The Half Ashed Cigar Forum

star644 wrote:I guess I better post something

You name the cut

...sent by smoke signal from Cigar Country

I caught some comments that a couple folks had noticed the "Upcoming Shows" list was outdated. I've installed a new handler for that. I'll try to keep it somewhat up to date, and will get to having 6-8 weeks ahead soon....Here's a link to the new page:

CLICK HERE

"We" - either Half Ashed specifically or the server on which we're hosted - are under a horrendous DDoS attack at the moment. It's been going on for about 12 hours, and is still on the upswing. I've turned on an interstitial page, which you'll see for 5 seconds if you visit the regular site right now. I'm hoping the host gets it under control, but it's nothing but a temporary band-aid. If it's still ongoing tonight, the show will probably only be available through YouTube/G+ and not broadcast through the site. If that's the case, I'll try to post a link on our Facebook page and Twitter just before show time.

The volume of requests being fed to the site is exponential right now. So, you may see some goofiness and probably a good bit of downtime throughout this afternoon.

I've provisionally removed the interstitial page. We'll see how it shakes out.

...sent by smoke signal from Cigar Country

I think by now all the SSL stuff is up and functioning. There is a reason for all this - Google will begin penalizing non-secure sites with a warning in the browser bar and diminished results in 2017. Even thought we (Half Ashed) don't collect any financial information, we do have passwords for the forum and that's one of the triggers. Besides, it's just good practice to encrypt everything going back/forth through the site. So, we're all secure now.....

Kip wrote:I think by now all the SSL stuff is up and functioning. There is a reason for all this - Google will begin penalizing non-secure sites with a warning in the browser bar and diminished results in 2017. Even thought we (Half Ashed) don't collect any financial information, we do have passwords for the forum and that's one of the triggers. Besides, it's just good practice to encrypt everything going back/forth through the site. So, we're all secure now.....

Good call, mon capitan1

I've been (finally) performing some maintenance and a major update to the forum software between power outages this afternoon. I believe all the function and structure are back in place. It'd been so long I had to completely uninstall the old and reinstall anew, so some of the aesthetic elements will be slightly wonky for a while until I rewrite all the stylesheets.

Let me know if there are any functionality issues over the weekend and I'll look into them.

THe new site looks beautiful. I really, really dig it.

This doesn't impact the forum, but the website will be getting an overhaul in the coming weeks. I have to confess that long ago I threw in the towel on certain aspects of it. Namely, I had built several key parts of the site with a piece of software that turned out to be inferior. It has a habit of (1)breaking frequently when the developer makes an update, (2) is very resource intensive and weighs down the site, and (3) doesn't like to get along with other software...but, as I mentioned, it was too late. I'd built integral parts of the backend with it, so I just lived with its problems and kept polishing the turd to make it work every time it broke.

It recently broke one of the more important areas (the entire archive of shows is broken for the past 2 weeks). The developer is absolutely worthless to help with it; the same functionality works in other parts of the site, but for whatever reason it doesn't like the custom taxonomy I created to manage the archive posts. Since I can't seem to polish the turd this time, it has motivated me to get back into the investigation for a replacement. I found something much better and better-supported, so I've invested in the software. I have rebuilt most of the behind-the-scenes associated functionality and information that was reliant on the old software, but there are 9 more pages I have to build - which are the trickiest of them all (that's why they're the last to get replacements made). The archive, being laden with a custom post-type, custom taxonomy, and numerous custom fields, will be the last thing fixed. Once I get the functionality all fixed up, I'm going to add in a couple things I've dreamt of for a long time, give the superficie a reboot and "purty" it up, and maybe even get back into some written reviews. Who knows, maybe I'll bring back regular content. Buying new software tends to energize me for at least a few months

I also have to confess I have been more than a little lackadaisical with the site for over 2 years - for the above reason, as well as a general lack of time. Strangely, pipes and pipe tobacco have awakened the desire to get back into the groove. This fall, we aren't planning on adding any more major projects with the mission work (outside of adding an advanced class for the kids in Palo Alto), so I don't have to invent/reinvent any wheels. There's still a very full schedule for 5 days and 2 nights each week, but I should have much more time for tobacciana, as all the time spent with my cohorts devising the projects we have now will hopefully pay off this Fall. We'll see....

Much obliged! I rarely have an issue with the site, but I’m sure you are much aware of all the things that we don’t see or understand. Good luck and thanks!