Jump to content

The Maintenance Log

  • entries
    62
  • comments
    2
  • views
    990

About this blog

A blog for GLRF website fixes, features, and issues
Read more  

Entries in this blog

glrfcentral

We're getting new member registrations so fast and furious now, they seem to be a daily occurrence. As much as we try to review every new member registration to ensure the metroarea is reflective of the region, and to see with interest where the member is from, the new member registration from the UAE just seemed to slip under the radar.

 

That makes 4 countries in what we call the Africa region: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Israel, and South Africa.

 

We discovered this 'extra country' when we were filling out our annual UNESCO international organization registration form update. After doing a country count from our database reports, there were 33 countries, not 32!

 

Then we had a new member from the United States but he wanted to select his region as Puerto Rico which is a commonwealth of the US. How to classify that region with respect to other regions is another challenge: should Puerto Rico be part of the Florida Region or the South East US Region?

 

Now more than ever, the pressure is on for us at the GLRF Team to deliver on the goods, by developing content and tools that our community will find interesting. We are looking at using Drupal or Joomla to remake the GLRF Athlete community pages so that all members can create and post articles, and so you can see who's online in each community.

Read more  
    [[Template core/front/global/tag is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]
glrfcentral

Glrf Twitter Widget Is Not Working

What a nice way to wake up on Saturday morning. Go to the GLRF page and see this big blank space!

 

That blank space is where we display our Twitter widget. We logged on to our Twitter account and tried to create a new widget and the preview was not working. This makes us think it is a Twitter issue.

 

So sorry for the "black eye." We're going to let it sit for a few hours in the hopes that the Twitter engineers might be able to resolve the issue. The only thing is we can't find a place to submit a ticket. Looks like that is down too!

 

Uggghhhh!!!

 

Update: 12:00n Center of the Universe Los Angeles Time .... okay, the widget is now working again.

 

Phew!

Read more  
    [[Template core/front/global/tag is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]
glrfcentral

New Website Template Starting To Appear

As much as we had hoped to convert the entire GLRF website to the new template and then perform a clean upload overnight, we have had to upload some existing immediately pages to test the new template format with our currrent content layout.

 

Unfortunately, for those website visitors who stumble on the new template, they may find some of the links are taking them to still unlaunched components, like the Gotcha! Gallery or our new information(?) page. [read site map]

 

The conversion process is taking quite a while and is extremely time-consuming.

 

Thanks for your patience!

Read more  
    [[Template core/front/global/tag is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]
glrfcentral

New Look For Network Now!

It took some major CSS trial and error but we were able to reconfigure the layout of Network Now! to more closely match the look on the soon to be launched Gotcha! Gallery as well as the new format of the All Oars Forum.

 

The biggest change is the addition of the site wide navigation bar at the top of every page of Network Now! The big advantage is the seamless ability to jump around the GLRF website without first having to click on the Network Now! start page. For some folks, they may not even notice the nav bar at the top because the color scheme closely resembles most browsers toolbars directly above. But we tried to make the focus of Network Now! on the networking function and not have the nav bar be distracting.

 

The other change is the look of the start page, where we put all the groups in one column and all the other widgets in the far right column: who's online & FAQ.

 

This change is an interim look until we upgrade Network Now! and the entire component will have to be redone once again.

Read more  
glrfcentral

Expired Member Notice Just Went Out

After some configuring and tweaking, we succeeded in sending out emails to all of the entire expired list of GLRF members, those with neither a Shoreside or an OnTheWater Membership subscription.

 

Nice to see folks are logging on and renewing without any 'flame' emails. It tells us GLRF is a service that our membership wants to support and maintain.

 

Speaking of support, wow, it is really cool to see so many folks electing to resubscribe with the paid membership level. As the costs involved in running GLRF continue to grow, it is heartening to see people willing to step up and say, 'yeah, I can help out.'

 

Our country member list has begun to assume a steep curve after a long hiatus. We're now at 31 countries, with our newest member from Srbija! That is so cool. Yes, it means a lot of work adding forums and country pages but oh what a complaint to make!

Read more  
    [[Template core/front/global/tag is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]
glrfcentral

Annual Glrf Membership Renewal

:blink:

 

This emoticon may be the common reaction from many GLRF members. Why do we need to renew our free GLRF membership?

 

A quick explanation: when we transitioned from our old database to the new membership access system for the website, we created several 'products.' Each product has an expiration. The paid, OnTheWater, membership certainly makes sense but why the Shoreside? We wanted to ensure the email addresses in our community were active and that our membership were still interested in participating. Otherwise, members could send Personal Messages to members and never get a response.

 

Unfortunately, the system got overwhelmed as it tried to send out upwards of 500 emails this morning so many of you will not have received the email notification. We're working with our support folks to see if we can implement a throttle on the number of emails sent at one time. So some of you who log on in the future may find, to your surprise, an expired membership without any warning. That's easy to fix by just clicking on the Shoreside or OnTheWater membership products.

