Revamp of DN Trade

[neddy]

We’ve been alluding to it for ages, but we’re very close to giving DNT a good makeover!

As we said when we took over, it's very important for us to build on what Soj created.

Our aim is to provide a comprehensive resource for Aussie domainers, internet marketers and ancillary providers - a sort of one-stop shop.
And it is really important that we have these changes and new features in place prior to embarking on a big membership drive.

So the new look DNT is going to incorporate the following:

• a new homepage that retains the community feel of DNT, but has featured articles (written by invited guests)

• updated forum, with mobile version and social networking features

• tools, resources and exclusive offers

I'd also like to welcome Richard (aka FirstPageResults) as a partner in DNT. Timmy has been fired - ha ha! (Just kidding, he is focusing his
attention on Voucher/s.com.au and has stepped aside from an ownership role). We are still good mates. Richard will be handling all the
ongoing technical and day to day aspects of DNT.

We welcome any feedback or suggestions, after all this is your community too!

By the way, it’s great to see quite a few new contributing members! It gives DNT a good momentum.

Many thanks, Ned

 

[sp@rky13]

Sounds good. Random thing I noticed yesterday. Seeing as you have a logo can we get a favicon up

 

[paz]

mobile version....

 

[FirstPageResults]

Sounds good. Random thing I noticed yesterday. Seeing as you have a logo can we get a favicon up

That's been annoying me aswell, I will make sure to include it in the update.

 

[sp@rky13]

Woo, thanks Richard

 

[ScottNugent]

Very exciting, look forward to it!

 

[Ash]

Looking forward to watching it take shape (and a big +1 for the favicon).

 

[Snooks]

I will settle for an rss feed of all the "secret tips". straight into my inbox

 

[.Joel]

Take it easy with the "articles" feature on the front page, if you lack contributors it will make the website look stale. Perhaps feature it, but don't make it the main point of the homepage. You can achieve this by limiting the intro text, and also simply putting the Month as the date published opposed to the actual full date. That way an article published on the 5th of June still looks current on the 25th of June.

/goes back to behind his rock and swears at this chunk of code that has me stumped all morning.

 

[FirstPageResults]

It's been quite a while, so I thought I'd better give an update regarding our progress with the DNT upgrade.

We had hoped to roll out the update over the weekend, however a few setbacks and teething issues with the new website and upgraded forum held us back.

Our aim now is to get these few remaining issues resolved during the week and cross over to the new site over the coming weekend.

The update is being done over the weekend to minimise any downtime whilst we migrate to our new server (thanks VentraIP). We think (and hope) you'll like the new look DNT - it certainly will offer a lot more resources and articles relevant to domaining.

 

[sp@rky13]

May I ask what you were on before (hosting wise) and what you're moving to (plan wise again)

 

[FirstPageResults]

May I ask what you were on before (hosting wise) and what you're moving to (plan wise again)

Not sure atm, we are still leeching hosting from Soj Probably a VPS or reseller account.

VentraIP have provided a custom VPS, so there is no plan per say.

 

[soj]

Sites currently hosted on a VPS at KnownHost.com, would be much better on an Aussie server

 

[ScottNugent]

That's true, the difference between my ping and some of my competitors (who host overseas); 19ms compared to 220ms. Might seem small, but imagine a high-graphics site? Support Australian hosting I say

 

[zhenjie]

Not sure atm, we are still leeching hosting from Soj Probably a VPS or reseller account.

VentraIP have provided a custom VPS, so there is no plan per say.

booOOo Ventraip. kept telling me no VPS available.

 

[FirstPageResults]

booOOo Ventraip. kept telling me no VPS available.

I'm on the waiting list aswell Zhen (been a few months). I want another VPS for myself..

 

[techmo]

Booo? More like good on them for continuously selling out of new stock supply and demand my friends

 

[ScottNugent]

Haha true techmo! If you ask me, it just shows they are a fair-dinkum company; they could easily make HEAPS more profit by churning out their VPS's more rapidly; but they prefer to have a few GOOD VPS's and make sure everything is setup right and smooth.

 

[techmo]

You said it Scott

 

[FirstPageResults]

Hello all,

As you can see, the upgrade still hasn't happened

I can assure you this wasn't through lack of effort, we worked hard but in the end fell short of our goal. Let me explain what's happening for those interested:

We are upgrading the forum to vBulletin 4.x. Even though this software has a bad reputation among vb supporters, it appears to be working fine. We also have our publishing software powering the new homepage and articles etc - also working fine.

The setbacks have been caused by custom code that "bridges" the user system of vBulletin with the publishing software - this is a so that users can login/logout on either system, post comments on articles, register, upgrade profile etc etc. Unfortunately there is no commercial or open source solution readily available that meets our needs.

I won't bore you with all the technical details, but just let you know we are working on a fix.