We're going Mobile! Jan. 29 (4 to 6 hrs downtime)

P.S. This is a huge conversion with over 750,000 posts in our database, so there will be some downtime on January 29. We expect the forums to be down for about 4 to 6 hours.

Julie, thank you very much for all you do to make this such a great site. I'm glad to hear the costs are coming down as well.

Would this be a good time to ask people to clean out their old PMs?

Deleting unneeded PMs would decrease the porting time and therefore cost. Old PMs are unneeded data. I had three pages of old, unneeded PMs I deleted yesterday.

RJM,

We are moving to a new software system with the same hosting provider, and they will charge me a flat fee for the data transfer and setup (not based on number of posts). But deleting old un-used PMs is still a good idea... there is a limit for data storage which could be a factor in the future.

Our old PMs will be carried over to the new forums, but in the new system they are called Dialogs.

Thanks,

Julie

quote:

MN-Mom posted....We're going Mobile! Jan. 29 (4 to 6 hrs downtime)

"I don't care about pollution
I'm an air-conditioned gypsy
That's my solution
Watch the police and the tax man miss me
I'm mobile
Oooooh, yeah, hee!"

Going Mobile - The Who

Geez Woody. Can't you keep it all in one place like me?

Julie ... You may want to delete the first 170 pages of Between Barack and a hard place. We don't look back. We're always moving Forward!

Julie,

Thanks for all that you do. I know many of us are looking forward to the updated system. I have a couple "going mobile" questions.

1) Can we export our PMs from the current system? If so, how?
2) I understand our new userid will be our current display email. Will our current passwords transfer over to the new system?

Thanks.

fenwaysouth,

Great questions! ANSWERS:

• Your private messages will be transferred to our new forums, but will be called Dialogs in the new system. So you don't need to export your PMs before the conversion. (I just updated my earlier post in this thread with this info, too.)
  
  
• Your current password will continue to work in the new system. The only change to login is that you'll use your email address (the one currently in your profile) instead of your current username. As always, you'll be able to request a password reminder/reset to be sent to your email address.

Thanks,
Julie

Julie,

Thanks so much for what you do and I'm glad that the costs are going to go down. This is truly an amazing place and thank you for that.

Do have a question - is this going to be an app that we put on our phones or is the site just going to look better on our phone's browser? Or am I just totally wrong in everything I ask? This is probably what is going on.

Thanks

coach2709,

Good question!

FORUMS / COMMUNITY:

In the new forums, members will automatically see either:

• Desktop version (the normal size - like our current site but with more features) or
  
• Mobile version (a lightweight, faster loading, smaller format)

...depending on which type of device they are using for that visit.

You will not need to install an app to use the mobile version.

One thing I don't like about the current status of the mobile version software is that it does not include an option for you to switch to the desktop version of the forums on your phone. But the hosting company is continuing to add more options to the mobile version and they have promised some enhancements for the end of February.

NON-FORUM WEBSITE PAGES:

I'm also working on a mobile-friendly version of the non-forum website pages. Details of that version are still in the works, but it will be "Responsive" format... you'll see a version of the page that best fits the computer or phone you are using for each visit to the site.

Thanks,
Julie

I received this question via email:

Will the update / changes include the year of posts / replies? Thanks!

Here's the answer:

Our hosting provider is transferring all of our existing threads, posts and replies over from the old system to the new system (over 700,000 of them), including the date and time stamps showing when each post was made (all the way back to December 2002!).

Julie

Way to stay current with technology! Can't wait to see it...