 

Let us know if you have any feedback or ideas. We're always glad to improve the GLRF experience.

Read more  
    [[Template core/front/global/tag is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]
glrfcentral

With the recent redo to the forum, we moved the GLRF links off of the main All Oars navigation bar and put them at the top of the page. This made great sense since these links are really an interim fix until our new web page header appears everywhere.

 

It was great too because the All Oars forum links could focus the website visitor's eyes on the main parts of the forum, that being forums, members, chat, blogs, and calendar.

 

But all was not as it seemed. Although everything looked sweet in Firefox, the GLRF links in Internet Explorer went dead. The links were not active so you got to the forum and were stuck there.

 

After several forum posts on the Invision Community, a very patient web developer looked at our code and said, without judgement:

 

Your

  • tags are invalid, you are missing a >

     

    This is akin to saying you're not wearing a belt dude - that's why your pants are falling down....

     

    With much red-faced shame, we just fixed the code and all is well in the land of Internet Explorer, ... for now.

     

    *sigh*

  • Read more  
    glrfcentral

    Frankie Lee, You Are Now Retired...

    Frankie Lee is a former Austin rower who raced at the 1998 Amsterdam Gay Games.

     

    His 'thing' is sending out birthday emails to a long list of folks, naming somebody's birthday and inviting everyone to wish them a happy b-day.

     

    After today, Frankie Lee is now retired. We just spent 8 hours adding countless hooks, plugins, and modifications to the All Oars forum that we hope will enrich the user experience by showing lots of dashboards, bells, and whistles... maybe too much.

     

    New stuff:

     

    A happy birthday banner will appear for steveo25 if he logs on next week. By the way, when is steveo25's birthday? He's still marked as Dec 31 in the GLRF database ... Well, if he did have a birthday next week, he would get an email from the GLRF Team and the GLRF Worldwide Community, wishing him a great day! Sorry Frankie Lee but it is time for you to take up lawn bowling or move to LA and ... serve your master :rolleyes:

     

    Other great new stuff includes:

     


       
    • a 'who has a birthday' sidebar list with, of course, the little profile boxes so you can take a look at each of those folks are behind their onlineid's
    • a calendar event sidebar list with a hover-to-see-what-it's-all-about feature
    • a 'recent blog entries' sidebar list so you can read this with your first cup of java every morning
    • an announcement pane in the sidebar
    • we just added gravatars so if you're registered, you will see your pic on the forum
    • a 'who has read' and a 'who is reading a topic right now' sidebar list
    • a 'who has been online' summary for the past 24 hours
    • a 'recently added topics' sidebar list
    • a 'top viewed topics in the forum' sidebar list
    • a bookmark/email this topic feature

    So much stuff that we hope it will bring members back more often.

     

    So what are you waiting for? Start your blog today and we can all suggest ideas on how Frankie Lee should spend his time, now that GLRF is sending out birthday wishes to all rowers, coaches, coxies, and race officials...

    Read more  
    glrfcentral

    New All Oars Forum Features

    Spent most of Monday perusing the forums and invisionpower.com website to glean all of the new features available in the recent All Oars forum upgrade.

     

    In one answer: Wow!

     

    With the help of the community online forum, we moved the GLRF navigation bar to the top of the screen and away from the forum menu. Then we discovered that we could add an already included feature, Online Chat, to the forum. The first five users are free, and beyond that we have to pay a tiered annual fee of


       
    • up to 5 users - free
    • up to 20 users - $20
    • up to 50 users - $30
    • up to 250 users - $80.
       

    Given the low current use of the website, it seems prudent to start with the 20 user package. The attraction to this chat is that groups from Network Now! can have chats while simultaneously putting up a poll on the forum that people could use to vote. So maybe this feature will bring in some more traffic.

     

    Other new features include the sidebar features you see on the main forum page which really enrich the online user experience and make navigation simpler.

     

    One tiny new feature that is INCREDIBLE in our humble opinion is the tiny little square with an arrow to the right of a member's name. Click on it and you will see a pop up of the user's profile, his/her posts, and the buttons to send that person a quick PM (personal message).

     

    Finally, if others get into blogging on here, all of the forum topics are set up to 'blog this entry.' That means you can take the topic or the current post (we're not really sure... it is all so new), and blog about it. Where would this be useful? A GLRF member could blog about GLRF member jwadden's post about GLRF's presence at the Charles and how cool it is that we exist kind of thing.

     

    Coming up ... we just ordered Topic Hover. The cost from the online community was $7.50 and hopefully with the installation on Thursday, members will find it to be a great feature. Basically, when your mouse hovers over a topic, a call out window appears that gives a preview of the topic. This saves everyone from having to plop into this topic and read and then go back and plop into that topic and go back, and yadda yadda yadda...!!!

