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| Announcements & General Information Here you can find out what the latest news Total Format has to offer is, what plans we have for the future as well as what's already been done. We will also post updates to the rules, competition info and stuff like that here too. |
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LinkBack | Thread Tools |
31-03-2007, 20:57
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#1 (permalink) |
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Total Format Rises From The Ashes Once More
Firstly, it give me great pleasure to finally be able to welcome you all back to Total Format...
At one point things were really getting close to flatlining and it was hit and miss whether I would be able to save everything, I seriously thought i'd be building the site completely from scratch, but thankfully, an awful lot of hardwork has paid off and i've managed to salvage the site and return it pretty much as it was, well with a few changes. The intended downtime was supposed to be one week, but it sharp became apparent that database incompatibilities, structure and various other factors were going to play a rather nasty role in keeping TF offline for a much longer period of time and as you may well be aware, it's actually been offline a total of 8 weeks, by far the longest in the sites history. Anyway, I'm not going to bore you with all the details, suffice to say, TF is on it's 3rd server in the space of 8 weeks and has been rebuilt 3 times in that time, including the shifting of some 50 gig of file and database information between these servers, but thankfully TF is now in it's final resting place and as a result of vigorous testing, everything now seems to be running smoother than it ever has in the past. The server we were running on was as follows: 3.2Ghz P4 Processor 2GB Memory 2 x 120GB Hard Disks Hardware SATA RAID The server we are now running on is as follows: AMD Opteron 2,216 (2 x 2.40 GHz Dual Core) 8 GB DDR RAM 2 x 500 GB hard drive hardware RAID1 and as a big bonus, it's also over £250 a month cheaper than the old server. Ok, so I presume you will want to know what has changed? Well, pretty much every single part of the site and forum has been rebuilt, so everything you see is fresh, recoded and reinstalled, but here are a few features that you will possibly recognise: The following were part of TF before the move and are now back in place having been rebuilt: * Detomah Action Chatroom Display reputation comments given Referrer Statistics Extended reputation display Friends Gold! ibProArcade Members who have visited the forum Mini Navbar Most ever Members & Guests MS Timezone Image In Profile P3tz Profile Pic Gallery RPG Inferno Separate Sticky and Normal Threads Seperate Forum Categories Show Birthday Icon in Postbit Show Icon Smilie Maker TFvShop Top 'X' Stats Top Posters Award System Mood Manager Shopping Section News Section Some are different, some are better and some are just as they were. Some features have been removed, but very few and nothing that was vitally important. About the biggest instantly noticable one is the user activity graphics from the postbit in posts. The points/pu system has changed but I shall go into that in a moment. A heck of a lot of stuff has changed in the backend, but you don't need to worry about that, as it doesn't effect you, but it should stop these advertising spammers and the site is a lot better protected regarding security than it was too. The RPG feature is currently disabled, the new version is in place, but needs populating, I didn't see that as a priority as it will take quite a while to do, so thought i'd leave that until after the site was live again. One of the big changes that may dissapoint a few is the Pu system, unfortunately the old system had to be removed, not due to the move, but due to huge security flaws being found in it by the developers who designed it, this includes the store that came with it that offered glowing names and the likes. I have replaced the system partially with an alternative form of points system and have managed to implement a little store so that icons can be put in post bits as before. This will be getting more features over time and will end up bigger and better than it was previously. One of the biggest changes on the forum is the implementation of the latest version of the forum, it offers more uses and is smoother than before, you won't feel much difference from your side of things though. You'll see lots of little changes, but nothing too drastic. I've done bug testing until i'm sick and tired of php code and html, but i've checked and double checked absolutely every single thing i could think of to try and make sure every single part of the site works proper, however, until the site is live and operating, it is impossible to be 100% sure i've caught every single one, so, if you find any bugs, please let me know and i'll get straight onto them to get them fixed. I would like to apologise for building hope of TF opening sooner, by giving dates and the likes, but at the time, I genuinly thought TF would be going live as stated, the unfortunate thing though, was every time I went to do final tests, I kept on finding some nasty horrible bug that meant I could not go live, hence at one point I simply changed it to "coming soon". For the future, I will be finding an alternate system, i've learned from mistakes this time and must ensure this can not happen again. As you can imagine, over the last 8 weeks, i've become almost used to having 2-4 hours sleep a night, more so than normal, but as the time has gone on, it's really started to hurt and at one point, I actually fell quite ill from it and had to take a couple of days off to recover. I was aware that people thought TF was not going to reappear, but i've always maintained from the start that TF is in this for the long term, no matter what happens and it was that, that has driven me on to getting the site back online and working properly as quickly as it was possible for one person to do so. A lot of the site has been cross checked with Firefox and IE 7 and as near as possible, things are working smoothly for both browsers, there are a couple of minor differences between viewing with the two browsers, but they are very minor. I have a lot more features to put back in place and some new ones to come, but first I need to spend some quality time in my bed sleeping, but if anyone has any constructive ideas, I will be open to them. Anyway, let this announcement mark a sign of TF having a very long and bright future. Welcome Back Detomah Edit: In case anyone doesn't like the welcome box on the main forum page, i've deliberately included a minimise button on it so you can hide it, but I can imagine for a lot of people it will make life a lot easier finding posts and the likes. Edit2: Check out your members page and update your profiles, that part of the site has been revamped, you can now have a youtube video in your profile. Edit3: If anyone's critter died and they would like it ressurecting, please let me know and i'll arrange it. Edit4: Some of the features from the arcades page, such as sudoku and the likes are missing at the moment, they will be put in place over the next couple of days. It was a toss up, go live or do that bit and going live seemed more important. Last edited by Detomah; 04-04-2007 at 12:41. |
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04-04-2007, 15:19
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#3 (permalink) |
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bout fecking time, and it looks fantastic Det, you've done a great job. I was gonna sit out in the sun..... sod that!
 oooo we have to re-earn our awards then? My critters are still looking happy and dandy, even though they probably had a visit to the angels . I like the text box too, clearer and you can make it bigger too. LOl at BB on the viagra already! Last edited by Sash; 04-04-2007 at 15:24. |
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04-04-2007, 15:22
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#4 (permalink) | |
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Quote:
Now I have the job of looking at every single thing and trying to spot bugs before anyone else does. |
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