Investment

[BlueEye]

Hi guys -

First off, Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you had some quality time off with family and friends.

I wanted to get your thoughts on the idea of investing in an upgrade to the site in terms of core forum software. I'm thinking over the holidays here of putting in some time and monetary resources to upgrade the site to a more modern, stable forum software. This upgrade I also feel would help with overall site participation (per our other topic discussion).

We are currently running version 3.X of vBulletin and it is very old and outdated to say the least. VB has officially announced that they will stop all support for this version of software (which scares me a little).

My estimates would be about 80-100 hours of work to design/code, test and implement the upgrade.

If we think this is something that we would like to move forward with then I'd like to get started soon while the site traffic is typically the lowest during the off-season.

What do you guys think of this? Good idea/bad idea?

Thanks in advance!

Chad

[EdB]

Being on outdated software with no support is risky so it seems like the right thing to do during the off season.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving with your family Chad!

[BlueEye]

Thanks for the feedback Ed - Hope you and the family had a great Thanksgiving as well. My wife Katherine and I recently celebrated the birth of our 2nd daughter (Caroline) so I am out numbered now 3 girls to 1 guy in my household... times are busy to say the least but it makes the holidays fun

[EdB]

3 girls to 1 in my home so I know the feeling. Kids are 12 and 14. My advice, get a great TV for your bedroom.

[BlueEye]

Hahaha will do!

[Nailer]

It sounds like you may not have many options.

The other sites have already don the upgrade.

Best of luck.

[BlueEye]

Yeah that is kind of how I'm feeling.... do we really have a choice? I'm not a big fan of change on forums because members get very accustomed to a look/feel to the site. If we do go forward with the upgrade, hopefully it will be the last upgrade the site would need for many more years ahead. Thanks for the feedback!

[fishsniffer]

definitely think this would be the time to do it.

[BlueEye]

Agreed Don - looking like it would cost around $1500 for the software and conversion fee's not including time. I'm going to continue to look into our options here.

[Priority1]

Sounds like the change is needed. If there is anyway I can help let me know. A fresh coat of paint may give the site a needed lift and a different feel.

I hope everyone here had a nice Thanksgiving.

[BlueEye]

Hi guys - quick update for you. I've put in a lot of hours this week looking at options for us. The upgrade is proving to be significantly challenging as the old software has trouble converting to new board format. This is especially true for the current photogallery which is powered by a very old legacy software called Photopost 2.5. It's so old that it will most likely require a manual upgrade which will take me a significant amount of time. 

So the plan I'm thinking is to upgrade the board, calendar and associated pages to the new format and then try and tackle the challenge of the photogallery and photopost 2.5. I hope to have the entire board converted this month so I can then dedicate time to the gallery portion. 

I'm VERY EXCITED about how the board upgrade is going so far. I think its awesome and head n' shoulders above the current system. I still got a lot of work to do but hoping to maybe get that converted this weekend or by next week.

I'll keep you posted and thanks again for the continued support.
Chad

[BlueEye]

Hi guys -

Another update for you.  Spent the whole weekend working on the upgrade and everything went fairly well.  So where do we stand now...

1. Upgrade to forum complete
2. Members / Usernames & Passwords Transferred successfully
3. Forums / Topics & Posts Transferred successfully
4. Calendar and Events Transferred successfully
5. Navigation & Links Transferred successfully
6. Sponsor Forums and Banners Transferred successfully

What still needs to be done:

1. Work out any bugs and/or issues identified by moderators and/or members
2. Work on converting over the rest of the old photogallery
3. New GROUPS section of the website can be setup now as well
4. Looking more into getting custom weather report transferred over like was on old site.

Use this post for any bug reports and/or questions you may have with respect to the upgrade. 

It's late now and I'm exhausted so I'm going to call it quits for the night.  Here are a couple pics from my last trip of the year out and the family - testing the image uploads.

Thanks again for the continued support!

Chad

[EdB]

Great pics of your family Chad!

[BlueEye]

Thanks Ed!  We continue to work hard on the conversion.  My focus now is on updating the apps (you may have to un-install and then re-install to get it to work), but we will soon be releasing an updated version so hang tight if you are having issues there.  Also we continue to work hard on getting the old photogallery converted over.  That looks like it will take about a week or so depending on if the kids leave me alone or not

So far I think we have made good progress and it is nice to do it this time of year when the site traffic is relatively low and I have some vacation time coming up. 

[Priority1]

Love the family and fish pics. I appreciate your hard word that is always needed to maintain this site.

[BlueEye]

Thanks Frank!  I worked all this week on trying to get the apps working as expected again.  Last night I was able to finalize the iOS app and push that up to Apple for release.  The work next will begin on Android / Google Play version.  I'd expect that one to be updated around February.  Here is the the link to updated iOS version:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/great-lakes-fisherman/id881258100?mt=8

Thanks again guys for your patience while I continue to tie up the loose ends here.  Transitions like this are never easy or smooth so that is why we waited till the off-season.

Chad