Mooneyspace website upgrade

[Dale]

This is an invaluable forum.  I have learned more here than I could imagine.  I just sent in my contribution through Paypal.  Craig, thanks again for the wonderful site and thanks to all the Mooney pilots that contribute their knowledge and time to the discussions on this site.

[DonMuncy]

Sent through Paypal. Thanks for all the work Craig.

[Apollo]

Quote: GeorgePerry

When I was in college working at a country western bar, we charged a $1 cover.  Not much money, but it served as an effective way to keep the riff-raff out.  I think somthing like that for "ALL" mooneyspace members would be a good idea.  For those who have already donated, the cover charge is paid in full...But everyone else should be required to make this small membership contribution for access to the forum.  1 buck for access to the best Mooney knowledge repository in the world is the best deal in aviation.  

[Oscar Avalle]

Happy to contribute.

[Bolter]

For once, someone asked my to put in my two cents worth :-)  (I did give more than that)  

Thanks for the site Craig.

-dan

[GeorgePerry]

Quote: Apollo

Who exactly is riff raff on an airplane forum? 

[N601RX]

I happily donated and I believe most all the regular users did also.  However I don't believe it should be a requirement. This would likely be a turnoff to someone is is just looking to purcahse a mooney or just wanting more info or is curiuous about mooneys.  If they do buy a mooney or become a regular user then in all likely hood they will be happy to donate also.

[1964-M20E]

Quote: N601RX

I happily donated and I believe most all the regular users did also.  However I don't believe it should be a requirement. This would likely be a turnoff to someone is is just looking to purcahse a mooney or just wanting more info or is curiuous about mooneys.  If they do buy a mooney or become a regular user then in all likely hood they will be happy to donate also.

[mooniac58]

Quote: 1964-M20E

 I agree

 

 

I don't want to require any payment for the users of any website I operate actually.  Content is king and restricting anyone could mean you did not get that very valueable forum post, article submission (which we can do on the new site), etc.

Going forward I plan to just take on a few aircraft/Mooney related advertisers.  This should cover hosting costs and time to keep the website alive.

On the migration front - it looks like the site will only be down for about 3 to 5 hours.  We are going to test all the migration offline with a test copy of the site and then execute it on the live data when we know it works.

I have been messing around with the new site platform and I am glad we raised a bunch of funds because the site will need some more custom devlopment before I am happy with it.  While it has an amazing forum system I really want to see a consolodated home page with all the most recent content, etc.  This is possible of course, but I will need to pay the developer to write mods and such.

Thanks again all!

[fantom]

Quote: Apollo

Who exactly is riff raff on an airplane forum?

 

[mooniac58]

Once I know more about the platform I will for sure be sharing the plans and taking input from you all.  I figure once we have the basic "out of the box" site platform up and humming we will know its shortcomings and what we want to improve upon.  The great thing about this new IPBoard system is that it can be heavily modified - and if you buy their code and host it on your own server (a lot more costly of course) you can hack it up any way you wish.

I am hoping to get some free time this weekend to at least figure out some of the basic settings on the new system.

[hansel]

Hands down one of the best Mooney resources out there. Even though I sold my beloved J a couple years back, I'd feel like a mega douche if I didn't donate today. I owe too much to this site and its members...

[MooneyMitch]

Hi ya Eric.

As the MooneySpace descriptor states:

"Our online community is dedicated to those who own, fly or just simply love Mooney aircraft."

You are a member in good standing of the Mooney club

[fantom]

Quote: Mitch

As the MooneySpace descriptor states:

"Our online community is dedicated to those who own, fly or just simply love Mooney aircraft."

You are a member in good standing of the Mooney club

[MooneyMitch]

Whoops, sorry.  My comment was posted for Eric [hansel] as he no longer owns his former J model. 

[Gone]

On the migration front - it looks like the site will only be down for about 3 to 5 hours.  We are going to test all the migration offline with a test copy of the site and then execute it on the live data when we know it works.

I have been messing around with the new site platform and I am glad we raised a bunch of funds because the site will need some more custom devlopment before I am happy with it.  While it has an amazing forum system I really want to see a consolodated home page with all the most recent content, etc.  This is possible of course, but I will need to pay the developer to write mods and such.

Thanks again all!

[Mooney_Allegro]

Thanks for the great site Craig! I just donated through Paypal. Looking forward to seeing the new product!

[David Mazer]

Sorry to be so late to the party.  I haven't been paying attention.  In and done.

[Rustler]

Craig--

Where have I been? Just donated via PapPal.

[Joe Zuffoletto]

A little late to the game but I just sent my donation. Can't wait to see the new site!

[MagicCarpet]

I can help you.  I have a Linux server that I use for hosting my stuff and I'm an IT professional that could probably migrate your stuff as well.

My server is hosted by a company in Boston since 2006.  It has been running for three years between reboots.  Very reliable company and a reasonably powered server.  It cost me $1500 a year to keep it going.

I can donate my time and the server but we would need to talk about the details of migration and future support.  Looks like your site is a Cold Fusion BBS and would need to be converted to MySql.  Do-able, but will require some coordination and thought.  Any Paypal funds collected would be great to offset my effort, but with no minimum.

We can try it out in Beta mode while leaving the original site running to see how it works.

For you to validate me, the sites below are hosted on my server.  There is plenty of processing power remaining to host this small site.

www.cknowledge.com   - my business site
www.goairplane.com  - my aircraft scheduling site
www.theacousticburgoo.com  - my daughter's band

Let me know.  Contact me personally at clw@cknowledge.com

Carter Wright
Oracle Database Engineer for a living
67 M20F - N6460Q
ATP, CFII, MEI, CFI-H
CW4 USARNG Ret.

[mooniac58]

Thanks Carter!

Actually everything is already underway though.  The site is being converted to a IP Board community which is PHP/MySQL based.  The developer should be done in the next few days with the custom migration scripts and then we will take the site offline for 12-24 hours to run the scripts on the live data.  

 

[MagicCarpet]

Ok.  No problem.  You moved quickly.  If it gets too expensive let me know.  You can move it again if necessary.  My server is LAMP based as well (Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP).  My server will always exist and be available.

Cheers.

Carter

 

[MagicCarpet]

Hmm. 

Also, I recommend that you have the developer export the data from the database to a flat file before any migration efforts in case something goes wrong.  If something does go awry, the data will be preserved in an external file.  The worst case scenario would be that the site is offline for a few days while you rebuild the database from the export.

I would also recommend having the developer extract the email address, login name, first name, and last name of each member so that you can contact them outside of the site if the site is down longer than expected.

A good bulk email address tool is Atomic Email Sender ($80).  I use it and it is very good.

Carter

[mooniac58]

We are actually doing the migration with an offline copy of the database, ZIP'd up and FTP'd to the developer.  If anything goes wrong we will be able to turn back on this version of the site without issue, I will only be shutting it off so that people don't add new data that will be lost in the migration...  

Because this site is hosted in my NYC rack I have access to the database at all times.