Welcome to the new forums

[AdminPTF]

We are now on the new server. I believe that I transferred everything. If you think that something is missing, please let me know.

We have uploaded 2,764 photos to this site, using 838 MB of server space. Luckily, we're on a 25GB server space plan!

I'll be restoring all of the photos in a moment - Done!

'TO DO' LIST

• If you have problems logging in, please let me know!

• The "Recent Topics" feature now works. What a nightmare that was! By the way, this is one of my favorite forum features. - Done!

• I am still reactivating some extensions, such as the editing interface for creating messages (Done!).

• If you want a different board style, take a look here and let me know the name.
  https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/styles-2/3.3

• New: I've added new social media sharing buttons. See to the right of this post.

• New: You can easily add a YouTube video by simply pasting the YouTube video URL into your message.

WHAT'S WITH THE NEW NAME?
In 2025, I'll retire, and I'm shifting my focus for photography to include a YouTube channel that looks at many older cameras. I hope to launch the channel later this year.

For this reason, I am rebranding the website to align with the YouTube channel. There also will be a website to show all of the videos, plus the many reviews that I've written through the years.

I actually wanted "camera-talk.com," but that was taken. I still own the photographytoday.net domain, and I have set it up to redirect to the new forums.

Migrating all of my content was an enormous pain in the neck, particularly the forums, which has more than 13,000 messages. Reviving the "Recent Topics" feature took many, many tries. Apparently, this add-on has caused problems for others. I was able to get it working by finding a "forked" version.

[AdminPTF]

To give you an idea of what a massive headache this was, I had a large number of files for four websites to back up. Not all of these were restored, but I wanted them available to me.
There are some other unnecessary files in the mix - maybe a few hundred. However, even a smaller forum can easily generate thousands of files.

old_site.jpg (27.05 KiB) Viewed 5965 times

Here's how many files are connected to this forum.

forum_files.jpg (34.33 KiB) Viewed 5963 times

[PFMcFarland]

It's hard work if you know what you're doing. Almost impossible if you don't. I know, for about a year I had to maintain the forum for the transportation museum I volunteered at, and it was hard trying to keep ahead of all the spammers and folks who used it as a gateway for their nefarious activities. All I had to go on was a book I bought from the discount bin at the local bookstore because it covered the older system that the museum used. While I could understand the concepts, the execution of the controls got a little bit hairy. They finally hired someone that had the knowledge needed, so that was a big load off my back.

Thanks for keeping this forum alive, Mike, we all appreciate it.

PF

[Bennybee]

Indeed, as Phil said.

[alexvaras]

as PF said.

[Brazile]

Agreed!

[PFMcFarland]

I just noticed there is no "Like" button anymore. Don't know if that's a good thing or bad, but I was a prolific user of it in the previous Forum version, mainly because it was there. But don't put it back just on my suggestion. Maybe we could vote on it.

PF

[Brazile]

Well, I'd "like" this, but...

Robert

[Julio1fer]

Thanks Mike for keeping the flame alive.

[GrahamS]

Thank you, Mike, for your dedication, determination and hard work. The likes of you and I are an endangered breed and it's good to have an online "home."