Blast From the Past

Anybody remember the trail map that used to be on STR? Something along those lines will be coming back soon. But this time it'll be useful, work well, and frankly will kick ass. I plan to have it include categories for markers. Possible categories are trailhead (duh), meet spots (i.e. ridge park, canyon vistas, etc), and post ride grub spots (i.e. wahoo's, cook's, etc). Each marker will have a detailed bubble when clicked on along with a small photo.

Stay tuned.

Being Lazy But Not

Sleeping In

So I slept in again today. There were a couple rides going on, one at Holy Jim/Trabuco and the other in Aliso but I didn't set my alarm last night. Figured if I woke up early for some strange reason I would go ride. Ended up waking up close to 11 am. The poison oak on my right knee got a bit better overnight.

Photo Gallery Software Update

Soon after breakfast I went to tackle the photo gallery update for STR. This is what's new in this version:

. Improved search results – everything moved into search.php, results saved to db to save on paging through searches and having to "re-search" every page load

. New Profile section includes tabs showing profile info (user can customize using BB codes), photos and comments
. Forum thumbnail link bb code on showphoto (shows a linked thumbnail to the showphoto page)
. AJAX additions:
. Add / Remove from Favorites
. Notify / Remove from notification
. Open Close photo for comments
. Stick / Unstick photo
. Subscribe / Unsubscribe to gallery
. Improved showmember page – significant query reduction displaying last photos
. Some changes to templates to improve layout – removed alternate template directory
. User set Album intro, album titles, on/off
. User set Album default layout (puzzle, gallery, thumbnail, etc)
. Users viewing a category (new option in Show Gallery options)

So I do the usual: backup the databases and proceed with the upgrade. Ran into some issues first time around, restored the backup, and tried again. Second time worked.

My personal favorite new feature is the 'linked thumbnail' line under the photos. Copy paste that into a post and it'll stick the thumbnail of the photo in your post and link it to the gallery. I want to modify it so the thumbnail it shows is the medium sized one (600px wide) and links to the full sized version. I'll work on that customization later today. Once I get that customization done I'll delete the "bbcode" line which is inferior to 'linked thumbnail' line and would just add unnecessary clutter.

UPDATE: Did the customization and it works how I want it to now. The linked thumbnail code posts the medium version of a photo and links to the full-size version.

Migration Complete

Yesterday was the migration day for STR. It was somewhat of a stressful day for me but overall I think it went well.

The site was down for at least a few hours because of DNS issues. These got cleared up and it's working well right now. Some people might have trouble getting to SocalTrailRiders.org if their DNS cache isn't up-to-date. I sent out an email to most of the active users to inform them of this and how to fix it. Here's the solution if SocalTrailRiders.org isn't working for you:

How to Flush Your DNS

To flush DNS cache in Microsoft Windows:

- Start -> Run -> type cmd
- in command prompt, type ipconfig /flushdns
- Done! You Window DNS cache has just been flush.

To flush the DNS cache in Linux, restart the nscd daemon:

- To restart the nscd daemon, type /etc/rc.d/init.d/nscd restart in your terminal
- Once you run the command your linux DNS cache will flush.

To flush the DNS cache in Mac OS X:

- type lookupd -flushcache in your terminal to flush the DNS resolver cache.
ex: bash-2.05a$ lookupd -flushcache
- Once you run the command your DNS cache (in Mac OS X) will flush.

If this still doesn't fix it, then your ISP's DNS cache is to blame and that could take a day or so to be updated.

Looking Forward

I'm very excited about the move. The new server is physically located a lot closer to us (in San Jose, CA rather then Chicago as the old server was), has a lot more capacity, is much more configurable, and should be more reliable.

A faster, more reliable STR will result in a better browsing experience for STR users!

STR is Outgrowing its Server

STR is in another growth spurt when it comes to traffic and new registrations. It's not as big as the explosion of growth we had this past spring and early summer but it has still been noticeable. This is just another testament to what an awesome community we are a part of.

However, it has placed extra load on the server that hosts SocalTrailRiders.org resulting in occasional slow-downs and has even brought the site down for a few minutes at a time. Along with the stress this brings me it also makes me frustrated. I want the people that use STR to have a pleasant experience - me included.