     

    Yes, these are your GLRF dollars at work. No, they don't pay for a salary, an office, airfares, rental cars, or gas. We earmark GLRF OnTheWater funds and donations for:


       
    • domain renewals,
    • maintenance contracts with invision power,
    • maintenance contracts with aMember
    • maintenance contracts with Hexamail
    • new component aMember plugin fees
    • hosting fees,
    • and other online costs,
    • followed by GLRF booth costs.

    Help support GLRF - contribute today: upgrade your membership or consider a donation.

    Read more  
    glrfcentral

    Gotcha! Gallery Preview

    We're getting closer! Here is a peek at our pre-production image gallery as the contractor punch list gets shorter and the number of outstanding modifications to install gets smaller. This weekend was a doozy - adding multi-lightboxes. New York City GLRF Member Bobbbb and I exchanged some emails to come up with a more user friendly name for 'lightbox.' Maybe the rest of you know what that means but when I first saw it, I was like ... say what????

     

    It's web lingo for a digital photo album but who knows that. So the decision was to change all the coding to show 'MyFavBox' which I hope will be instantly understandable.

     

    This online image gallery, powered by the 4images.de script, is packed with an amazing assortment of community sharing features. Most of them have post-script download modifications which I am discovering is the normal creative way online for dedicated enthusiasts.

     

    Here are some of the major features in the Gotcha! Gallery:

     


       
    • Member multi-upload of images
    • Member personal galleries so when Atlanta GLRF gal cassimn sails the seven seas, she can share her pics of living the highlife on a cruise ship in her personal gallery even if it has nothing to do with rowing.
    • Rate pics
    • Add pics to multiple MyFavBoxes, so for me, that would be my hotties, my fav dogs, and as you'll see, in dedication to Chicago GLRF member Justinieniii, a MyFavBox called 'Maman, j'ai faim!' You can even have private albums in case you don't want your bf to know you've got a few pics of a certain strokeseat ...
    • A cool Shout Out feature which acts like a guestbook and a "nice pics of the Thames dude!" kind of thing ...
    • Comment on pics
    • Send an eCard feature
    • Add your own subcategory to the gallery so you don't have to wait for a certain GLRF Team member to get around to adding a subcategory for a regatta on Vancouver Island or Bavaria
    • Best of all, I think, is the ability to upload your own vids as well as share cool vids you have found on the web so everyone can see them...
    • And ... categories for any and all groups from Network Now! (thanks to Berlin GLRF member jenssteckel for his input on Gay Pride categories and other functional items

     

    So how soon for the launch? We have one more mod to install for the personal galleries, and then we enable the gallery for single sign on just like everything else on GLRF so you sign on once and you can bewitched wiggle wiggle wiggle your way everywhere without even one glance from Endora!

     

    http://www.glrf.info/glrfimages/GotchaGallery_preview.jpg

    Read more  
      [[Template core/front/global/tag is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]
    glrfcentral

    Time To Take Up The Rating A Bit ...

    The GLRF website will soon grow from a website with two components to one with three components:

     


       
    1. All Oars Forum
    2. Network Now!
    3. [under construction] Gotcha! Gallery

     

    With all of these functioning parts, it's time to take the "Maintenance Log" blog feature away from Network Now! and put it here, to address all of the current and future upgrades that will be rolled out over the next few months.

     

    In March, we upgraded the ALL Oars forum to the new release. The look is slick and the features are sweet, especially the sub forums for the GLRF Countries. Now you can see the regions in each country with topics - look for the green buttons.

     

    The Gotcha! Gallery is almost ready - we are using the 4images.de image gallery. We're still adding a few modifications, which are very complicated but that will really make the online community image sharing so cool.

     

    Next up is the massive upgrade to Network Now! That undertaking will be a two-bottle a day prozac event ... but we hope it will go well.

     

    Finally, for a peek at the interim new layout, have a look at the Malaysia page:

    http://www.glrf.info/COUNTRIES/MALAYSIA/malaysia.php

     

    The structure of the page is a precursor to a new layout design that we hope to implement in the second half of this year.

    Read more  
      [[Template core/front/global/tag is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]
    glrfcentral

    Based on initial feedback from the GLRF membership, we decided to turn the all member default email notification off. This means that if a new topic has been created on the message board, in whatever category or forum, you won't immediately get an email notification.

     

    If there is a particular forum that you would like to follow, simply log on to GLRF, go to the message board, and click on the forum. After the forum opens, on the right side, click on the drop down menu that says "Forum Options" and select 'Subscribe to this forum.'

     

    Super easy. Thanks for being a part of GLRF and our apologies for the intrusive emails.

    Read more  
      [[Template core/front/global/tag is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]
    ×
    ×
    • Create New...

    Important Information

    Our Community Guidelines - Guidelines Our Community Terms of Service - Terms of Use Our Community Privacy Policy - Privacy Policy and ... Our Delicious Cookie Consent: We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.