OL IS BACK AND BETTER


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OL IS BACK AND BETTER

After being hacked and down for a few day, OL is back and much better than before!

All the previous posts are here except the ones approximately between July 16/17 and July 27, when the databases where deleted by an intruder. We would not have lost these posts if the backup utility of the old phpbb board had not malfunctioned. We were able to recover many of them from other sources and we will insert them shortly.

We greatly beefed up security, so this kind of issue should never happen again.

You will find many new resources here. You should experiment a bit to get the hang of things. That is precisely what we are doing. We will offer simple explanations of how things work in the Tech Support section as we go along and learn them.

You will find the formatting funny in many places. This will take some time to fix as it will have to be done my hand, post by post. Please bear with us. There is a lot of work to do in this migration.

The following is a section from an e-mail I sent to our members a couple of days ago, but it applies here:

The person who did this hack did not attack only Kat and me or even the organization, Objectivist Living. He attacked you. He knew that many OL members posted their thoughts and work, but did not keep copies. He tried to destroy your work, regardless of who you are. He was indiscriminate. His mentality is that of a terrorist. He has my utmost contempt.

Please accept our apology for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We are working hard to assure that something like this will not happen again.

One of the wonderful aspects of being an Objectivist is that we are producers – all of us. Thus, when we are attacked by a malicious person for no other reason than a wish to destroy the good, we simply build again. That has been the way of the world throughout mankind’s history. That is the way of this event.

Our new software will keep all the old functions and come with some new bells and whistles that everyone should enjoy. We will have a hot new look, but the basic layout will be similar to the one before. Thus it will be quite easy to use.

One other nice improvement is that the URL with the name “objectivistliving” will no longer be changed into “wheelerdesignworks.” We will be officially Objectivist Living all the way. This may cause come of you inconvenience if you saved the site’s address under “Favorites” or similar browser shortcut, but it is easy to replace. Simple instructions for the main issues will be provided once we go back up.

Kat and I are very grateful to all the talented intelligent people of goodwill who made Objectivist Living such a friendly and dynamic place where important work gets done. We are filling a glaring need in the Objectivist community and we are making an enormous difference. This is an exciting time to be alive.

Kat and I thank you for your understanding from the bottom of our hearts. May you all have wonderful premises.

Just a word about Kat. I was deeply in love with her before all this happened. Now, incredibly, I am even more so. I am engaged to a very smart cookie and ferocious fighter. Her performance and dedication in getting through the maze of practically learning a new computer language while setting this site back up went way beyond what normal people do. I would like a hearty round of applause for her. Kitten, you are magnificent!

Welcome back everybody. It's great to be here again!

Michael

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Note:

We are experimenting with several possibilities of visual look (skins). The one we are using now is not permanent, but if people like it, we will keep it. (I personally don't care for it.)

Difficult to say if you can't compare. At least it looks reasonably clean and simple. I just tried the "Lo-Fi" version, and I must say that it also has its charms, with its spartanic look. I hate everything with garish colors and 3-d effects and lots of icons, and I'm glad that this version doesn't belong in that category.

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Three cheers to Kat and Michael for resurrecting OL from the dark, sick depths of hacker vandalism!

And thanks in advance to any of you who have independently saved any of the "lost" content, so that it can be reposted here.

Best to all,

REB

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Congrats guys! I'm sorry that I didn't know anyone who knows how to program-- I barely know how, all I know is basic stuff-- but this is wonderful.

Since I like blue, and I like simplicity in design, plus I dislike flashy, 3-D, blinking icons, and large banner/flash ads all over the place, I think this layout is good for me. Of course, I don't know what other color themes there are so I can't compare... all I know is that black background and white text tends to give people headaches (from my old digital design days).

Could you grab some screen shots of different layouts and post them?

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Hi everyone. Glad you like the new forum.

This software is a bit more complcated than the freeware (phpbb) we used to use, and I am sure once we all learn the ins and outs of getting around and doing stuff you will love it. There are cool features that we can add to the board like blogs, selectable skins, a picture gallery, subtopics, chat, rss feeds, etc. I will be setting up the mailboxes for member email accounts so those people who had emails @objectivistliving.com will have those again. First we have to reconstruct the threads that got messed up, reformat some things and relink the things that go to our old url which was a subdomain of wheelerdesignworks.

Now the skinny on the skins :unsure:

I want to be able to load a few skins that members can select from. If you are interested in previewing what is available and making suggestions, go to http://skins.invisionize.com/db/index.php/c/184 and if you find something you really like let us know. When we have a few selections, we can maybe do a poll if we need to narrow it down.

Tips tricks and favorite features

I will start a topic in Tech Support so that people can list tips, tricks and cool features as they run across them. So far my favorite cool feature is the fact that you can collapse and expand forums by clicking on the little box with a plus or minus sign at the far right of the title bar for that forum. Very cool. There is also better text editing tools for posts, which includes a spell checker!!! woohooooo!!!

Anyway, browse around. play with stuff and enjoy your visit to OL.

I also want to extend a special thank you to all the people who were supportive of us during this crisis. For days it looked like all was lost and there was simply no way to repopulate the database from the damaged backup files. After a tech suggested that we look into proprietary software, we decided to make the move to Invisionpower. They were able to salvage our data, convert it and give us the assurances we needed to reopen OL. We switched not only our software, but also our hosting company. Transferring the domain added an additional day to the process.

I missed everyone on OL. I'm so glad we were able to rebuild. Again, I apologize for the delay in getting the forum back up.

Kat

the webmonkey

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I can't find the "see all posts by" doohicky that used to be available.

To find all of a members posts, you click their name above their avatar to get to their profile. Once in the profile, click and hold the button on the right that says profile options. This is a drop down menu where you can select to view a members posts. You can also add the person to your contact list, view the topics or set it up to ignore that person.

Kat

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Good job you guys. It looks great and so many more cool features. B) I like it. :D It looks good so far all the way around.

And oh, my GOD, Jody is back. I can't believe it. It's good to see you again and where is that cute picture of yours !?!?!?! ;)

Angie

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Good Lordy, Jonathan- what a nasty logo. I can't imagine where you got an idea like that,,,

The interface is fine, just different. The italic/bold/underscore thing works kind of funk, from what I can see...brings up a little screen to use?

I hope the filthy animal that conducted this attack someday will learn about malevolence, and why it's not good for the soul.

In the meantime, we can only hope for them contracting an itchy, weepy rash in the most secret and dark of all their places.

rde

Edited by Rich Engle
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Rumors of OL's demise exaggerated? Nah. They are just plain outright stomp-down wrong.

I wonder what those who spread them have to gain...

Just wishful thinking... The existence of OL is of course a silent reproach to the people on those bickering forums, where they try to convince themselves that being nasty is so wonderful and heroic.

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Kat,

I like the current skin. Of the others that are listed as available, I also like the Mocha and the Pop Orange.

Robert Campbell

PS. The expressions of Schadenfreude over at SOLOP are revolting. I should hope that if their site is ever hacked into, no one here will write about them as they have recently written about us.

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