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Our service is moving from the ol' trusty server known as SYDS14-N2S to a shiny new Dell one called C2S3-1E-SYD. As a result, there will be some downtime during this process.

It is scheduled to begin at 21:30 on May 14 in GMT+1000 and is scheduled to finish on May 15 at 08:00 in the same time zone.

For more info, see here.

Until KeyCaptcha is updated to work with the new release of SMF2, registration is disabled.


We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Some time in the next week or so, the domain newmruk.com will change over from the previous registrant to the new one. As such, some downtime may be encountered. If so, someone shoot me an email and I'll go play jiggery-pokery with the domain stuff and fix it up when I get a chance.

[TOMORROW]

Scheduled downtime will be happening TOMORROW at 10pm Sydney time, as the web host have to do some emergency maintainence on the fibre at the datacentre.


You can see when this will affect you here: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Forum+Downtime+22%2F10%2F2011&iso=20111022T22&p1=240&ah=4


You can see more information about the downtime here: http://status.ventraip.com.au/event.php?id=188


Questions, queries, comments, etc. can be directed to moi.

[TONIGHT]

So, we've got a bit of maintaience coming up today...

TONIGHT between 10pm Sydney time and Midnight Sydney time, the forum is likely to go out for a quarter of an hour (give or take) as maintainence is being performed on the switch at the datacentre.

You can see the times it may affect you here: http://arseh.at/9di

In between midnight Sydney time and 4am Sydney time tomorrow morning (ie. right after the datacentre people perform their maintainence), VentraIP will be performing upgrades to their network, which may affect the server's connectivity to the internet for brief periods of time.

In conclusion, if you have any trouble trying to get on the forums today, be patient, look at my Tumblr (which will update all night for your amusement) and come back later

You can keep yourself updated (should you be so inclined) here: http://status.ventraip.com.au/ - we are hosted in Sydney.

As yoy may have noticed, the forum looks a bit different. This is because Simple Machines Forum 2.0 (finally) went gold, so I upgraded.

The obvious noticable change is the new theme, which is prettier. The next one is the shout box, which has gone missing, possibly because it's not compatible with the new theme. I'll try to find a new one.

The admin console has had a bit of a makeover, which is now slightly easier to use.

The new post screen has also been changed... you can now resize the text entry screen regardless of the browser you use, and if you enable it, you can now have a rich text editor, which shows your formatting in real time. There's a button on the toolbar to enable this: it's the cursor in square brackets on the second row (last icon on my screen).


In the meantime, look around and see what other new features you can find

From about 11:30pm Sydney time to 2:00am Sydney time (about about 2:30pm to 5pm for you people in England, Scotland and Ireland), some maintainance will be performed at our webhost's datacentre. As such you may have difficulties getting on in that time. If you do have issues, don't fret, the forum shall return after that time.

[Internet Explorer 6, Windows 2000 Professional SP4 (to satisfy my curiosity):]

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, and now I've got the chance, so I will.

The main issue with most browsers and this forum is the shoutbox: some don't handle it properly, or very well. Here is a listing of browsers and how well they handle the forum:

Internet Explorer 6, Windows 2000 Professional SP4 (to satisfy my curiosity): Fails to load shoutbox and any forum pages completely. Do not use.
Internet Explorer 7: Not tested.
Internet Explorer 8, Windows XP and Windows Vista: Runs sparingly or refuses to load in Normal Mode and may cause browser to freeze. EDIT: May run fine under Compatibility Mode: click the broken page icon in the Address Bar to enable this.
Internet Explorer 9 RC, Windows 7: Shoutbox looks funny in Normal Mode, works fine in Compatibility Mode.
Internet Explorer 9 Beta, Windows 7: Shoutbox does not load properly in Normal Mode, works fine in compatibility mode
The IE9 Beta and RC versions are now unavailable. If you are using them you should upgrade to the final. Visit http://download.microsoft.com/ to download the final version.

EDIT: Internet Explorer 9.0.1 (KB2530548), Windows 7 SP1: Shoutbox does not load properly in Normal Mode, works fine in compatibility mode.

Google Chrome, any version released between now and mid-last year: Works fine.

Opera Mobile 10, Nokia Symbian S60: Shows but is unusable.
Opera 11: Messages send, however the forum index must be refreshed for them and other new messages to appear. EDIT: This behaviour is the same under Windows XP and 7.

HTC Desire Android 2.2 Browser: Displays, allows messages to be posted, however does not show a scrollbar. EDIT: Tapping "Open Popup" and posting a message there will scroll the shoutbox automagically to the bottom in that popup. This advice may also be applicable for other Android 2.2 devices (ie. Samsung Galaxy Tab, HTC Desire HD, Samsung Galaxy S, etc.)

Mozilla Firefox 3.6: Works fine.

My recommended browser is Google Chrome, as it is a fast, secure browser that is updated often and has the benefit of an integrated PDF reader (so no waiting for Adobe Reader to fartarse around) and has Adobe Flash integrated as well.

The Shoutbox requires Adobe Flash to play the "ding" sound. If you do not have Flash installed or use a device that does not support Flash (such as an iDevice) then you will not hear the "ding" sound.

