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Everyone, please read

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    Everyone, please read

    I have some news. It's mostly excellent news, because it means I can finally evolve NTSC-uk and get it off the 2003 planet it has been stuck in.

    In summary:
    The site is now on VB4. Enjoy. NOTE: CURRENT STYLE IS JUST THE DEFAULT VB4. Enhancements will be made to the look and feel shortly, including a mobile skin. Other additions will appear gradually.
    The old reviews and articles are still on ntsc-uk.com and we hope to get the the VB4 forum/cms back onto ntsc-uk.com in time, but for the moment the forum and any new stuff are on ntsc-uk.co.uk

    Why did it take us so long?
    Here are the facts.

    I pay Neil for Hosting. He also did maintenance when bugs appear.

    At the end of 2009, I discussed improving the site and suggested VBulletin 4. Neil said he would help me make the move from VB3 to VB4. So I went ahead and purchased a new license for it. VB4 contains a CMS (content management system) as well as the normal forum. This means full integration of articles (reviews etc) with the forum, so users can easily put comments on them and it makes it much easier for me to add content. At the moment I have to faff around editing html in a text editor and resizing pics etc - I kid you not! It's massively time consuming. Anyway, Neil started testing at the start of 2010 and said whilst we can migrate the forum to the new version, it would be too hard to migrate the review content into the new CMS in any automated way. This was pretty much as I expected though.

    I haven't heard from him since then. Which was unexpected.

    After many emails, phonecalls and texts, I had not had a response by the middle of year, so I emailed him to ask for access to the server for someone else to do the changes.

    After still no reply, I asked him to arrange a forum backup so that I could test loading it into the new version of VB. I also asked him to change the ntsc-uk.com domain registrant to my name so I could move to a different host.

    I have still not had a reply, via email, text or phone.

    Neil hasn’t been on the forum since September 2010. He is fine though and twitters every couple of hours - I was initially very worried that something has happened to him.

    I therefore assumed he is unable provide the service any more. Since, the NTSC-uk.com domain URL is currently registered in Neil’s name, I will be writing to him to request the ntsc-uk.com URL. If he still does not reply, I will have to use the UDRP process.

    I have a copy of the review database and content, but I have no remote access to Neil's server to perform a forum backup. I was worried we might lose the contents of the forum, but luckily I found a way - it was painfully slow, but big thanks to http://www.mysqldumper.net/ - they will be receiving a little donation from me very soon. The most important thing about the forum is the users, without whom it would be nothing, but it's great that the content is all intact. Sorry it took so long to change to the new server which is provided by GlobalGold. Once I had the forum cloned on the new server, GlobalGold did the upgrade to VB4 for me. The support person that did it is doing the raceforlife - please consider sponsoring her: http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/katiepodgorski1188

    Thanks go to ItsThere, FSW and EvilBoris for their continued efforts to get this all sorted and to the other mods for their advice and support.

    Thanks to you guys for reading. If you want to help the site, tell all your friends about us.
    Last edited by charlesr; 08-04-2011, 12:43.

    #2
    Thanks Charles.
    Last edited by egparadigm; 29-03-2011, 21:13.

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      #3
      Thanks for all your hard work Charles

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        #4
        very posh looking

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          #5
          Yep, you are da man!

          The new style forum looks lovely - hats off to you and all those involved

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            #6
            Yes, very nice. Well done and backslaps to all involved.

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              #7
              Thanks for all your hard work, it's really appreciated. Shame to hear about the silence on Neil's side...

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                #8
                This all looks great. Well done for all the hard effort Charles - tremendous.

                Fdsbh

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                  #9
                  Mad props!!!

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                    #10
                    Perhaps we could smash a bottle of champagne against the new server when we all meet up to celebrate the NTSC-UK decade? (I have one in the fridge!)

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                      #11
                      I was getting worried it was all gone...been so long...I even had to do some work

                      Anywho well done on the move...not a fan of the new look tbh but feel thats just down to how VB looks in the first place, I'm too used to the old style I think

                      Looking forward to what happens now.

                      Welcome back one & all

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                        #12
                        Current style is totally default! I just changed the logo and that's it! We will work on a new style.

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                          #13
                          Yeah - nice one Charles.

                          Neil - hmmmmm.

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                            #14
                            Ill bring all my champers too, got loads as I hardly ever drink! Well done and thanks to all involved! I can finally relax after suffering withdrawals ...

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                              #15
                              Cool, thanks for the info...kinda wish I'd have known because I, like many other users on here would have been more than happy to help with the transition where possible!

                              Kudos to all involved

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