This website has been offline for about two days as we worked to rebuild it. The rebuild did NOT go as planned, so the old site is restored for the time being.
When this site was HACKED a year ago last Thanksgiving, an awful lot of damage was done to it, internally. We managed to get it back up and running in a half-assed manner, but it worked.
I have wanted to restore the site to its original style Template for over a year, but I didn't have the time or the money to do it. So I waited. Saved money. Researched all the style sheets (Templates) out there until I was bleary-eyed.
I found ONE template that . . . might . . . have been acceptable to me, but at the time, the Content Management System (CMS) company, named Joomla, had just done a massive change to its entire system and released it as Joomla Version 4. Changing from Joomla 3.* to Joomla 4 would have required me to learn it all over again. It was THAT big of a change. This new Template was Joomla 4, so it would have worked, but I was NOT enthusiastic about it -- at all.
Worse, the Style (Template) I was using, was NOT compatible with the new Joomla 4. You see, Joomla 4 REQUIRED an upgraded software system known as PHP 8. So not only was my version of Joomla 3 out of support and being abandoned, but the existing Template wasn't compatible with Joomla 4.
Frankly, with the things going on in the world, and in my personal life, I just wasn't up for the very large commitment of time and learning necessary to make the change. I just couldn't muster the ambition to do it at all.
So I went on, with a half-assed website, and got the job done as best I could with what I had to work with.
Recently, I found that the old Style (Template) I was using, had been upgraded to work with Joomla 4. WOW! Great, now I can restore the old style (Template) get my snazzy-looking, professional site back!
So last week, I downloaded all the necessary components. The Style (Template), the plug-ins that make it go the extra-mile, and paid my tech guy $2,000 to do this job.
He got sick last week, and couldn't do the work, but he told me on Wednesday, he would dedicate time over this weekend. Hence, I told all of you via notices on this site, and via my radio show, the site would be going down as we made this rebuild.
We took the site down Saturday morning and put a placeholder page in its place. Strange that quite a few of you, never saw that! Your web browsers did not go out for the new site, they kept the blank page in the cache. In the future, you can hit SHIFT + F5 and that will FORCE your browser to go out and get the latest version of whatever site you're trying to see.
So my tech guy grabbed a new server. We weren't even going to TRY to salvage the one this site is using; it is all just too compromised. We didn't want any leftover vulnerabilities. Clean start.
He loads the operating system, loads PHP 8.* and loads the quickstart for the new version of my old Style (Template.) He transferred the User accounts, the Subscription software, the newest version of the security software, the newest version of the plugins . . . . . and . . . . Almost none of it worked. OH NOOOOOOO!
So, step-by-step, we started the process of de-bugging. Made very good progress, except for a couple things that absolutely REQUIRE we get tech support from the Vendors.
Well, it's a weekend. Moreover, some of the Vendors/Designers, are located over in Asia. Getting tech support . . . . . on a weekend . . . . with some very significant time zone difference . . . . . not happening!
So we chose to restore this old, half-assed (but functioning) site, for the next few days, while we keep the other server safely offline, protected by a firewall Whitelist preventing all IPs except our specific IP's from even seeing the new site.
When it comes online - presumably this week, it will look a lot like this:
In addition to the clarity, style, and professionalism it exudes, there will be "PUSH NOTIFICATIONS" that you can sign-up for, which will automatically alert you to new stories being posted - free.
The User Comments area beneath each story will be greatly improved.
As shown above, the radio station info, WITH FREQUENCIES will now appear at the bottom of EVERY page, including the frequencies that will be available if a (ahem) "Catastrophe" occurs . . . . like World War 3, which we seem headed-into.
The closed-off links to the audio feeds for Subscribers only, will also newly include links to the EMERGENCY BROADCASTING SERVERS in South America. Those are the ones that (theoretically) would be used if the US gets nuked. Those servers will not ever operate while the regular, primary, servers are in use.
So now that this old site is back up, I'll update the news on it. Depending on how fast the tech support people respond to our issues, we EXPECT to have the new site up and running this coming week.
Thanks for putting up with this inconvenience. We tried to do it as fast as could be done, but technical troubles got in the way. We'll get them addressed quickly and move ahead.
Hal
