All links on this site are now dead as I have discontinued using Mediafire and we now host everything on a seedbox. All members should have received an email with their relevant username/passwords for [url]www.oldgamemags.com/forum[/url] where you can obtain files far faster than you ever could off Mediafire. Once I have assigned files to their respective scanning members this site will be taken down. See you all on the new forum site. Cheers [b][color=#ff0000]Kiwi[/color][/b]

Over 6,200 mags have now been added to the site. I am going to cancel the two Mediafire accounts tomorrow so grab anything you desperately want to read as soon as possible otherwise it might be a week or two wait while I get them online again.

Okay. Thank you for all your work.

That is an insane amount of magazines. Cheers Kiwi for all the work that you do mate.(y)

In the next three or four days two of my Mediafire accounts are going to be cancelled as they are due for renewal this month and with all our donations funneled into acquiring the seedbox I don't really want to have to cover the $100+ renewal cost myself only to not need them a couple of weeks later, especially when all of our files have now been uploaded to the seedbox. One MediaFire account will be retained for uploads for scanning members to submit their files. What this means is for that a two-to-three-week period half of our mags will not be available while I get them loaded onto the new download site. Unfortunately, many magazine titles are spread over one, two or all three accounts so I can't really say which issues of particular titles will remain available or not and Mediafire don't have a cataloging feature where you can download a CSV of everything on an account. Currently 4700+ English language mags have already been added to the site with [b]#[/b] - [b]N[/b] already completed. I am working as quickly as my creaky 60-year-old hands can type but 9000+ mags is a LOT to process so bear with me while I continue getting the cutover processed.

I'm happy to contribute towards new account if need be (y)

Due to the volume of downloads of files on the Mediafire accounts the bandwidth has been exceeded on one account and is almost at the threshold on a second account. This results in direct downloads being disabled so members get fed advertising pages and the requirement to click links to download etc. Looking at download data the publicly available files have been hammered significantly. As this is impacting members, I have stopped making those files available to site visitors immediately. The account already in the red is due to be renewed next month which should, in theory at least, reset the bandwidth and with members only downloading it should bring things back to normal, but you will need to deal with advertising pages until then. All three accounts are bursting at the seams so unless we have some sort of a funding drive to purchase yet another account I will start looking at deleting older content to make way for new magazine scans etc. Not sure how that will look at the moment but I will let everyone know before commencing a purge.

Added a free version of [i]Download Manager[/i] as an alternative to TinyPortal. This free version is pretty basic but the paid version supports extra features like images, individual category permissions including member access etc. The great thing with this forum is the ability to change the file ownership to a member so unlike every other platform I have used to date I can simply assign ownership to the scanner after I upload them and thus no longer would have to manually add "Scanned by: <member> in the description field. It also picks up the Mediafire size when parsing the file during creation so I also don't have to manually add that to the download page. The only pain is the paid Pro version of the download manager is it costs $69 but I get that's a far cry from $400 for IP Board. :P

I looked into [i]SMF[/i] forum again, after many a year, and saw it now has a plugin called TinyPortal which includes a download manager. This can be viewed at [url]www.oldgamemags.com/forum[/url] I have loaded a couple of [b]Play Meter[/b] issues into the download manager as a test of the download facility. Feel free to take a look at it. I have also created a couple of test logins if anyone wants to post a few topics on the forum and see if the forum/personal settings better suit getting notifications etc which I know has been a bit of a bug bear on [i]PHP-Fusion[/i]. Credentials ([b]user[/b]/[b]password[/b]) are: Joe90 / Thunder1 Tester / Thunder2 At this point I am not putting a lot of effort into it as this is just a test and I'd like to ensure the majority of people are happier with any other platform before considering another migration given the effort involved. At least this is free unlike IPBoard :)

I looked seriously at [i]Invision Power Board[/i] a while ago as Retromags runs on it and again recently but the cost was daunting. If I hadn't just used the donations on securing another three years hosting I would've been tempted by that platform. Without anyone talking about their experience as an administrator that lack of clarity on ease of use was what sidelined it as a potential platform for OGM. That and the fact Phillyman at Retromags said he pays a developer to mod everything on the site so I was wondering exactly how well the base package actually works

My favourite forum platform has always been Invision Power Board, the admin interface is fantastic and it is also a pleasure to use as an end-user. The downside is the cost, it is about $150 per module (so 300 for both forum and download area) :( Although I would be happy to contribute some money towards it if there was interest.

