Ron Earp
Admin
Dear GT40s.com Members,
GT40s.com has now been around for almost six years - unbelievable! The board was started in the middle of 2001, a few months after I purchased Roaring Forties kit #44 from Australia, at the prompting of two then-prominent GT40 community personas. The forum was first started on a free service and then later moved on to the UBBthreads software and a dedicated server platform. Over time the forum attracted a lot of GT40 gear heads and we have a 100% free community that is entirely supported via user donations and paying advertisers. Many thanks to all the members and advertisers for making this happen!
We've recently upgraded to the newest version of VBulletin software in addition to having undergone a cosmetic make over. The newest version of software fixes a lot of security holes, is more robust and efficient with server resources, and is generally an all around more stable package. To the end user not a whole lot has changed, but there are a few cool features.
We're a big group now, over 3500 members and a whole lot more on the outside just lurking. The site can eat up a fair amount of time during a week to keep running, handle user requests, and so forth but so far it has been worth it. It is a cool thing to see GT40s.com grow, expand user base, and to become an integral part of the GT40 scene. It has been a long and twisted road, and I'm still not there, but I hope to join a lot of you folks as a GT40 owner one day,
Thanks for making the site what it is!
Best Regards,
Ron
GT40s.com has now been around for almost six years - unbelievable! The board was started in the middle of 2001, a few months after I purchased Roaring Forties kit #44 from Australia, at the prompting of two then-prominent GT40 community personas. The forum was first started on a free service and then later moved on to the UBBthreads software and a dedicated server platform. Over time the forum attracted a lot of GT40 gear heads and we have a 100% free community that is entirely supported via user donations and paying advertisers. Many thanks to all the members and advertisers for making this happen!
We've recently upgraded to the newest version of VBulletin software in addition to having undergone a cosmetic make over. The newest version of software fixes a lot of security holes, is more robust and efficient with server resources, and is generally an all around more stable package. To the end user not a whole lot has changed, but there are a few cool features.
- Automatic photo resizing - now you don't have to worry about meeting forum requirements for picture size. Take your picture, upload it on the attachment screen like you normally do, and the forum will handle making it 640x480 for proper browser viewing. Enjoy this one - I know it'll cut down on PMs and emails to the admins and save me a lot of time. Try it out, let's see those pictures! Caution - if you upload a 2048x1024 picture to GT40s.com it is going to take a good while because the picture has to fully upload, then the forum has to resize it, so be patient if you do this!
- A User Infraction Manager - have a look at the photos below (admin screens, you don't see that). This system allows the admins to keep tabs on those that overuse or abuse GT40s.com. Folks who advertise wares with every post, abuse the forum, spammers, folks who don't play nice with others, folks who use multiple logins, etc. it allows the admins to record the events and after awhile can result in a user being banned. I don't think the system will get much use at all, we're a fairly friendly lot on GT40s.com.
- A few changes to the menu items to make it easy to navigate. I hope that we did the right thing there.
- GT40s.com store is installed but it is not live yet. We're starting to collect goods that will be sold through this store and they range from hard to find bits to build your car to things like artwork, posters, tshirts, etc. GT40s.com vendors might wish to offer their wares through the system since it'll handle payments for you seamlessly and provide an advertising environment for your wares. Contact me if you are interested.
We're a big group now, over 3500 members and a whole lot more on the outside just lurking. The site can eat up a fair amount of time during a week to keep running, handle user requests, and so forth but so far it has been worth it. It is a cool thing to see GT40s.com grow, expand user base, and to become an integral part of the GT40 scene. It has been a long and twisted road, and I'm still not there, but I hope to join a lot of you folks as a GT40 owner one day,
Thanks for making the site what it is!
Best Regards,
Ron