Minor forum upgrade, Tuesday, May 27

Hi everyone,

On the morning of Tuesday, May 27, we will upgrade our forum from version 1.2.4 to version 1.3.2. Most users probably won't even notice the change, as the changes for end users will be quite minor and the forum will remain available during the upgrade.

... so, basically, this doesn't affect you much at all, but I thought you might want to know.

If you're curious, here are the major changes with the new version:

• Smiley categories and other smiley enhancements
• Custom BB codes
• A built in spoiler BB code
• Google+/Twitter registration
• Image and link proxying
• User change logging
• Multi-quote
• Various moderation improvements

We won't necessarily be using all of the new features. In the next week or so, I'll run the upgrade on our test server to figure out which features we'll want to turn off and what adjustments we need to keep things as simple as possible.

 

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say that the upgrade went very smoothly and we've been using the new software ever since.

I've also been tuning something called our PHP opcode cache recently. Because we are supported by our users via donations and Amazon Smile, I try to make the money go as far as it possibly can. Our main server costs us $60 per month, and by tuning it well, we can ensure that all visitors have a nice snappy website while also being able to support other projects. For example, our server also hosts the www.thankyoudrsarno.org project, www.rsi-backpain.co.uk, our chat room, our streaming media, and other projects as well. Recently, I have started a password protected service to allow TMS therapists and TMS doctors to exchange information as well.

Plus, call me a geek if you want, but I just have to say that tuning our server is fun. I never had any idea how much I would enjoy it! I'm actually a bit shy, so I have to say I find it a little relaxing.

Finally, some other terrific news is that @tmsandrew , an old friend of ours, back from our old site at tmswiki.wikifoundry.com (formerly at wetpaint), is starting his TMS website back up again. We have a partnership with him where we provide hosting for his site (see above) and he agrees to include links to our site so that people can find us more easily. I'm very grateful for the great work that he is doing spreading the word about TMS and helping people find our community. Thank you, Andrew!

Here is Andrew's success story:
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/pain-free-for-4-years.3710/

Finally, another little development is that we've installed a "web forms module" so that we can more easily make forms to people to fill out. We are using this for the "Ask a TMS Therapist" program and will also be using it for gather feedback about our programs. Regarding gathering feedback, I think that this will become more and more important going forward, because we have so very many programs and they are all run by "peers." The better we can understand what is working and what isn't working, as well as how to improve things, the better of a job we can do.

Anyway, I hope you found this little summary of some recent developments to be helpful. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.