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TWT will be celebrating its' first year online this month!!

Tourmeister

Keeper of the Asylum
Admin
Joined
Feb 28, 2003
Messages
51,144
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8,053
Location
Huntsville
First Name
Scott
Last Name
Friday
Howdy,

:tab Well, February 28th will be the one year anniversary for the kick off of the Two Wheeled Texans website. I have to admit that when I first started setting things up, I had no idea what I was getting into or what I was doing. Hosting troubles got us off to a rocky start. No sooner than I sent out emails and spread the word, the servers started crashing. It was several months before we finally managed to move to a new hosting service that has since been providing excellent service! However, even during those first few months, our membership grew steadily, much to my surprise and delight. Now here we are, having just rolled over 500 members and a year under our belt.
:chug:

:tab By far, the coolest thing about this site has been the people I have met, both online and in person. I am very pleased with the way the general tone of the site has developed. It seems that everything nowdays has to have "an edge" to hold peoples' interest. I think this site has shown that it is possible to not have the "in your face" attitude and still attract a great crowd of people. I think that is more a function of our members than anything I have done with the site, so thanks! :bow:

:tab Some of you may have read the posts about updating the forum. This has turned into a real dilemma. It seems both of the leading forum software packages are in transition between the old and new versions. Neither has set a definite release date for the new versions. The new releases should address issues such as uploading images, better admin utilities (like ya'll care about that :-P ), resolution of many of the AOL user problems, better forum organization capabilities, etc,... I'll post updates about all of this in the News forum as things develop.

:tab I really want to thank all of the people that have generously donated to the forum to cover the costs of keeping us online. I sank a lot of money into the start up that I really should not have done given my financial situation at the time. However, I just really thought getting the forum up was important. Your contributions have paid that original sum back, caught us up with the current bills, and even provided a bit of a surplus. Hopefully, I can use that surplus to get some T-shirts done!! :roll: So anyway, I really appreciate the vote of confidence.

:tab I am really looking forward to the coming year. I hope to wear out a lot of tires and meet a lot of new folks. I'd like to encourage everyone to try to make it to the riding events and regualr bike nights. If you don't have anything going on in your area, get something going! :-P That is what this site is all about, getting Texas riders together.

Adios,
 
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500 members in just one year??? wow!! that is really something!
Congrats to you Scott for putting this site together, to Beth, no doubt she has to put up with your late night site tewaking binges..lol

Let's go and get 500 more member!
 
Congratulation on being open a year. Like the saying goes, I wasn't here from the beginning, but I got here as soon as I could.

Ok, question. What are the two leading packages you are looking at? I think I asked you this before, but are they share/freeware or do you have to purchase them?

Don't get me wrong, I am not about to follow your lead and open another forum. I just have an inquiring mind.
 
Anniversary

Congratulations, Scott. Happy Anniversary on a job well done. I look forward to this second year of TWT! :chug:
 
Howdy,

:tab The two most popular forum packages are phpBB and VBulletin. phpBB is free and is an open source project much like Linux. It is very easy to customize and tweak. They are nearing the release of the next major version. What it will do is take a lot of the things that have to be done manually now and let it be done via control panels. It will have more user features as well. However, since it is free, the developers have to give priority to real life issues first.

:tab VBulletin is not free. It is something like $80 per year to continually renew the license. You can also buy a long term license for more. They too are on the verge of a major version release. It too has lots of really awesome new features. However, switching to VB would be some serious work because it does not use the same database format as our current forum. I would want the conversion to be mostly seamless from a user perspective. I don't want everyone to have to reregister or to loose all the posts up to this point. There are some utilities that convert the phpBB database to the VB format so hopefully that would not be an issue.

:tab Neither development team will set any kind of definite date for which we can expect to see the release of the next version. Very annoying for all the Forum admins sitting out here waiting like me. But what can you do? :shrug:

Adios,
 
I really like the forum as is. It's nice to be able to see the posts since your last visit. Makes it easier to keep up. Keep up the good work Scott.
 
Congrats, Scott, and continued thanks for providing all that you do.

Hopefully, my "actual ride with TWTers to posts on TWT" ratio will be much higher in '04.. ;)
 
Great work Scott - this really is a super forum. I tune in to a couple of bike specific forums and get good technical info from them. I also tune into this and a couple of others to get more from a "rider" perspective. This is hands down the best forum of the bunch in terms of all around resourcefulness.

It's been said, but what really keeps me hooked here is the thought that folks put in to what they say. Another big plus is the compassion shown to our members in time of trouble. You set the tone for this, and the group responds to reach out to the family and loved ones of those needing that support.

I'll ride with this bunch anyday !

Dave.
 
Congrats to TWT for such a successful year!!! :-D It's really been great to be a part of this family and to meet new people through this site. I'm looking forward to another group ride once the weather gets nicer. 8)
 
Congratulations Scott. Great site and great information. We appreciate your and yours effort and time. Hope to meet you one of these days.
Gordon
 
Congrats

In an effort to maintain the proper decorum and not have an "in your face attitude" as you so eloquently stated it Scott let me just say

"Jolly good show old bean." "Glad to have met ya."

Ride safe ride free

Vittorio
 
Scott, a certain (former) Honda rider wanted to send you a champagne toast:

Looks like he's having a little trouble with the bottle there, but it's the thought that counts, right? :wink:
Here's to next year - bigger and better than before! :chug:
 
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Feb 28th was the start last year. Where does the time go...? :roll:

Adios,
 
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