Forum Upgrade Donations!

[Mitchell]

We're trying to put together some money for an overhaul of the site.

Even though everything appears to work pretty well, the reality is i only do this web design stuff as a hobby, and have a very limited knowledge of what's out there and what we could use to improve the sites' performance and functionality and practicality and usability etc etc [smk]

SO! Petes' been on the job, trying to get a good price on an IT dude to upgrade the forum to the more modern 'SQL' database, and make something a bit more user friendly for us as far as updating news and galleries and everything..

Bassicly what i'm saying is, we need some cash... [:I]

Any donation would be much appreciated.. We're looking at a few hundred bucks all up.

Just click on the 'Donate' button on the front page and it will point you to a special Club17 pay pal account that Pete's set up..

Thanks in advance, and GO DJR!

 

[Poita]

Basically we are paying an extra $55/year as our forum is very old in IT terms. In time our Forum back-end will cease to be supported by Web Hosting companies.

To upgrade the Forum requires a lot of work as we don't want to lose any posts we currently have. We could quite easily start a whole new Forum for free but we would lose the entire content.

I have put a request on-line to have a SQL guru rewrite our forum and make it much easier for us to manage. The look and feel will change only slightly but the back-end will be much more stable and manageable.

The work will not start until early January next year and the site will hopefully be down for 1-3 days in total.

To add a bit of an incentive to make a donation, I have had an as new DJR cap signed by both Dick and Steve Johnson which will be given to someone that makes a contribution to our site. (Lucky draw)


To view the request I made you can follow the link below.

http://www.getafreelancer.com/projects/PHP-ASP/Website-Conversion-ASP-Forum-convert.html

 

[79maq]

when you know the total and you cannot get a sponsor,I will be more than happy to throw in some $

 

[Racin Jason]

Give me an idea of how much you need and I will be more than happy to donate.

 

[Donut King]

If ya need a hand gimme a yell, I am pretty experienced with all the different types of forum software out there, most of my work has been with vbulletin, so if you're looking to move in that direction I can be of some assistance.

 

[Poita]

Donut King any help would be great. The problem is we have to convert the Forum to use MYSQL database, it is currently a Microsoft DB. This isn't that difficult really but the problem is converting all the topics that have been posted over the years. Prices I was quoted here by industry contacts was in the vicinity of $700 - $1000. A good mate of mine uses the the website I posted earlier for a lot of his work and as you can see the prices are a lot cheaper than using local people.

If you know how to convert an Access Database to MySQL let us know.

It isn't something that is critical but in the long run will save us money.

Cheers
Peter

 

[Donut King]

it may not be as difficult as you think, if you change to something like vbulletin they have a tool called impex which is designed to import the forum data from other forum software and convert it to work with the vbulletin mysql database. A quick look shows that there is at least some support for Snitz Forums to be converted over which would save a whole lot of money and hassle if it proved to work well enough for our cause.

 

[Poita]

After speaking with Donut King this afternoon it looks like we have found a member who is more than capable of making the changes for us.

So please NO donations are required now as appears this can now be handled "in-house". Thanks to those that PM'd me with offers of help and support especially Steve. (Donut King)

 

[Quasi]

So, of course, he deservedly gets the hat then?

 

[Poita]

Good point Quasi, yes the hat will be sent to Donut King.... when he's finished.

 

[Mitchell]

And i will officially be the resident nerd no-more..

right on.

 

[Donut King]

You're not getting out of it that easily Mitch, my strengths are in the coding side of things, and you do a pretty damn good job on the designing side so you're not out of the woods yet.

For those who recognize the username, I was obviously reasonably heavily involved with the old fordforums.com crew, and then again with fordforums.com.au, I've also been in charge of the Street Fords Magazine website and forums, as well as a few sites/forums of their sister and even some of their rival publications, which shall remain nameless on the basis that they may irreparably tarnish my reputation.

These days I have gotten out of the IT side of things, its now a hobby rather than a career choice, I still do some freelance contributions to Performance Ford Magazine, and am looking forward to working with the guys here to build on the excellent base they have already established.

 

[79maq]

Thanks for all this bud. we are all gratefull[bw][bw][bw][scarf][y][dance][bc]

 

[Nascar12]

3 Cheers Donut King and thanks for helping this lil' ol' site out!!!

[bc]
[bc]
[bc]

 

[ROB17]

Here here Nascar! Thank you DK!!!

 

[Fordlover]

great job DK, i remember you from the ford forums, (been on them for about 6 years now)

if you need donations for the regular running costs of the site mitchell im sure we can all chip in a few bob.

 

[Dgw86]

Thanks DK

 

[Beejay]

Yerr, wot they said DK, thanks for your help.[bw]

Mitch doesn't blow his own trumpet enough. He did allanmoffat.com.au

 

[HSV Raiders]

hey pete, when will the site be down for its upgrade?

 

[HSV Raiders]

hey pete, when will the site be down for its upgrade?