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Doc
Keeper of the Scrolls
2010 Posts
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 Posted -
11/09/2010
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20:18
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My initial thoughts back in March 2004 when I set up the OGFB website for the first time was to give the Barnoldswick community its own website, the other offerings available at the time for the town were sparse to say the least. I had been experimenting with various software Content Management Systems (CMS) and settled on a CMS developed by MaxWebPortal (Which later became SkyPortal). I taught myself to program in Classic ASP Script and got involved in the future development of the SkyPortal CMS software suite and ended up with what you see here today.
Earlier this year, the webmaster that hosted SkyPortal.net went AWOL never to be heard of again and the continuing development of the software package subsequently ceased and so did the rest of the Skyportal community. This meant that the future development of our own site was limited to my own skills as a programmer taking on the development of the entire package which due to the technicalities of the Skyportal software licencing agreement would not be possible.
Therefore in light of the above I now need an alternative route to safegaurd the future of the OGFB website and its community. For the last six months I have been investigating other offerings from CMS software providers and trying to decide which package would be the most suitable to transfer the existing data into. I have looked at Joomla, DotNetNuke, Drupal amongst many others and have recently come into contact with other webmasters who were/are running the Skyportal CMS system and are in the same predicament as ourselves. The general concensus of the webmasters is that Drupal offers the most flexibility in what we are looking for, to this end we (the webmasters) have created another website dedicated to this issue in migrating a SkyPortal website over to another more flexible and future proof system. The Drupal membership covers many thousands of webmasters throughout the world and has a lot stronger development team.
The main aims of this transition project are: - To migrate the current OGFB website off the dedicated MS server (Currently costing £70 a month) which runs IIS, ASP and MSSQL onto a lower cost Linux server running PHP and MySQL
- To safegaurd the majority if not all of the exsiting OGFB data and Images, a conciderable technically difficult task in itself.
- To have the flexibility to allow us to customise and manage our own individual websites
- To conform to the recognised industry standards for websites.
- To ensure that the future of the OGFB website will be secured.
Talking of the future, my own priorities have changed these last few years and my wife and I are now planning on selling our farmhouse, buying a smaller terrace house together with a capable sailboat and over the next few years circumnavigating the planet Earth and enjoying all that she has to offer - while we still can.
But before that happens I want to ensure that all the technicalities of the website migration have been completed and that the site is up and running succesfully before I hand over the administrative reigns as webmaster to Stephen Taylforth better known as our exsisting OGFB member - Pluggy. I expect the transition will take some time before all the migration issues have been resolved, but in the meantime the current OGFB website will not change and will remain available until the big day comes to switch them over. I will be getting Pluggy more involved in the website administration once we have something to administer on the new server setup, until then watch this space for updates and news on the project.
May I take this opportunity to thank everyone for their continued support and contributions over the last six years.
Best regards
Doc - (Current) Webmaster - OneGuyFromBarlick
TTFN - Doc
Due to the current economic climate, the light at the end of the tunnel has now been switched off.
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pluggy
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Posted - 21/09/2010 : 17:19
They say they'll kill cheques when there is a suitable substitute for dealing with small businesses (not that thats likely to stop them). I looked into what it would cost me to accept credit debit card payments - a hefty lump per month and a hefty percentage of each transaction. It gets more economical as the volume goes up, which expalins why the big boys do it and the little guys don't........
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk" 
Pluggy's Household Monitor  |
pluggy
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Posted - 21/09/2010 : 17:27
On the other hand there are an awful lot of small businesses (my workshops for running a business said there were around 3 million people working as sole traders or 2 people partnerships) and as the government is always harping on about how they support small businesses ...........
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
Tizer
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Posted - 21/09/2010 : 19:58
Mrs Tiz and I run our business as a 2-person partnership and we have to accept credit card payments because we sell online worldwide to professional scientists and companies. We pay a bigger percentage on each transaction than do the big companies but at least it decreases a little with length of time you have been in business.
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Doc
Keeper of the Scrolls
2010 Posts
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Posted - 21/09/2010 : 20:25
When I had my own business a few years back, I started to accept credit cards with a hefty 3.8% commission paid to the CC company, Once I exceed over a £1,000,000 in CC transactions the charges came down to under 1.25% with reducing rates in between.
I think they all have their varying rates but I agree, initially it is an expensive way to get paid for your goods/service.
A lot of smaller businesses operate a surcharge to their customers if paying by credit card of 2.5% in an attempt to recover some of the costs, this amount seems standardand a lot of customers accept this.
TTFN - Doc
Due to the current economic climate, the light at the end of the tunnel has now been switched off.
Click here to make a donation and help support this site and keep it advert free
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Doc
Keeper of the Scrolls
2010 Posts
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Posted - 21/09/2010 : 20:49
Getting back on track here is an update on the future OGFB web project.
So far I've been evaluating the various Drupal modules and have been playing about with the look and feel of the packages that can be achieved, so that it won't be a million miles of the current look and feel of the exsisting OGFB site. My main priorities so far have been the forums data and gallery images, the rest - classifieds, articles, blogs etc will come later.
