It is over four months since the site was relaunched so it is time I reviewed how it has gone. The main thing is that the site settled down very quickly and seems to be working OK. However, one of the secondary but hoped-for aims of the relaunch (facilitation of the development of the STIRNET HISTORIES side of the site) has not been as successful as I had hoped - this being a problem with the structure of the Content rather than a problem with the programming - so I shall be soon be making some major changes to STIRNET HISTORIES. Fortunately, these proposed changes should be relatively easy to process because the way that the site has been structured (using WordPress) is flexible & accommodating on such things. Indeed, that I can consider doing such a thing is a testament to the flexibility & power of the WordPress system that we are now using.

 

Thursday, 6th March 2014, was ... »

... a special day for me. The day before I had travelled across from Herefordshire (where I live) to South London, where my eldest son Rob lives. It was Rob who built this site for me. [See History of the site. Rob's own site is at robbg.co.uk]. We had a Japanese takeaway (delivered) in the evening - quite exotic for someone who lives in rural England! On Thursday we sorted out the final preparations in the morning, went out to a nearby Brazilian restaurant...

I am delighted to confirm the obvious: We have launched the new version of this site! I think the site was down for only about 42 minutes, from about 3.07 pm to about 3.49 pm (UK time), so that was not too bad. Nevertheless, in case it caused any inconvenience to any Member, I have extended all subscription periods that were current at the beginning of today by 2 to 3 days (the exact amount depending on the time of day your current period would have expired).

I hope you like the new site and will find it even easier to use than the previous version. You are very welcome to look around it. If you have any queries about the site, please look first at the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section where I have tried to anticipate all likely quesions. If you experience any problems, please first check the Troubleshooting page to see if I have already covered the point there. If I have not covered the matter already then please do report it to me (it will probably help if you identify what browser you are using) and we will investigate it promptly.

I think we managed to transfer across all Registered Users and their Usernames & Passwords OK. If you have any problems with logging-in do let me know but please first try the 'Forgotten your password? facility.

I suggest that, to get the most/best from this site and even if you knew our previous version(s) of the...

We are about to launch the new version of the site. Most of the changes will be obvious to anyone who knew the previous version at all well but some changes may not be. The reasons why a new site has been developed are reported on History of the site.

The 'look & feel' of the site is perhaps the most obvious change. The previous site had the following look from which you will see that the layout of the Families Database page has not changed but that the other pages are quite different.

Home Page Lead Histories Families Database (example)

 

For reasons explained elsewhere (such as in the FAQs section), Stirnet Histories has been turned into a Blog which should make it easier to develop. The Research Area has been removed (though some of its content has been preserved elsewhere) so that 'The Stirnet Project' has been reduced to just The Stirnet Portal which we hope to develop into a major feature of the site. The Login & Registration systems have been combined & simplified with explanatory notes contained within the new system as well as on Membership FAQ. The Members Area has been renamed 'My Account' and simplified. The News section, that had previously been in the Members Area, is now available to all (as on this page). 'Important documents' has also...