The Snarkpit Relaunch

Yeah this is wider than the others, which were intended to fit lower resolutions. This is unforgiving is you're below 1280 width.

Will get the other themes back soon though... this is just temp because I wanted to get the new updates out quicker... sorry about the problems, I honestly wasn't thinking about the screensize issue.

Haymaker - sounds like a layout issue with Firefox 2. Sorry, haven't tested that... surprised anyone is still using it anymore. Will check it out, thanks!

[Edit: Front page fixed in FF2 - darn non-compliant browsers :P ]

User posting history added, and can be accessed from a link on a user's profile.

Changed the layout of the map page (the one when viewing a single map). Been struggling to find a decent way to lay things out... I think its ok now.

There may be a lack of updates for some time due to an imminent orgy of Fallout 3

I think with the new map profile page layout, the comments section just begs to be placed under the profile picture section instead of at the bottom of the description.

That's just my opinion though.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Wow Larchy, I'm really happy with what your doing :).

I heavily like the idea of a members profile kinda doubling as their portfolio. I was thinking maybe we could give the ability to add like images with a description and download link on the member's profile to 3D Models, Textures or any other game related content. And perhaps with the member journal (another cool addition) we could have the latest journal entry being displayed maybe at the bottom somewhere. I really feel like that's an important step on leading us onto the path to world domination again, and I believe it encourages users to display their work and take pride in their profiles which in turn leads to more activity :D.

Another idea I just had that I was going to add to my website, a little section to show what users are currently working on and the ability to add a link and small image? So if the feature was implemented right this second, I would put Night Terror as my current project and have a link to the Snarkpit thread and the map's profile on my website aswell as an image I thought looked decent of the map. And perhaps just for novelty, we should have a "classified" option so that members can "hype" or whatever, so if we ever have a highly respected mapper in the future, that is, people look forward to his/her work, and maybe if he is just starting a new map, he could put "classified" and it would create interest 8-).

To Conclude:

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Aaron's Stuff

I take it that punishing the people for posting oversized screenshots will be a bit difficult if the person and/or persons designing our new site is guilty too???

Geez, I saw a 1.2 meg and a 1/2 meg shot just briefly scanning over the pages a bit. (under 100k guys. IT CAN BE DONE!)

Anywho's, the site looks a bit better, my hats off to'yaz.

Gwil, what did'ja decide about the vidcard situation?

Gots'ta run.
Orph.
XXXOOOXXX

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The best things in life, aren't things.

We need to send someone over to ORPHS house and drag his ass into the 21st century.

Muhnay said:
We need to send someone over to ORPHS house and drag his ass into the 21st century.

Haha

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Aaron's Stuff

Cool new site.

Thanks.. Larchy has really busted butt on it.

Speaking of Larchy.. I fixed your avatar: [IMG]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c149/MuhnayShot/Avatars/avatar6381.png[/IMG]

hah cool thanks Muhnay Aliasing ftw \0/

I haven't been able to view the site for the past week as it times out every time I try to visit it. I thought the site was down at first, but after talking to Gwil I found out that noone else was having trouble :/ I'm posting via a proxy at the moment, but that's hardly ideal. Hope the problem fixes itself soon!

Your Welcome.. nope Eraser in Photoshop.

The web page hangs.. takes time to load pages and such. I think it maybe more related to your host than the page its self.

I'm not sure if it is my ISP because a tracert fails once it's bounced across the pond: No probs with any other sites whatsoever... weird :/

ICMP is probably being blocked by a firewall.

I'd put good money on Globat being a pile of shit tbh. If I had the money to move, I would!

I've noticed recently that backslashes no longer show up in posts anymore, I was wondering if you did this to solve the slashes appearing in people's posts?

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Aaron's Stuff

Its an unintended side effect yeah... when I redid the posting script I tried a different method of getting around the host adding extra slashes to everything, but its removing all single slashes not just slashes escaping special characters.

