Why does the website look and feel different?

We have been having a lot of bugs on the website. I have been extremely busy and was not paying as much attention as I used to on the website. This is an attempt to get rid of the bugs and to make the website more user friendly with easier access to things. Also to get rid of the useless things that we had on the previous website which didn’t get used at all.

So what all has changed?

1. The server has been tuned for faster access.

2. A new database has been attached to our website, this was done because the old database could not handle all the information that was given to it. Pictures, accounts, thanks, registrations for the trips, posts, custom fields, these are all kept in the database in places known as tables. When tables get too burdened, they break which is known as crashing. So, for now the tables are not overloaded.

3. Our old style has been edited for easier access. Such as the chat icon on the top or the post new topic hover on drop down menu in our sidebar. Now you can post a new topic with one click!

4. The top menu has been fixed to a better view. The old look was too rough IMO.

5. Our Facebook page link has been given in the header. So that it is easier to go to our Facebook page by one click.

6. Since these days, everyone was using the recent topics window only to view new posts, that has been made as the primary source of information, although you can still find the links to the forums in the sidebar.

7. Ganesh’s request and a very good request, to show humidity too in the weather widget has been fulfilled. A trustworthy weather widget which does not crash every now and then has been added. It shows quite a lot of information, although it is not as jazzy or good looking as our previous ones, but it does it’s job nicely.

8. The email problem has been solved, although it has not been tested yet. But the server tuneup was primarily to solve the outgoing email problem. Now we will be able to send emails when new trips are posted to all the members.

9. Blogs, and search engine optimization addons have been removed because they were putting unnecessary pressure on the database. Search engine optimization tweaks have been hard coded in the system now.

10. A new installation of the phpBB system has been installed and has been coded to suit our needs including all the modifications that we had previously and were being used.

11. You will notice new icons for read and unread posts. They have been made by me, since we are an offroad website, we should try and have cars around as much as possible! LOL!

Those are a few points on the top of my head. Server tuneup and new installation with database optimization also gets rid of the bugs that were lurking but had not come up yet. So hopefully, we got rid of those too!

Your comments, as always are welcome. 🙂

Also, I would like to ask, the announcements window that we had on our index page and our homepage. Did you guys use it? Do you think we should get it back?