The hosting switch/upgrade I plan to do will cost almost four times more then what it currently costs to host STR. This will hopefully make STR faster and more reliable then it has ever been.

Look for this to happen in the next couple weeks or so. If the migration goes over super smooth you might not even be able to tell. If the migration runs into a few bumps in the road then expect there to be some down-time - maybe up to a day.

UDPATE: Migration will occur on Friday, December 1 2006 at 11 am.

IE fixed

I finally got around to fixing the little IE 'goofs.' I took a break from eating (it's thanksgiving!), opened up my Windows laptop and started coding away. So for you IE users - STR should look a little nicer now.

IE doesn't handle web styles in a standards compliant way - forcing developers (me) to introduce hacks into our code to 'fix' IE's implementation. I strongly encourage IE users to switch to Firefox. It's safer and standards compliant. There's a link to the Firefox download on the right side of this blog.

STR Turns 2 Years Old!

Time to celebrate the second birthday of SocalTrailRiders. The actual birthday is Monday, Novemeber 27th, 2006. We'll have the birthday dinner on Sunday, November 26th at 7:00 pm at the YardHouse in the Irvine Spectrum.

Please check this thread for details and up-to-date information.

more improvements

I'll rundown a few other minor changes made to the forums and touch on a somewhat controversial addition to STR.

Minor Changes

• Background of photo pages in gallery are now a gray instead of teal color
• "Posting Rules" box which are the ones that say things like "you may post. you may create threads, etc" is now collapsed by default. Figured people rarely looked at this and it was just taking up space.
  
• Small CSS mishandling by Safari was fixed. The panoramic photo in the header would stretch all the way to the right and not be confined by the borders. One line of code fixed this.
• Guests now see a new ad. The first post of every thread now contains an ad for people who are unregistered or not logged in. Logged in users don't see this ad.

Road forum added

Recently there have been 'roadie' threads spread out throughout the forums. Soon thereafter the roadies began to ask for their own forum. And they got it.

Yes, it's true. SocalTrailRiders now has a roadie forum! I never envisioned STR having a roadie forum when I first built this site two years ago. However, I believe that the site has evolved and is as dynamic as any other community. The mountain bikers who also road ride made themselves heard and it was clear that there would be more roadie threads in the future.

Many argue to keep STR small. They believe that there isn't enough activity to dilute the posts between even more forums. To a certain extent they are right. So I decided to come to this compromise:

• Ladies of STR was deleted
• Girls Club, a private girls-only forum, was kept
• The Roadie Hangout was added

This accomplished a few things. First, we got rid of the Ladies forum which was getting very little activity. I decided to keep girls club so that girls can still have a place for those women-only topics. The private girls club is not viewable by anyone else; this means that the deleting of Ladies of STR and the addition of the Roadie Hangout forum cancel each other out in terms of number of forums. And last but not least, all the present and future road-related threads will be kept off of the rest of the forums. This should make most everyone happy (I hope).

Final stage of redesign is done on STR

Forums Get a New Look

The forums now have a similar style to the rest of the forums and at the risk of sounding cocky - it looks damn good!

I found the direct compliment of the darker brown that was used on the rest of the website and it turned out to be a blue/teal'ish color. I really like how it accents the brown. Most of the rest was kept neutral, either gray or black. Link have an orange hover state.

Long Time Coming

I've wanted SocalTrailRiders.org to have a consistent look and feel throughout the website for a long time now.

The old design, with it's bar on the left and vertical navigation, didn't lend itself to well to having a forum style created out of it. This created a big problem as I couldn't simply style a header and footer template but would have had to customize many templates, found a way to style those with the same CSS as the rest of the website, and it just would have been a big mess.

I created the V3 redesign with this in mind. That's why I included horizontal tabs, a rectangle header section, and a consistent footer. This enabled me to easily adapt the design to a forum style. Luckily it worked out well.

One More Thing . . .

Created a DVD case and sweet cover for the STR Volume 1 DVD. People who get one tomorrow at the Blackstar/Motorway ride will get a treat!

Enjoy!