Some changes around here

[coastal]

EDIT>> Off-Topic Now a Members Only Forum
I'm going to try this out for a while to see how it goes... only members will be allowed to view and post to the Off Topic forum in an effort to hopefully encourage stronger participation in a more private setting. You'll need to be logged in to even see a mention of the off-topic forums now. Post away!

Google AdSense Banners now in forums
As you may have noticed by now, I've set up Google AdSense banners for the forums and will be deploying them through the rest of the site over the next little while, that is assuming there aren't many strong objections.

Don't think I'll make a ton from them but thought we might as well give it a try to at least offset volvoxc.com's hosting fees.

New Hosting
As mentioned in another thread, I've moved volvoxc.com over to a new host. Originally these names have been hosted on a friend's server Downtown Vancouver but I really wanted to get a hold of some more server features in order to build out the site properly (eg PHP and MySQL).

xc70.com remains hosted free of charge at Combustion Hosting (many thanks again) to serve you our both our forums and photo galleries. The forums and photo galleries consume a lot of processor and bandwidth and I didn't want to start pushing our luck by offering even more dynamic features on their servers, so any new features will be located on volvoXC.com and we'll keep xc70.com status quo.

New Forums
As you may know, I've tried a test install of PHPBB running with MySQL on xc70.com but wasn't too pleased with the performance. Once I get the performance issue and the other details some members had mentioned, sorted out I'll be moving the entire forums over. For now, we remain with the CGI scripted Ikonboard product.

New Features
Oh, and those new features I mentioned. Those would include things like browser based news posting and updates, a review engine, knowledge base and dynamic how-to section as well as a more useful links page. A big list but hope to start pluggin away at it soon now that I have a few more resources available to use.

Thats all for now, thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Taylor.

PS, you may not have noticed, but there's now a "Make a Donation" button at the bottom of each page in the forums. Not entirely necessary, but if you find the want or need to give, that'd be the button to click

[Art]

Cool stuff Taylor!!

It's nice to know that Combustion is cutting you a ton of slack on hosting. Look forward to when the new system kicks in!

Donations towards the site would certainly benefit all who frequent this site...at least in helping to offset some of the hosting fees. Count me in!

As usual, keep up the great work!

[XCMark]

Taylor,

Again, great job on this site. I have become addicted and think this site is superbly designed and run. Thanks for all your hard work!

I will definitely make a donation shortly. I have found great value on this site, and the discussions and knowledge on this board should save folks $$. That alone is worth contributing to your hosting costs.

Is this your full-time gig? I used to design websites for an interactive firm (I'm a graphic designer/art director/creative director) but we had a couple of programmers do all the backend. You've done an amazing job. Combustion is getting good placement! I've checked them out to see about hosting a website for our new family. My inlaws in Victoria want me to design a site for their family and will consider Combustion.

I just need to find out more regarding how several family members can upload news/pics themselves, making it more interactive, rather than have me (or a single source) responsible for everything....

thanks again!

Thanks

Mark

[coastal]

And thanks again for the comments Mark

Yes, web development is my full time gig. My company is called Servoweb Technologies and we do everything from small personal and business sites all the way up to large scale portals, ecommerce and search engine marketing.

Email me if you have any questions about the development end of things you may have. I'll point you in the right direction in terms of the dynamic stuff as well as any other development questions you might have.

To add, the Combustion guys are a great team. They're not the cheapest hosting company around (mid range in terms of price), but their top notch customer support more than makes up for the difference, and their servers and services are blazingly fast. Not saying this because they're supporting the site (though that helps too), they truly are a great hosting company.

Cheers!

Taylor.

PS, let's see some of your design work.. I always like seeing new stuff.  

[coastal]

Made some great progress with the site over the weekend.

Spent some time optimizing the code a bit more. This should be a noticeable improvement in download and load speeds, especially for dial-up users. Still have to go through a few more of the pages but she's coming together very nicely

Installed a more resource friendly newsletter system. I imported all the existing email addresses to the new system so this should be a seamless transition for members.

Added a dynamic news posting service on the homepage and in the news section. This speeds up the news posting immensly so look for more frequent updates on the homepage or in the news section. You also have the ability to add comments.

Working on a more dynamic links section which will again make it easier for me to update the listings.

My next plan is to move into the resource section and build it out part by part. Not sure on a time frame, as I get time it will get done.

Cheers!

Taylor.

PS, finally broke the "simultaneous forum users online" record today at 32. Old record was back in May, 2003 of 27 IIRC. Nice!

[Art]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">PS, finally broke the &quot;simultaneous forum users online&quot; record today at 32. Old record was back in May, 2003 of 27 IIRC. Nice&#33;[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

Heheh....I was wondering if anyone else noticed that&#33;

[ifnt420]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Art @ Nov. 03 2003,15:07)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">PS, finally broke the &quot;simultaneous forum users online&quot; record today at 32. Old record was back in May, 2003 of 27 IIRC. Nice&#33;[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

Heheh....I was wondering if anyone else noticed that&#33; [/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
I did&#33;&#33; &nbsp;
First thing I look for when I log in is &quot;who&#39;s on line&quot; and if the record for &quot;simultaneous forum users online&quot; has been broken. &nbsp;
Looks like we are getting popular&#33;&#33; &nbsp;(Well, in the U.S at least)

[XCMark]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">PS, let&#39;s see some of your design work.. I always like seeing new stuff. [/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

Taylor,
I&#39;d be happy to show you some stuff... I have to get a bit organized, though. &nbsp;I just bought a new computer (Apple PowerBook G4 Titanium) about a year ago and most of my stuff is still sitting on my old computer and haven&#39;t transferred it over yet. &nbsp;I&#39;ve been on again/off again about creating a portfolio site for myself... I just don&#39;t have the time to freelance now since I&#39;ve been working full time again (for the most part). I&#39;ll send you some quick sample .jpegs to your personal email soon.

Mark

PS- I took a look at your site... pretty nice&#33; You&#39;ve got a nice, clean design style. I think most folks tend to &#39;overdesign&#39; websites -- &nbsp;they are first and foremost to dissiminate information to users in a coherent, user-friendly fashion. Yours are intuitive, clean and get the job done while nice to look at. Good package overall.

[budrichard]

Your efforts are much appreciated and the site looks great&#33; thanks again, -Dick

[AWD*V70XC]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (coastal @ Nov. 01 2003,06:31)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Google AdSense Banners now in forums
As you may have noticed by now, I&#39;ve set up Google AdSense banners for the forums and will be deploying them through the rest of the site over the next little while, that is assuming there aren&#39;t many strong objections.

Don&#39;t think I&#39;ll make a ton from them but thought we might as well give it a try to at least offset volvoxc.com&#39;s hosting fees.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
I think I had a little rant about the AdSence Banner in another post. Sorry Coastal didn&#39;t know you were trying to get a few extra bucks, hope something is coming of it&#33;&#33;

Just to give you some feed back on it from this side of the world.

Yes I did notice it and it did annoy me, I thought it was because I use Google as my main search engine and it was picking up on my traffic because, it was trying to link me to UK based Volvo links etc. I know you will not see the UK links from your end but yes it is working in the UK at least. I suppose I can put up with it as I know it is from a known source and I did not attract it with my traffic.

Glad to see you put the Christmas Lights away for another year will we be getting any other Seasonal effects like Easter Eggs, for instance?