PLEASE READ - About the Software Upgrade

[Scott Greczkowski]

ATTENTION ALL MEMBERS PLEASE READ THIS AS THESE CHANGES WILL AFFECT YOU.

This weekend will will be upgrading our forum software from version 2.2.4 to version 3.0.

The upgrade is being done to give you a better DBSTalk.COM experience, besides the improvements in speed there will be additional new features available to you, plus the new software has improved security features to help insure your private information stays private.

Because this is a major upgrade (Basically the entire board was rewritten from scratch!) we will unfortunately lose some features many of our members have come to enjoy.

These features include:
Spell Check Update - Got it WORKING!!!!!!
DBSTalk Weather Update - Got Weather WORKING!
Bookmarks
Your Notepad
DBSTalk Arcade
The Custom DBSTalk Homepage Update - Got Working!
The New DBSTalk Style
We will work hard to bring back many of these features as soon as we can, work has already begun to port these features over to the new version 3 of the software. For those of you who use the bookmark or notepad features you may want to copy your information you have stores as this information will not be available after the upgrade. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I am happy to report however that many of our custom features will still be in the new software, features such as the Quick Reply Box, Thread Preview and other custom features we have added to DBSTalk over the past 2 years are built in to the new version 3 of the software.

I would like to thank our Gold Members who have been helping us Beta Test the new software, the tests went VERY well and all our gold members seemed to really like the new software.

We hope you enjoy the new software!

Any questions? Just ask.

Thanks for being a member of DBSTalk.COM / SatelliteTalk.COM!

[Nick]

Don't mean to sound like a 'spoilsport', but with the loss of all those features, this "upgrade" sounds more like a downgrade to me.

Sorry, that's just the way I see it. :(

[oblio98]

Sometimes you have to put it in reverse a bit to be able to go forward!

:-jon

[music_beans]

The arcade doesn't work with Mozilla/Netscape anyway.

[Richard King]

i dont sea wy yu hav ta mes wit my splcker. how du yu spect me to poast messges?

[Chris Blount]

Originally posted by Nick
Don't mean to sound like a 'spoilsport', but with the loss of all those features, this "upgrade" sounds more like a downgrade to me.

Sorry, that's just the way I see it. :(

I know what you mean Nick but Oblio98 is right. This upgrade is necessary if we want to continue to improve the software. What also is important that regular users don't see are what is going on behind the scenes. There are some security issues that need to be resolved which is what this software upgrade will do.

We may lose some features in the short run but everything will be much better in the long run for us. Hope you understand.

[Jacob S]

Reminds me of what may happen when all channels may have to be broadcasted in digital in the future on satellite and all locals in HDTV. Might be less channels but you have to step back to move forward.

Having tried the beta site I like it better than this one. It is an improvement even though we will lose some features. I did not use most of the features that will be dropped off anyways often enough for it to be that big of a deal but know that they may be added along with other features in the future and the new features I believe are features most will use more often than those being dropped.

Bookmarks, notepad, and arcade are the ones that I would miss the most though but there are other ways to implement these. There could a link to another webpage to have these features until they can be implemented on the new version I would think. Also why couldn't this software remain open for some of these features until they are added to the new software?

Additional, would the message archives be on the new software version as well as the amount of time you been on the website, date joined, links this website has, read all the posts one had written since they registered on the site, and will some of the forums be recategorized or remain the same as it is now?

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes while it appears that we might be going backwards, in reality we are going ahead, full speed ahead. :)

I am saddened to lose some of the features, but I know that they will return in the future. (And better then ever) :)

Priority one for me is the Spell Check (I need it!)

Stay tuned, I think you will like it. :)

[Kevin]

Will we have to re-register or will our current accounts be carried over to the new boards?

[Scott Greczkowski]

Kevin your account will be carried over. :)

Your a gold member Kevin, go check out the Beta Test Board and see how you like it. (Details in the Gold Member Forum) :D

[Mark Lamutt]

The current accounts and messages will be carried over to the new software. That was one of the big things that we were testing on the beta site (even if we didn't actually tell you guys about that one :))

[Scott Greczkowski]

Just a heads up, I did some fooling around today and came up with a good start on our "Custom Homepage" and also figured out a way to have your weather forecast available to you from the homepage.

Things are looking real good. :)

[rtt2]

I need spell check badly. Hope you will be able to get it back as soon as possible. I will adjust in order to make the transition for you guys but please try and get spell check back.

[TimL]

Just a pet peeve about the use of spell-check..why is it so hard to go over a post to check for spelling? Not that I'm such a great speller all the time..:)

[Chris Blount]

Don't worry guys. I love having the spell check and we WILL figure out a way to get it back VERY soon.

[toad57]

Spill chick doesn't ketch envy miss take, so why brother?

[John Corn]

I'm looking forward to the upgrade to VB3. :righton:

rtt2, I'm with ya , I'll miss the spell check as well. :(

I'm sure it won't take long before these hacks are out.

[Jacob S]

I have not used the spell check feature once. I check over my post and as I am typing and correcty my errors along the way in my typing.

[Scott Greczkowski]

Just a happy update...

I have been working all morning for a Custom DBSTalk Homepage like the one we currently have and am happy to report that after a few hours work I believe I have made a nice new custom homepage that looks almost exactly like our custom homepage. :)

Also on the homepage there is a space to check your weather forecast. :) (Killed 2 birds with one stone) :D

Gold Members can see the new homepage at the Beta Site (Which is listed in the Gold Member Forum)

[Scott Greczkowski]

More good news!!!!

I got the spell checker working on the new software!!!!!!!!

It works on all the editors except for the WYSIWYG Editor!

I am doing the happy dance!

[Nick]

Weather requires "city, st" input, but alternately, takes 5 digit zip

[HarryD]

Looks good guys!

[Ric]

Looks great. I like the mouseover preview of the topic without having to click through but it doesn't stay 'active' for too long before the preview window closes.

[Jacob S]

It did not stay active for long under the older software either. I wish there was a feature where you could hover your mouse over it and read the whole section instead of the first post, or at least be able to select which post # to read by hovering over a number of a list of posts in that thread. That would make for a much faster reading experience without having to load the page each time and if the person wanted to post then you could click on over to it as you normally would to read the thread.

[Dave Johnson]

Scott has the chatroom has changed servers? It appears different. Chris graciously let us use the chatroom for our Tuesday night Canadian chats. Are we still able to do so as I only see a main room or can we still create a public Canadian one?

The new upgrades look great. :)

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes the chat is different now.

Our last chat killed our server when we had 60 people in the chat (It made the sever reboot)

This new chat uses no DBSTalk resources. :D

Just use the public room. :)

[Dave Johnson]

Thanks for the response. :)

[Nick]

"Our last chat killed our server when we had 60 people in the chat (It made the sever reboot)"

The last time I was in a bar with 60 of my closest friends throwing back shooters, the server there crashed also, but we left her a good tip! :D

[James_F]

You guys are braver than I. We are looking at updating our server to vb 3.0, but I'm not sold yet. Looks like you handled it pretty well... :D