21st September 2010
The site should now all be in place!
15th September 2010
A major site rebuild/revamp to allow more flexiblity and potential for MS247. The rebuild is being carried out in stages:
Stage 1. To get underlying concepts in place, the underlying PHP programming engine in place for a new Chat room etc (using the phpBB open source framework), and the style, this has been done as a test site using initially a 3rd party hosting system, which allowed free hosting but with advertising, and a limited storage facility for messages etc (5mb in fact!). The site is advert free for the first 30 or so days.
Stage 2. Move the code and site databases to a different hosting system. This can be carried out almost transparently for the front end, howevere the Chat Engine, Games Arcade, Photo Gallery, and a new Blog Engine will have to be completely reinstalled, consequently all the scores etc for the games will be lost, I But the messages etc in the boards will be retained, it is hopefully unlikely that the database of messages will exceed the allowed space in the time the hosting move will take (3-4 days from 25/8/10).
Stage 3. Get a Chat area, Arcade area, Photo Gallery and Blog set up.
'Why was is thought neccessary to mess about with a working system?' One of the problems with the old chat room was it's need for Java, the new chat room etc does not need Java, and with the new servers I have more control, it should be less problematic, I will be able to get into the code of all of it and modify it too if things get desperate! (I have been a computer programmer since 1972). The old chat room code was completely out of my control, other than setting up what it should look like. It could not even be backed up!
The connection to the new Chat area etc should be more reliable, it does not require the samt port configuration setup, which had occasionally caused some weird communication problems.
'Ok so why will it be better for me?' The new chat area is just part of the message board system, the idea is that as people often are not always on at the same time. With the new chat/message/game area, I have to get a short name for that, they can leave messages, start conversations, send private messages, and use the chat, LOL and play games all from the same area.
With the chat you can go in and out of it, and see what was said while you were away, i.e. while you were putting messages in the others areas etc. The message board does work in a very similar way to that of the MS Society, but as I said, I do not want to compete with the MS Society, I envisage the new message system here to be more open to other discussions that are not necessarily MS based, and that the MS Soc might not deem suitable, in the same way the old chat room was. Time will tell.
'Where is the area going then?' The MS247 site has been running several years now, and did look tired. The new chat area (once set-up) has the ability to allow people to upload their own photos, upload/send attachments etc, and all sorts of other tricks that the old chat room simply could not do, the new servers allow for an unlimited amount of data to be uploaded to them, so watch this space!
'How to use the chat?' Although I am still reading the manual! When you hit the chat a chat area appears, at the bottom of that area is a section where you type in your 'chat', press the return key, or hit the submit button to make it appear in the chat. To get out of the chat room click on the 'Board index' text in the top left, just under the view 'unanswered posts', although you could click on that too!
'I preferred the old chat, there were avatars, it looked nicer ...' In some ways the old area was more powerful, but with in the message area you can have you own avatars (as you can see from my own posts here). You can change the size of the chat text and the colour, as well as having a whole new set of animated smilies!
I do hope this helps and also explains the logic behind what I am doing! I am hoping/trying to design and implement a system that should run for many years.
26th May 2010
Quiz night restarts at 9pm.
13th May 2010
Highlander / Robert started his Tysabri diary.
31st Oct 2009
After a period of health problems where it was difficult reading the text on the chat room, Leon is now going to attempt to take a more active part in the chat room again .... You may notice that references to Jill have now been changed back to Leon. Thank you for your patience over the last few months.
15th Nov 2008
A carers news page has been added.
17th Oct 2008
IAn under development page has been added.
4th June 2008
Site Redesign. This is to enable easy expansion of the various sections.
15th September 2007
The chat room has been changed to a more 'featured' and user adaptable version.
18th August 2007
A chat-room people page has now been added.
1st August 2007
The Things to do section has been expanded with a list of hobbies and things 'to do', this is still being expanded and enhanced. Please let us know if you think there is something that could be added to the list.
31st July 2007
The reference page now has some live news content.
In the things to do section there are now some games.
27th July 2007
We are starting to get some content. The chat room and forum are both now live.
We have some links and some ramblings 'about us'!