Official Luthiers Forum!

Is it the forum or my computer at home thats the reason I can't log in at night? I've alternatively had trouble getting logged in, seeing the topics page, and posting photos.
How are some of you guys posting photos recently? I've been trying for days and I just keep getting error messages.
Is anyone else having these issues?
-j.

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“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”
-jack handy

You're not alone J.! I am hoping that Lance or Brock can update us on what is happening lately. Have we out grown the server? Is the forum under constant attack? Are stars just not lined up properly? Any idea if and when things will be back to normal.....

Shane

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Canada

There were several earlier posts concerning this;

The site was hacked several weeks ago and multiple problems have lingered. I couldn't access the site earlier today either.

The guys are working on correcting the problems as best they can.

Lance/ Brock - Maybe you could "Pin" a post describing the hacker issues so we don't keep repeating ourselves to those who may have missed earlier communications.

Regards,
Paul

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Paul Bordeaux
http://www.bordeauxinlay.com

J, as far as the picture posting goes, they are not uploaded to the OLF server, the pictures you see are "hot linked" from other web sites. If you want go over to photo bucket and get a free account. You can upload pictures there and than copy the URL to the "Add Image" pop up here. Don't try using the Image Upload button, that's not working (was something that got busted with the hack).

place your cursor over the buttons to see which ones are which, use the add image button and paste the URL in the pop-up box. That will show your picture.

The down side to this is that at some point, when the thread goes into the archives, the pictures will be gone as they will not stay on photo bucket for ever.

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

More timely updates from the OLF company owners would be useful. There should be at least an acknowledgement of each 'outage' and missing feature, and I agree with Paul that these should be posted where they can be readily noticed.

I don't plan on using any of my time to take and process pics and compose posts until I'm confident that my effort won't be lost/wasted in a computer crash. I doubt that I'm alone in this feeling.

John

The blackouts started when Serge left. I think he sucked the life forces out of the forum.    Maybe not.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Ok... where to begin this story...

First, understand that there are 3 things in the works.

1) The picture posting problem is the result of a hacker messing up our utility to post images. We have someone looking at it. Hopefully we can get that fixed soon.

2) The problems with the forum crashing lately has to do with an "upgrade" we did that is wreaking having on the ODBC drivers to the database. We are working on a fix for this, but unfortunately there is little we can do. The problem is with the ODBC component and we can't "fix" that. Our best hope is to correct the problem when we see it.... but even that is not entirely simple due to how we have our security system set up.

3) We are looking at new forum software to aid in the slowness. I think we have pushed this version of the OLF about as far as we can and now it is time to shed our skin and start with a new (better) system. However, now we have a lot of legacy data to maintain (user accounts, archived messages, etc.) and we need to move slowly and carefully to make this as smooth as it can be. At this point we are still evaluating packages, but we have a few good ideas on where we want to go.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks Brock

I always like new things

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Thanks for the update Brock!

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Thanks Brock, Hey my guitars aren't perfect either. We all really appreciate the hard work even if we have no idea what it takes to keep something like this going.

Thanks, Brock. In a way, outgrowing the original software is an elegant problem to have...in the sense that our community has grown to over 1,000 members and has made the forum the best place on the web for a lot of us. I'm sure the new software will be like lighting the 2nd stage of a rocket!

Hopefully, we can continue to see members move to the "Subscriber" category to help defray the costs of maintenance and necessary improvements. And I'm not even going to mention the goodies associated with being a subscriber.

Hang in there, boys! We can suffer the inconvenience of the current situation as long as we know there's something better coming.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Appreciate the update Brock! I have no idea what an ODBC
driver is but I'm sure glad you do. Thanks a lot

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

[QUOTE=old man] The blackouts started when Serge left. I think he sucked the life forces out of the forum.    Maybe not.

Ron[/QUOTE]

I mentioned the problems to Serge via email and his response was that with the forum down we'll all have more time for building guitars.

I know I certainly got a lot more done out in the workshop yesterday than I normally would have

Lance and Brock--

Thanks for the updates and for the work that you guys put in to keep the site running. People who do not have personal experience in IT issues oftentimes assume that its easier than it is to keep a site going. My day job is doing T-SQL programming against SQL Server 2000 databases. PM me if you'd like some volunteer help moving existing data into a new system.

Thx --Jim

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

I guess I`m one of the few who didn`t see any posts on this situation.
As luck would have it my workhorse computer in the shop died at the same time the technical problems with the forum started. I don`t know if there`s a link between the two.
Oh well, at least I didn`t have alot of money invested in that one.
Lance & Brock, keep plugging away at it. We`re rootin` fer ya!
Coe

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,