New forum direction.

dkrager · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:36 pm Post subject: New forum direction.

Hi all,

My name is Dave Krager, I am a VJMC member and have been in contact with both the VJMC and Greg Fowler who is currently hosting the forums and have offered to take over the care and feeding of the board. So far everything has gone well and everyone has been very supportive of the idea.

Just to give you a little background on my qualifications. I work as a computer systems engineer for Solar Turbines Inc in San Diego CA. I have been working in the IT industry for over 20 years. I have extensive experience with all aspects of forum / website operations, PHP programming and SQL databases. I am the founder and site admin of cbxworld.com, which is an independent vintage Japanese motorcycle site focusing on the 1979-1982 Honda CBX with a membership of over 4,500 people from around the world.

The reason I stepped up to the plate on these forums is because I think they have a very good chance for success and feel that the only thing they are really missing is a solid foundation. Besides if no one were to have stepped up they would have simply died and that would have been a shame.

So here is where things sit right now. I have registered a domain name. Web space on one of my servers is already operational and Greg will probably be sending me a dump of the database after he gets off vacation. (Saturday)

I am going to go around and fix all of the technical problems as well as beef up the anti-spam security over on the new site. Once everyone is feeling warm and fuzzy about the new location Beth is going to switch the link on the club site and Greg will probably put in a temporary redirect to the new location and off we go. For the moment things will remain unchanged until we hit the new location.

I would like to ask both Steve Searles and Bill Moore to consider taking on positions as site staff. I doubt there would be a lot of moderation involved and no tech work but a solid site staff is a key component to a successful site since the real job at hand is community building.

Enough for now. In short, things aren't dying they are just getting started.

Cheers,

Dave

Steve Searles · Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 6:56 am Post subject: Site Moderator

This is great news Dave. I am very excited about helping out with the site. I have already sent you an email with my contact info. Anything I can do to make this a huge success just let me know. (I have an '82 CBX and have been on the CBX site many times. We will talk CBX later.) I am very knowledgable about most vintage japanese motorcycles and can certainly help with the technical questions regarding motorcycles. I have at least 50 bikes in my collection, am a certified motorcycle mechanic and have ridden and raced japanese motorcycles since I was 12. It has been a struggle keeping this forum going but the future looks promising! Thanks again for stepping up and helping out. Keep the rubber on the ground, Steve.

dkrager · Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 8:40 am Post subject:

Excellent! Welcome aboard Steve. Very Happy

I sent you an email with more specific info on the new location. It sounds like we share pretty much the same ideas on what it?s going to take to get things rolling. For the moment we are in a bit of a holding pattern waiting for the new site to fully kick in. Once that happens we can start moving forward. There's not a lot of sense in making changes here if it's all going to move anyway.

Thanks,

Dave

dreamqueen · Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 2:03 pm Post subject: new forum direction

Thanks Dave, Steve, Bill who volunteered to keep the forum going! Sounds like it can be better than ever. As Dave said; there will remain a link to the forum on the VJMC web site at it's current and future location.

Beth

dkrager · Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:57 pm Post subject:

Hi Folks,

Here's the latest. The new site is up and running I just have to get the database dump from Greg and port it over to the new software. This is sort of an involved process that is something you really dont want to do more than once, so I am not going to worry about any posts or new members missed during the transition. This will be like moving from a bicycle with flat tires to a Hayabusa and will be well worth the hassle.

P.S. The existing database already has serious problems based on what I can see. I just hope its not too late to salvage things.

Cheers,

Dave

Biquetoast · Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 7:05 pm Post subject:

Sounds good Dave, thanks for the effort!

cbx-shorty · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject:

Congratulations to all whom have been involved in the birth of this new site.

My opinion is that a site and forum, about Japanese bikes in general, should have a great future, and I’m sure it has a huge potential.
I’m also sure that my buddy, Dave Krager, will do everything to keep all software and programming related matters in top shape.

Cheers, Joost Cool

dkrager · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:14 pm Post subject:

Hey Shorty! Welcome aboard. Glad you could make it. I think there are excellent possibilities here and this is only the start. The migration is complete. Greg sent me the database this morning and the conversion from PHPB to PHP Nuke couldn't have gone any smoother. The forums have also been upgraded to the latest version 2.0.22

We have a wicked security system in place that will kill 99.99% of the spam before it ever gets posted as well as a top notch photo album and events calendar. Unfortunately the color theme of the old forum didn't get along too well with the new software so we are using the standard "subSilver" theme in the forums for now. The important thing is the members and the posts made it over without problems. I can get artsy with a theme in my spare time.

Cheers,

Dave

sr71cbx · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:50 pm Post subject:

Right on,Dave!All looks cool in here,and I'm looking forward to lending a hand in here myself. Cool

dkrager · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject:

You da man Mark! Cool

Biquetoast · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:50 pm Post subject: Re: New forum direction.

dkrager · Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 11:46 am Post subject:

Glad to see we have another IT guy in the house. People will probably have questions at first on how to use a lot of the features on the site so its good to know we have an extra resource in the house that can help people over the bumps.

I took a look at the signature thing. There were 2 problems. The first was that the database had a limit of 255 characters for signatures and was chopping it off so I doubled that.

The second is something that can’t be fixed. It turns out that if you use bbcode in a signature via the “your account” page, it doesn’t know what to do with it since it only understands html, but if you drill down into your forum profile bbcode works like a charm.

Go figure. Idunno

Biquetoast · Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 12:44 pm Post subject:

dkrager · Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 7:21 pm Post subject:

You guys are making me jealous. Now I need to start thinking about going Hollywood on "my" signature. Cool

Ratfink · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:34 am Post subject:

I look forward to being part of this forum.

Looks like it's based on a lot of things I like.

Not model specific is refreshing too. Although I will still post like a mad man over at cb1100f.net.

This is already a cool place, from what I have seen.
And I am excited to learn more about some other makes and models. Cool