Site Info / Suggestions

Don't mean to be a pain...But is there anyway, (or am I just missing it) to have a link to a sponsors webpage? If you click on a sponsor it takes you to their forum page here. But what about going to their website? Might be cool to have a link for each sponsor..

I posted in the "Yamaha" Tech section. But there is no way for anyone to see that there is a post in there unless they click on the Manufacturer section. Maybe make it to where you can see that there is a new post in the sections.

Just want to let everyone know I will be changing the look and feel of the site sometime this weekend. I have to upgrade the software so it's a good a time as any to give the site a new look.

I have upgraded the forum software to the newest version of IP.Board. While doing so I also upgraded all the apps that run the site and added a new default style. If you prefer the old style you can select it by using the style changer at the bottom left. The old style is called IP.Board so just select it to change to that style. If you find any bugs let me know and I'll fix them as soon as I can.

I had to change the software that powered this community again. The software we used briefly, vbulletin 4 just isn't ready to run on a live site. My database servers are all utf-8 and vbulletin does not play with utf-8 encoding. Posts by users where truncated and partially posted or they just completely broke. In short vbulletin 4 is utter garbage and I am sorry I ever tried it on this site. This is the last time I will switch software on this site. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

I had a catastrophic server crash on one of the mysql slave servers. It happened as the data was syncing between the servers. I lost the vbulletin database completely. I tried to repair it and in the end gave up. I also lost all backups. Anyone that registered while we were running vbulletin is lost. All posts from that time, almost 2 months, are also lost. I apologize to those that got wiped out and hope you register again. I have added safeguards to make sure this never happens again

Use this forum to let me know what you like or dislike here at Off Topic Forum. Also let me know by starting a new thread in this forum if you find a bug or if a feature doesn't work as you expected.

As you can see I have changed forum software back to vBulletin. Nothing against IPB I just thought this site would benefit from some of the extras that vBulltin has to offer from the addons community. All data has been imported as well as the downloads and links. I will be adding the news page back soon and will also add a blog section for users that want to create their own mini news site with in Microsoft Help Forums. If you find any bugs while visiting the site be sure to let me know in the Site Feedback and Suggestions forum. Thanks for your continued support. Bob Schwarz

As you can see we have switched the software used to power this site. If you encounter any problems post in the feedback forum and let me know what is happening and what you tried to do when the problem occurred.

There will be some major changes coming in the next month or so. More info will be posted as I get the plan finalized. For one this site will be merged with an off topic forum I bought a couple weeks ago. I am also considering a software change for the forum and the gallery. Watch this topic for further news on what is in store for GF

I updated the gallery to the newest version. Some cool new features so make sure and check it out.

I have installed a more modern style. This style highlights the newest posts and content instead of the forums themselves although the forums are still easily accessible from the left sidebar. If you encounter any bugs please let me know. This skin has been tested with Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer 8 and 9 so it should work for everyone. If you have display problems you can change your skin to the Microsoft Blue skin by using the skin chooser at the bottom of the page. Thanks and hope you all enjoy the new look of Microsoft Help Forums.

As many of you know I have a few forums covering a variety of topics. I have enabled a system that will allow you to login to any of the sites in my network with your login information that you use here. Some of you have accounts on some of the other sites. If you signed up at those sites with the same email address as here then your login was merged so when you login it will use the info from here. If you have never joined any of the other sites in the network and if you use your login from here you will have to edit your profile. The only thing that this universal login does is allow you to login to any site on the network without going through the registration proce…

If you want to post a video you simply copy the URL to the video from the site the video is on and paste it into the thread or post. Our media parser will automatically extract the video and play it inline. The parser supports over 250 media sites. If you find a site that has videos and it's not on our list let me know and I'll add it.

Signatures: We invite all of our members to personalize their signatures but we ask that you keep the size reasonable. Anything over sized will have to be edited or removed. We have specific rules regarding signatures so you will want to read our rules and guidelines. Commercial Links in signatures are expressly forbidden without specific approval and will be removed. Links to recognized charities and personal websites are permitted provided that these sites do not contain anything that we would not allow here. Signatures will not be automatically added to previous posts if you did not have a signature at the time of posting no signature will appear even after being…

I have opened the site with just the members forums. This is a pre-launch for users to sign up and give me feedback on which forums I should add. I will start small and expand as we grow. For now please take the time to introduce yourself to the community and if you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see let me know. The forums are up and complete. The articles section still has default data and that will be changed as we add more content. If you are interested in being an editor to add new Android articles let me know by PM. The gallery is open and ready for submissions as are the blogs. You can create your own blog and albums right now. …

I have this site slated to move to one of the new servers tomorrow. The should only be offline for a few minutes if at all.

Due to the incompatibly and bugs in the current styles I have removed them all and replaced them with one style that will work with this version of IP.Board. All issues that everyone had with the styles should be gone with this new style. I will continue to work on the others to see if I can work out all the issues so they might be back at a later time. Also I am testing an arcade system on my test site. If all goes well the arcade should be back by the first of the year. As always if you find an bugs with this skin start a thread in the bugs forum.

Use this thread to let me know of any bugs you encounter with the new version of software we're running. There is a whole mess of new features including interactive profiles. I'm sure Bender will write up a tutorial to help you customize your profile as you like. There are a few things I haven't added yet. One being a hack that will allow you to create a forum fr any social group you create. Have fun and let me know what bugs you run into.

Use this forum to post any bugs you find. Start a new topic for each bug reports. It's easier for me to track them if they are in their own thread.