GreekChat will be temporarily offline for a few hours sometime... this week.

[John]

Just a quick note to everyone...

GC will be offline for a few hours, sometime over the next few days (July 20 ~ July 22), moving to a new webserver and for software upgrades.

When I take the forums offline I'll put up a simple static temp offline page. So if you see something like that you'll know GC will (as long as nothing goes wrong) be running on the new webserver within a few hours after.

I have some family plans on both Saturday & Sunday. But do also plan to get this done if I can squeeze in a handful of uninterrupted hours somewhere those days. Otherwise will be on Monday.

That's pretty much it for now.

Thanks for hanging in there with GreekChat while I continue to work on, rebuild & sort out various tech issues.

[Cookiez17]

Thanks for the warning John. I am excited to see the updates to the board!

[Phrozen Sands]

Thanks for the heads up. Will it still have the same name, so we’ll know where to find it when it’s back up and running?

[John]

Originally Posted by Cookiez17

Thanks for the warning John. I am excited to see the updates to the board!

Visual updates will also be coming very soon, but not this time. This project involves switching to different server hardware, moving to a different datacenter in a different State along with lots of backend software changes.

If anything is noticeable after these coming changes it will just be with site responsiveness. I'm expecting site speed to improve significantly. However, if the bots that have been hammering GC continue to or increase then I will still have some other work to do to deal with that to get things running faster.

The new server I estimate to be approx 2x the speed/capability of the server that GC is moving from.

Originally Posted by Phrozen Sands

Thanks for the heads up. Will it still have the same name, so we’ll know where to find it when it’s back up and running?

Yes, site name & domain name will go unchanged: greekchat.com

[carnation]

I can't wait to see! And also for it to come back--GC is a hard habit to break after 25 years!

[PGD-GRAD]

THANK YOU so much, John. Your dedication is indeed admirable!

[cheerfulgreek]

Thank you, John! You’re the BEST!

[UVASquirrel]

Thank you John!!

[honeychile]

I think we ALL appreciate the time & effort you put into GreekChat, John - Thank You!

[AGDee]

Appreciate all you do to keep GC running!

[John]

Saturday & Sunday I got the new server prepped. Basically reinstalled & reconfigured as per the tech recipe that I've been sorting out over the last few months.

Another few things to do today, then will be moving GC over to the new server, doing another software upgrade, then re-opening the site. That should be before the day is over.

By the way, I don't want to disappoint anyone who may have missed where I posted about it not being a visual upgrade. When GC is back online it will look the same (with this project) but should be running a lot better. Background software & hardware is what will be changing this time around.

[carnation]

What would we do without the classic GC look? Over the years, my kids have said, "Don't go in the bedroom if the screen is glowing periwinkle, Mom is on Greekchat."

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by John

Saturday & Sunday I got the new server prepped. Basically reinstalled & reconfigured as per the tech recipe that I've been sorting out over the last few months.

Another few things to do today, then will be moving GC over to the new server, doing another software upgrade, then re-opening the site. That should be before the day is over.

By the way, I don't want to disappoint anyone who may have missed where I posted about it not being a visual upgrade. When GC is back online it will look the same (with this project) but should be running a lot better. Background software & hardware is what will be changing this time around.

Wasn’t there something you were going to do differently? Like, to where only mods and members who bought a coffee would be able to see? It was like a preview or something. Maybe I misread it. I just thought you posted something like that in the coffee thread.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by carnation

What would we do without the classic GC look? Over the years, my kids have said, "Don't go in the bedroom if the screen is glowing periwinkle, Mom is on Greekchat."

Remember the YELLOW?

[John]

Some things haven't gone as quickly as I expected today and did get distracted a bit. So probably will be extending this into tomorrow.

Originally Posted by carnation

What would we do without the classic GC look? Over the years, my kids have said, "Don't go in the bedroom if the screen is glowing periwinkle, Mom is on Greekchat."

Hmm... maybe we can have the classic GC look still be an option.

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

Wasn’t there something you were going to do differently? Like, to where only mods and members who bought a coffee would be able to see? It was like a preview or something. Maybe I misread it. I just thought you posted something like that in the coffee thread.

Yes, but that's not with this upgrade. When we do the preview that will be when I have GC migrated into a different more modern forum system. So some members and mods have a chance to test that out & get familiar with it before it replaces the old software.

Originally Posted by honeychile

Remember the YELLOW?

That was way back in the day. The original software that GC ran on, before even what we are using currently.