Once I am satisfied the next big challenge will be the data migration from this site to the new setup using an old OGFB backup file. No doubt this will cause some headaches for me but I need to do it right so that as little data as possible is left after the migration process, I suspect that some PHP coding will be required to achieve this, I can code in ASP and ASP.net but PHP is new to me but I enjoy learning new languages.
One thing I like about Drupal is the way it handles data and categorises it using their Taxonomy methods. It is a different mind set to what I am used to but I think it will have great advantages to the site in the future.
Timescales for the project. - With my current commitments I am hoping to have a working model with OGFB data by Christmas, Beta testing will then be offered early 2011, with a view to going live on OGFB's birthday which is 4th March 2011, possibly earlier if all goes well.
I will be getting Pluggy involved prior to the Beta testing stage so that he can put his take into the final product, after all it will be he who will be running the site in the future.
I will be giving periodic updates as and when within this thread/topic, so keep an eye out.
until then
TTFN - Doc
Due to the current economic climate, the light at the end of the tunnel has now been switched off.
Click here to make a donation and help support this site and keep it advert free
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 22/09/2010 : 06:11
Plugs, exactly my point, small is not beatiful as far as the banks are concerned!
Doc, thanks for that. Good job it isn't me that is responsible for the advance!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 09/10/2010 : 16:53
Doc called in today and I quizzed him about progress. He's hard at work on it.....
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Whyperion
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Posted - 20/11/2011 : 22:44
Could you make a couple of changes to the forums. Post recent replies first , rather than last , and maybe make the number of posts on a page more than at present , with most people on adsl the time to load a page is now quicker and easier to see the whole thoughts in a thread.
Also , on the classifieds , how exactly do they work , on other forums I use ( freecycle for example ) , if someone wishes to reply they do so though the website - either it goes to ones own email inbox , or to a ( messages total limited ) user inbox of the website, In short for classifeds should I put my contact details on there ?
thanks for the great work though , would not have known so much about Barnoldswick without this site.
The Views above may or may not be true , I may or may not agree with them. |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 21/11/2011 : 06:03
Not much point spending time tweaking an obsolescent platform. Doc is working on a new one which apart from anything else will take the load off him financing the present expensive server. (Time to chuck a tenner at him?)
The problem he is fighting is converting the enormous data base to the new language and he is working with others who face the same problem to find a work around. Oh, and he's doing a full time job as well!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
belle
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Posted - 21/11/2011 : 10:38
Thanks Doc, and everyone else helping.
Life is what you make it |
Tizer
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Posted - 21/11/2011 : 10:55
Thanks for your suggestions Whyperion. I know what Stanley means about `tweaking an obsolescent platform' but that doesn't stop us thinking about how a new platform might be designed. I use a lot of forums and most of them (all of them?) run like this one, newest post last on the page. If you run the thread the other way with newest at the top it's counter intuitive (we are used to seeing the written word progress down a page, not up it). I know email message replies might be run `backwards' but they don't usually go on for dozens of pages like the threads on OGFB!
To put more posts on a page would mean a smaller text size which is not good for maximum accessibiltiy, i.e. anyone with older eyes, poorer eyesight. If you want to get more on a page you can decrease the text size in your browser using Controland hyphen (Ctrl -). You can combine that with shorter lines of text by making the browser window narrower. I'll admit there is a lot of wasted space on the OGFB post pages and the text could be made to take up less space - a post likes Belle's `Thanks Doc, and everyone else helping' doesn't need so much space (no offence meant Belle!).
I guess a lot of this might be automatically dealt with when Doc's much-appreciated efforts come to fruition and a new platform is used. Thanks Doc!
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Sunray10
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Posted - 21/11/2011 : 14:43
Good luck Doc, hope you enjoy sailing around the world on the seas, and to your family as well. Thanks for all you have been doing on OGFB. Don't know what we'd all do without it, but good luck to pluggy as well. I'm sure he'll be up to the job. Lol. 
R.Spencer. |
tripps
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Posted - 21/11/2011 : 23:39
I seem to remember that the reason for migrating the site was that "1 and 1"had ceased trading. I don't think that is now the case since they are advertising regularly on TV down here. Is it really necessary to move - I'd say things were OK?
I stopped donating a while ago when the donations stopped being displayed. I took it that it was no longer necessary.
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 22/11/2011 : 06:41
Doc is paying the site rent as always and keeping us going. Plugs and Doc can explain the reason why the move to a new platform is needed better than me. The sooner it happens the more likely it is that the site will survive. If it wasn't for Doc we wouldn't be here today!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Another
Traycle Mine Overseer
6250 Posts
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Posted - 22/11/2011 : 07:26
Comrade, I think tripps has a point about the donations. Members may assume that they are no longer needed. Can you have a word with Doc and see if he would agree to onsite publicity about this? Nolic
" I'm a self made man who worships his creator"  |
Future Road Map For The OGFB Website
