APW - Major Upgrade

[goldfish]

hey the website is down at this moment man!

[Proteus]

hey the website is down at this moment man!

Online here.

[APW]

There have been several small outages today as various aspects of the database and backend layout have been updated.

In regards to page load times, that will be rectified, however that will take some time as the entire library of images is re-loaded in a new format (currently there are over 4350 images stored on the website).

Aside from the new features, the most popular products will all be refreshed, then gradually all products will recieve an update. This will be to make each listing totally dynamic, but to also reduce the actual filesize which will greatly assist in a speed increase.

The other good thing about this, which no other online store has done before, is to get feedback like this and use it. Once all the upgrades have been completed (which will probably be on Tuesday the 29th or Wednesday the 30th now for the visible changes to kick in) the server is to undergo an upgrade as well. Currently we run Dual Xeon Hyper Threading Enabled processors with 256MB RAM, we are looking at increasing the RAM to either 384MB or 512MB plus increasing the Bandwidth. That is part of the benefit of owning the server the site is hosted on. We were not going to do this for several months, however if some people are having load issues we intend to do everything we can to improve things at our end.

[APW]

The updates and upgrades will be occurring tonight at around midnight Sydney time.

We expect there to be a few outtages and the layout may look a little strange whilst new templates are being installed.

In regards to maximising the efficiency and speeding up page loads, the server upgrade has been scheduled for late September.

Thank you

[APW]

Just so people know, some of the screen layouts at the moment are a liitle wonky as a lot of files need to be overwritten.

All the new features have been added, and many of them are able to be used (related products, wishlist, reviews, large pop-up images, et).

An example can be found HERE
(please excuse the background colour mismatch, and block misalignment)

[APW]

Most of the bugs have been ironed out, however there are 2 issues which are being worked on currently.

The Direct Deposit option has vanished, however we will always have this as an option to our customers. (until rectified, just select Cheque or Money Order and place a comment in the remarks field, we will update it at this end).

Also, when logging in a warning screen comes up saying that the connection may not be secure. We can assure you 110% that it is, it is just the first order review screen that this is happenning in, after that everything is running smoothly.

Thank you

[vince]

well done, mate.

Looks more like big companies overseas or even better.

Considering APW is not even 1 year old, for what you are doing now is just amazing.

Congratulations!!

[APW]

The upgrade is nearing completion.

Most of the new features are visible or are able to be used.

One of the new features is the product layout. Less items are shown on one page which will increase page load times, and there is the option to order an item from the index, instead of having to open up the product description (this was asked by several regular customers).

Products reviews are starting to pop up throughout the site which will assist others in making a decision regarding a specific product.

Following is an example of the new, uncluttered layout.

Thank you