I know nothing of operating a website, so I'm just glad someone is taking care of all of the work of creating and maintaining a platform for releasing and hosting scans. I feel like it's not really my place to say what features I wish we had, since it's probable that such features aren't possible on the current platform and I have no idea what alternate platform might be better. But yeah, if anyone out there has experience in this sort of thing, there are lots of ways other than scanning to contribute, so speak up! ;)

Site donations were recently used to cover another three years of site hosting so barring [i]PHP-Fusion[/i] crapping out on us we are all good for another few years. [b][i]OGM[/i][/b] has been here for over a decade and is still going strong. I must say, I STILL feel like the [i]WordPress[/i] site of old was the best platform we have run on in terms of ease of use, commenting and visibility etc. It's just a shame it crapped itself as we got around 2000 files in the download database or we'd still be on it today. Then [i]Joomla[/i] came along, I made the effort getting that running and it too started giving me problems adding more files even though its a genuine CMS hence the move to [i]PHP-Fusion[/i]. Even that has its own set of niggles although those mainly tend to be around niceties that other platforms have but this doesn't and which long time members got enamored of only to find them M.I.A after the latest platform switch. As always, I more than open to change if it means a better experience for members so if anyone knows or likes a particular site platform by all means have your say on this forum. Our hosting allows for unlimited domains etc so I am more than happy to evaluate migrating platforms if it means a better experience for everyone and we can run testbeds easily enough on my hosting plan. Is WordPress worth reassessing? Is a genuine forum a better option? I've asked these questions before and received very little feedback but I thought I'd remind everyone again that OGM is a community and as such everyone is free to provide feedback and have a say ......

Yeah, something with the upgrade screwed up the original homepage. I don't know if it is related to the update itself, or some interaction issue with the site theme so I changed the homepage to the forum. At some point when I finally have all the content uploaded from the old site I am going to have another look at what is happening. I've just been busy and thus pulled in all directions the last few weeks but I am wanting to resolve issues like that and the category ordering which also got shagged by the update.

I know I'm a month late, but I just noticed that it's exceedingly difficult to locate any but the most recent forum posts, since the page with the forum categories is missing now. I guess that disappeared with the upgrade as well?

So this upgrade seems to have screwed more than the download category ordering with the front page of the site going AWOL on me. Great .... just great!! I have redirected the [HOME] button to the forum main page while I try and figure out what the heck is going on.

I have just upgraded the site and lo and behold the fix I incorporated for ordering the download categories got borked by the upgrade. While I try and remember the file I need to edit to fix this I'd suggest you use the [[b]Download Categories[/b]] menu to get to the appropriate magazine page. The [Downloads] menu still displays the latest files first so for those of you just updating your collections that still works......

Well as Kiwi pointed out, all downloads here are Mediafire links, so if your speed issues are only when you're trying to download magazines, then your problem is with them and has nothing to do with OGM's new website, as it used Mediafire links on the old site as well, I believe. Some countries/ISPs will intentionally block or throttle their users' access to certain domains. Perhaps your country/ISP doesn't care for Mediafire? As larare suggested, I'd advise you to use a VPN and see if you're still affected. (I'd advise you to use a VPN even if you WEREN'T affected. Can't be too careful these days...)

I have it from the beginning of the new page. I thought it was a temporary failure but it has been taking a long time and that's why I wrote. I use many websites from all over the world and this is the only problem. I will continue to look for a solution. Thanks for the answers.

50GB? Pfft .... We need 3TB to cover all the files hosted here!! :P