First, this is not a beg for money. I don't want any so don't offer. I'm happy with the way it currently works. I do this because there are lot of undefined benefits of having this site. One is the ability to go a lot of places and visit my forum friends. How else can you become internationally famous?
This post is just information for those that aren't web savy.
There are 2 things needed to keep a web site on the air. Registration of the domain name, in this case, http://golddredger.com, http://golddredgevideo.com and http://kc0wox.com. These are the 3 domian names I have registered. Then you need a web host. In my case, this forum is resistered as http"//golddredger.com and hosted on http://ipower.com. My other domain names are also hosted on it. http://golddredger.com was my first web site and it opened in 1992 when there was a problem with another site and DEF. This problem has gone away a long time ago and is now a story only for around the campfire after a few beers and shots.
After you register the domain name, you need a web host to put the site on. In my case, it is currently http://ipower.com I'm happy with them and have no plans to switch. I have 2 site registered with them and it costs a little over $100. each per year. This isn't a plea for money as I stated before. I get far more enjoyment from it each year than what it costs. Now if you want to offer me a few beers when we are camping, as long as they are good, I won't object.
The reason for the new forum switch?
The old DC Forum software we have been running since 1992, is no longer supported. Mike Higbee's site, http://www.49ermike.com/dc/dcboard.php is the upgraded version of what we were running. It is also no longer supported. With the problem of topics dissapearing, I felt it was time to upgrade. The new forum had a problem of not being able to import the old user info so thats why you needed to re-register. Thats not all bad as you can now change your user name.. There really wasn't a way to get around not being able to import the old user names so the decision was to move to a new software that was available from http://ipower.com with my hosting contract and was available as an easy addition to my current accounts with them. It really was nice as it only took about 2 mouse clicks and 10 minutes to get it running. The old software took me several days to install and get running. Thats why we are here now. It may not run as fast as the old forum but it should be a whole lot more stable and it will be continually upgraded by my web host.
Anyway, the reason I started all of this explanation was after a couple of shots, I just re-registerd http://golddredger.com for 3 more years. We will be here for at least that time period and hopefully will be running a version of this software.
I hope to sit around a campfire in the future and answer any of these technical questions.
Leonard