change over. Can't even begin to imagine your thot process as I have trouble turning the machine on! So, to be sure you will be in my thots as the change takes place...Billy B. good luck to you too, I've as much luck with fishing as with "puters". Even here on the galveston bay and the gulf I can't catch a cold.
Vern
 
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