It was a long way to go: four years, four seasons and four pretty shaky weeks, but here we are with a fresh installation of version 1.2 of the friendly software Antville on our beloved server Elise.

The mission was change: Updating the code, cleaning up the database, preparing coming features and even adding some new ones right now.

And since change is something many of us fear more than a cup of hot pus some might feel not so comfortable right now.

But don't be too afraid: we are all here to stand with each other coping with possible disadvantages of this necessary and indispensable (if not desired) update.

If anything technical needs to be fixed immediately, I am ready to pick up the pieces and of course I'll do my best to repair what's to be repaired.

Because this is Antville.org, the test installation for the Open Source Software called Antville driven by the community and developed by the Sophistcated Queen Ant's Drones (S.Qu.A.D) which is currently only me but here we go again: one day there might be somebody else joining in or taking over.

Nothing is stable in terms of evolution. And Antville is evolution. I can prove this with a simple equation:

Antville = Evolution

qed.

So, to get to the substantial part of this posting, I compiled a rough list of what Antville 1.2 brings, lacks and temporarily disables here on Antville.org:

1. New features

• Support for multiple topics (aka tags)
• Secured user passwords
• Replaceable images and files
• New Archive structure
• RSS 2.0
• Basic framework for serious internationalisation
• Simplified permission management
• Revised terminology

2. Temporarily disabled features (will be back, soon)

• Referrers and backlinks
• Layout switching and test drive
• Search
• Weblogs.com notification
• Creation of new sites

3. Removed features

• Multiple layouts
• Customization of essential skins

I hope at least some of the listed items above will make you cheer while I can also imagine that a few people will be disappointed by one or the other item.

However, please keep in mind that all these measures were taken deliberately to close the gap on those four idle years of stalled development and make Antville a sustainable project again.

May now begin a time where some of the most requested features are easier to be realized and may this prospect console those of you who are really miserable right now.

For the good and for the better times. And for a quite glorious end of the Antville Summer (or rather: Seasons) Of Code 2007.

Have fun!

I have fixed the image layouts problem and now will go through the remaining issues of the feedback thread.

After that I will disable access to Antville.org again and give The Super Big ASOC’07 Update (Super BAU, heheh) another try.

Estimated downtime: Late afternoon evening of Wednesday, 7 May 2008 through the night until the next morning.

Please be prepared.

Oder wer auch immer für den (bzw. das Script zum) Wasted Comments Dump zuständig ist: welche API wird dafür verwendet?

Ein Test wäre ggf. angebracht...

You're still enjoying Antville 1.1.

Something went wrong with the layout image conversion and Elise's specific MySQL server version.

Bummer.

Better luck next time (which most likely will be today, Monday).

As there is a so-called "long" week-end approaching I think I will take a chance and try the Big "Version 1.2a" Update on Antville.org.

After all those years (almost four, I guess) here comes another huge update!

Of course, I won't do any work on Labour Day but expect Antville.org to be offline on Friday, 2. May 2008 and the following days (as long as it takes – fingers crossed that we'll make it until Sunday).

There's now a test installation of Antville 1.2 running on another server.

Feel free (or rather: feel kindly asked) to check out your own or your favorite weblog. Your Antville.org login should work there, too.

Note: The database snapshot of the test installation was reduced to content created between 1 January 2008 and 14 April 2008.

You might notice that not everything is fine. In fact, the whole thing could even crash ingloriously.

Don't worry – that's OK at least when you let me know about your findings, no matter how unimportant it might appear to you.

Please provide a URL which shows the (mis)behaviour and a sufficient description of what you have done.

I might know about a lot of issues already, though, but that should not hold you back at all. I am convinced there are still many uncovered bugs in the open.

Thus, please post your observations, questions and excitement right down below in the comments.

Well, here's the URL: p3k.org

I need a little bit of help from a MySQL-savvy person, so please forgive me the technical mumbo-jumbo following below.

The database update which is necessary for the Antville 1.2 upgrade takes long. Very long. Too long. I started it yesterday at 1:30 in the night and it is still running.

Well, you might say, haven't you written the update script yourself? Aren't you the guy who should know why it's running so slowly?

But I am really pretty clueless right now. Because all I am doing is issueing quite simple select, update and insert statements.

The problem might be, though, that it's Millions of them. During the first few hours everything goes quite smoothly, but after that each bulk of inserts or updates to a table (especially the one containing all the lovely postings of the Antville.org community) is interrupted with a break of a few minutes at first which in the meantime even exceeds ten minutes.

Thus, the update is taking longer and longer and longer. And of course I don't want Antville.org to be down for such a long time.

I already tried different things I found on various websites and in the depths of the MySQL documentation, even with some success in speeding up things a little bit.

But it's still not working out...

So my urgent request is: if you know how to optimize MySQL performance pretty good or you know someone else who does, please please please get in touch with me as soon as possible.