Reverb: The Official UTF Blog

UTF version 5 launches! At last, at last, at last! I’m sure some of you are saying, “It’s about time.” Trust me, I am too; I was just as sick of the old layout as some of you. I slaved, I kept my nose to the grind, and I worked my entire Easter vacation to get this done; however, I think you’ll find that it was well worth it. I would have been ready to launch sooner had the web site outages halted the backend work I needed to complete, but unfortunately, no one can predict when server issues occur.

Because my web host is still experiencing some problems, it’s possible that UTFv5 is a little slow to respond when you initially click on a link or page. Slower responses in page load will also occur because I’m precompiling everything upon initial load. I know I’m speaking a bit geek now, but that essentially means the site is loading the page contents upfront before it displays in your web browser. When you revisit that page (once it loaded the first time), it will display pretty fast because it was preloaded and cached (stored).

I’ve tested the site in Firefox and IE, so everything should look and display normal. If anyone runs across any problems or if anything looks funny, drop me an email via the Contact UTF link.

Now that I’ve launched this thing, I think I’ll catch up on some of the sleep I’ve lost getting this site finished. I hope everyone enjoys the new look and features!

• Check out the new and improved UTFv5

If you’re subscribed to Reverb, you may need to update the old RSS feed with a new RSS feed. I made some changes, and it’s possible you will need to update the feed for this blog if you no longer receive updates via your favorite RSS reader.

Web Site Outages

If you’ve tried to visit the Reverb or even UTF for that matter, you probably encountered some “file not found” pages in addition to a sluggish (slow) site and other issues. I apologize for that. My host was having some major issues, and my site, along with hundreds (if not thousands) of other customers got knocked off line. The issue seems to be resolved for the most part; however, my host is still having issues. I can’t guarantee that Reverb or UTF won’t go back out again. Paying for true 99% uptime is a bit more expensive.

UTF Version 5

Prior to the outages, I was able to make a large amount of progress on UTF version 5. The site is 98% complete. I would have been closer to finishing and launching sooner, but I’m nearly three days behind schedule thanks to intermittent site outages. I still have some backend work to complete, but UTF v5 will launch really soon. Timmy has seen the new site and thinks it’s great. Everyone else will soon see that it’s a vast improvement over the current version of the site. Stay tuned to Reverb to find out when the new site (and very much improved) launches.

Effective immediately, the Official UTF Newsletter will no longer be delivered to subscribers via email. Between this blog and the new version of UTF (which really is coming soon), I no longer see the need to maintain the newsletter. You can subscribe to the latest UTF news here on Reverb by subscribing to the RSS feed. The new version of UTF will also have RSS, so you will get the news and updates instantly in your favorite RSS reader.

If you tried to visit the UTF message board and landed here, then your eyes (or browser) is not playing tricks on you. The UTF message board has been taken off line and the associated database will be deleted. The URL for the message board now redirects to Reverb, the official UTF blog.

If you haven’t visited Reverb before, this is the place where I post random thoughts on entertainment for the most part. I also will post UTF news here until the new version of UTF version 5 is up and available for the public. You can subscribe to any posts here via RSS. If you don’t know what RSS is, look for the orange symbol on the UTF blog, click on that, and subscribe using an RSS reader.