Merry Christmas (Seriously or Otherwise)

[Dr. Bantham]

I suppose you might wonder why a grizzled psychic surgeon such as Dr. Bantham might be compelled to extend Season's Greetings to everyone within The Nightmare Network. Well, perhaps there yet remains a Portion of mushy organ within my Ka which has yet to be wholly extracted. Or perhaps I am drunk with Holiday Cheer. Or even more credible a motive might be that I am simply racking up posts with a deviant side ploy of teasing the members of Work Not Done. Pick yer choice.

What is in the works for the coming New Year? For starters, The Nightmare Network will be ported over to a new interface. For various reasons, I am not content with the current script and recently decided to make the switch over to the phpBB format. The existing posts will all be replicated therein. What can not be ported? While the new system will feature an internal message system, your current messages will not be accessible via the new interface. The current board will be locked to prevent new input. However it will remain accessible in the event that users need to reference existing data. Watched topic settings will also be “lost”. All of this is necessary since there is no existing conversion script and all user passwords are inaccessible by even board administrators. Your mail and password is truly private, therefore your new user account will have a password which I create and must be changed when you log into the new system. I will provide details for the transfer prior to the port execution.

The new system will be more feature rich, eventually. It allows for more design control and mod development, and will interface directly into Conversations in a Dead Language, the existing TLO chat system. There is also a Flash interface version in development, which will eventually provide an alternate interface similar to that of the current chat interface. There should a minimal learning curve involved in using the new system, as most basic features will appear different primarily from a cosmetic aspect.

I am becoming slightly less incompetent with my PHP and SQL skills, specializing in the artful necromancy of gutting existing code and sewing the bits and pieces together in a simulacrum of The Creator's Great Design. This shall result in the dedication of The Library of Byzantium, a fully detailed, searchable and cross indexed bibliography engine complete with publication images. The data is currently being compiled from my absurdly extensive Ligotti collection, which extends from my collection of Grimoire issues through my latest acquisition of the maroon presentation copy of MWINYD. Yes, I am a sick puppy, but one with lots of bones to hoard!

Right then, we have more ideas brewing, to be sure. But I must be off...

Merry Christmas!
Take it to heart or take it with the amply prescribed dosage of sarcasm - pick yer choice.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

	MWINYD My Work Is Not Yet Done

[matt cardin]

As always, I am impressed with your energy and intiative, Dr. Bantham. I look forward to making use of these new features and developments as you implement them.

And a (belated) Merry Christmas to you as well.

[unknown]

The prognosis sounds good

merry (belated) christmas as well