I've got a working fix, but can't ftp until this weird connection issue I'm having works itself out

larchy, I get those hop breaks too - the site is not brisk to load but it always does. Very odd. As I say, it is probably just Globat being naff..

hmm... it used to take a while to load sometimes, but now it just always times out

prolly just virgin being ghey tbh

Ey Larchy, I got an idea for the rebirth and potential flourish of The Snarkpit.

I'm not certain of this, but I'm pretty sure you've got the e-mails of all our members. Now my idea is simple. Just send an e-mail to every Snarkpit member that's ever joined and say that we're making a big re-launch of the site. We could also start a seperate thread in the forums, so everyone who drops back can let us know hey're back. After that, I think a couple of really good competitions would gain everyone's interest.

Sounds like a bit of work, but I don't know, could bring back hundreds.

Easy to do actually Ask Gwil/Riven first though

I'm a bit hampered on doing much with the site right now, but think I've found a way around my connection issues which are b0rking ftp. I've uploaded the small fixes I made last week to the forum code so that backslashes shouldn't disappear in posts anymore - \\ - and pressing the "quote" button won't result in an error when you try to submit a post. Deleting should be ok too now.

Ok... attempt 804762 at getting rid of slashes correctly...

"''2'232#"£"2%!"^[]

\\

//

\\\\

\

\o/

I'd be more inclined to do a mass email marketing campaign at the turn of the new year - about the time we could probably (i need to arrange something with Riven/larchy first!) get shot of the god awful Globat. Also by that time I will have an empty schedule work wise so can get back to doing some good here!

I have to say I just love the new web page.. Who ever did the colors and the header should be given a big hug or a million dollars or something, cause he/she did an outstanding job.

Good work getting the Slashes back in line.. ( get it? ) \0/ ~yay!

Yea, the new look deserves a lot more credit! -Here's a crown for ya!

But on a more serious note, anyone wanna make a donation? (perhaps we could add a donation button on the front page, or on the profile control panels) If we're gonna try and move the Pit to a new host, it's gonna cost some muhnay -lol.

No, but seriously, contact Gwil or me if you're interested...

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

I'm not a fan of this new site. The colours, arrangement, it doesn't please my eyes. Not to sound like a bastard

Reminds me of the older site, one before the last. Also wheres all the old interesting gubbinz? Lep used to hide loads of random stuff on the pit and have history pages and such... The whole site is buggy too, and the general formatting looks like every page has errors on it. Generally one would perfect the newer site before ditching the old- I did watch this process many times.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

Never did somebody better suit their signature

Hows things though Myrk, good to see you back. What new?

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

ok. Clicky: http://www.snarkpit.net/index.php?s=downloads&cat=6&game=1

Do a mouseover on the blank image for HLCC 1.4 Half-Life utility. there is a link in the decription. How do I click that link? this should be fixed.

Also, like Myrk, I do not like the layout. Good colors, but the layout should be more user friendly. What my HUGE suggestion would be to entirely change the "MAPS" page. I really really really really really don't like it's layout. Its huge, bulky, inefficient, confusing, the works. I really really really really really think it should look and feel more like the downloads page. The preview images of the maps on the maps page should match the size of the map preview pictures on the main page. They are just way too big.

I don't have a whole layout scheme thought up, but in general, it would be nice if the layout wasn't so heavy to take in and download and browse.... anything you can do to simplify everything on the maps page to make it more in listable format.

Just giving my 2 cents.

I'm having some issues with the map download section as well. Under the HLDM map section I can't seem to find any search, which isn't the worst thing in the world except that sorting by any criteria doesn't seem to work. If I'm gonna have to sift through a ton of garbage maps that should never have been uploaded in the first place it would be nice if I could do it alphabetically instead of randomly (or by when it was uploaded which seems like the default and only sorting working). This is while using firefox.

Hey Reno, life goes OK, I work as a CAD/Graphics technician kinda for a major construction firm (8th largest in the world actually). Basically I do the real life mapping now, not games.

