CR List,
I know some of you may already be VeloBase members and probably already hav e the following email in your inbox (or perhaps caught in the spam filter!) , but wished to share it with the entire list for those who might not have seen it yet and might want to read up on what's new on Velobase. ______________________________________________
Happy Holidays from VeloBase.com! It is already time for the December Semi- Monthly site update and there is much to tell so I will get straight to it. First off, the growth of the website is staggering. When I sent the last u pdate on October 12th we had just hit 500 components, today we are nearing 1200, with over 130 individual brands and manufactures represented! A few o f the newest additions include the Assos aero section rim, Avocet RS saddle , Lyotard 460D pedal, Weinmann Alloy & Steel stem, Houdalille EX Powercam c rank, and Shimano SP-7320 seat post from the Dura-Ace AX group. Over a 100% increase in a span of less than two months. Add on 100 individual head bad ges (the newest representing the Jan De Reus brand of Holland), 51 vintage tools (5 new VAR tools added this week), and 60 catalog scans (two new Palo Alto shop catalogs!) contributed by many of the nearly 250 registered user s and VeloBase.com is already exceeding all of my wildest hopes when I star ted this project back in June. In the last two months I have been making a number of functional and visual changes and upgrades to the website to prov ide a smoother and pleasing user experience on the site, as well as fixing a fair number of minor errors that popped up along the way. I thank all of the members who brought these to my attention and help in getting them reso lved as quickly as possible. The following are a few of the major changes m ade: 1) VeloBase.com Announcements page posts detail of the most recent upd ates on VeloBase.com, including these Semi-Monthly updates, release notes, and more. 2) Opt-in / Opt-out of Announcement emailings. Found in the Edit User Profile you can control the amount of email you receive from VeloBase. com's Announcement system. I try to limit the number of announcements outsi de these semi-monthly mailings so changing these settings won't suddenly ca use a flood of emails. 3) New Quick Search Options for Components, now do a quick text search by Component Name or Group Name. 4) The View Single Head Badge page, and the ability to add more than one photo per head badge. 5) Photo Search. Now browse some or all of the photos uploaded of Components. Provides quick filters to select just the photos you want to browse, and li nks to the full Component listing. 6) Upgraded (or actually finished) the V ariation system. Allowing you to link two similar components together as va riations of one another. A variation might be two cranksets that were produ ced for one group, or a derailleur which was marketed under multiple brands , etc. The Full list of changes and upgrades can be found in the News & Ann ouncements section of the VeloBase. And if that wasn't enough, there are ev en bigger changes and upgrades in the works. I am currently working on a re vamp of the entire Brand and Group system for Components. The changes are a imed at making the database much more flexible in linking components to a c ertain group. It is a fact that some manufactures used the same component i n multiple groups, or a component might have been a part in multiple groups over multiple brands. These changes aim to allow those associations to be created, tracked and displayed. There will be a View Group page where one c an see a general overview of the group they are interested in, and link to all of the components currently associated with that group. I also intend t o upgrade the Year range data for Components which will allow to search and filter by a time frame. I have not set a date for the release of these cha nges, but when the time comes it will be necessary to bring the site down f or a time period of probably about an hour. I will try to schedule it when traffic to the site is at a low point during the day. Once these changes ar e released, I will post an Announcement on the velobase forum covering all of the new content and functionality of the release. Hope everyone has a sa fe and happy Holiday Season. It might just be the perfect time to unwrap an d photograph some of your stored vintage cycling treasures to share on Velo Base.com. I'm also interested in expanding the Articles section of the webs ite, contact me to find out more. As always, I'm open to suggestions, ideas , questions and any other feedback you wish to provide on how to make VeloB ase even better. Jon Fischer Dallas, Tx VeloBase.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------
The Greatest Trophy of all is the sense of Accomplishment http://velobase.c
om | http://thecuda.com