Last night I managed to upgrade the firewall server to a newer, and better system with more RAM and processor speed. Unfortunately things did not go as planned for the upgrade and it took longer than expected (~2 hours at 2AM) but this change was important and should bring, and give us protection into the future.

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Afew days ago we had a short maintenance period to view the firewall server. Unfortunately for me while the maintenance was “complete”, I confirmed something about the settings that I needed - and it didn’t solve a dilema I’m having. This means I’ll probably schedule more maintenance soon - sorry guys! To be honest, the time for what needs to be done could also be up to an hour, or take as little as 5 minutes, depending on how the situation goes, so we will attempt to do it late at night.

By the way — I haven’t posted in a while because simply nothing has been going on. I haven’t had that much time to work on anything new at the moment with my focus on other issues, but watch the blog/news because I do have a nice little feature update planned.

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If you haven’t seen, the ads on JFB now have better blending today. One key change we did was surround the ads in a “row4″ div color layer. This prevents the ad from clashing up aganist a background. You may find some of your skins don’t match, however. This could be because you have “.ads” class in your skin. For the most part however, it appears to be working fine across several boards.

Hope you like this minor adjustment.

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Today and yesterday I’ve been working on integrating a great AJAX IRC chat application into the site and forums called: Mibbit. The chat is professional, quick, and user friendly.

The great thing about this chat app is that it is finally an IRC interface WITHOUT the use of Java. PJIRC and Coolsmile are nice, but people seem to have nothing but problems using them. I’m always getting little complaints when people try to use the web based IRC because java is clunky; and it doesn’t blend with IRC very well. People have problems connecting, it’s their firewall, java doesn’t exist, etc. This isn’t entirely their fault because I’ve often found when it comes to java, people’s computers can be a mess. On my older system I somehow had 5 different old and new versions of java installed, with none working.

This chat virtually eliminates all of these problems… it’s completely web based! That’s the genius of it. It loads fairly quick, and is also more user friendly. Little icons indicate user levels, image thumbnails come up when someone pastes an image, and the overall design is easy on the eyes. Pretty powerful for a web-based IRC client. I had a few issues making it work in internet explorer 6 & 7 but those are solved now.

Because it’s been working so well on my site, and from what I noticed on another IRC network (50+ people with no IRC clients used it successfully), I’ve done a major Live Chat change to Jcink Forum Boards, and put the application onto my main site in place of the old java.

Basically, I made the decision to no longer allow PJIRC or Coolsmile to be picked. When there is mibbit - there is no need to use either, in fact, Mibbit is much better than either one and will actually work for almost all of your users, provided they have javascript turned on (and who has it off these days?).

As a result, I’ve gone ahead and pretty much leveled down the chat area to two things to fill out - the room name, and the chat title. I want to make it as easy as possible, and I’d also like to support NightFire IRC network. Therefore, the mibbit is now locked to Nightfire only. I do know this may make some angry, but I feel in the long run it’s better for the service. Nightfire is the official supported network - I can help people with just about anything on there since I have operator access. It’s a friendly IRC server too, so you don’t have any unexpected surprises.

The IRC section of the ACP looks a bit small now, but there are plans for future customization of the client (such as colors) so that will hopefully come to light later on as Mibbit gets all of the options sorted. Other little IRC goods will probably pop up on that page sometime, so check back every now and then.

As for chat.jcink.com; where the free embedded chat applets are dished out; I’m going to be replacing that with a Mibbit Client as well soon. No sense in keeping Coolsmile around.

If anyone has any issues with the applet/comments - feel free to do so.

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On Tuesday, at 1AM EST, we will be doing more required maintenance similar to last weeks, on the firewall server.

This maintenance is bit a heavy. It will take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, depending on how smoothly things go. Worst case scenario is that it will take 2 hours.

We're confident that we think it'll only take about 15 minutes. There is also a chance of a server IP address change because we may be required to switch hardware. We will let everyone know what the new address is, if this is the case. This would be a good time if you are using custom domains on the forum service to point your domain names "b1.jcink.com", CNAME.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at admin@jcink.com

-jcink

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This is an advance notice that we will be doing some simple maintenance on Monday, June 23 at 11:59 PM EST.

Some settings on the firewall server need to be changed, and then tested to make sure they are working properly, then the system will be brought back online.

Expected downtime will not likely be more than 15 minutes maximum.

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A new live chat/IRC chat room application has been installed to the site.

You can get to the new chat room by clicking the "Live Chat" link in the navigation on our forums, or "IRC Chat" via the site.

This chat is also available on JFB. Live chat changes have been made as well.

More information is available on the blog.

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A few days ago, JFB hit the 10,000 forums mark. While this may not seem like a lot, this is a major milestone for the service, and it’s been a long way to get there since mid-2006 when it first began. In about a week or two, it will be the forum service’s birthday.

Looking back, the service has really changed. When it began, it only had about 5 feature upgrades: the shoutbox, the store, trashcan, security mod. It’s amazing how much has been added and how it’s grown since that time, and continues to do so every day. There’s never a moment a new feature isn’t being thought about, or a day that a new board isn’t being built. I remember there was a time that I would check out every new registered board back in 2006 because there were only 1 or 2 a day, and now we’ve grown to 30-50 boards per day on average.

The service would never have gotten to this point without the hard work, dedication, and support from forum owners and support users alike, and I would like to thank everyone. Through the good, the bad, and the goofy times, it’s been quite a road - and we’ve still got ways to go. Here’s to the next 10,000!

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Ad Removal for Jcink Forum Board service has been released. You can now remove the ads instantly for a small fee and with a secure payment to us via paypal.

See the Admin CP announcement for more information.

If you have any questions about payment, feel free to email admin@jcink.com

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