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Third Server Move is Complete

Well guys, our third server move has been completed and with it, hopefully you’re noticing faster load times. There were a few hiccups, but overall it went really well. Here’s a summary of some things that we encountered and what the status is for them:

• Private Messages: Because the new server is running PHP5, we discovered that the private messaging feature was adding 30+ seconds to the load times of the home and upcoming pages. As a result, we have disabled private messaging until we can rework it for PHP5.
• Blank Pages: This one was the most frustrating for me. Various pages throughout the site were blanking for no apparent reason. We traced down to an Apache configuration setting and after a simple single-line .htaccess change, the blanking pages were all working again.
• Search Pagination: We made some progress on an outstanding bug dealing with the pagination of search results. While the bug isn’t completely fixed, you can now view all the pages of results.

So what’s next for Design Float? Over a month ago you may remember that I promised some new features were on there way including the ability to submit videos and podcasts. These features are still finished, I just hadn’t had the time to implement them because I was head deep in finding a scalable server solution. My fantastic sys admin configured the new server for collaborative development so myself and a few of the contract developers now have a dedicated development site to work off of. This will help us deploy the features we already have built as well as make the development of future additions much quicker and easier.

This is truly a learning experience for me and continues to remain a side project to my main gig, so I’m doing the best that I can given the time and resources available. Thank you all for your continued support and patience.