Site update news ...

[gerryvz]

I will be updating the software to the latest version of vBulletin (4.1.5) very shortly. The site may be offline for a few minutes while I am doing this.

I also this afternoon (4PM Central time) changed how attachments are stored by the system, so that they are stored in the file system rather than in the MySQL database. The database size was ~750MB out of a maximum size of 1 GB. By contrast, once all of the attachments/images were removed from the database (I just re-checked the size of the DB) it is down to a measly 39.6 MB (7.9 MB compressed as a gzip file).

Lastly I also moved all of the avatars and signature pictures out of the database to the file system. As a final maintenance task, I re-sized and reset all of the "thumbnail" photos (the miniature versions of attached photos that show up at the bottom of posts) to reflect the larger size I selected of 300 x 300 pixels, which is easier to see.

Hopefully this process was transparent to those of you who were using the site at the time I was doing this. I'll update the software late tonight when y'all are in bed sleeping

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Happy to inform y'all that attachments have been added to all posts in the "M119 Engine" & "Electrical CAN & Wiring" & "Wheels and Tires" & "Heating and Cooling" categories - of which M119 Engine is one of the sub-forums that contains the most posts and is also one of the most popular forums.

We're getting there slowly....

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Attachments have been added to the "Transmission and Driveline" the "Wanted to Buy" and the "Brakes, Suspension and Steering" sub-forums in the "500E / E500 Mechanical" section. This section is now totally completed.

The only remaining sub-boards that yet have to have attachments added are the following:

• Parts for Sale
• Cars for Sale
  

Everything else is done.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Just spent about 30 minutes this morning updating the site to a new revision of the software, version 4.1.5 Patch Level 1. You should see some new changes, including some new smilies.

If you're interested in a listing of specifically what was changed and fixed with this version of the software, you can find the release notes here:
https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/384715-vBulletin-4.1.5-now-available-for-download

It was a bit tricky to ensure that all of the uploaded attachment files, user avatars and existing smilies were preserved. Please let me know if you find anything missing.

Enjoy!

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

All attachments have been added to the "Cars for Sale" sub-forum.

The only remaining sub-forum to still require attachments is the "Parts for Sale" area. I'll get to this over the weekend.

From there, only the links in various threads that point to individual posts at the old 500Espot.com BBS will need to be changed over to point to the equivalent thread on this board. I have done quite a number of these "re-points" as I've gone through the threads to date, but there are probably 50-60 yet to go. This is sort of tedious but will be the last task required in the switchover, before it's complete in its entirety.

Thanks everyone for your patience over the past few weeks as I've worked to get this switchover made and (already) do a few software version upgrades & security patches.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

"Parts for Sale" sub-forum attachments have all now been added! So now all sub-forums on the entire site have all attachments. There were more than 3,300 attachments (1.6 GB) to add .... so it was a big task. Lots of mouse-clicking !!

 

[gerryvz]

Did some tweaking to the smilies so that they are larger & easier to see when you are posting or replying.

Also I enabled Facebook (a.k.a. "Stupidbook") integration for those of you who use that social networking service. You will see a "connect" link at the top of the screen, and once you link your Facebook account to 500Eboard, you can log into the site using your Stupidbook account.

Also, for posting, you will see a little "Publish to Facebook" box at the bottom of the posting area when posting or replying.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

We now have a random image header that appears at the top of each screen from a collection of the five original 500Eboard site headers (shown above).

Let me know if you like the random header image. It would be very easy to set back if the consensus is that people don't like it.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[szvook]

I like it. Maybe we could have a rotational header that could be switched on or off and would show pictures of our cars?

 

[gerryvz]

I have acquired a new batch of photos and plan to make another 5-10 header images, including photos of owners' cars that I have permission for. I'd love to use a large version of GSXR's "burnout" photo if he will give me permission and send a copy of said photo.....

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gsxr]

I'd love to use a large version of GSXR's "burnout" photo if he will give me permission and send a copy of said photo.....