As for this site, whats with these problems not getting sorted? Sorry, but these forums have had a graphical error for at least a month, it can't be that hard to fix it. Also the formatting, cumon, it looks rubbish! The fade at the top? Looks like a website from 1997... fair does that is the release date of HL1, but still, isn't a new site meant to be an upgrade?

Like I said before, shame on you new Snarkpit owners/runners for releasing this new site without even fully testing it. If you need help testing things and opinion on anything just gimme a prod, I'm glad to help, but it annoys me that this new site is taking forever to complete, and looks crap. Sorry, but I'm not gunna lie to save peoples feelings.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

Sites have to be live to be tested.. sorry if you don't like it Myrk but constructive criticism won't be answered when it is delivered with all the subtlety of a housebrick through the front window.

Remember the old Pit's falling menus?When your mouse is over the maps,forums...a falling menu comes out.That way every body can surf more fastly from one place of the Pit to another place.

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Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
[img]http://images.quiz.wegame.com/production/personalities/22/badge.jpg[/img]
I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
[img]http://media.moddb.com/images/global/moddb_88x31_v12.png[/img]
Citizen Arms

I had to disable the drop down menu because I was using Firefox.

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Aaron's Stuff

"aaron_da_killa" said:
I had to disable the drop down menu because I was using Firefox.

It worked for Opera
Only one thing:I am using Opera because my big brother thinks that Firefox is based on Internet Explorer,and you know what Internet Explorer is.

---

Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
[img]http://images.quiz.wegame.com/production/personalities/22/badge.jpg[/img]
I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
[img]http://media.moddb.com/images/global/moddb_88x31_v12.png[/img]
Citizen Arms

Nuh, Firefox isn't based off Internet Explorer, I don't know where your brother got that information from. And besides, I don't think Internet Explorer is that bad anyway.

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Aaron's Stuff

Someone really needs to implement a size limitation on avatar images it seems.
Anywho's, happy holidays to all.

Orph

---

The best things in life, aren't things.

Good point, Orph! Zein had one that took up nearly a whole page recently! I shall ask larchy if he can do anything, pro-bona.

Re: Video card - my apologies multiplied a thousand; caught up in college life and day to day business I completely forgot. I shall raid my supplies tomorrow when I have a free period and let you know the 10-4 ASAP.

They should have been resized when you upload them if they're omgxboxhuge, but I'd forgotten to include the file that handles all that in that part of the script - sorry, 'tis fixed now! I also fixed tnkqwe's avatar manually... there shouldn't be any future issues though.

Search! Search should now be working! I've added some extra magic beans to it so it should be pretty decent now - there is even a mis-spelled words suggest thingy!

I have been working on a better layout for the maps section of the site: Descriptions are shown via overlays on the images on a mouseover, as seen above on the museum map (bottom right)

Part of the reason the maps page is the way it currently is is because of the way the games/mods were set up in the database. I've taken a simpler approach of detaching 'mods' from links with 'games', which should make it easier for you guys to keep your content organised. As you can see from the dropdown selection, each mod/game has its own entry (the names can be cleaned up once everything is sorted... they're just verbose right now to temporarily maintain correlation with the older tables.

I have 2 issues with this new site.

The first, and this is more of a convenience thing, there doesn't appear to be a "jump to newest post" feature.

The second, and this greatly annoys me, is that the site, particularly the title bar up top, seems to be assuming that everyone uses a 1280x1024 resolution and those that don't(IE, me) have to scroll to the side to see the entire site.

I'm still learning English.I have speling problems(and so have othirs),so I think the Pit needs a "check spelling" button.

---

Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
[img]http://images.quiz.wegame.com/production/personalities/22/badge.jpg[/img]
I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
[img]http://media.moddb.com/images/global/moddb_88x31_v12.png[/img]
Citizen Arms

Once again this is not needed. If you use Firefox, or Safari, they both have built in spell checking programs. If you misspell a word it will have a red line under the word. You right click on the word and it will give you a list of words you may of meant to use.

