Micah

Okay, new site, new problems. It's inevitable with any new software roll-out to have bugs.. and this one is no exception. I've been trying to sqwersh as many of these issues as I can. So far, I've found: Fixed: * PNWMAS Member rank icon wasn't displaying -- Fixed * Smileys were not displaying - Fixed! (rock2) * No clear way to add linked pictures in a thread (Brought to my attention) - You just click the "A" on a message. It's not defaulted to on.. but once you click it, it should save and be defaulted from then on - though that hasn't been the case yet, in the future I'll see if there's a way to force it on if it becomes annoying. * Missing "Location:" on user postbit. -- Fixed * Missing "new posts" on home page - While not a bug, has been brought up as a needed feature. I am working on getting this functioning on my test server before releasing, but it's coming -- FIXED * Missing signatures - not loading at all. Looking into this. It looks like the users default have just been turned off. This has been enabled globally - if you would like to disable signatures, please go to http://www.pnwmas.org/settings/account and disable viewing signatures. * Sent messages fail to delete - Once messages are in the trash, they are flagged for deletion. Once trash it emptied, the message is removed from sent messages. This isn't so much broken, but just a user experience difference. I will queue this up for down the road. I'm sure there's a more elegant solution for this. * www.pnwmas.org does not show "New Posts", "New Topics", etc until you click "Home". -- Fixed In Progress: * Site seems sluggish - I noticed this as well, but it's because the sites internal caching has not built up I think. I seems to be getting snappier as the day goes on and the cache gets built up. I will continue to monitor this one though and make performance tweaks as necessary. * Missing "Who's viewed this post" at the bottom of topics. Still looking into this one. * The "go to first unread post" button within a thread is missing Feel free to add to this list. As people post things that need fix'n, I'll add them to this list. Let's keep it civil. Micah - PNWMAS Vice President

Dictators? Security dictated change in this case - not us. Why couldn't we keep the same look? You know, honestly, we could have matched it pretty well to the same. Why didn't we? Because you can't have progress without change. Every time facebook changes something, the same thing happens... people complain about a free service changing. Yet, facebook didn't include you in this change, did they? Nor does google consult you everytime they change the look and feel of Gmail. They do it, you get used to it, and the world keep spinning. You don't want that extra click to get to the forums? Man.. That seems pretty silly to me. If you had to gripe, you had to reach pretty deep to pull that one out. Hurt your fingernails on the bottom of the bucket? In the overly justified world you've created in your mind, all changes from the color of the teeth on a smiley face to the core forum engine and security patches that happen would all go through the members and ultimately everybody would have the yay/nay on new features. Here's how it works in the real world. In the real world, too many cooks in the kitchen causes chaos and decisions never get made. Making everybody happy is impossible. Board of directors and officers are assigned to make the decisions that would otherwise never get made. That's why they exist. See facebook/gmail example above. Frankly, I'm insulted that I spent so much time working on this...I poured many MANY hours of my life into helping this site... stayed up until 5 in the morning, bleary eyed - only to wake up to complaints and insults. Luckily, I'm pretty thick skinned and I'm not going to let a handful of grumpy people stop me from helping the major majority of this site. Honestly, I kept it pretty open in my original thread saying that suggestions were welcomed and that change was not impossible going forward. I'm still open to change. How about giving some of that constructive criticism my mother used to tell me about? There's a reason those other sites stay stagnant.. and that's because they fear change because of responses like this. I, however, am not afraid.

Alright folks. Site is up! As you can see there are a lot of changes. No doubt a few buggy things here and there. Just let me know if you find something. Feel free to type it in this thread as well. I'm going to bed now.. I'm pooped! I'll be sure to type up a "Here's what's new" thread when I wake up, but for now.... This tired admin needs shut-eye. If there's an outage or anything severe like that, please - somebody who knows my phone number, give me a call. Call twice so DND wakes me up. Aaaaaand..... zzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzz...

Yep. Texting you now...

I think I have a spare AWM module....Let me go check.

Who has this module right now? I think I may need to snag it.