Ask, and ye shall receive! Check yer email, GVZ. Premission granted.

 

[JordiC]

Let me know if you like the random header image.

Absolutely yes Gerry, and adding member cars is a great idea as well. Thanks again for the site update and the continuous tweaks.

 

[gerryvz]

What I think I'm going to do for the owner's cars on the headers is to do several "animated gifs" which fade/morph between 2-3 owners' cars in a single image. That way we can make the header images more interesting. I'll keep the "classic" 500Eboard random header images that I've already installed, as well. The "classic" headers date from the debut of 500Eboard in early 2009, until its demise and transformation into 500Espot (which only used the single header).

This is a fun mod to work on, actually. I've got a bit more time for this stuff, now that all of the attachments are done.

One thing I'll be implementing in the near future is a new collection of templates that you can choose from. NONE of them will be the dark-blue (i.e. difficult to read) template that 500Ecstasy used, though.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[Silver Arrow]

I have acquired a new batch of photos and plan to make another 5-10 header images, including photos of owners' cars that I have permission for.

Great idea!

 

[szvook]

Gerry, you have my blessing as well. Should we (the owners) just update our images in the Owners and Their Cars directory, or do you need pics sent to you? Btw, a collection of templates would be a nice touch.

 

[gerryvz]

It's just a matter of downloading & installing some good-looking templates is all. I had a ton of them installed at the 'Spot but restricted things to the one we used. But it's easy to find and install templates and then everyone can customize things to their own desires.

High-res photos sent to me are preferred. I want REALLY high-quality shots or action shots only -- not just static shots of cars unless they are visually interesting. Taking a photo of one's car in the driveway (though great for one's OWNER thread) is not something that I can really use.... gotta be action or visually interesting stuff.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[szvook]

Got it. I'll send you what I have and you can make the call. I might get my hands on a camera in the next week or so and will try to get some scenery shots, otherwise my current pics were from a lot at work and a tuners shop.

 

[gerryvz]

Couple of new header images have been added. Enjoy !!

Just remembered that I had to update the verification question and answer for new registrants too, now that we have rotating images. Hopefully it's not a question that's too easy for the spammers to get....

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

All,

As I mentioned in this previous post (http://500eboard.com/forums/showthread.php?358-Site-update-news-...&p=10140&viewfull=1#post10140), I happened upon a couple of early site backups that I did before the first iteration of the 500Eboard died in the June/July time frame of 2009. One early backup I found dated from December 2008, which was a few weeks after 500Eboard first started in Nov. 2008. this backup contained about the first 100-125 posts. What I have found was that the reconstruction of 500Eboard that I did in July of 2009 (when I reconstituted it as 500Espot) from Google cache was able to get a good amount of the posts from the original 500Eboard, but I have found a number of them in this first, early backup that didn't make it into the reconstruction.

So, I am adding these posts and will append "[OLD THREAD]" into the subject line to denote that it was a post that was from the original late 2008 / early 2009 time frame.

It is time consuming to do this because I actually have to create an entirely new and separate forum & associated databases to pull these old 500Eboard backups into, then tediously go through all of the posts and compare them to what we have in the current 500Eboard, and then add whatever is missing. I am only doing this in order to be as historically complete as possible. I have one or two additional backups from early 2009 and will be in the coming days creating new forums for them and seeing if there is additional content that can be added here.

Thanks for your patience!

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

In cleaning out some old files from the original iteration of 500Eboard in the 2008/2009 time frame, I came across this folder containing some avatars that people had uploaded for themselves on that original phpBB forum. If any of these belong to you, please feel free to download and use them with your current account on this board, if you care to.

Thanks
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Another new banner photo to join the rotation ... I think this one is totally bitchin'

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Today I added a new, special "strikethrough" capability and button to the "advanced" posting box that allows you to create strikethrough text. This "strikethrough" tag is used with the code [s ] and [/ s] (spaces removed).

Strikethrough text looks like this:

I think the W210 E55 AMG is a better car than the W124 500E/E500.

