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| Donation History |
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June 2018: 6 people May 2018: 7 people April 2018: 24 people March 2018: 13 people February 2018: 8 people January 2018: 25 people December 2017: 7 people November 2017: 10 people |
Unique Visitors This Month     |
Website Members  |
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Member Stats
291 Total Posts
Sailing Locations
Southport Model Boat Club
Since: 24th Dec 2012 
Test Club
Since: 19th Jun 2017 Harbour
34" Aerokits Crash Tender
Type: Fire Boat |
Fleet Admiral!
Top Ranking Member!
Points
1317 Total Points
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Good Conduct Medal
This member donated! United Kingdom
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It's a good idea and I can see how this is useful on mobile platforms. I'm currently working on a new website so will take it into consideration. The new site is being built from the ground up to support any device and any screensize. One thing you can do on iPhone and iPads at least, is tap the top status bar where the clock is displayed. This will scroll to the top of the page you're viewing. In the blog section it's also possible to view newest posts first, although this makes less sense for forum threads so they're likely to stay in chronological order. Not at a point to release more details on the new website, but I think you'll all be very pleased with it when it arrives! As Doug says we are a volunteer run website, so sometimes things take a bit more time, but we get there! Thanks for the feedback. Stephen
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Hi All, see the attached proposal for the new ranking levels and insignia. Logos will become square, so I've tried my best to replicate any official insignia into the bounds of a square logo. Hopefully these will be understandable. In general, the more stripes the higher the rank. Also black backgrounds are higher ranking than blue backgrounds. Let me know what you think. The scoring will remain at 1000, although there will be changes to the worth of posts, likes etc. So at some point later in the year all members will be given a new rank against the new structure. Thanks for the feedback so far. Stephen
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Hi Smiffy, Admiral of the Fleet indeed is correct, but was shortened deliberately to reduce the length of the text. In some areas of the website it's too long to display properly. 1st, 2nd and 3rd sea lord is a viable option. Will see what others come up with too 😎
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Hi All, right now there's a chance to update the ranking system on the website. It won't be updated until later in the year, but I'd like to give you all a chance to comment on the attached restructuring. The only thing that is important, is that we have 20 different ranks. I don't mind if we mix US and UK, or ranks from different forces, provided it makes rough logical sense. Please submit your opinions and amendments below. Many thanks, Stephen
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Hi All, Just a quick thank you to everyone who donated in 2017 and so far in 2018. It's only with the kind contribution of members this website keeps going. Advertising helps, but it doesn't fully cover the costs of hosting, domains, mobile apps, security certificates and upkeep on its own. A few things on here are due an overhaul again, usually I take time out at Christmas to overhaul sections of the website, but this Christmas break was too hectic, so the website had to take the back seat (or the stern perch). Going forward it's still a life project that continues for me. The website will turn 11 this year, it's come a long way in that time. Originally just static pages, people would email photos of their boats and I'd manually put them online. Laughably unsustainable these days if that still happened, so I must thank you all for keeping the ship sailing, the engines firing and the masts raised! I'd still like to overhaul the website, so amongst juggling a job and other commitments I will be working on this. If you haven't yet but would like to do so, please consider donating. The average donation last year was £8 - so an even bigger thank you to those who stretched a bit further. Donations can be sent securely through PayPal – just click the amount you’d like to donate in the left side panel on the website or at the bottom of the home tab on the mobile app. If your local currency isn't GBP, PayPal will let you enter a value in your local currency. Cash and cheques are accepted although less preferred because of security. If you wish to do this anyway, please PM me for details. Many thanks once again, Happy 11th Birthday to the website and Best Wishes to everyone for 2018! Stephen
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Hi All, thought I best throw my thoughts in since I invented the ranking 😋 It was roughly based off the royal navy ranks, but was never supposed to be an accurate representation. Since we're a boating community it did have to be something from the maritime arena, so the navy ranks were used as the basis but are not complete of course: Fleet Admiral Admiral Captain Commander Lieutenant Sub-Lieutenant Below these, the badges are not accurate, but they do provide a stylised depiction of a members rank. Some badges in the navy are specialist and not considered higher or lower in rank than others so these can't really be used. Chief Petty Officer Petty Officer Seaman Apprentice Recruit A recruit seems applicable more for the website than to the navy. Anyone who has registered but hasn't contributed in anyway are recruits. Then when they do anything (even liking a post) they'll be advanced to Apprentice. Certainly don't get hung up over it. It's all for fun and to encourage people to post great content and helpful advice 👍 I've heard other forums are boring and don't have ranks at all 😉 Stephen