All, This Saturday night at 11:30pm, I'll be taking the server down for a major upgrade. The site will be down between 3 and 5 hours, during which time I will be releasing a newly designed version of the site on a more secure version of the forum software. This has been a long time coming and we've had a bunch of beta testers reporting bugs with the new site. Meanwhile myself and a professional web developer have been scrubbing the bugs out and making the site as visually appealing as we can without detracting much from the speed and quickness of the site. Let me try to preempt some of the concerns and questions folks may have when this is released: Q: Is anything going to be lost? Will I have to recreate my account AGAIN?! A: Nope. All data, passwords, PM's, posts, etc will be transferred to this new version. Nothing will be lost. Q: If the software is just being upgraded, why does the look and feel of the site have to change? A: Unfortunately/Fortunately, vBulletin re-wrote their software entirely from the last version to the new version. This new version has a lot more potential, but the styles and themes that the forum used to use will not import/function with the new software. This forced us to re-theme the site; what better opportunity to update it to the times. Q: Is this going to work on my phone or mobile device? A: Hopefully. Getting the site looking and functioning properly on a desktop/laptop web browser is challenging on it's own. Developing a website for a mobile browser is increasingly challenging as the years go on. Screen sizes vary insanely as do the device operating systems, browser types, versions, etc. So far, it has been tested on iPad 3/4, iPad Mini, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5S, HTC 1, a Nexus S4 Active and a cheapo 99 dollar LG/Verizon android tablet. Most devices worked great and we did resolve a lot of display issues and odd artifacts, but there are still some kinks to work out. We still have a development site that we will continue scrubbing these bugs on. Most of these will not require any outage window to fix. None of the current oddities affect functionality - they just look a little funny. Our current site isn't free of the same types of things. Q: What has changed? I mean.. other than the look? A: Great question... I'll send out an announcement post after the upgrade, but for now, know that there are a TON of security fixes, database optimizations, back-end acceleration, new fancy theme, incredibly easy content editing, a LIKE button that ties into the reputation system, and before you know it, we'll have things like automatic memberships (auto expire/renew). Q: Why wasn't the community or members involved in this decision? A: Unfortunately, it wasn't really a choice. Due to increased security awareness, the more time we stay on the old versions of this software, the more likely we are to have another attack/crash/time-travel to 2012. The design decisions were made by myself and my web developer with suggestions and approvals from the BOD and Officers of PNWMAS. In fact, there was a vote to deploy this on Saturday. Everything went through the proper channels and was done so with the communities best interests in mind. Everybody should be aware that there will be small little quirks and things that don't behave quite the same. New features may be buggy to start and these things will get ironed out as we encounter them. There's no real way to test this site without throwing users at it. To report a bug/defect/issue with the new site, please send me a PM. If the bug happens to be that you cannot send a PM, shoot an email to admin@pnwmas.org and I'll get it straightened out. PS. During the maintenance, the site will have a little surprise for you. Check it out! Micah - PNWMAS Vice President and Administrator

CLICK HERE

Better luck next time!

GO PNWMAS!

Aww.... You guys! I'm gettin all misty eyed!!! But seriously, it's my pleasure to help out when I can.

Sweet! I'll nab a couple of those for sure.

Round 3, I think yes?

Let's schedule some time for me to come out next week and fix that APEX once and for all.

And as long as the pipe under the stand stays just above the water level of the sump, it won't be too loud until you want it to be.

Pretty sure World of Wet Pets has these. They are out here by beavertron.

Ooh! A LungFish!!! That's a pretty obscure fish to have in an aquarium. I'd love to hear about that!

Those are some really good looking frags! Good stuff Arson!

I always attempt to run it dry, but it ends up being a slight trickle.

That's such great news!

Cuttlefish and corals usually has a decent selection of RO filters.

Stop! You're giving Jeff a big head! Soon he'll think his excretions don't smell Yeah, Marineland will have to do some major butt kissing to rid this region of some bad press. Glad to hear such a negative thing is pulling the community together though! You can tell a lot by a club of people when something bad happens. Good people always stick together.

If only...