Thought I'd pop by and see how things were going, site looks pretty horrible but who cares, it's fantastic to see everything is still going strong!

You're back,Leperous?It was really about time.Welcome back.

---

Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
[img]http://images.quiz.wegame.com/production/personalities/22/badge.jpg[/img]
I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
[img]http://media.moddb.com/images/global/moddb_88x31_v12.png[/img]
Citizen Arms

You betcha things are still going err, strong! I mean, Larchy is fixing things as they come and when he has time. I don't think the site looks bad at all, but then again, I'm not a connoisseur of site design, nor do I have a lot of experience in it, but it's functional and the community has backed it up.

Glad to see you pop in from time to time; will you ever stay for longer than a post or two though? It's good to hear from ya.

I found the time now to make a post about this: I've been keeping a list of little and big things I've come across over the past couple of months as I've used the pit. They're either changes, or additions to certain already existing features. I would have posted them earlier, but I had wrote them in shorthand and they probably wouldn't make much sense unless I explained some of them, so for your appeasement, I will identify a few things that have caught me off-guard here on the pit since the last big update:

• No AIM icon in the user profile page for those who have it. But there is an icon on their posts. What's up with that?
• Regarding maps in Beta: Maps should be able to have a related thread (e.g. A thread linked to the map's profile) only if they are in Beta. AND maps that are in beta with a related thread should have their comments on their profile disabled (no comments can be made about a map on its profile page if it is in Beta with a related thread activated). But Beta maps without a related thread can have their comments active. This should be a note to the author before selecting the "In Beta" checkbox for their Map so they know.
• Only after maps have been considered out of Beta (The user updates the map's profile and unchecks the "In Beta" checkbox) then the related thread (if there was one) would become locked and the comments for that map's profile would become activated. Once a user uploads a map without selecting the "In Beta" checkbox, OR if they update the map's profile and switch it to NOT in Beta, then they can never switch the map back to being in Beta because we would not want anyone abusing the locking and unlocking of their map's related thread by constantly changing the status of their map's profile and not have it reflect user's comments. If it was a mistake and they need to switch it back to Beta, then an admin would be able to do it for them.
• A user should not be able to rate a map unless they've downloaded the map. (a.k.a. clicked the link). Provided there is one. Maps without a download link must be in Beta and cannot be rated yet.
• We should have (EDIT: NEED) a "Meet our newest member ______" line at the top of the front page!
• -And also, to stick with tradition, we should have a smaller line mentioning: "This is SnarkPit version 4.##" -Whatever version you reckon we're on?
• Highlight or at least bold "1 new message" when you have unread messages so that it helps you notice it.
• In the "unread forum posts" section (the page you go to after clicking "no new updates" at the top, if there is a topic listed there, it says "by" but does not list "by who" ? Just a blank.
• On the "user browsing page" make a label to show the max number of users ever on the site and the date it occurred (there should already be a fieldset for this in the database because it was on the old site).
• Bring back the "answer/wrong answer" feature in the editing forums with the ability for admins to monitor or change them. Is it possible to re-identify/re-associate all the old ones too? -And be able to filter out when searching posts if they've been answered "correct" or not? -For posts that have not been set with this feature, simply label them as "unanswered" and admins can go back and apply them as they see fit.
• In the category for Half-Life 2 (core game), let there be options for (episode 1) & (episode 2) versions of the game, so people know which version the map is for.
• Show an "online/offline" status (with the online status being green colored) on all user's posts (below all the info and before any icons) and on user profile pages. If you click it when they're online, it would send you to the page they were currently viewing or if that's not possible, clicking on it would send you to the "users browsing" page (note: it's only clickable if they're online)
• Is it possible to re-associate all the old comments with the older maps that had them? -That's a lot of lost info.
• Bring back the comment system for the articles/tutorials -and be sure to bring back all the old comments for older articles too! -That is a lot of lost info as well!
• Now that we have related threads associated with map profiles, or the possibility to do so now, can you also re-associate all the old linked threads with their maps too? This use to be a common feature, and now people looking through the forums would find a lot of orphaned threads that made sense because they used to be linked to maps added on the older version of the site.
• Can we have the old Snark icons (or revamped Snark icons) for the "no posts/new posts" icons in the forums? It'll add to the nostalgia :P
• The preview panel no longer outfits proper formatting for indention and line breaks and other things before submitting a post.
• The private message panel's format is messed-up. Buttons and the textbox are all pushed to the bottom for some reason. =Looks really bad.
• Can you make the "latest forum Posts" section listed on the front page an RSS feed? It would add to the accessibility of the site!

