Welcome Back, Following the Move to the New Server

[Paul]

Hello again everyone and a big welcome back to BaO following the move to the new server. Apologies that the move and reopening of the forum took a few hours above the estimates 7 to 14 days. The move had quite a few more complications than I'd expected. One of these was getting the database introduced to the new server. Eventually I had to divide the database into 100 smaller parts for the server to be able to accept the instructions, and upload each part individually, holding the new server's hand all the way in case it got exhausted from all the work. . All-in-all the server had to do over a million input instructions to the database...but eventually everything is now here.

If you notice anything odd happening or strange error messages, please post them here and I'll check them out. Any comments on whether things are faster or slower than before are welcome too.

Hope you like the slight adjustment to the layout.

[Scellanis]

yay!!! Well done Luap!!

*big hugs*

*stares around at Bao and doesn't know where to go first*

ooo...I missed this place sooo much!!!

[Gower]

*Phew* my withdrawl symptoms were getting unbearable I like the new background. For some reason it seems to be slightly slower than before for me.

[azn wizard]

hey cool....itz back!!! whoohoo
but i do have trouble loging in though...well, sometimes

[Meg Boyd]

it looks great but i am having a lot of trouble logging on, posting, and everything is really slow...not to be down on the new server stuff, my computer is just rather slow the way technology keeps advancing and since I have dial up internet service.

[Scellanis]

odd, i got no troubles at all but then i am permanently logged in...oh well...its aint slow for me....

[Ju-DedoH]

big brick wall every time I change page !
good work paul, I was really starting to miss the people on this forum

[Devinci]

*thumbs up* Good job!

Gotta love getting a BaO fix...I was goin through withdrawl...it's not good to give these things up cold turkey ya know...they say it's better to be gradual..... 8)

I...thought it was pretty witty

[Liquid Ice]

*Joins sonkem in staring around* Where DO I go first? It is a bit slow but its not a drastic change.

[Friar Tuck]

God, I missed this place. To pass the time, I did homework(eugghh) and went to a BtVS Forum. Not as good as yours though.

I feel so lost now.

[Gwared]

I've found it was slow initially then got quicker again...presumably as the icons and pictures were now cached?

[choki]

It is quite slow for me even though I'm using a ADSL!
Maybe it is my computer...*throws a chair at poor dino* No just kidding haha

Finally Bao is back...I waited for 2 weeks...well actually I have been reading manga (jap comics) and watching anime and spent less time with dino (in case anyone is wondering who is dino, its is my pc )

Nice bricks

[Violet]

Thats really odd cause it's faster for me, but that maybe cause i got a new computer.
who knows! but either way i'm glad you made the changes now cause i havent been able to get online for the last 3 weeks anyway!

[Paul]

Thanks for the comments so far. I'm a bit concerned about the speed and think it's a little bit slower too. Yes, the initial loading of the images would have an initial effect but as Gwared has mentioned, most browsers will cache the images (at least for a while) to save speed of having to download them all the time.

One thing that is likely to have had an effect is that I've not beed able to get gzip compression working without error messages yet. Gzip compression is a way that the forum can send a compressed version of a page to you (which is less data if gzipped, like a "zip file", and therefore with less data to be sent, the gzipped pages arrive faster). Browsers then automatically un-gzip pages to display. This is something I need to look into a bit more to see if I can get this working on the new server but the stuff I've tried so far doesn't seem to want to work.

I'm not sure if another effect is the server's location (and whether this is likely to be a major effect or virtually none at all). The previous server was in the UK whereas the new one is in the USA.

The company that I've move BaO to has had a whole load of problems since the start of September (when they introduced new features) and even in the last week (whilst I was getting BaO moved), they were doing adjustments. Apart from these considerable problems, they have a really good track record though (I've used them for a long while for other sites and they've always been brilliant). I'm hoping that any slowness is therefore temporary but please keep mentioning how things are as if slowness continues I'll need to try to bring it to their attention.

Thanks for the comments about the bricks!

[Charis]

yay!! i'm so happy its back for me its a bit slow too and everything but its not too bad. a small price to pay to be back!