Tech Sideline
If you're like me, you're wondering, "Why are some of these gray, and some of them maroon?" (Ivan Morozov)

We launched the new version of our website over the weekend. Tech Sideline now lives on TechSideline.com again, instead of virginiatech.sportswar.com.  Here’s the latest.

The changeover went smoothly, given the scope and complexity of it. There was very little downtime – the only time the site went down was when we rebooted it to launch updates – and feedback on the new format was positive.

As we wrote Friday night, our top priorities are:

  • Getting everyone logged in 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

The first three items appear to have gone very well. We have only answered about five emails from people who were unable to login, which is an astounding number, given the size of our userbase.

Everyone was able to read and post on the boards effectively. Our subscriber board was active on Saturday and Sunday with people posting, asking questions, reporting bugs, and suggesting enhancements.

After Saturday’s launch, autorenewals ran successfully after midnight on Saturday.

Now begins the difficult, detailed work of making sure those who need to sign up and subscribe can do so, and those who need to update their credit card information, passwords, and email addresses can do so. That’s what I’ll be focusing on this week.

If you look around the site, you’ll notice that many pages are missing or incomplete, some pages contain wrong information (our Help/FAQ page REALLY needs an update), etc. That stuff will have to wait to get fixed, while we focus on the important things listed above.

We also have the top priority of making sure our writers and photographers can post content to the site. This article you’re reading is our first attempt. Wish us well.

In the meantime, make sure you can get logged into the new site, check out the message boards and your account page(s), and provide feedback and bug reports to us.

Many thanks for supporting us and what we do!