There is also a Button in the "Advanced" posting box that allows you to highlight the text you wish to convert to "strikethrough" and then hit the button to convert it. You can see the button in the attached image from the "Advanced" box.

Enjoy!

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Just an FYI -- I'm going to make some modifications tonight to the site that should result in fewer of the Baidu (sort of the Chinese equivalent of Google) web crawler bots swarming all over this site with their continuous crawling. Not that it's affecting anything performance- or bandwidth-wise, but it's annoying and unnecessary, particularly because there are few if any known E500Es in mainland China.

These modifications I'm going to make shouldn't result in any site downtime or other service interruption, but in the future hopefully we'll see a much more accurate count of users actually using the site, rather than having 5 users and 20 Baidu web crawlers on the site at the same time. I don't mind crawlers (particularly legit ones such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com, etc.) but this Baidu stuff has to go....

I'll give an update once the mods are made and a progress report over the next few days on whether it worked or not.

I've already implemented an IP block-level ban (first step) but will be eliminating them entirely from accessing the domain later tonight.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Indeed, a three-pronged defense was successful at banishing the Baidu web crawler/spiders/bots:

- an IP-ban (which only gives them errors but doesn't allow them very far into the forums)
- a robots.txt file on the server root directory (which tells spiders that heed these files not to crawl the site, not all crawlers mind these though)
- and a new .htaccess file on the server root (which specifically disallows Baidu spiders to access the site, giving them 403 FORBIDDEN errors)

Heh heh. We should have a much more accurate count of users and guests accessing the forum from now on, while allowing "good" crawlers such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and so forth.





Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Looks like our banishment of the Chinese web crawlers is holding, and so our user count is much more accurate.

Last night I uploaded a file that contains the identities/useragents of more than 600 different types of crawlers and bots, so we'll have a better idea of the types of spiders and crawlers that visit the site. Always nice to know who is dropping in ....

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Tonight I'm doing another import of an original (circa July 2, 2009) 500Eboard.com database backup into a new forum to see whether there are any additional "old" posts that I can add here to build out some of the original lost material. I have a hunch there will be quite a bit of material (if not all of the remaining lost material) in this backup. If so, then I will add the posts back into the mix here. If not, then we'll have to rely on what the Google cache rebuild provided in mid-July 2009.

This is a full import of the original 500Eboard into a separate, new vBulletin forum. If there's enough stuff in there, I'll actually import the whole bloody thing right into this forum. Will keep you posted.

No sleep for the restless....

In your service!
Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Not looking like there was much data in that last backup. What a bummer. Well one good thing is that I can update everyones' join dates using information from that database.

 

[gerryvz]

I've got some exciting news to announce tonight with regard to 500Eboard and some great enhancements we'll be adding to the site. Now that we're well established and the transition phase is over, we're preparing to put our Phase 2 plans into effect to make 500Eboard.com better than ever!

More soon !

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Not quite ready to share my news (still tweaking and configuring) but will provide the promised update as early as tomorrow, or as late as Sunday. More soon !!

 

[gerryvz]

Sorry, all, for the delay in the promised update. In short, we are implementing a new home-page (which will be at http://www.500eboard.com) that will be 100% integrated with this forum, and will have a lot of new features and capabilities. This board will not change at all, but it will also be joined by a very attractive home page as a new "front door" to the site. I know a lot of you have asked for this or commented on the old WordPress front door that was pretty much non-functional. Well, know that your requests are being fulfilled.

Secondly, we'll be adding an integrated "wiki" feature to the site ... actually, what I mean is that we'll be bringing the wiki feature BACK to the site. I am hoping that folks will contribute to the wiki as I'd like to build it into a very comprehensive information source for the cars.

I will let you know when these new features are "live" and working.

Lastly, I will be adding a new sub-forum today, which will cover the topic of Tools & Shop Equipment. This forum will be the place to discuss special tools and equipment that we use to fix our 036s, cool ideas for garage arrangement and shop equipment, and questions about how to use MB tools. I know that some of this comes up in terms of the normal threads and how-tos, but I think having a special place where people can discuss their use of tools and how they set up their garages would be valuable for the community. So, stay tuned for a new forum on this topic. I'm thinking of my first post to that forum right now.

