New server, new look, new features

During a recent update of the its graphical theme, the entire site crashed completely. Despite reloading the files up to the server, it never did get beyond displaying a blank white page.

So, in order to correct the problem in a more permanent way, the database was backed up, and the domain name pointed to a new server. There, the publishing system was given a fresh upload and installation, then the previous files were uploaded over the fresh ones, and the database imported to the new server. With that done, the site was brought back live, and the same e-mail accounts were re-createed, as well.

The main difference is that the previous server was a Windows box running Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), and the new one is a Linux box running Apache Server. The publishing system, while cross-platform, usually runs better in the "LAMP" (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) environment than a "WIMP" (Windows-IIS-MySQL-PHP) environment, and is much more stable.

Stability has been an issue ever since the site was first converted to XOOPS (eXtensible Object-Oriented Publishing System). On average, the site would either lock up or crash entirely about once every six months, until it could be completely re-installed on the server, and rebuilt from the ground up. On the new server, that shouldn't be a problem. In fact, the STARFLEET, International website, www.sfi.org, has run on XOOPS for the last few years.

Additionally, of the modules available for the system, while the majority are also cross-platform, of the ones that are single-platform, more of those are written for Linux than Windows.

Along with the new server, the site now has a new graphical theme (sometimes referred to as a "skin"), and an RSS news feed from TrekWeb.com.