Second Stage Completed

Search engines for the Member listings are now in place and seem to be working. Everything else is functioning more or less correctly, after much trial and error — except for the profile portraits and other uploads.

First Stage Completed

The new Members' Area is up, albeit in skeletal form. There are still lots of functions to put together and pages to create, with links in all the right places. But the data are in there, and everyone's profiles have been transferred to the new system. I have left out anyone who did not complete a profile. You may find your password doesn't work, in which case simply click on the forgotten password link, and it will be sent to you. Usernames are the same as before. The photo upload doesn't work yet, but I hope it will soon.

At the same time I took the opportunity of adding a bit of colour to the front page. Computers are faster now, and most people have access to broadband. It makes sense to make our site a little bit more visually appealing.

Members' Area Progress Report

The new membership software is in place. All that remains is for me to learn how to customise it to DepList's requirements. I have played around with it and it's not as easy as it looks on the demo! I'm very busy with other commitments just now, but hope to have a basic system up and running in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, if there are any php experts among you who'd like to help with setting it up, please get in touch with me. Your help will be more than welcome! — Corinne

Main Site Operational

Glad to report that the main website is working now on our huge new server space. Just waiting for the membership software developers to install the new program and transfer the members' database (with luck next week), after which I have to learn how to use it and rebuild the Members' Area.

On the Move Again

After discovering to my dismay that our new servers will not let us use either the old or the new membership software, I have had to move the DepList website to a different service provider on the advice of the software developers. This is a huge pain and a large amount of work (not to mention an extra expense I could have done without), and I've spent the best part of three days grappling with it all. The good news is that least the new servers will give us a whopping 150 GB of space! Means we'll definitely be able to let members post audio clips on their profiles.

I hope that the main site will be back online within 24 hours. Again, our messaging service is not affected.

Members' Area Update

Please bear with us while we fix the Members' Area. It stopped working after we transferred to new servers, and the fee that's being asked by the programmers to examine the problem would be better spent on some more flexible and user-friendly software, as outlined in Saturday's post. It's made by the same outfit (which also provides the facilities we use to make our forms), but unlike the free, basic program we've been using up to now, this one is a features-packed piece of kit that I think will be well worth its price. In view of this, I have decided to go ahead with buying the package and to rebuild the Members' Area from scratch. I will keep you updated on progress.

Members' Area Is Down

Unfortunately, during the transfer to our new servers, access to our Members' Area was disabled and I am waiting for help from the software providers to fix this. These things always happen on a Friday!

The all-important email messaging part of the service (googlegoups) is unaffected.

I have put the change of address form and sponsorship form for recommending new members on the front page of the Members' Area so that members can still access them without having to log in. Associate Members can also access their advertising form from there (if we get spammed we may have to think of another temporary solution). I hope that normal service will resume soon.

New Servers for DepList

Yesterday we transferred DepList to new servers, giving us 1 GB of space instead of the 100 MB allowance we have had until now. This will give us a lot more scope for future expansion and enable us to add many more facilities. The extra space will mean that members can put a photo and possibly audio clips on their profiles.

The plan for 2011 is to upgrade the membership and listings part of the site to a more visually appealing and user-friendly interface, both for members and visitors to the site. I hope this will give the site a more modern and streamlined appearance as well as providing more functionality. For the curious, this is the software that I propose to use to rebuild the site, which can be tested here.