Good news:
Last week I upgraded the software ("Active Modules") that runs the CLUAS discussion board. The new updated engine (v4.1) that runs the board is blisteringly fast compared to the previous version (v3.7). But there are loads of other improvements (such as a rich text editor for people posting topics) which will be rolled out soon. The board also now looks a bit different to the past, this look is not yet finalised but it soon will be as part of a new look to be rolled out across all of the site in the near future.

Bad news:
At the same time of the discussion board upgrade I also (a) upgraded the core technology behind the entire CLUAS site (Dotnetnnuke) to the latest version and (b) did some housekeeping in the back end of the site. All seemed to go fine until earlier this week when I noted that the RSS feed functionality was totally broken across the site. After some trouble-shooting I concluded that I would have to go for the nuclear option to fix things, i.e. I would have to restore the database to its pre-upgrade version (i.e. to a database that was a week old and - hence - content from the last week would be lost).

So last night I restored the old database and then re-applied the upgrades. This time the RSS feed engine continued to work. Phew.

The lost data has been minimised by keeping copies of blog entries and interviews that were published to the site in the last week and this content is being re-published to the site bit by bit. I also kept a copy of the email addresses of all those who created a CLUAS login profile in the last week (and who are therefore no longer in the week old 'restored' database) and will email them with an explanation and apology asking them to register again.

All discussion replies of the last week have however been lost. Apologies. However this is the first time I can recall in almost 10 years that a week of data has been lost on CLUAS (but thankfully a good chunk of that data has been salvaged).

Eoghan