This weekend, Tech Sideline will be launching its first major website revamp in many years. Here’s what you need to know and what to expect.

At 9 AM on Saturday, August 1st, we’re going to start the process of flipping from our old site on virginiatech.sportswar.com to our new site on techsideline.com. Yep, you read that correctly. We’re moving away from the SportsWar networked architecture back to a site that lives on the techsideline.com domain.

When exactly will the switchover occur? I don’t know. But the work to launch will begin Saturday morning.

First Priorities After Launch

We expect the hours and days after launch to be hectic. In the immediate aftermath of the upgrade, our top priorities are:

  • Getting everyone logged on successfully
  • Making content available to read (football practice starts Wednesday!)
  • Making sure everyone who uses the message boards can post on them and read them
  • Ensuring that billing and subscriptions continue uninterrupted

Everything else – making sure the menus and pages all match, every link works, the recruiting database is up and running, every table and schedule is perfect, all the archives are tied in, etc. – is secondary. We’ll be focusing on the basics out of the gate. We’ll be asking the questions, “Can you get logged on, read the content, keep your subscription, and read and talk on the boards?” And nothing else for the time being.

The first few days will be bedlam. This is a major upgrade. But we will work tirelessly to get everything buttoned up and functioning properly.

The Same, But Different

The site will appear similar to what it has looked like for many years, so it won’t be a huge shock when you see it.

But underneath, the code is all brand new, everything is tied together much more tightly, and once we get the bugs worked out, everything will be faster and more reliable.

We’re transitioning from a Frankenstein setup of many different coding languages across many different databases into one code base that functions off one database (or something like that; I’m not as technical as I used to be).

There Will Be Rolling Updates and Rolling Reboots

As bugs are reported and missing items are discovered, we’ll be fixing them on the fly and rebooting to launch upgraded code.

This means you’ll be cruising around the website, reading and posting, and …. then it’ll go away ... and then it’ll come back a few minutes later.

We’re not going to announce every reboot/update. We’re just going to be doing them on a rolling basis.

You Must Chill! You Must Chill!

That’s a line from the movie Say Anything. It goes like this:

Partier: “Give me my Firebird keys!”


John Cusack: “You Must Chill! You Must Chill! I have hidden your keys! Chill!”


Partier: “…. I love you, man!”


John Cusack: “All right, I love you. too. Go to sleep.”


Our version will be:

You: “Tech Sideline is broken! Make it work!!”


Me: “You Must Chill! You Must Chill! We are working on it! Chill!”


You: “… I love you, man!”


Me: “All right, I love you, too. Check the site again later.”


So, as the site transitions through its rough opening days … chill. We got you.

Here Are All the Changes and New Features

Uh, no. That would take too long for me to list everything, and you’d fall asleep reading them all.

To be honest, the vast majority of upgrades are related to the message boards. We have tightened up and debugged old features and have added some cool new features like bookmarking posts, choosing new formats, adding a new “trending” feature, and other things.

Just cruise around the site and around the boards, and discover everything for yourself. And share what you find on the boards with others.

Once we get things fully up and running, we’ll be able to update formatting add new features quickly, so this is just a launching point.

Thanks, and we’ll see you on the other side!