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Happy New Year everyone!! Stephen
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I'm inclined to agree with Dave. Whilst it can be made mandatory to have a photo, the website would only block the post at the final step (clicking Submit). I think it would be very frustrating having filled in everything else to be blocked from posting because of having no photo. There is also a problem on Android preventing people uploading pictures all together, it may explain why some people post without photos. I do plan to fix this, but I'm not the greatest Android developer. What is probably a very easy change to the code I haven't yet figured out. Essentially it's to do with having a webview and not a chromeview. Webview by default ignores upload buttons. If anyone understands what I'm talking about and has ideas to fix it, then do get in touch! Also worth noting, harbour posts can be edited later and photos added later. Stephen
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Hi All, This is not directly Model Boats related and more for members living in the US at the moment, but it does affect this website in some part and could become a more global issue in the longer term. For those living in the US I do urge you to visit the link below and sign the petition to stop your Internet Service Providers having the ability to control the speeds of websites you visit. Today is in an internet-wide day of action to save net neutrality. https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12 If Internet Service Providers get their way, websites like this could be censored, slowed down, blocked, or forced to charge extra fees. It would be the end of the open web. Please help stop them and keep the internet open, fast and equal for all. Vote for an open and fair internet. Check out the press coverage here: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2017-07-10-largest-we... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40494909 How does this affect me? * In the US, the FCC will begin to allow ISP's to control what you see & do online in the next 60 days. This includes creating fast lanes for websites who pay and slow lanes for the rest. * In the EU, rules still require that all internet traffic has to be treated equally, without blocking or slowing down certain data... for now... If you don't agree with ISPs blocking and slowing down websites, or you don't agree with paying more for faster connections to certain services, then please show your support and help spread the word. Although this is primarily affecting the FCC laws in the US, the petition is not limited to US residents and in time will come to affect us all. The internet should be fast and equal. Thank you for showing your support and helping small websites like this receive equal rights to a fast internet. Model Boats Website Team
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Just to make everyones lives a little easier, URL's are now being automatically made into hyperlinks which can be clicked on... No more copying/pasting required! Stephen
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Hi sonar, Private messages from other members cannot be deleted, only marked as read. You can delete private messages you send, which will also delete it from the recipient, but it's not advised. As soon as you send a PM an email will go out to the recipient in any case which of course cannot be retracted... You want to do this to tidy up your private messages page? Stephen
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Hi Wayne, thought I'd chip in on this thread when I saw the words arduino! The stepper motor mayyy need a stepper motor controller. Something cheap like a ULN2003 to go between the UNO and the motor. I'm not sure the direct outputs from the arduino UNO will offer sufficient current. Steppers can require quite substantial currents, especially if they stall or are told to "pause". There are some great libraries available for steppers too. I recommend the Adafruit library. Just make sure the correct pins are identified in the software. If it judders instead of rotates, it's most likely the wrong pins have been assigned to the wrong motor windings. If you get stuck, I'm happy to help with questions too 😁 Stephen
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Been doing some digging for the user roycv. There are no users on here with that name, but there are members that could possibly be the same person..... tidtug33 Trillium cathol8 Welcome aboard the Model Boats Website too! We're a smaller community than MBM or ModelBoats, but some great knowledgeable people on here 👍 Stephen
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Hundreds of models on display under cover with Specialist Trade Stands. Model Boat & Model Boat material and equipment traders. Children's activities, including 'have a go' and outside activities. Clubs and Individuals Exhibiting. £9.00 for Adults Children (under 5 free) 5 to 16 £3.00 Saturday 10.00am to 5.00pm & Sunday 10.00am to 5.00pm Refreshments and snacks available on site. FREE Parking Disabled Facilities
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Southport Model Boat Club Open Day. Free to attend!
