Super-sized Newsletter for Sep 15, 2015 - Codename: Upgrading Everything

1. Newsletter Editorial

Greetings!  It's been 6 months since the last newsletter, and this edition of the newsletter isn't just super-sized -- it's the biggest newsletter we've ever put out.

I'm going to talk a little in this editorial about happenings on the website and forum.  So if that doesn't interest you, feel free to skip the remainder of the editorial and the first few sections of the newsletter and jump right to the roundup of the most interesting new posts on our forum.

In March we held a fundraiser to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the site, and raised $15,649 from 927 donors (an average donation of about $17).  For 10 years our software has remained free of adware, spyware, bundled toolbars, or other unwanted stuff -- all made possible by donations from ordinary users.  It was a rejuvenating experience to hear from so many people who have supported our site over the last decade. 

The fundraiser made it possible for us to finally spend a couple of months putting in place a major forum upgrade, which was unveiled on August 30th.  The forum upgrade brings lots of small improvements on the user interface side of things, and some major improvements in the back end that will make it easier for us to improve, maintain and secure the forum for the next ten years.

And with the successful forum upgrade behind us, we're not slowing down -- next up is a major site overhaul.  We're moving the entire website to a CMS which will allow us to more easily add more content from more users, and make it easier to keep the website content updated.  We should be ready to unveil that in November (section 2 has links with more details), so stay tuned -- your donations are hard at work.

Ok, onward to the newsletter!

-jesse (mouser)