Just to keep everyone informed about what's happening with the migration process of vBulletin to IPB, so far everything seems to be working as intended! After taking the forum data I imported the forum database into my home server and then went ahead with a test migration. For those that were keeping an eye on the shoutbox you might have seen me doing frequent updates on how I was progressing. Let's put it this way - it took much longer than I thought it would!
Now the main reason it took so long is because my home server is only something very small, we're talking about a NAS with only 512MB RAM and a 2GHz ARM Marvell CPU so it's nothing compared to this server. I would imagine that if I did the same importing process on this server then it would take a fraction of the time.
Anyway once I completed the IPB installation I then started to migrate the vBulletin data across to IPB and all I can say is blimey, it took just as long as the importing process! Now because of there being different configurations and my server having an older version of certain software on here, it meant that some of the data couldn't be copied across so in some of the screenshots you will see places where there's negative numbers, disregard those as that would all be fine on this server.
So after 4 solid days of test migration on my NAS I can now say confidently to everyone that we can migrate to IPB without too many issues and things will be so much nicer compared to what you're all used to.
What will need to be done by every user (including myself) is this: Update your email addresses! The reason is because during the migration process vB and other forum software have different ways in which they handle the password encryption/decryption, that means that your passwords will not work! We will let you know in advance of when the website will go down, then when it is up you will need to reset your passwords so sorry about the inconvenience in that regard.
I will also be creating a new skin for the website before we move anything across so I will keep you updated in both the shoutbox and on here. So here's some screenshots for everyone to see, hopefully you all will like the new way things work as it's so much nicer and more intuitive.
Main forum frontpage:
Member List:
Calendar:
Thread layout:
Member profile:
Now the main reason it took so long is because my home server is only something very small, we're talking about a NAS with only 512MB RAM and a 2GHz ARM Marvell CPU so it's nothing compared to this server. I would imagine that if I did the same importing process on this server then it would take a fraction of the time.
Anyway once I completed the IPB installation I then started to migrate the vBulletin data across to IPB and all I can say is blimey, it took just as long as the importing process! Now because of there being different configurations and my server having an older version of certain software on here, it meant that some of the data couldn't be copied across so in some of the screenshots you will see places where there's negative numbers, disregard those as that would all be fine on this server.
So after 4 solid days of test migration on my NAS I can now say confidently to everyone that we can migrate to IPB without too many issues and things will be so much nicer compared to what you're all used to.
What will need to be done by every user (including myself) is this: Update your email addresses! The reason is because during the migration process vB and other forum software have different ways in which they handle the password encryption/decryption, that means that your passwords will not work! We will let you know in advance of when the website will go down, then when it is up you will need to reset your passwords so sorry about the inconvenience in that regard.
I will also be creating a new skin for the website before we move anything across so I will keep you updated in both the shoutbox and on here. So here's some screenshots for everyone to see, hopefully you all will like the new way things work as it's so much nicer and more intuitive.
Main forum frontpage:

Member List:

Calendar:

Thread layout:

Member profile:
