Old forum available to browse!

All in all, taking individual posts and all the replies that make up the conversations, there are more than 300,000 individual records in the database.

Obviously, a number of images are on external hosting which I couldn't get, and there may still be some errors here and there, which we'll work out with time.

The next couple of weeks will be busy for me, but once I'm back again, I'll be recording some video and taking some detailed pictures of the PX303, and at that point, if anyone can help me repair them, I'd be extremely grateful.

 

Thank you so much for helping to rebuild the old database! I'm hoping that the old threads appear on google search so that people can find information on obscure models from the past.
I can re-upload pictures from my old threads if they are broken, and some other tech threads I've saved.
I'll be happy to help on your PX303!

 

Nice work Michelle

 

The old threads in HTML form, have to be re-programmed to point to the ones I've created in the database. That's something I have yet to work on. Basically, it's a case of re-writing the HTML copies to auto-load their equivalent references in the new one. Far too much to do manually, so I've got to write a program to do it automatically. That's going to take some time.

Any pictures in threads that are broken, will need to come to me, and I'll have to work behind the scenes to insert them.

Help with the PX303 would be much appreciated! It'll take me a few weeks before I've got the clear space to record a video on how far I've got, and what the faults are.

I also need to put a video together to show what's needed in getting the old database merged with the new one. It is a very high aim, which would require very significant work.

Can someone please give an example of a Google search that lands on an old page please? Then I can see what I've got to re-work. Right now, it's 2:30am and I'm off back to bed

 

hat off to Michelle Knight, I am impressed. I'll definitely contribute with a donation, as I repeatedly stated in past threads. Read your pm Michelle. I wish I could be of more help, but I have zero tech know-how. All I can do is to provide a number of .pdfs so as to show how did the old pages look.

 

Googled one of my old threads, search term "JX707 Capacitors"

http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/recapping-my-aiwa-jx707.htm

This is an example of a thread that turns up, but slightly broken.
I'm hoping that other threads not selected for preservation but still exist in the original DB to return to google searches- to help people new to the hobby/site.

 

http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/recapping-my-aiwa-jx707_page=2.htm​

Ah. I see. OK, I can work with that, as long as it has the .htm at the end of it.

I have the .htm files from the server, so I can reprogram them to do an auto-load to the new pages, and then re-load them to the server, so that anyone landing on the .htm pages are automatically re-directed.

However, matching the page title to the topic numbers is not going to be a quick thing, and the next couple of weeks are busy... but the good news is that this is possible. It'll just take a bit of time to reprogram all the html pages.

Regarding how the old forum looked, I can only go so far. Part of the reason is that the "feel" of the forum having side bars for member details, etc. isn't there... so the current design is always going to feel "wide." Also, I am battling with the encoding in the old posts themselves. If anyone is interested in how this hangs together, I can certainly put together a YouTube video at some point, showing how this works, and the difficulties that will be faced trying to integrate the old posts into the new forum.

 

Amazing work Michelle ,I can only imagine the effort behind all this.Thank you!
I spent sometime to see how it works and how easy it is to use it and I can say that after a while I get used to it and started browsing and reading the various threads which is the most important of all ,of course any improvement is welcomed but definitely everything looks to be in the right direction.
I have backups of threads that seemed important to me that go 10 years back or more in Html files that may contain lost photos.If there is a way to get inserted again I'll be glad to provide them.
The essence of the sentence "Stereo2Go is saved" is exactly that the old database was preserved.Imagine ,if Srereo2go was indeed shut down then probably would have been resurrected in another form but the old database would have been lost forever.Thanks to all involved.

 

Michelle

I was only a member on the old site for a very short time until the new Forum came along and I am amazed at what you have done and the work you must have put in to achieve the retrieval of the old threads of the old site . I am merely a collector and I have little or no technological or engineering skills . I envy your expertise and I can only express my thanks for your unstinting effort in achieving success where others have failed. Thanks again.

 

Thanks folks, for all the kind words. Database work has been a portion of my career, as has programming, which are part of my job... so it's bread and butter work for me... although I do have my limits

I am currently working on enabling the old htm links in a manner which should point to the database entries... I've got the ground work done, and should have something to show Hugo in a few days time. Hopefully, I'll be able to tick another one off the list once I've done that. Initial statistics say that I can do this to 7,260 of those links relatively quickly, with another 738 needing more work. Cross fingers. Also, the page counts are different... the code I wrote has 50 item pages, whereas the htm have 40 items per page.

A few other people have copies of some of the old site at various points in time, so there may be the possibility that I might be able to add yet more images back to the site... but that would be a much longer job still, and would be way in the future.

 

Well, this is all sorts of excellent & means alot to many, me included.
I'm an old, somewhat lapsed s2g member (joined 2005), so these posts are a nice trip down memory lane.
Stirling work, Michelle!

I see you're not far from me, in Sussex. Somewhere nice, I hope?

 

OK - a little more work done last night.

Now, if you go to - http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/recapping-my-aiwa-jx707.htm - then there should be a seamless redirect to the new pages.

However, this is only a proof for one page. I'm hoping that this link will work for everyone... and if it does, then I should be able to extend the same treatment to the other HTM files.

Thanks Isolator42. I'm near Haywards Heath, on the border between east and west, so I can hop over any time that one side gets too hot

 

The good works continue (the links work fine for me, btw).
My wife used to teach in Haywards Heath - I know it quite well

 

Ah... so you know it well enough to stay away from it then :-D

 

To be honest, I couldn't answer. At the very least, I'd be very surprised if Google ignored the meta information in the head section. (I put a piece of code in the head which instructs any browser to immediately redirect, and it is a standard piece of HTML code... nothing fancy.) In theory, it should note the forward and catalogue the final page... (that would be the logical thing to do) but anything I can say, is just a guess. They deliberately don't tell people how they operate, so that people can't game their search engine.

 

Not sure I understand correctly, so my apologies if I'm talking nonsense (language barrier and all that...), but as I see it all links of the old db are working correctly here, bar a few external links that are long dead, and a few links that are marked as "error" anyway.

Congratulations!

 

The links you've been using so far, to the htm posts... these have been quoted in conversations here, and what I'm doing is making it so that when people go back through the links people have inserted into chat... that they are taken to the new format of the old db... without people having to go back and re-edit all their posts.

If you click on the link http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/recapping-my-aiwa-jx707.htm ... it automatically takes you to http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/index.php?content_oid=225482136292293827&board_oid=193392314111653425 without you having to do anything. ... and I'm hoping to do that for all the htm links.