At this time it does not look like Ed and I will be able to head out to the server to fix the problems with the old forums.

Not a bad issue anyhow since two little news updates for you which I will add here and in the NEWS forums.

1) NEW HARDWARE UPGRADES are in and ready to kick into the website server.

2) NEW SERVER, yes you heard right, is ordered and should be in (hopefully) this coming week. That means we make one trip and not two. (Good for us, trust me.)

If things go well who knows what [b]surprises[/b] the future holds for you all...

BUT the old forums do look like they have their days numbered. Due to the incredible amount of traffic they have carried for so long, the forums seem likely to continue to see problems which makes then too much of a burden. That means work on these forums will need to pick up before the other forums decide to die again, as well as trying to figure out a way to save all/some of that old content...

We'll keep you guys posted and do our best to provide both an acceptable solution to the new forums as well as the old forums.

Again, this weekend is not going to work for us, so look for them next weekend!

-- GoatBoy

Ok here's an update on the situation.

New hardware is in, but there was a mixup with some of the items. These items will hopefully be in by weeks end so we can try to make a trip to the servers, otherwise we'll need to push things to the following weekend.

The plan is to move the sites (remotely) onto the new boxes and test them, then make the trip, plug them in, and make the swap active...

I'll post another update before Saturday with our situation.

Some of the hardware did not make it in on time due to a screw up from the wharehouse. I'm expecting most of it today and the rest will show up on Monday. This means the forum fix will NOT happen this weekend, we'll shoot for next weekend.

As for answering some of the questions.

1) Yes the old forums will be up and running on the current problematic machine and development will be moved to one of the new machines.

2) The goal is for this site (development) to run until we (and you as a whole) are happy enough with it to migrate to it. There's alot of work that needs to happen, so dont think it will happen overnight.

3) Our host right now is a drive away because it is the most affordable place in the area. As I said before there are a number of costs which go into enjoying something. If we had a way to clear the operational costs every month then we would move it closer to one of the more stable and affordable ISPs. Currently the local ones are pretty expensive for colocation. The other issue is that we both work full time and have a ton of things to do outside of working on this site. This leads to a relatively slow response. Again, we dont do this for a living, otherwise there would be little to no downtime...

4) Thanks for the support and I will address the bulk of the issues with the site as I find more time. Right now I'm trying to balance a number of things.

-- GoatBoy

Thanks for the kind words, and I will be taking time this week to continue working on the forums and the site to improve a number of issues...

As for support issues. The other forums are UBB and are well known to hoard resources. The problem is with high traffic those boards tend to bring just about any system to its knees. And you guys can all attest to the amount of traffic in here.  [:)]

As for getting others involved, that's not necessary. Outside of financial constriants as well as time, there is nothing anyone can do. I am planning on dedicating time this week to this site, and more specifically the forums.

-- Goatboy