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ALSforums News

The following news is posted by ALSforums.com administrators and moderators. These updates reflect changes in service, website news, system updates and general site information.

ALSforums news includes general information about the forums, this website, and any upcoming service changes.

Added a new forum for people affected by multifocal motor neuropathy.

Please review the new forum here: Multifocal Motor Neuropathy Support Group

On Al's request we've added a new helpful resource section to the website.

Please review the new guides, tutorials, fact sheets and manual section.

We learned the hardway that despite our love for ASO (our host) that not everything is roses in this network of eden.

Due to massive dataloss as a result of a hardware failure, another website has been reverted, losing months of updates. To ensure this doesn't happen to alsforums.com we've implemented a new backup system. Daily incremental offsite backups to a RAID-1 server, with monthly full backups to our internal RAID-1 backup server.

I feel safer already! Not to mention I can sleep a little more peacefully at night :)

Under Al's guidance we've done some massive upgrades; we've upgraded another 4 subversions, to the latest and greatest version available.

In addition, we've added back all the minor customizations and a few enhancements (adding location details to the post bits, including diagnosis date).

Also, our latest new feature will be user blogs; not sure if they'll catch on, but it'll be interesting to see. OH, we also re-ordered a new license for the software so we can continue our improvements and security updates :)!

After numerous requests we've finally had both the time and the nerve to completely overhaul the outdated forum software.

We expect some growing pains but hopefully things will iron themselves out in a few weeks.

UPDATE: We've installed an agressive anti-spam system for new registrants. It is our hope this will help curtail the number of viscous spammers our forum tends to attract.

Al Pettit makes the news again; read all about it following the link below.

In other news, Al Pettit has shown up in the news again, in an article titled: "Living with ALS a daily struggle".

We have setup a page to allow online donations where the proceeds go direclty to our caring and lovable moderators. These donations are needed to fund special equipment that is required, and which will allow our moderators to continue to offer needed support.

Receiving strong support is required by our members, and providing good support is of the utmost importance to our dedicated moderators. Please consider donating today.

The ALS Society of Canada has added a permanent page to their website about ALSforums. The hope is that this new page will help individuals find our website more easily. We are very encouraged by the success of our website awareness campaign.

The ALS/MND Alliance has opted to provide the safest outbound links from their website and has updated their links page to offer ALSforums as the primary chat forum for people affected by ALS.

We are proud, and excited about this update; we hope it helps direct people to the great resource that is ALSforums

In order our continued commitment to our members we've installed a series of the latest patches to the forum software. Happy chatting, posting and supporting!

The website was offline for almost seven hours today due to a webmaster error (David, me, I'm sorry). Thanks to Al Pettit for phoning me directly. We were able to get the site back online immediately - a big apology for the lack of service.

Due to a lot of out bound links to drug companies for definitions we have added a medicine and drugs section to the site. Hopefully we can add information to this section and stop promoting off shore drug companies.

We've received numerous requests from members and casual visitors that informatin is difficult to find. People felt a search feature would be helpful. In response we've added a site search that is powered by Google.

Additionally, we've updated the support directory, adding links to major ALS organizations as well as cleaning up the directory structure.

After months of e-mail inquiries from individuals looking for ALS support groups in their area, or other local ALS help centers, we've launched an international ALS support directory to help these people find the information they so desperately need.

We currently only have American listings, but will be adding Canada and the UK in the near future. We hope this will help fill a gap online. Our online ALS Support and Resource Directory is the first of its kind!

Due to some recent problems with outages we have moved the server. Expect faster page loads and a more responsive ALS forum!

As a part of our campaign to attact more quality visitors to our community we've signed up for Google and Yahoo sitemap's. This technology allows search engines to more appropriately index our website and include links in their respective search directories. It is our hope that this effort will help individuals affected by ALS find our online support group early on in their search for help coping with ALS.

In addition to adding searchable index of our content, we have also taken the time to e-mail other ALS organisations in the hope they will link to our site as a safe and moderated site for help with ALS.

As a benefit to all forum participants and to the ALS community at large we have added forum archives.

The archives are a web-friendly and screen reader friendly low-bandwidth alternative to the regular forums. It is our hope the archives serve as a quick reference for all individuals in search of information related to MND and ALS.

In order to improve the ongoing availability of ALSforums; a weekly backup system has been implemented - we hope this will guarantee the future of ALSforums and the accessibility and history of all posts made to this website.

Upon member request we have added a spell checking service to all forum posts. Hopefully this helps members better express themselves, and help eliminate the need to edit time consuming typos :)

Due to an increase in online fraud and problems with individuals promoting false information and fraudulent claims ALSforums has created a scamwatch section to help spread awareness about this growing problem.

Upgraded the definitions list available at www.alsforums.com/definitions.php including the ability to update listings. Public updates will be available in the future - coming soon.

Ride for Life has updated their homepage and their forum to link directly to ALSforums!

ALSforums extends its sincere thanks to the Ride For Life organisation for their support, and for their great contributions to ALS research and ALS awareness.

For more information about the Ride For Life please click here.

Our Terms Of Service (TOS) was updated to add information about articles, materials, and a legal disclaimer about medical content.

The ALS Society of Canada has officially shut down their online support forums due to a lack of resources to properly moderate the forums.

It is our hope that these forums and the resources available through this website will be as successful at helping people affected by ALS/MND as the old forums graciously provided by the ALS Society of Canada.

The ALS/MDN support forum groups go online. The website has undergone several changes and looks forward to offering moderated forums for individuals needing help dealing with, or living with ALS/MND.