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Southport Model Boat Club Open Day. Free to attend!
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Great to see we have international members coming aboard 👍 Welcome 😊
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What part of it is not working? I only know of one bug currently, uploading photos in posts causes the app to crash. Working on that now with a view to release a new version in the coming weeks. No other issues I'm aware of? Stephen
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Looking good Paul!! Pleased they worked out well!! 👍👍👍 Great to see it all fitted 😎 Stephen
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Hi Robbob, We're slowly and steadily tagging keywords across the website. It's an experiment at the moment more than anything else. I do like how you can drill down into boat names and keywords though, which then brings up other posts from across the website containing those words. It could be used for all sorts of things mind. Recommending things you might be interested in, to show trending tags, similar to twitter! It also helps search engines. The website is still a little lost in Google. Stupidly Westbourne models ranks much higher than both this site and meyhem! Stephen
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Added! I've embedded the video in the article. 👍
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Quickly fixed 😉 thanks! 😎
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Hi Walter, Thanks for your email. I've successfully added the photo you sent to your website profile now. There didn't appear to be any problems with the image size or format. Bit strange you saw an error somewhere, hopefully it won't show again though. Thanks, Stephen
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Hi Walter, Could you email me the photo you're trying to upload? modelboatswebsite@gmail.com I'll try my side. If the website is saying it's too large it could be either the format of the image or that it's over (I think 15MB is the limit). Either way, I'll see what I can do. If you can attach it to an email and send it to the above address that would be great. Thanks, Stephen
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Thanks to everyone who has donated! This month we've broken records on the number of people who have contributed in a single month! If anyone would like to publically show they've supported the website, you can now add a 'Good Conduct' medal to your avatar. You don't have to, by default it's off, but if you want to show your support you can switch it on in the my account page or your donations page. In other news, the next project for me is giving you all a better iOS mobile app. I'll keep you all posted on that. Thanks again everyone 😊 Stephen
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There are plans to release an app update. Since iOS 10, Apple changed how they handle push notifications, so currently that feature is not working on Apple devices. Since the last version of the app they also released a new programming language, so the new app will be built in Swift and from current tests it looks to load pages faster. The app won't be ready for launch for (I suspect) another two months yet. Meanwhile, the existing app has seen a few improvements as part of the overhaul. Posting via the app is much more reliable now and you can also post more than 4 pictures like with the website. When the new app is launched I'll let everyone know. I hope, for most, it'll automatically push the update to peoples devices anyway. Thanks, Stephen
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My fault Ed. I was tinkering with displaying a load progress bar for navigating between pages. But my tinkering broke everything until I noticed! 😜 all back to normal now 😊 Thanks! Stephen
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Hi Cliff, You discovered a bug! This has now been fixed 👍 so try again now 😉 Thanks, Stephen
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Hi figtree, I've just put the ships horns back! They used to use a flash plugin so I removed the feature to speed up the website and avoid all the warning messages browsers give about flash. Now they're re-implemented using HTML5 which is much cleaner. @Robbob, pleased you like the site upgrade too! The world of emoji/emoticon/smileys is confusing. The website has replaced smileys with emojis now. Smileys were little pictures that replaced text characters, I did have control over how they look, but it becomes messy as many people use smart phones and you get a mix of smileys and emojis. Emoji are actual characters, like letters. The problem is though, they're displayed in a whole range of different ways. An emoji in Firefox will look different in Internet Explorer, different again in Gmail, different again on an Android phone, different again on an Apple device. It is a pitty there was no alignment by companies! It does save downloading many little graphic files though and it helps the website speed. Also.... there are hundreds of emoji's to choose from. The website has a handful of common ones to pick from, but it's not limited really. All donations gratefully received. Unfortunately no big company pays me to keep the site afloat! I just know a lot of people enjoy it and I take some personal pride in having built it up to where it is today. It's all hand coded, no bought packages, I don't think any off the shelf package would give the same experience! Thanks for all the positive feedback everyone 😊 Stephen
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Hi figtree, that error has now been fixed. It was the result of a new security check which was added 🤓 Thanks for pointing it out 👍 you'll now be able to edit posts again 😉 Stephen
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