TGO David

We're Baaaaaaack! Welcome back to TGO, folks! Our software upgrade went pretty smoothly considering how massive our database is and how complex a lot of the things that make-up TGO really are. I kicked off the upgrades last night (Thurs 3/12/16) at around 8:00PM Central and had the new forum software online and responding to administrative things by about 11:00PM. Right now there are a lot of background processes running on our server to complete the upgrade process. These automated jobs will run until they complete, and I'm guessing it will take until at least this Sunday, the 15th, before most of them are done. Until that happens, some aspects of TGO won't be fully operational. Specifically, these are things you will notice... Search Feature / New Content Search will not be operational. Old posts and private messages will appear oddly formatted. Please do not attempt to edit them. Advertising by our Vendors will not be displayed immediately. Tapatalk will not be active. The search feature is probably the one thing many of us are going to be gritting our teeth over until it comes back online and it is going to be a lot different when it does. If you are like me, one of the first things you do when visiting TGO is hit the “View New Content” link at the top of the screen to catch up on what’s happened since you last stopped by. That feature has changed significantly with Version 4. It is a lot more powerful and flexible with the new version, but with that power and flexibility will come some “getting used to it” on our part. Here’s what you can expect: Version 4 adopts a technology that Invision calls “Activity Streams”. Many older areas like View New Content, My Content, and more are now merged into this new Activity Streams feature. One such Activity Stream emulates the sort of result that we experience right now with the View New Content search, and our members can override that with their own defaults if they find they like their own custom streams better. Members can even share their customized Activity Streams with one another if they desire. A good walk through of the Activity Streams feature is seen in the following video. Keep in mind that this video was designed to showcase this feature to forum administrators (like me) so some of it may be technical gobbledygook, but it still gives you a chance to see the feature in action better than I can describe it to you. You can watch the video here --> https://player.vimeo.com/video/139352611 Anyway, the best advice I can give you is to start exploring. Try things out! If you encounter any problems beyond what I described above (Search, Content formatting, Vendor Ads) please let me know about them in the Feedback and Support forum. Enjoy!

Well... it's about that time.   See ya'll in a bit!   :D

We got our Blu Ray copy of Deadpool on Tuesday.  I might fire it up and watch it while the software conversion runs.  :)

I wish there was a way to host a chat room easily just for TGO members while the site was down.  I'm sure there are ways of doing this with commonly available services (IRC came to mind, but I doubt very many on TGO would want to try that) but it's kind of late in the day now.   We're about T-Minus 1 Hour and 14 minutes from start time.   What are you going to do with your evening?  :)  

LOVE THIS!!!! This is seriously one of the coolest things I have ever received. I can't stop playing with it. If you guys didn't jump on this offer from Steve, you should be kicking yourselves and then asking him to order you another Pro-Tech Magic knife of some sort. Awesome. Just frickin awesome.

Welcome to TGO.

Watch the slurs.  I've hidden one post.  Not going to tolerate it.

  Hahaha.  Hopefully no one *really* hates it.  The more I've used it for testing, the more I prefer it to the current version.  :)

  I've been accused of being a real jerk in the past but I still say there's no evidence it has ever occurred.  Michael is a member here.  Let's not dog-pile with things folks were accused of.   :)

Wow.  That's a whole lot of pleasantry followed up by dropping a bombshell.   :stare:

I'm still planning to be there.

Here's a sneak peak at the new forum layout.  This picture is pretty darn big, so you would be best served right-clicking on the link and choosing the option to open it in a new window.   Ignore the repetitious arrows that you see at various places to the left and right in the picture. Those are artifacts from the scrolling screen-shot that I took in order to make that photo for you.   https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-snRvHSN/0/O/i-snRvHSN.jpg

  :D   You can download and install Google Chrome browser here... https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/index.html     And if you're not a Google fan, Mozilla Firefox here... https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

You all REALLY need to ditch Microsoft Edge / Internet Explorer and run something like Chrome or Firefox.

I came really close to doing the upgrade today while you all were out showering your moms and the moms in your lives with adoration.  We kept a low profile instead of going out, and well... it was tempting.  :lol:   I'm still on track to do the upgrade this Thursday night. 

  I'm going to look into how we could leverage Amazon S3 for cheap file storage for attachments to make this a little less of an issue.  More to come on that, and it probably won't be a "Day One" sort of thing with the new version of the software, but I will definitely look into it as quickly as I can.

Welcome!  Don't worry -- there are some pretty parts of New Mexico.  Two of them are at both sides on the state on I-40.  ;)

  Do you have a link to share?  I'd like to see what they've done with it.

  Between the 27oz Orca and the 30oz RTIC the price gap isn't very much.  There's a significant $20 difference between the 20oz RTIC and the 20oz Yeti, though.

UPDATE!   I've managed to work through all of the current challenges for converting TGO to the new software and even have the Look & Feel mostly transferred over.  Unless something unforeseen arises between now and then, I intend to make this cutover on the night of Thursday, May 12th.   Everyone loves a good Friday the 13th change!  ;)

Oooo... looking forward to this!

  I should have the two 20oz versions next week.  Once I do, I'll post up some photos of those, we'll see which ones are most popular (I'd like to offer a large size and a medium size) and then we'll start taking orders.

These arrived today!!! :D These are the RTIC 30oz and the Orca 27oz tumblers. I just ordered a 20oz Yeti and a 20oz Orca to compare. These 30oz and 27oz models will hold a LOT of beverage!

I can tell you guys that photo posting will be easier with the new editor but I will not be hosting photos as attachments on TGO beyond the Trading Post forums.  As Omega pointed out above, hosting photos takes up a lot of server space and server space costs money.  There are far too many other photo services out there that will host your pictures for free or for fractions of a penny each, for me to take on the task of hosting a bunch of photos here. Sorry guys.  Just got to try to be economical and leave photo hosting to the pros.

Very sad.  The firearms industry lost a good one.