As always, keep the comments and questions flowing. Let me know if you have suggestions or experience any issues with the site.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gsxr]

I will be adding a new sub-forum today, which will cover the topic of Tools & Shop Equipment. This forum will be the place to discuss special tools and equipment that we use to fix our 036s, cool ideas for garage arrangement and shop equipment, and questions about how to use MB tools. I know that some of this comes up in terms of the normal threads and how-tos, but I think having a special place where people can discuss their use of tools and how they set up their garages would be valuable for the community. So, stay tuned for a new forum on this topic. I'm thinking of my first post to that forum right now.

I think the first post should be about 'shrooms, Gerry. Those always help when working on the 036.

 

[gerryvz]

Not a bad idea. I was thinking about shop jacks, but the shroom thing is timely.

Perhaps a how-to would be in order on using 'shrooms with your 036 or other relevant car without hallucinating or having a bad trip.

 

[RicardoD]

Gerry, you recent tool section and posts is exactly what I am looking for. I am doing a lot of lurking and reading and see you and others speaking in E500 code, some of which I have yet to crack. The tools section and hopefully the wiki is a great place for newbies like to me to figure out what is going on.

A big part of the ownership experience for me is the support I can get via forums for that car. A strong forum make maintaining and owning the car a much more enjoyable experience.

Ricardo

 

[gerryvz]

I'm going to upload and open up the wiki module very soon, so stay tuned for the official announcement on this.

I was just looking at the old 500Espot board statistics (the old board is in mothballs, in case I need to refer to it for some reason) and came across these stats from the day I made the board migration to vBulletin and this new site:

USERS: 637
THREADS: 1,547
POST COUNT: 10,028

On this site, continuing where the old site left off as of July 17, you can see the stats at the bottom of the main page as of today:

USERS: 740
THREADS: 1,771
POST COUNT: 12,962

Impressive growth for only two months....

Thanks for your support !!

 

[Jelmer]

Very nice growth indeed, glad to be a (small) part of it.

Might I suggest you make the main page a quick redirect to the forums, for the time being? Right now you get a 403 error, which won't lead you to the actual forum. You might miss new members because of this...

 

[500Eboard]

Added a few new smilies:

 

[J-Sauce]

Might I suggest you make the main page a quick redirect to the forums, for the time being? Right now you get a 403 error, which won't lead you to the actual forum. You might miss new members because of this...

+1. Always wondered why this was set up that way.

 

[gerryvz]

Because I've been working on a more comprehensive content-management system (CMS) front-end that will reside there. It will be fully integrated with the BBS and the wiki (also under development). Stay tuned (I mentioned it recently in this thread) -- I haven't finished implementing it yet....

 

[J-Sauce]

I figured there had to be a reason

Sounds cool, can't wait!

 

[gerryvz]

Late tonight (Thursday) I'm going to be upgrading the vBulletin software to version 4.1.7, which will offer both a couple of new features but mainly bug-fixes.

I'll detail the major changes you might see in an update to this post.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Upgrade seems to have been successful.

 

[gerryvz]

Hello everyone!

A couple of quick updates for 500Eboard:

• I created a new site banner image from a photo supplied by one of our members (see attachment). I took a little license with the text formatting but I think it turned out OK...
• I have decided NOT to get rid of the Facebook integration. For those with Facebook accounts it does give folks another way to log into the site, and it doesn't hurt those who are not using the Facebook functionality to have it present.
• I will be doing some tweaking with regard to the search bot settings. I excised the Chinese Baidu spiders, which were overrunning the site some months back, but it seems I have also banned some of the useful spiders that are not pestering the site. So I'll do some tweaking to allow some of the "good" spiders. That should help our search engine rankings to.

Hope everyone is having a good Sunday !

