Anybody remember the trail map that used to be on STR? Something along those lines will be coming back soon. But this time it’ll be useful, work well, and frankly will kick ass. I plan to have it include categories for markers. Possible categories are trailhead (duh), meet spots (i.e. ridge park, canyon vistas, etc), and post ride grub spots (i.e. wahoo’s, cook’s, etc). Each marker will have a detailed bubble when clicked on along with a small photo.
Stay tuned.
Sleeping In
So I slept in again today. There were a couple rides going on, one at Holy Jim/Trabuco and the other in Aliso but I didn’t set my alarm last night. Figured if I woke up early for some strange reason I would go ride. Ended up waking up close to 11 am. The poison oak on my right knee got a bit better overnight.
Photo Gallery Software Update
Soon after breakfast I went to tackle the photo gallery update for STR. This is what’s new in this version:
. Improved search results – everything moved into search.php, results saved to db to save on paging through searches and having to “re-search” every page load
. New Profile section includes tabs showing profile info (user can customize using BB codes), photos and comments
. Forum thumbnail link bb code on showphoto (shows a linked thumbnail to the showphoto page)
. AJAX additions:
. Add / Remove from Favorites
. Notify / Remove from notification
. Open Close photo for comments
. Stick / Unstick photo
. Subscribe / Unsubscribe to gallery
. Improved showmember page – significant query reduction displaying last photos
. Some changes to templates to improve layout – removed alternate template directory
. User set Album intro, album titles, on/off
. User set Album default layout (puzzle, gallery, thumbnail, etc)
. Users viewing a category (new option in Show Gallery options)
So I do the usual: backup the databases and proceed with the upgrade. Ran into some issues first time around, restored the backup, and tried again. Second time worked.
My personal favorite new feature is the ‘linked thumbnail’ line under the photos. Copy paste that into a post and it’ll stick the thumbnail of the photo in your post and link it to the gallery. I want to modify it so the thumbnail it shows is the medium sized one (600px wide) and links to the full sized version. I’ll work on that customization later today. Once I get that customization done I’ll delete the “bbcode” line which is inferior to ‘linked thumbnail’ line and would just add unnecessary clutter.
UPDATE: Did the customization and it works how I want it to now. The linked thumbnail code posts the medium version of a photo and links to the full-size version.
Yesterday was the migration day for STR. It was somewhat of a stressful day for me but overall I think it went well.
The site was down for at least a few hours because of DNS issues. These got cleared up and it’s working well right now. Some people might have trouble getting to SocalTrailRiders.org if their DNS cache isn’t up-to-date. I sent out an email to most of the active users to inform them of this and how to fix it. Here’s the solution if SocalTrailRiders.org isn’t working for you:
How to Flush Your DNS
To flush DNS cache in Microsoft Windows:
- Start -> Run -> type cmd
- in command prompt, type ipconfig /flushdns
- Done! You Window DNS cache has just been flush.
To flush the DNS cache in Linux, restart the nscd daemon:
- To restart the nscd daemon, type /etc/rc.d/init.d/nscd restart in your terminal
- Once you run the command your linux DNS cache will flush.
To flush the DNS cache in Mac OS X:
- type lookupd -flushcache in your terminal to flush the DNS resolver cache.
ex: bash-2.05a$ lookupd -flushcache
- Once you run the command your DNS cache (in Mac OS X) will flush.
If this still doesn’t fix it, then your ISP’s DNS cache is to blame and that could take a day or so to be updated.
Looking Forward
I’m very excited about the move. The new server is physically located a lot closer to us (in San Jose, CA rather then Chicago as the old server was), has a lot more capacity, is much more configurable, and should be more reliable.
A faster, more reliable STR will result in a better browsing experience for STR users!
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