About the New PassionforPixels.com site and why it moved

Read on and you will find out what has happened and what to do.  Please read the complete text first before venturing around the site. After reading this should you have any questions please have a look in the forum after you log in there.  If you can't find what you are looking for, then post in the website problems forum toward the bottom of the forums. If you can't log in then please use the Contact Us link from the forum.

The weekend of the 13/14 September the site had been subject to hackers using the site to hack other peoples sites and were tying to disrupt the passionforpixels.com galleries and site as well.  So after investigating what was and had been happening it was found to be vulnerable (well I had a good idea where it was already), I then decided to take the whole site off line and move the site to the software that I had been intending to do since last year.  This just prompted the move a lot earlier than expected and wanted it to be, due to some limitations which will impact everyone.  Still we can learn to live with that.

The first thing that was done was to move the forum over to the new software.  This has caused some issues, some members information was not carried over due to missing information that was needed as checks by the importing process and all PM's were carried over, even ones that had previously been deleted by users.  So everyone will have to check their PM's after logging in and delete the majority of them if not all of them.  Following the database move, the majority of users were moved over to a temporary group that was called inactive so were not able to log in straight into the forum.  Then through a use of the new forum software using certain parameters the majority of the user base was removed and this means some members who were not active on the forum at all and had been registered for a certain time were removed.  I do still have the old data but only for checking those that contact me regarding not being able to log in to the new forum.

If you do try and log in to the forum and you are denied, please use the contact us feature of the forum to contact me only and I will reactivate the membership.  This procedure will assist to help me in the future to help remove the rest of the members that are definitely no longer members, never really were or are the left over spam registrations that we were continuing to get, even though the registration process was disabled.  There are still spam registrations, but that has proven to be on the new gallery, which doesn't have the same captcha features that the forum has.  When you need to recover passwords etc from the forum you will be asked to input some details that are displayed in front of you, if you are unable to read them, you can either refresh until you can read one or even listen to it.  I do know that spammers still are able to do the same, but nothing is totally perfect.

I did have the gallery open for registrations during this change over period, but that is proving to just create more work.  I have turned it off now and if you are one of the members that doesn't have an account already on the new gallery.  Yes the old one hasn't been moved over as yet, then you will need to let me know.  I will need to know your username, your real actual name, your password and your email address.  Otherwise I will set a temporary password for you to gain access which you must change after logging in to the gallery for the first time which must include upper/lower case letters, numbers and symbols to help with protection from hackers, easy passwords just let them in the door too easily.  The details must match what is in the forum, please don't change your email address otherwise when the old galleries are imported the connections with your images and comments will revert back to administrators ownership.

I am around most of the day and evenings and emails are received virtually the moment you send them.  I action emails in the order they are received, so you will have to be patient until I send you an activation confirmation email for either the forum and or gallery.  As long as your information matches I will process the request.  Where that information is different then I will contact you to seek clarification.  Free emails will no longer be allowed for new registrations on the site, unless first discussed with myself, but I am flexible with good reasons given of course.  People trying to register with these free emails will get rejected by the system.  Eventually all registrations will be handled by the forum and you will be able to log into the front end and then navigate around to the forum and gallery similar to the old software was.

All information on the old site is still there but not viewable by anyone but myself any more, nor is it able to be got at by hackers as well, as far as I know, we have done our best to make sure of that and to protect the members information.

Subscriptions have started on the site as was the intention at the beginning of the year, and at this stage that is totally voluntary though I do encourage you to do so as the financial world crisis at present is going to force a review of the price shortly.  Further information will be made available as those logistics are worked out for the benefit of the site.  If you want to take out a yearly subscription it is located in the User CP of the forum after selecting that you can edit your details and  if you scroll down you will see Paid Subscriptions on the left hand side under Miscellaneous or use the link in this text if you are already registered.  It isn't displayed anywhere else on the site and further subscription options will be made available to those members that are interested in what the site will have to offer in the near future.

Thank you to everyone for your understanding during this very busy time and I, with the help of Theresa, will be working hard to get the site back to where it was and improved with new features as quickly as possible, but it will take quite a bit of time to do so.

Peter R Schuck
Owner/Administrator
PassionForPixels.com