Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

SHGA Communications, 2007

Web site or Home Page
Www.shga.com is the club’s public face and the first place members go for breaking news. Oversight by Ken Andrews, Webmaster. President Joseph Vandertol has a “module� for posting there. So does Chris Wolters, our Activities Director. So does Dave Cutter, who provides weather and needs PIREPS (Pilot Reports).

The Home Page is where we turn in times of crisis such as flood, fire, or Temporary Flight Restriction. If you have pressing information of value to other pilots, contact the folks above so they can put it up. If you’re hosting a club event, information should be on the Home Page several weeks before the date.

The Web site contains links to a vast amount of information, including contact information for all members, flying site guides, and current and back issues of “High Times.� The Photo Gallery section hosts albums provided by members. Email your pictures to Ken.

Pilot Forum
Jeff Chipman, administrator. Club members are strongly encouraged to join the SHGA Forum, where work parties and volunteer efforts are coordinated ( participation in club affairs is required of all members). It is not necessary to be a member to join or post or participate, and Hang 1s from the beach are especially welcome.

See the Support-Helpdesk section for instructions about how to add a personal avatar and to include photographs in postings.

The Forum is read world-wide, since other sites—from the Oz Report to Wings of Rogallo to the Tennessee Treetoppers— refer readers to us with direct links to specific postings of interest to them.

Weekly Email Blasts
Every Thursday an E-blast goes out to members, alerting them to new information on the Home Page, Pilot Forum or in “High Times.

To place an item in an E-blast, just post to the forum. New forum posts are automatically included. The E-blast team checks the Forum at 9 a.m. Thursday, so post before then; otherwise the item will not appear until the next week.

At present, about 135 SHGA members receive E-blasts. If you are not getting one, contact Jay Devorak, Membership Manager.

In winter, the E-Blast schedule is supposed to revert to an every-other-week schedule. This season the club's high energy level has busted that plan more often than not. Keep it up.

Special E-Blasts.
The club president can approve special, one-topic E-Blasts as needed. Last year these were sent out only for last-minute weather postponements of our public events, or unexpected TFRs. Don’t reply on them. To see if the road to Kagel is open, or a fire has closed the mountain, check the Home Page before flying.

“High Times.�
Richard Seymour is the editor of our award-winning newsletter, which is published on paper as well as available on line at the Home Page. “High Times� is the place for write-ups of club trips, activities, news and humor, with drawings, maps, cartoon or photos, in traditional magazine form. Pride of authorship and point of view is greatly appreciated as members sit back in an easy chair and chuckle or sweat over flying stories they lived or were sorry to miss. Let the editor know your ideas.

“SHGA Communications.�
This forum signature denotes forwarded information, or information from multiple sources. It exists to coordinate committee work that often overlaps. Usually written by Christian from information forwarded to him by the BOD or by committee chairs.

--CW, 3/9/07

Cool!
I like our web site, and I am very much active in the forum.
One thing I would like to be improved is that we can’t post photos and videos in the forum directly from our computers.
Every other forum has this feature; they have means of uploading video too.
In order to post photos we have to have it stored somewhere else on the internet, then we can post it from there. I have done it, yeah, but gees, how do others do? They don't make you jump through the loops.
I spoke once with Chipy, he seemed to be reluctant about direct photo posting, as for posting videos, forget it...
Now that Christian brought up the subject, I would like to hear from whoever is in charge of it:

What does it take to make it possible for the forum members to be able to post photos directly from their computers and to be able to upload videos?

Thanks.
Vrezh.

Here's the deal .....
When the forum was put up it was done so with an access database. Not the best or most robust type of database. It has limitations that the designer (not me) was working with at the time.

Being that the forum's back-end is on an access database our ability to "mod" the forum isn't as well supported as if we were using a SQL or MySQL database. Out of the box, PhpBB DOES NOT support attachments (this is what your asking for). The forum needs to be "modified " to allow this. Certainly this is easy enough to do especially if your running a better database that scales better.

What it will take ........
Renegotiate our present web hosting company for a SQL instance. Import current forum into a SQL or MySQL supported forum. Test performance and backup and indexing. Then finally mod the forum to allow uploads.

Not all that easy. Oh one last thing, I'm only administering this forum, without full FTP access, so I really cannot do anything about this.

You want to post pictures? Then use a free hosting service and link to your pictures, video's, etc ..... It's what I do, but I have my own site. It's not a bad alternative and cuts down on our space requirements which in the end we pay for. There's NOTHING preventing you from posting your content now except "know how".