Maintenance Announcement

[Johnnie F.]

Tomorrow morning around 9 - 10 a.m. I will have to take the board offline for a while, back up the database and upgrade to smf 2.0.RC1-2. Cannot predict how long it will take, depends on how smooth the upgrade goes, from a few minutes to ...?

[Johnnie F.]

Done! Wasn't possible the way the programmers intended but seems to have worked well another way.

Now we gotta find out whether everything still works.

Only the email seems to have a prob. Will find out about it.

[Johnnie F.]

The mail system seems to work again as well. So you can receive alerts of PMs sent to you on the board.

I would encourage to be using the PM system of the board rather than posting about critical issues on the board that could get our host in trouble and close the web hosting account.

To use the PM system you must be a registered member and logged in. The member registration does from now on require member activation, that means you'll get an email by the board with an activation link you have to click to activate your account. Old accounts will be checked and removed so far as they appear to be fake. Also registered but unused accounts will be removed after a while.

Please be aware of the admin not being able to check whether a member is using the same nick by himself on another board or by somebody else. Also people registering with a nick now that has been used for guest posting before might not be the same as the former guest poster.

Communication and taking care of our expat community affairs over the internet is a tricky thing, suffering setbacks from time to time. Just be not only a little but a lot more careful than at meeting people in The Mall or one of the bars.

This board still gives you the opportunity to contact people who might think similar to you. But it takes time and effort to convince somebody you have never met in person about you being trustworthy. But what do we have more of than time?

[Johnnie F.]

A little hint: When you gave a fictitious email address at registration and send or receive a PM the board will send you a notification of that to the given email. If that is non-existent it will be returned to the board's mailbox as undeliverable and spam it. So I have already seen who of the members sending PMs have given a fictitious email address. 

To avoid this you can simply turn off the notifications in your profile, modify profile, Notifications, uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." and save settings.

[Johnnie F.]

the web host sent me a note that the server needs to be turned off on Tuesday morning, April 4, due to some maintenance.

they expect this to take not more than 15 minutes.

I will make a full backup in case something unexpected happens. If we're not back online immediately please keep looking. Thanks!

[Fred]

the web host sent me a note that the server needs to be turned off on Tuesday morning, April 4, due to some maintenance.

they expect this to take not more than 15 minutes.

I will make a full backup in case something unexpected happens. If we're not back online immediately please keep looking. Thanks!

Are you sure? Tuesday April 4 2017? Or Thursday April 14 2011?

[Johnnie F.]

You're  just right! Changed it in the OP. I either need to buy a new keyboard or use hammer and chisel to get this old PC recognize the 1.

Just imagine the tragedy for our readers to assume this board had gone to the dustbin, if it's offline for up to 15 minutes without people knowing what's going on. After KF is offline since days without anybody knowing why, people would start to spin conspiracy theories and maybe get to lynching a person they suspect behind this going offline of two of the most read Korat forums. Can you imagine a completely guilty person getting lynched for something he's innocent of this time?

[Johnnie F.]

The board was offline for a few minutes due to somebody having hacked into the web account, sending massive spam instead of complaining about content, the webhost says.

Let's see whether we can stay online or do all boards in Korat fall prey to a certain person?

Now I also know that 14 was a typo, 12 is meant.