-And that's all I have for now folks! Let me know what you guys think about my proposals.

---

Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Great stuff RIVEN..

Shouldn't it be snowing snarks right now?

"Muhnay" said:
Great stuff RIVEN..

Shouldn't it be snowing snarks right now?

You mean "Shouldn't it be SNARKING right now?"

---

Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
[img]http://images.quiz.wegame.com/production/personalities/22/badge.jpg[/img]
I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
[img]http://media.moddb.com/images/global/moddb_88x31_v12.png[/img]
Citizen Arms

WOOT! It's Snarking snow!. err, I mean, It's snowing snarks! -Or do I mean, snows are snarking! -agh, whatever it's doing, I like it! -Snarks FTW!

-Thanks for setting that one up Larchy.

---

Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

"Riven" said:
WOOT! It's Snarking snow!. err, I mean, It's snowing snarks! -Or do I mean, snows are snarking! -agh, whatever it's doing, I like it! -Snarks FTW!

-Thanks for setting that one up Larchy.

I'ts snarking for you?Than why isn't it snarking for me?Maybe it's because I live in town next to the sea.
WHY isn't it snarking for me???

---

Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
[img]http://images.quiz.wegame.com/production/personalities/22/badge.jpg[/img]
I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
[img]http://media.moddb.com/images/global/moddb_88x31_v12.png[/img]
Citizen Arms

Riven said:

• No AIM icon in the user profile page for those who have it. But there is an icon on their posts. What's up with that?
  
  Fixed
• Regarding maps in Beta: Maps should be able to have a related thread (e.g. A thread linked to the map's profile) only if they are in Beta. AND maps that are in beta with a related thread should have their comments on their profile disabled (no comments can be made about a map on its profile page if it is in Beta with a related thread activated). But Beta maps without a related thread can have their comments active. This should be a note to the author before selecting the "In Beta" checkbox for their Map so they know.
  
  Restrictive? How about getting rid of comments altogether and just having discussion topics? No reason why a forum thread can't be inlined on the map's page where the comments currently are and it would remove the splitting up of feedback in different locations as well as precluding the need for any of the above malarky.
• Only after maps have been considered out of Beta (The user updates the map's profile and unchecks the "In Beta" checkbox) then the related thread (if there was one) would become locked and the comments for that map's profile would become activated. Once a user uploads a map without selecting the "In Beta" checkbox, OR if they update the map's profile and switch it to NOT in Beta, then they can never switch the map back to being in Beta because we would not want anyone abusing the locking and unlocking of their map's related thread by constantly changing the status of their map's profile and not have it reflect user's comments. If it was a mistake and they need to switch it back to Beta, then an admin would be able to do it for them.
  
  Dunno, I mean 'beta' just means not finished. Why restrict an author's right to modify his work? They could just delete & reupload if they really wanted to get around this too... strikes me as restrictive and not workable in practice.
• A user should not be able to rate a map unless they've downloaded the map. (a.k.a. clicked the link). Provided there is one. Maps without a download link must be in Beta and cannot be rated yet.
  
  Will implement. Maps currently cannot be uploaded without some sort of download link, so the latter point is mute.
• We should have (EDIT: NEED) a "Meet our newest member ______" line at the top of the front page!
  
