Back online

OK, the web host has reinstalled the required packages, and we're back online. Hopefully the site should be back to 100%, but if there are any problems, please let me know. Apologies once again for the problems.

Outage update

It seems that the current site problems have been caused by a server switchover at the web host. Apparently they are looking into it, and will have it up and running soon... fingers crossed!

UPDATE:
Ooh, I'm angry. The new server they have moved me to doesn't have the version of Rails on it that I was using for the website, therefore it doesn't work at all. Breaking existing websites is bad enough, but to do it without informing the owners of those sites in advance? Unforgivable, in my book. Grrrr. I will be sorting this out as soon as I can, but due to other commitments it will probably not be until late tonight. Grrr.

Site is down...

Hi everyone - unfortunately it looks like the site has gone down for some reason. Not sure why at the moment, something must have changed at my hosting provider, because I haven't changed anything for about 2 weeks. I'm looking into it, and hopefully will have it up and running as soon as possible. Apologies for the inconvenience!

Incidents and accidents

Oops! It seems that a bug crept in with the flight update a couple of days ago which caused an error for users who hadn't entered any data yet. It should be fixed now - I've tested it out manually, and now I'm going to write a bunch of test code to catch problems like this before they make it to the main site. Also, every time there is an error on the main site from now on, I will get an email, so I'll be able to catch these things as soon as they appear. So, apologies for the problems, but we're good to go once again. Sorry about that!

Avatars

One more announcement for today, before I go to bed. We now have working avatars, so you can put an image of yourself (or something else of course) on your profile. I was using an external site called Gravatar for this before, but it's not been working for a couple of months now, so I've dumped it. Apologies if you went and signed up for a Gravatar account because of the Carbon Diet, but at least it works now. I look forward to seeing all your pictures :)

Bugs & Updates

Minor update to the group and friend rankings this morning - it should be quicker, and you now get a nice pie chart showing the contribution of each person in the list in a nice graphical way.

I've fixed a bug in the group signup code, which prevented you joining groups without being invited, so that should all work now.

Also, if you've tried to use Gravatar to customise your user picture on the site, you've probably noticed that it's not working. Fortunately (in a way) it's not just the Carbon Diet. Lots of sites using Gravatar seem to be having the same problem. Unfortunately, the people behind it have disappeared, and left their site in a broken state. I've been trying to contact them for ages about this, but to no avail. I'm going to look round for an alternative method of letting you customise your pictures, so I'll keep you informed.

Shiny New Graphics

I've done a few more updates over the last couple of days, mostly on the graphical side of things. The site now looks a little bit slicker, a bit more modern, and should be more accessible to new users with a new login page. Also, the "remember me" button should work now so you won't have to log in every single time.

Signup problem

Many thanks to Felicity, who pointed out that the signup code was broken and that nobody could create new accounts! I think this was a problem that crept in when I upgraded to a new version of Rails on Wednesday, so if you've tried to create an account and failed, please try again because it's fixed now!