Go Global Gadget ^™

Progress has been made in completely revamping the GC website. The direction of the site is becoming more focused. The changes are meant to be evolutionary and not revolutionary. The existing user base is very strong and the risk of alienating them it too high given a complete remake. The first change was to completely remove and update the backend database and the middleware application layer. We decided to use PRADO, a PHP 5 Application framework. It’s unique in the world of PHP in that it’s event based. It’s closer to ASP.NET than, say, J2EE or Ruby on Rails. PHP is also a very robust language with a long history and many many extensions that enhance functionality (such as eaccelerator which provides a near 10x speed increase).

The changes to the site have been the inclusion of avatars and Gravatars, AJAX updating of the latest messages, and the newest messages are now on the front page of the site. The forum uses BBPress and the site is built on the combination of PRADO and Wordpress. The personal messages section of the site was also completely revamped and includes an auto complete text field for entering user names.
Threads and replying was also added to the site recently. Favorites are another loved feature of the site. Lastly, the geo-location part of the site was made to use Yahoo Maps so now you can enter your address and get back your geolocation.