June 25, 2012 Update

Thanks to Neil, we have bought some breathing room, as the termination of the service from the USA based server has been postoned, at least for a short while. We are not using this extra time to delay the transfer to the new server but it certainly does help.

The Admin & Moderator Team has been working in the background to review alternatives for the placement of the new site. We have already registered the Canadian alternative http://cefresearch.ca with the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (http://cira.ca) and a test site is under development on a new server at Register.ca (http://register.ca).

There are a few technical glitches that we are trying to resolove:

1. None of us working on this at the moment are fully literate with setting up a phpBB2 forum on the server. All the phpBB files have been moved but we now have to link the SQL database to the coding in the forum pages. That has not bee a great success to date, so we are waiting for the people at Register.ca to have a look at these issues when there shop opens.
2. The existing site is based on phpBB2 which went off-line in 2008 so at some time in the future we have to upgrade to phpBB3, or an entirely different system (i.e. the GWF is on the Invision system). There is a significant cost to upgrade to the phpBB3 system and I have no idea if we can transfer to the Invision system - I will check into that as soon as possible).

No matter what steps we take, we will now be using a system that we must pay for, as the "free ride" is over on the USA server. The Admin & Moderator Team has been paying those costs while a financial model is being put together. There will be an update on that in the near future.

We would like to hear back from the membership, so I would encourage you to post your comments here (rather than on the Forum) so we can all participate in the move. If you have programming skills that we can use to assist in the transfer or upgrade, please let us know!

Forum Disruption June 25, 2012

The following announement was posted to the CEF Research Study Group Forum on Wednesday June 20, 2012 by the Site Administrator (Neil Burns). As the site will need to be closed down at some point prior to the physical transfer, there will be a break in communications.

Hello,
We will be offline as of June 25th as we attempt to move to a new server.
This may involve some amount of downtime but we will try to get back up to speed as quickly as possible.
Thank you in advance for your patience,
Neil

As has occured in the past, announcements and status reports will be posted to the CEF Research Blog at this address - you may want to bookmark http:cefresearch.blogspot.ca for your future reference.

The blog was constructed with the intent to provide other avenues of research at any time the Forum was out of action. You will find a list of other sites as well as a list of member web sites and blogs. This will be a good time to refresh your knowledge of these sites. You many also add your comments in reply to this posting, or any other posting. I will do my best to watch for any questions.

In addition to the Blog there is also a CEF Matrix Twitter Account which can can monitor (or "follow" to receive immediate announcments). You will find that at this location:

http://twitter.com/cefmatrix

A "shadow copy" of the CEF MATRIX web site will be posted to my corporate web site so it can remain accessible during the transfer: (that should be active by mid-morning Thursday)

http://censol.ca/matrix

A note to read this blog entry has been posted to the Twitter Account this morning.

Status Report January 2011

The CEFSG web site has survived another year without any failures - thanks to the great work of Neil Burns and his team in the bunker. There are now 2,363 registered users in the group and 60,639 articles posted. I will leave it to Neil to add any words on the progress of the past year.

It has been some time since the MEMBERS LISTING OF WEB SITES was updated on the left panel of this blog, so please if you are a member of the CEFSG and have a WEB or BLOG that relates to your research of the Great War, please give me the details. Send those by e-mail to the CEFSG MATRIX and I will see to it's insertion.

There is also a listing of main research sites that are of use if the FORUM is down, however that is not an all-inclusive list of research material. If you are looking for that level of detail, please refer to Dwight Mercer's (aka Borden Battery) regularly updated list of web sites here: http://cefresearch.com/matrix/Utilities/bordenbattery.htm

Thanks to all the members of the CEFSG that keep this forum alive and interesting. Welcome to all the many new members that have joined us this year.

And always remember the guidance of our fearless member GrandsonMichael - "never hesitate to ask a question!".

If you want to keep up-to-date on this topic, sign in as a FOLLOWER on the left panel of the blog site.

ANY CEFSG MEMBER can post to the Matrix Blog with an update at any time. Access to that Twitter Account is by way of the standard (shared) username and password. Those also work on the MediaFire and Photobucket account pages, so join in!

TWITTER: http://twitter.com/cefmatrix
MEDIAFIRE: http://www.mediafire.com/cefsg
PHOTOBUCKET: http://photobucket.com/cefsg

All is Well: Spring 2010

The CEFSG Blog was developed to report on any problems with the CEFSG main web site and forum. GREAT NEWS - the site has been up and failure free for the whole year, so that is all we have to report.

If at any time there are problems, you can check in here to get updates and access to the main project web links. As well, you can contact us here at any time if you have questions, comments or concerns.

Thanks to Neil for keeping us problem free and productive for the last year.

Status Report: April 30, 2009

Thanks to Chuck the Matrix is now back in full operation and ready to accept uploads. I will get to work uploading all information received over the past few weeks that has been "on hold".

As soon as I am able to get my hands on the two missing pages for Meek's book "Over the Top" I will start the transcription process. The team is assembled and waiting - provided the weather does not suddenly become of "landscape quality, cottage quality or otherwise too-nice-to-be-inside quality".

If there are any other announcements regarding the Forum or the Matrix, I will post them here, but failing that we will not be here for a while. However, you can continue to post any questions or comments here about the technical issues for the forum or matrix and we can try and deal with those as they arrive. I will receive a notice at any time you post a comment.

I will also update the link list from time-to-time, so send in your key research links if they are not shown on the left panel.

Status Report: April 25, 2009

The CEFSG Forum is up and running - and it appears to be in good working order. I have not noticed any missing topics or files. The speed also seems quite adequate.

I must report, however, that the access to the other sections (i.e. uploads to the Matrix) have not been restored so no new information can be added. Access to the Matrix resources is fully functional.

http://www.cefresearch.com/matrix

As soon as I am able to upload the new information to the Matrix I will post that here. If anyone notices any other issues with the CEFSG Forum, please leave your comment here and I will sure that it gets forwarded to Neil and Chuck.

This site has sent out an automatic e-mail to a number of CEFSG members to JOIN AS A FRIEND to follow this site. Anyone can sign up for automatic feeds or as a friend. Everyone is welcome to make comments.

Thanks to Peter Broznitsky for sending in some new links to add to the panel on the left. As time goes by I will try to sort these into sections. They were added quickly to provide "some relief" during our time of stress!

Status Report: April 22, 2009

Thanks to great and fast work from Chuck Grohowski, the CEFSG Forum is "alive". I know it has been a lonely few days for most of us, so now is a good time to sit back and reflect on the great experience we have all had here and to recognize and appreciate all the new "Cyber Friends" that we have met. For some of us, those meetings have resulted in face-to-face meetings, so I do hope that aspect grows for all of us.

The CEFSG Forum Blog will stay here so that if this happens again, or if there is a need for a general announcement, we can use this site. All or any of you can post a comment to the BLOG and it will be added (once moderated - until we know it is SPAM Proof). Annette has started a "Followers" group to the blog, so you can sign up there as well (in private if you wish).

This is also a good time for all of us to take a quick pause and thank Neil for his initiative to start this Forum and keep it going. Some times you just don't miss something until it is taken away from you - now we all understand!

You can now SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG use the FEED Tool shown in the left panel of this Blog. For those who are not familiar with this approach, I suggest you try the ATOM RSS feed, as it adds that component to your Microsoft Outlook Mail folder. If you do not use that for your MAIL try one of the others.