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[bing]

Hi Gerry, been wanting to ask you this since the site upgrade, I can't see or add those fun smilies like I used to on the old site when I post/reply to a thread?? Or is this for senior citizens only ??

Cheers Mate!

 

[gerryvz]

The smilies are available through one of the following methods:

- The smilies button (yellow happy face in the Quick Reply panel)

- The smilies panel next to the reply area in the "Advanced" panel

- The smilies button (yellow happy face) in the "Advanced" panel

All three are shown in images below:

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[Jelmer]

Oi, I know those cars!! I feel honored

 

[bing]

Cheers!

duh,,for some reason i didn't have "enhanced interface" on under settings/misc. options.

 

[gerryvz]

Cheers!

duh,,for some reason i didn't have "enhanced interface" on under settings/misc. options.

As you're English, we'll cut you some slack ... this time

 

[gerryvz]

All:

Tonight I'll be applying an upgrade to the vBulletin system software, from version 4.1.7 to 4.1.8 (I skipped over two minor "patch" revisions in between the two versions).

Thus, it is likely that the 500Eboard will be down for approximately 30 minutes late this evening. Probably sometime after 11PM Central Standard Time (9PM PDT) while I do a full database backup and then re-install the new system software.

Thanks in advance for your patience.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

The update to software version 4.1.8 seems to have been completed successfully.

A few of the changes and fixes include:

• VBIV-13545 Cursor in WYSIWYG editor disappears when using arrow keys to move it
• VBIV-13540 Blog Sub-Domain AJAX Broken and AJAX URLs Not Extensible
• VBIV-13066 Lightbox for images inline does not work on multi domain board
• VBIV-13565 The editor mode changed in qucik edit is not retained when navigated to 'Go advanced' editor (4.1.8 Regression)
• VBIV-13542 Delete controls out of Alignment - Quick Editor (Regression)
• VBIV-13539 Create product to disable Webkit Xss checking
• VBIV-13537 Script Error is thrown when Ctrl+A -> Ctrl+V -> Ctrl+C
• VBIV-13488 Depth of Sub-Forums = 1 is Considered as 2
• VBIV-13482 Mark This Forum Read from Forum Tools Dropdown doesn't mark 'Sticky' threads as read
• VBIV-13481 double click on forum icon does not mark a forum as read (regression 4.1.7)
• VBIV-13479 Users reputation disappears after giving them rep via ajax.
• VBIV-13478 Recent Activity Widget Not Showing Avatars when They're Stored in the File System
• VBIV-13477 Script Error Thrown when Clicking Insert Link Button in Source Mode
• VBIV-12652 2checkout paid subscriptions fails with error - "hash mismatch, please check your secret word" or "This action could not be completed because a security token is missing"
• VBIV-12578 Quote BB Code insert into the second line if you don't click on editor content first
• VBIV-12365 Discepancy in total number of online members on the forum home compared to the Who's Online page
• VBIV-12338 Script error thrown in certain flow when we add image and text with bulleted list
• VBIV-12319 Script error is displayed when clicked on align right icon in IE7

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Folks,

I have now implemented and enabled the vBulletin vBadvanced content management system (CMS). What this provides is a highly customizable portal that is fully integrated with this site.

A few things for you guys to know:

• If you now type "www.500eboard.com" you will go to the new portal. You may or may not need to re-login with your user name & password.
• The URL & content for this site doesn't change in the least, so if you have bookmarked this site nothing changes
• You can now just type "500Eboard" in your browser and you won't get an error message any longer -- you'll get the new portal software

The cool thing about the new portal is that it is infinitely customizable, so I can add news, cool photos and tons of other rad stuff to make it visually interesting. If you want to see a highly developed example of this software in action, check out this Porsche 912 site:

http://www.912bbs.org/

Anyway, welcome to the beginning of the next phase of this site.

Phase 3 will be a fully integrated Wiki (a la Wikipedia for the E500E).

for your support.......

Cheers,
Gerry


CHECK IT OUT......go to www.500eboard.com !!