  Fixed
• -And also, to stick with tradition, we should have a smaller line mentioning: "This is SnarkPit version 4.##" -Whatever version you reckon we're on?
  
  No idea. Larchpower v3 or something by now :P Prolly version 7 or something
• Highlight or at least bold "1 new message" when you have unread messages so that it helps you notice it.
  
  Fixed
• In the "unread forum posts" section (the page you go to after clicking "no new updates" at the top, if there is a topic listed there, it says "by" but does not list "by who" ? Just a blank.
  
  No idea, shouldn't be there, will try to replicate.
• On the "user browsing page" make a label to show the max number of users ever on the site and the date it occurred (there should already be a fieldset for this in the database because it was on the old site).
  
  Implemented. There is an old table that stores user sessions, but can't find a max users entry. Added it to the new system anyway.
• Bring back the "answer/wrong answer" feature in the editing forums with the ability for admins to monitor or change them. Is it possible to re-identify/re-associate all the old ones too? -And be able to filter out when searching posts if they've been answered "correct" or not? -For posts that have not been set with this feature, simply label them as "unanswered" and admins can go back and apply them as they see fit.
  
  Will look at after next update
• In the category for Half-Life 2 (core game), let there be options for (episode 1) & (episode 2) versions of the game, so people know which version the map is for.
  
  Content will be reorganised in the new update and the games>mods heirarchy removed. Every game or mod will have it's own individual entry, making the above no longer an issue. This is described in my earlier post together with a preview screenshot.
• Show an "online/offline" status (with the online status being green colored) on all user's posts (below all the info and before any icons) and on user profile pages. If you click it when they're online, it would send you to the page they were currently viewing or if that's not possible, clicking on it would send you to the "users browsing" page (note: it's only clickable if they're online)
  
  Will look at for this update maybe
• Is it possible to re-associate all the old comments with the older maps that had them? -That's a lot of lost info.
  
  Yes, will try to take a look at article comments this time around. Tbh didn't realise there was that much stuff there.
• Bring back the comment system for the articles/tutorials -and be sure to bring back all the old comments for older articles too! -That is a lot of lost info as well!
  
  As above
• Now that we have related threads associated with map profiles, or the possibility to do so now, can you also re-associate all the old linked threads with their maps too? This use to be a common feature, and now people looking through the forums would find a lot of orphaned threads that made sense because they used to be linked to maps added on the older version of the site.
  
  There does not appear to be any actual link between maps and the old thread, however I think it should be possible to reassociate them using the thread titles so I'll see what I can come up with.
• Can we have the old Snark icons (or revamped Snark icons) for the "no posts/new posts" icons in the forums? It'll add to the nostalgia :P
  
  Make some :P
• The preview panel no longer outfits proper formatting for indention and line breaks and other things before submitting a post.
  
  Will check - the way the server handles POST data is just weird and everytime I modify and test a related function it behaves differently on this host :/ will check and fix.
• The private message panel's format is messed-up. Buttons and the textbox are all pushed to the bottom for some reason. =Looks really bad.
  
  CP will be redesigned (see below)
• Can you make the "latest forum Posts" section listed on the front page an RSS feed? It would add to the accessibility of the site!

No because globat can't handle the load on the database.

-And that's all I have for now folks! Let me know what you guys think about my proposals.

"Fjorn" said:
The second, and this greatly annoys me, is that the site, particularly the title bar up top, seems to be assuming that everyone uses a 1280x1024 resolution and those that don't(IE, me) have to scroll to the side to see the entire site.

Yes, apologies. The original themes were designed so this didn't happen. The current theme was only ever intended to be temporary, but then I lost ftp/site access months ago. Will be fixed soon.

Work continues, progress is made. New themes and stuff. (1024 width friendly theme, new CP which is still in the works)

Soo, what are we doing with the hosting then? Can we grab that lunarpages deal, maybe upload and test this new update and then make the switch? Or not bothering?