Forum Housekeeping

Since bringing the forums back online I’ve been trying to work out the best way to ensure we have a manageable and compact resource here for people to use.

In an effort to simplify the way the forums are managed I’ve already removed all the “Trading/Forsale” forums and tidied a lot of the spam posts out.

The latest change has been to consolidate some of the less popular content, namely the larger scale forums, this means there’s now a single forum for 1/18th Scale and above, with their technical and discussion threads all merged.

 

ausmicro.com Update – 29th December 2014

ausmicro_logo_with_car

Here we go, the last update for 2014!

It’s been a month since the last one and while I haven’t completed nearly as much of the work I intended to by now I’m still here and plugging away under the covers.  I’ve also been a little tied up with a new project, TheBookingSpot, where you can find travel deals and do some trip planning.

The Forums are getting a lot of views even though there’s no much posting action going on.

It’s great to see the Forums still being recognised as holding some of the best Mini-Z and Bit Char-G technical info online.

You can do your bit by sharing the news that ausmicro.com is back on other Forums.  Take it to social media or the streets!

Did you know ausmicro.com has a Facebook Page?  Yes we do.  Why not “Like” us there as well?

Why don’t you take some time over the festive season and share on the Forums what’s in your R/C Garage now, ask for tips, or post up about racing happening in your area.

 

How to Log On with your old Username

When we imported the Forums into the new BBPress system we reset all the passwords.  So to get your old username back you’ll need to use your Registered e-mail address on this page http://www.ausmicro.com/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword to have a new Password generated and e-mailed to you.

 

Site Updates

I have managed to find in old backups some of our early video contributions from the Bit-CharG days and have uploaded them to YouTube.  You’ll need to check our Forums for a link!

Over the end of year period I’m going to try and get all the old attachment files restored into the forums.  This will be a large amount of work but will be worth the effort as many and central to the quality of our technical posts.

 

Newsletters

I like to share the updates about bringing back ausmicro.com with all of the former members, and every few weeks I’ll be sending out updates like this.  If you feel I’m cluttering up your mail box there’s instructions on how to unsubscribe at the end of the e-mail.

ausmicro.com Update – 29th November 2014

ausmicro_logo_with_car

With our first full month back online ending I thought I’d take the time to thank everyone for popping back and taking a look around.

While there haven’t been new posts in the Forums it’s obvious to see that the repository of technical information is still appreciated by many.

It’s great to see the Forums still being recognised as holding some of the best Mini-Z and Bit Char-G technical info online.

Myself, I haven’t been so active on the  Forums yet but I am still plugging away slowly behind the scenes working out how to restore some of the attached files and information that make this place what it is.

You can do your bit by sharing the news that ausmicro.com is back on other Forums.  Take it to social media or the streets!

Head over to the Forums to share what’s in your R/C Garage now, ask for tips, or post up about racing happening in your area.

 

How to Log On with your old Username

When we imported the Forums into the new BBPress system we reset all the passwords.  So to get your old username back you’ll need to use your Registered e-mail address on this page http://www.ausmicro.com/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword to have a new Password generated and e-mailed to you.

 

Site Updates

I have managed to find in old backups some of our early video contributions from the Bit-CharG days and have uploaded them to YouTube.  You’ll need to check our Forums for a link!

Over the end of year period I’m going to try and get all the old attachment files restored into the forums.  This will be a large amount of work but will be worth the effort as many and central to the quality of our technical posts.

 

Newsletters

I like to share the updates about bringing back ausmicro.com with all of the former members, and every few weeks I’ll be sending out updates like this.  If you feel I’m cluttering up your mail box there’s instructions on how to unsubscribe at the end of this e-mail.

 

I can’t wait to see you on the Forums

 

Thanks

Aaron

ausmicro.com Forums Recovered!

ausmicro.com Forums are back online!

Its far from perfect but the content of the forum up to May 2012 has been recovered!

http://www.ausmicro.com/forums

Q&A
  1. Why May 2012? I chose this date becuase it was the last completely clean backup of the Forum I have.  This was made after the last restoration and the removal of spammers etc.  While a few posts were added during 2012 & 2013 many were destroyed by the last hack.
  2. This isn’t vBulletin No, it’s not.  vBulletin was a great forum code and kept ausmicro.com running well for years BUT it was also a nightmare.  vBulletin was expensive, prone to being hacked every week and required many hours of maintenance.  This “new” setup is zero cost for the base code, has a lot of single-click update/patch functionality and is a lot leaner.
  3. So what did we lose? A lot.  BBPress (this new forum) couldn’t import things like Private Messages, Attachments or Avatars etc.  I still have the old attachment files and there may be a way of re-inserting them in here somehow – but I’ll have to work something out.  
  4. What next? Honestly I don’t know.  I wanted to bring the forums back – I’ve always said I’d do my best to keep things online.  I also know that spending 3-4 days of constant coding effort every couple of months to keep vBulletin working was not possible.  I contrast I run a few WordPress based sites and spend about an hour a week clicking the “update” button for patches and stuff.

 

Recovering your User ID

I’ve imported and created everyones user ID as they had it in the old Forum.  This new one is a lot “simpler”, but you’ll still need to update your Profile and Password to get in.

To do this just look for a Login Page and then try the “Lost Password” trick.  It requires your e-mail address to send a password too, so if you’ve changed that you’ll need to send me a message.

 

The ausmicro.com Status Update!

You’ve hit this page because it’s now where the domain http://ausmicro.com points.

This isn’t an error, the domain hasn’t been stolen and squatted on, instead you have hit the resting place of a site that was a massive part of my life.

ausmicro.com was the product of an idea shared with a good friend, it became a community, and in many ways defined who I was. Equally as importantly it put food on my table and gave me the means to do things I never would have achieved otherwise.

ausmicro_logo_with_car

All that’s gone now, the recent history where my personal issues took away the (massive) amount of time I had invested, some fraudsters who abused PayPals Buyer Protection to steal hundreds of dollars in both cash and merchandise and lastly the loss of the domain name to squatters.

In 2012 I spent a bucket of cash to get back the domain, power up the site and get back online – but by then the continual security updating that vBulletin needed, the continued vigilance against spammers not to mention the mammoth task of trying to rebuild the community was beyond me. In early 2014 yet another vBulletin security hole led to the site being defaced and once again the guys at http://stormhosts.com stepped in and did what needed to be done to protect the backend of the servers and the site has been down since.

Sorry everyone, but it’s not coming back unless I shell out another vBulletin license fee, hope to heck the DB isn’t trashed and ploughing the hundred or so hours to make it work, with crossed fingers and toes, only to have some hacker screw it up again.

If you’re here chasing tech documents then they will be linked below IF and WHEN I find the originals and upload them!

You could always jump onto eBay and buy some of the old store stock in clearing!

http://www.ebay.com.au/usr/au.mih2

Trust me I need to get rid of this stuff and move on!