Site Update 2020

[Jeff Mack]

I wanted to create a new thread in order to give progress on my site updates.  I want explain a bit on what happened and what I am doing.  

What happened with the site?
Honestly nothing really exciting or dramatic, overall in the end, I did not want to support the host I was with for the past four years after not really offering too much help with managed servers.  They would spend 30 seconds looking, say they can ping the server so its up and then just say, "hey not my problem". I was on aging hardware, paying the same amount of money, so I took the opportunity to move to a new host with better/faster hardware and a staff that does help to support you when run into an issue that you can't handle on your own.  I have been doing this a long time and pretty good monitoring and handling 99% of what comes my way, but there are issues that you need the next level up to help figure out what to do.  I wasn't getting anything like that, but paying for it.  Not anymore.

What my goal is...
I know more than anyone that the site needed some TLC. It's been a while since I have done any drastic updates, the site looked tired and I know the site can be so much better than what it's current state was.  LEGO investing has changed since Ed and I launched the site and it's time to remove the dead content and bring more of what people are looking for.  Below is the short term list of items planned for updating.  I have been working on the nightly, just like the early days and enjoying seeing parts of it coming to life.

• Fix the login. This has been messed up and quirky for a while. This has been resolved and working well. It's a simple thing overall, but nice that it actually works how it's supposed to
• Overall price guide site design update.  The site was tired and disjointed.  I hated it and pained me to look at it.  Time to start over. 
• Brickfolio update. All the Brickfolio data is safe.  I have close to three million rows of data for Brickfolio entries.  Time to bring this thing to 2020. I will probably create another thread at some point to solicit some feedback on some new requests for the brickfolio
• Fix the data syncing with Brickset.  A lot of people used this feature, but it's time to make it work the way it should.
• Later I will work on the content portions.  The news and blogs.  I have some good ideas for this, but want to get the price guide and brickfolio to you sooner than later.

What I am asking for if possible...
If you can, please stop asking where the brickfolio is.  Again, the data is safe and I am working as fast as I can to bring it all back to you.  It won't be a few days, but more like a few weeks, but it will be worth it.   I setup my dev environment to push releases quick and easy.  I want to create a true changelog so that you can follow updates to see what was done/fixed/new/removed, you know like what real software companies do.

I really do appreciate your patience with this.  It wasn't planned, but if there was going to be a time to do it, it was going to be now.

[niggle29]

Great job really appreciate this site

[crayxlp]

May I suggest that you stick this thread to the top? As of now it seems that it will just go under every time there is a new thread - thus not really helping you with "stop asking where the brickfolio is".

 

aahh.. now I see. you have that blue line at the top of the screen..

Edited March 3, 2020 by crayxlp

[Struikrover3]

Thanks for all the good work! 

[Falconvt]

Thank you for your work to maintain the site. I am looking forward to seeing the updates as the come along!

[fuzzy_bricks]

Thanks for all the work Jeff!

Do you think the news aggregator will make a comeback?

[TheOrcKing]

[roanry]

Offering some help if you need it. I'm a SVP software development scrum leader at a fortune 10 company. If you need any help with unit, validation, regression or user testing, just let me know. 

I really appreciate what you are doing and keep up the great work! 

-Chris 

[mirkp]

i though that the site was sold to Lego Company.

[Ed Mack]

8 hours ago, mirkp said:

i though that the site was sold to Lego Company.

I wish.

[Infiltrator]

Thank you very much @Jeff Mack for your effort! Thanks also to @Ed Mack! Great site - great community!
Greetings,
Infi

[JHduToit]

Thanks Jeff - appreciate the update. Good luck with the entire process

[matt4040]

Thanks Jeff, I have been using and tracking my collection for several years on this website and had no idea that only a couple people were behind everything. At least I know I’ve got quite a bit of data entry once you are up and running again. Regards 

[Dbldwn]

Thanks for everything you do to make this website available to users.  I've already seen much greater consistency and stability.  Looking forward to seeing your final results, but again, thanks for making the efforts.

[Jeff Mack]

Just a brief update to let you in on what I have been up to.  I have some of the main price guide pages laid out and starting to wire everything together to make those pages functional.   I am using a new design so it takes time to lay it out and make sense.  I am not trying for total perfection since I am trying to get the site out to every one as soon as possible and will push updates over time to add more and fix things.  Next up will be the Brickfolio so that I can get the site active for you all to have access to your data again.

Today I am actually working on updating the Amazon code.  I received call from Amazon on Friday asking me to please upgrade and convert my code to their new API.  I really appreciate that they did that.  I have known about it and they sent quite a few emails, but the fact that they reached out was very cool.  I need to get this done or they will shut down any of the code that helps the daily deals feed (whether you love or hate it).  

[KidDocDMC]

Thanks for all you've done.  If you need financial support, I am sure many of us would be willing to pay a (nominal) fee to keep it up and running.

[lodibricks]

Seriously, how many users are registered for this site? Seeing how many have come to post during this downtime shows how many silent users are finding this beyond useful, not just the common forum contributors. $1/year....$1/mo....it's more valuable than most things we use and/or pay for. I do realize though, it would add pressure in times like these, as you could currently say, "this is a free service, we owe you nothing." I know it's not a new topic as there's been threads 6-7 years back mentioning the idea. Would be justifiable compensation for all the hard work.

[redghostx]

20 hours ago, lodibricks said:

Seriously, how many users are registered for this site? Seeing how many have come to post during this downtime shows how many silent users are finding this beyond useful, not just the common forum contributors. $1/year....$1/mo....it's more valuable than most things we use and/or pay for. I do realize though, it would add pressure in times like these, as you could currently say, "this is a free service, we owe you nothing." I know it's not a new topic as there's been threads 6-7 years back mentioning the idea. Would be justifiable compensation for all the hard work.

I'd pay just to have a better covid discussion and have the Lego stuff as a throw in :-)

[Legojona]

I would not mind contributing something like 10-20 dollars a year. What about giving the members that support that website something extra like "brickpicker supporter" badge or something? This shows who is contributing and stimulates other people to do so as well. For all I care, you run it as a non-profit and give all the profits to that primary school that needs money. Then you still owe us nothing, but you're not the only one carrying the costs.

[gazza]

21 hours ago, Legojona said:

I would not mind contributing something like 10-20 dollars a year. What about giving the members that support that website something extra like "brickpicker supporter" badge or something? This shows who is contributing and stimulates other people to do so as well. For all I care, you run it as a non-profit and give all the profits to that primary school that needs money. Then you still owe us nothing, but you're not the only one carrying the costs.

I'd be happy to contribute!

[CrazyIvan]

I would be in for annual support. Appreciate you guys.

[Falconvt]

I agree, and would be happy to contribute. I realize that things are tough for a lot folks out there in the world at the moment, but I would hazard a guess that most of us could conjure up a few dollars to help support you and the site. 

I hope everyone is washing their hands and staying as healthy as possible...with lots of sets to build.

 

[JJLive]

thank you for all of your hard work!

[waterytowers]

Just noticed the site update banner at the top of the screen.  Great to see everything is getting a refresh, look forward to seeing the next release.  Amazon have great support, I work in CICD and development with data platforms running on AWS.  So many tools and capabilities but importantly they are always trying to help you improve on your existing solutions.  We get annual archtiecture reviews and regular tech updates from our TAM. 

Keep up the great work

[vam1256]

Any way to set up a Temporary link or login just to get an export file of our data?  Realize a big redesign takes time, but just getting the basic data files would be great soon. Thanks.