ANNOUNCEMENT: computerconsultantsforum.com IS ONLINE!

[The Gorn]

This board is now accessible through the URL http://computerconsultantsforum.com

You may continue to use your existing Yuku based bookmarks.

This is a true domain hosting situation. If you browse computerconsultantsforum.com, you will stay inside that domain.

Many thanks to Benali72 for stating the obvious. This, plus some tweaks to the text on the home page, should make the board much more visible and accessible to the world.

[Origisaurus]

[JBB]

Not sure if that's a good idea. Putting up the URL is a good idea but if we start renaming things, are we really re-branding ourselves and is that something we want to undertake?

[The Gorn]

Done. Thank you.

I also put in a support ticket to change the Yuku name of this board to "computerconsultantsforum". (The Yuku name "computerconsultants" is, er, taken. )

[The Gorn]

I believe that Origi. was writing about *this* section (The "about" section.) I just changed the name.

Benali72's post yesterday about not being readily findable hit a nerve. I decided that if we want new members, we should at least go all the way on naming things in an accessible way.

Right now our branding is specific to a group of people who used to use Realrates BBS. When GeekNNC named this board "Open IT" he was naming it in defiance of a board that is owned and managed by one person.

Since... er... we aren't a free for all any more, and our focus has always been computer contracting, I figured that 1) the "open IT" branding was too obscure to be of much value at this point, and 2) it was more important to name it something that outsiders could understand without knowing the backstory.

[Origisaurus]

googling for "Computer Consultants Forum" produces over 1,000 hits.  Of course it's to soon for us to appear there, but it feels like we're "just a face in a crowd".

Thoughts?

[The Gorn]

Right now we're less than a face in a crowd. We have had a poor name that doesn't describe the board's mission to anyone except the 15 people talking to each other here.

Who in the heck really looks for "Open IT forum" except someone who's here every day, and they will have it bookmarked anyway?

JBB said this in a message to me:

"OpenIT Forum" is a lot easier to recognize, a lot more brandworthy then "Computer Consultants Forum" in my opinion. It's like the   difference between "Cheer" and "Laundry Detergent".

It initially sounds right, and that's what has always kept me from doing this, but here's my current thoughts.

It SOUNDS more generic to *us* than it actually is in reality to the world.

I Googled for "computer consultants forum". I now get 947 hits. That's really not a lot of hits. Some are references to Compuserve's CONSULT forum. Not one is an actual discussion board.

And when you page through the search it is dead ended with "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 17 already displayed." So Google considers that phrase to be fairly specific (17 important results.)

One thing that boosts page rank is related content. We have LOTS of content. And the words that form a URL are important. If they work together with the content we should see this board high in those results in a few weeks or so.

[The Gorn]

Here's the text of Yuku's response:

I checked out your board, I am afraid it's not possible to rename it as it would cause various technical issues on our system, this would lead to many of   your users having difficultly getting to your board. It is an issue we are looking into, but there is no fix for this in the near future to be honest.

In other words, typical Yuku lameness and inflexibility on a minor point. I should have known.

I guess they have a point about orphaning grognards who won't update their bookmarks. (Although redirecting "openitforum" to "computerconsultantsforum" internally isn't exactly rocket science.

[unix]

[Aussie]

I could never remember the name either, so I just googled for "1Aussie1 1Aussie1 1Aussie1 Oi Oi Oi".

Kinda like talking to yourself

[Richardk]

I could never remember the name either, so I just googled for "1Aussie1 1Aussie1 1Aussie1 Oi Oi Oi".

I had to try it and it works!

[TRexx]

I tried the new url.  It got me here, but I wasn't logged in, I clicked Login. I saw  few browser messages ending with "waiting for static.yuku,com" and "Done". But it never asked for my ID & PW.  I'm still not logged on at the old URL

[The Gorn]

Here's what I did:

I logged out.

At the main index page where it has a link for login, I click that.

I am then sent to the following page: openitforum.yuku.com/login/remote/d/computerconsultantsforum.com

This is a form with text boxes for username and password.

I fill it in, submit it.

I am returned to computerconsultantsforum.com, logged in.

Anyway, I can't fix any bugs with this process and Yuku will likely not respond to any reports.

Yuku is handling all details of the hosting - it is just as much a black box as always. I just pointed my DNS here.

[TRexx]

Yuku is handling all details of the hosting - it is just as much a black box as always. I just pointed my DNS here.

I was afraid that's what you would say.

BTW, I clicked on Login.  Gave up waiting. Opened a new tab. Opened the old Yuku URL where I am still logged in. Read your post and typed this reply.  My other tab is still reading static.yuku.com.

Yuku might be slow, but it sure is hard to use.

[The Gorn]

About the black box - in fact: I tried to assign a subdomain (xxxx.somedomain.com) to this board. That way, I could retain DNS control of the main domain, and I could have some way to see its activity. Nope... can ... do. They don't permit it.

Basically, the way it works is: I plug Yuku's DNS name server names into the DNS entries in the domain record. At that point, Yuku handles it all. It's bullet and idiot proof and it is a "firewall" against creative users, like me.