New host, new forum, new stuff

Hello there! A load of things have changed since time I wrote the last article so this is going to be a pretty long write but I will try to go through everything in detail.

New Host:
You should know by now (or should have figured out) that like birds The Sentinel Alliance migrate on a regular schedule, and so we did. As of 22/05/14 we have officially migrated this website to a new and much faster web host. Located now in Iceland (no not the shop) instead of the USA like most web hosts. This server should have a much better connection to our members in Europe. As well as being closer to most of our members this server also runs entirely on SSDs and uses a lot of new web optimization technology to be able to run super fast under almost any load (seriously, this server should be able to handle traffic numbers in the hundreds without any slowdown and according to our statistics this website is loading most pages in under 0.0215659 seconds).

New Forum:
We have moved to a new forum software (again), this time with so many new features it’s almost impossible to list them all (this is very much the premium of open-source software). I will attempt to run through some of the main new very cool features.

  • Very advanced moderator feature - Too bad for the trouble makers but
    this forum has some very advanced moderator features including IP
    tracking, moderator per user notes, moderator control center, ability
    for moderators to check over bad users posts before they are visible,
    warning levels, moderator post queue and many other things.
  • More editing features - Things like quick editing, draft saving, file
    attachments and polls Better group features - Custom groups can now
    be created with leaders that can invite other members. This will help
    groups like BCSL and TSA Core operate around the forum
  • User CP/Mod CP/ Admin CP - All of the options for each of these
    diffrent groups are split up into seperate control panels that I have
    found to be very ordered and useful.

What I’m going to be working on:
Although this forum is working great it’s by no means finished yet so here is what I’m going to be working on:

  1. Finishing off the news feed, as you may have noticed if you visited
    the previous site there was a feed of the latest anoucements on the
    front page. However the previous one I created will not work with
    this forum software so I’m going to have to recode it.
  2. Fixing the old icons. You may have noticed many ugly looking icons
    dotted around the page in a dark blue color, this icons are the
    default from the origianl old theme for this forum so I will have to
    remake those.
  3. Other little things around the palace. This whole forum project from
    installation to the final stages was only a 2 day project so of
    course there are still a few things around in the code and design
    that I still need to improve. Feedback/suggestions would be
    apricated, please put them in the feedback.
  4. Teamspeak intergration. I’m currently making a basic php script to
    show the members that are online in the Teamspeak on the website
    footer.

Now I see why mums go to Iceland!