by Metalstrike

Hello everyone!

UGPWEB has been recently upgraded.

Originally, it was built upon a Dolphin 6 web template. Now it has been re-constructed using Dolphin 7, which is supposed to be, more stable, with more features incorporated in it, and supposedly more capabilities in many ways.

Just like you, I am also testing everything, and still learning many stuff about Dolphin7, so it will be a joint experience for all of us in discovering the new UGPWEB!

For starters, I noticed that overall, UGPWEB on Dolphin7 (D7), seems to have a more professional look and has a faster response time than the old UGPWEB on Dolphin6 (D6). The more we have made customizations on the overall website designs, the more professional it feels and this, in my opinion, is a very good step forward.

Many sections of the site are not buggy anymore, even after we have made changes to customize them. What I mean is that, like based on my experience on D6, whenever I modify a page, for example the Members section, some problems would always come up somewhere, and some pages would go "nuts" or some function (like video upload or chat) would not work. Now, so far, I have not seen such problems with the new D7 and all in all, UGPWEB is running smoothly I'm happy to say.

There's a new look on everything. Those features that existed before has been made better.

The first one I am excited to tell you about is that customizing your profile pages has been made easier and more powerful, such that you can make your page look like a myspace page, a facebook page, a bloggers page, etc. It depends on your style.

On UGPWEB, your page does not have to look like just any other profile page with trivial stuff, but can actually have more information on them if you want to. If you have ideas or if you just want to show your personality or display your works whether be art, videos, written or audio, all you need to do is go to your EDIT profile section or play with all the functions available like photo uploads etc., and soon you'll be building a page about you the way you want it.

From your profile page you can access many features. You can do many things in UGP web.

You can create your own groups with it's own forums if you want to.

You can create a real blogging section that you can develop as a real professional blogger's website.

You can make friends and share files, photos, videos, chat with, and exchange emails with.

You can now post polls, vote on other people's profiles, have a calendar for your activities and events and even have integrated map if you want to use it.

You can have a real forums homepage that is very easy to use yet very powerful. Your postings can be re-transmitted to your other accounts elsewhere.

You can also sell or buy stuff on UGPWEB for free.

Almost everything is searchable now whether it be a person, files, photos, postings, topics, etc., etc.

Users now can put an avatar image on their profiles which shows when they post stuff on the web.

One thing also that people should know about UGPWEB is that before, it was being hosted on a server that was not designed to accommodate the Dolphin6 program. I believed that was the major cause why it took forever to load up pages when many people are trying to go into the site. Also, due to very limited finances, the site was on the cheapest hosting package available and was not even on a dedicated server.

Now I have acquired hosting services from a company recommended to accommodate D7, but still on the cheapest available package. I am hoping this will speed things up a little faster. If you are interested to contribute in this matter so we can get better hosting, all help offers are welcome.

Remember that UGPWEB is still being constantly developed. The main focus right now is to put more content in the news and the articles section and we are still looking for more volunteers to make this happen. If you are somebody into writing and would like to have your talents seen by many, just feel free to let us know and we'll be very happy to give it a try.

For now let's test-drive this baby and enjoy the ride.