Interruption to service tonight from 6.00pm Australian Eastern Standard Time

[admin]

I am making a clone copy of the entire database and all files for the purpose of importing into a new test site, where I hope to expand the functionality of the site to include a parent website based on the popular Joomla! format which will allow the addition of a wide range of new features, a new EXIF empowered gallery (Gallery2) a new forum type based on the latest release of phpBB3
and a bunch of other things.
It is a bit of an experiment, but that is my way.
Once done, I will transfer the domain to the new Joomla site and will still link this forum, just as it is.
I will then invite feedback from you all, so that you can take part in what should be something quite exciting.
Tonight I hope to import most of the currrent content, which may or may not work as I expect, but I'll keep you up to date.
You should not notice any effect here, other than slightly slower response times occassionally.

[Helen]

Excellent Mark. Looking forward to this new adventure.

[admin]

Thanks Helen.
I feel a bit like a member of the Apollo 13 crew. Lots of good intent, lofty goals and maybe not quite enough technical abilty.
The import of categories and posts went well...except that I now need to work out how to re-link all of the images (reasonably important in a photo forum).

Plus, post import no new posts included in the transfer, so I'll need to update again later.
If it all comes together it should bring a whole lot of functionality available through the Joomla! system.
Anyway, nothing ventured...
It will take a week or so before its ready to link for feedback and we'll see how we go.

[Analog6]

I feel like I need a translation service - computers have sure changed since I did network support in the early '90s. 

Go to it, as far as I'm concerned you're doing a great job.

[Cygnus]

I look forward to the new updates   

[Truckman]

Bring it on, brother... ...Ben

[OZZI-BLOKE]

Sounds good to me.

[admin]

Update 1.

I have: Installed a clean version of Joomla! in the newest 1.5.5 format.
Some of you may be familar. It is a php based Open source system that I have used to develop a few sites previously.
It has a (very) large development community. You can check it out at www.joomla.org
It is regarded as a content managenment system (CMS) which then has a whole array of plugins available from 3rd party developers see:
www.joomla.org/extensions
The power of joomla can be seen from the depth of extension modules available.
I have so far loaded:
Gallery2: http://gallery.menalto.com and a plugin to incorporate it into Joomla!. This all went well. They authenicate each others' logins with a
I have not yet installed any galleries.
phpBB3: this is a new issue of the phpBB series of bulletin boards. I am only looking at this because it has some good features and has a well regarded Joomla! integration bridge...and a tool to migrate from SMF, the current forum.

I have installed phpBB3 and after a bit of mucking around, it was a simple and prompt import of forum contents as at about 8.00pm AEST last night.
All of the categories and posts and avatars and attache images transferred perfectly, as did the posts and links from the exisiting gallery.
What did NOT update was the links to images in the SMF gallery module. Bummer. Should have foreseen this as the gallery is a seperate module.
I will need to manually update all of these.

The other problem so far is that logging out of either Joomla or the forum breaks the gallery link.

Once I sort these two items out (if I can) I'll post a link to the staging site.
If I can't do it in a time-effective manner, well we can just stick with what we have. Its not broken, just always looking for a way to improve the options and features. One big benefit of the current site is the automatic creation of a post when loading images to the gallery. i haven't seen that in other systems...but we miss out on EXIF image data.
With Gallery2, we get EXIF and a whle bunch of feaures including direct commenting, but it does not post into the forum.
Just an experiment, so I'll keep you informed...and admit failure if that is how it ends.

[Ross and Cher]

All sounds like GEEK to me!!! !! And proof that apart from being a good, nah great, great target for verballing, you are a very impressive Admin Dude!!! Look forward to being suitably impressed with the results of your labours!!!

[Truckman]

Well, whatever you did, Mark, it looks like you attracted a swarm of web-crawler bots...They've been all over the site every time I checked in today...That should increase the hits from the various search engines...Ben

[admin]

How did you pick up on that Ben?
I only ever see that activity from the Google Analytics stats.
Can't be bad but. The more bot visits, the better.

[Truckman]

How did you pick up on that Ben?
I only ever see that activity from the Google Analytics stats.
Can't be bad but. The more bot visits, the better.

I have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal man... ...

Also when I see 5 to 15 guests all logging on about the same time viewing files at random and then all logging off about the same time, it's a pretty safe bet that it's a bot atack...Unless there's an invasion conspiracy you haven't revealed to us... ...Ben

[admin]

Perhaps like yesterday where there were 58 "people" online in a very short space of time

[Truckman]

Perhaps like yesterday where there were 58 "people" online in a very short space of time

Yes, at another site where I moderate, I can also read the IP addresses and when many of them are within a digit or so of each other you know they're bots...ARINWHOIS is a pretty good tool for finding their origin...

On that site there's a Google bot that's taken up permanent residence...I was thinking of assigning it its own username... ...Ben