Big changes this week for PSTValumni.com. Most are good changes and one very bad change.

Starting with the positives, after a full week offline the new PSTV Alumni website has finally launched. Everything is not completed yet but enough was accomplished to let it go live. The most obvious change is that we are no longer using the old style/theme. Nothing was wrong with the design but after several years it was time for a change. Not to mention there were many behind-the-scene coding problems which needed to be addressed anyway. Other than a new style, here's more infomation on some of the additional new features:

• News Blog with RSS Feed - We've replaced the simple little news script we used to have with a News Blog powered by Blogger.com. You're reading it right now! This move has many advantages, including more features, team collaboration, and the ability to list the latest headlines on the homepage using feedburner. Plus with
  an RSS Feed (technically it's actually an Atom Feed) you can now add the PSTVA News Blog to your favorite news reader, or Google/Yahoo homepage.
  
• Style Switcher - Forget about one redesign, we've got four and counting. If you haven't found it yet, click on the tiny colored squares below the menu and you'll instantly switch to a new style. Choose which ever design you like most. (The "Web 2.0" style still needs some bugs worked out but it demonstrates how we're not limited to any particular structure.) More styles will be coming, as will a special page to list them.
  
• PSTVA Gmail - A few of you already have special Gmail accounts with pstvalumni.com addresses. Soon this will be expanded to make it easier to sign up and to sign in easily.
  

Now the bad news... very bad news. At the same time that the website was undergoing the changes mentioned above, a trojan horse virus was unleashed on the PSTVA Forums. To prevent further damage to website visitors or to our servers the safest thing to do was to destroy them. Luckily the forums were all backed up just days before the virus attack occurred so very little if any data will be lost. I will reinstall a message board but it will only be temporary. The reason is because phpBB, the type of forum we use, is scheduled to release a major upgrade of their software sometime in the next few months. I've seen the demos for phpBB3 and whenever we end up upgrading to it, it's going to kick ass!