On November 30th, at 22:00 Sydney time, our server will be taken down for maintainence. As a result, it is not likely that you will be able to access the site before 02:00 the following morning Sydney time.

More information can be found here.
Time Calculator - downtime starts at "Tue 10:00 PM *" in the second column from the left (Sydney)

By the looks of things the outage occurs at lunchtime on a Tuesday in the UK\Eire\Scotland, so it shouldn't affect you unless you come on here during your lunch break or you are on holidays or some such.

Prior to 21/11/2010 6:30PM ACDST, the member agreement read as follows:

You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also forbidden on this forum.

Note that it is impossible for the staff or the owners of this forum to confirm the validity of posts. Please remember that we do not actively monitor the posted messages, and as such, are not responsible for the content contained within. We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented. The posted messages express the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of this forum, its staff, its subsidiaries, or this forum's owner. Anyone who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to notify an administrator or moderator of this forum immediately. The staff and the owner of this forum reserve the right to remove objectionable content, within a reasonable time frame, if they determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, please realize that they may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately. This policy applies to member profile information as well.

You remain solely responsible for the content of your posted messages. Furthermore, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of this forum, any related websites to this forum, its staff, and its subsidiaries. The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint or legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum.

You have the ability, as you register, to choose your username. We advise that you keep the name appropriate. With this user account you are about to register, you agree to never give your password out to another person except an administrator, for your protection and for validity reasons. You also agree to NEVER use another person's account for any reason.  We also HIGHLY recommend you use a complex and unique password for your account, to prevent account theft.

After you register and login to this forum, you will be able to fill out a detailed profile. It is your responsibility to present clean and accurate information. Any information the forum owner or staff determines to be inaccurate or vulgar in nature will be removed, with or without prior notice. Appropriate sanctions may be applicable.

Please note that with each post, your IP address is recorded, in the event that you need to be banned from this forum or your ISP contacted. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.

Also note that the software places a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.

PLEASE NOTE: Your username\nickname, email address and IP address are sent to the StopForumSpam server to verify that you are not a spammer. This information is not stored on their server.

As of 6:30pm ACDST, 21/11/2010, it reads as follows, with new and updated sections shown in red:

You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, overly vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or Australian Federal law.

You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material.

Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are forbidden on this forum.

Note that it is impossible for the staff or the owners of this forum to confirm the validity of posts. Please remember that we do not actively monitor the posted messages, and as such, are not responsible for the content contained within.

We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented. The posted messages express the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of this forum, its staff, its subsidiaries, or this forum's owner. Anyone who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to notify an administrator or moderator of this forum immediately via the Report link located near each post.

The staff and the owner of this forum reserve the right to remove objectionable content, within a reasonable time frame, if they determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, please realize that they may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately. This policy applies to member profile information as well.

You remain solely responsible for the content of your posted messages. Furthermore, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of this forum, any related websites to this forum, its staff, and its subsidiaries. The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint or legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum to law enforcement branches (including but not limited to SAPOL and the Australian Federal Police).

You have the ability, as you register, to choose your username. We advise that you keep the name appropriate. With this user account you are about to register, you agree to never give your password out to any other user including administrators, for your protection and for validity reasons. You also agree to NEVER use another person's account for any reason.  We also HIGHLY recommend you use a complex and unique password for your account, to prevent account theft. Passwords must be a minimum of eight characters long and cannot contain any part of your username or email address.

After you register and login to this forum, you will be able to fill out a detailed profile. It is your responsibility to present appropriate and accurate information. Any information the forum owner or staff determines to be inaccurate or extremely vulgar in nature will be removed, with or without prior notice. Appropriate sanctions may be applicable.

Please note that with each post, your IP address is recorded, in the event that you need to be banned from this forum or your ISP contacted. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.

Also note that the software places a cookie, a text file containing information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer, however during the registration process your username\nickname, email address and IP address are sent to the StopForumSpam server to verify that you are not a spammer. This information is not stored on their server and is used solely for the purposes of identifying and preventing spam-bots from registering and posting on this forum.

Certain phrases and words are censored on this forum for a variety of reasons. Any attempts to circumvent the censoring system can result in short term banning, being placed in The Penalty Box, or for repeat offences, long term banning.

As it is impossible to guarantee permanent uptime and data security for this forum and website, the administrators will make every endeavour to notify all users of any impending planned downtime. However, as is the nature of technology, unplanned downtime happens occasionally, and the administrators and web hosts (VentraIP Australia Pty. Ltd.) can not and will not be held liable for downtime and\or loss of data.

Checking the "I Agree" box and clicking the Register buttone below signifies your agreement with these terms.

Continuing your membership signifies your agreement to the updated terms. Any queries can be directed to me.

It also appears that the old backup forum's host has disappeared from the internet, thereby meaning that a new backup forum has to be sought in the event of extended downtime for this forum. This forum is located here.

Read more here (clicky).

You can read all about it here:

http://www.newmruk.com/wordpress/2010/07/04/tonights-maintenance/

Want to win your writing preserved for prosperity on the main page? Here's how.

Read about it here.

Of which can be found hither.