Before I start filling you in on the migration story, let me say hello to all of the MyFamily.com v1.0 customers out there that are reading this. I’m Dave Quick, a member of the MyFamily.com team hard at work on the MyFamily.com v2.0 Beta site.
A significant amount of my time has recently been dedicated to thinking through and implementing the code that does the migration of all the sites from MyFamily v1.0 to the MyFamily v2.0 Beta. It is really a great opportunity and relatively rare opportunity to rebuild a site that already has such an active and passionate member base and I’m very excited to be part of that effort. All the members of the team here in Bellevue, WA are very excited by the work we have ahead of us to make the MyFamily.com v2.0 Beta the best way to keep in touch with those that matter most to you – and just a small part of that is preserving all of your content from your MyFamily.com v1.0 site.
Someone from the MyFamily.com team mentioned in a recent post to this blog that we are working on migration and that has prompted a lot of questions from our members. This post is meant to help explain where we’ve been, where we’re going and how it effects you. If this post does not address your particular concerns please do give us additional feedback that will help us understand what we could expand on to put any concerns to rest or satisfy your curiosity. Ways you can provide us your feedback include posting a comment here on the blog, giving feedback via the form on the MyFamily.com v2.0 beta site (available at http://beta.myfamily.com/ContactUs.aspx) or submitting an email to mf2beta@myfamilyinc.com.
The short version…
If you take only 5 things away from this blog entry…
- You do not have to manually migrate your own v1.0 site to v2.0 – we’ll do that for you
- If you have a site named the same thing on v1.0 and v2.0 it doesn’t matter to us – we’ll happily create another site with the exact same name when we migrate and you’ll wind up with two sites on v2.0 with he same name
- Your data is going to move nicely between v1.0 and v2.0 but you might have to clean up some formatting if you’re using advanced HTML features that include CSS classes/styles
- It will be a while before we have parity of all the v1.0 features on v2.0 and it will be even longer before we even think about turning off the v1.0 version of the site
- It will be a while before we expose your site migrated from v1.0 to v2.0 for you to check it out – we’re actively working on it each day.
I encourage you to click the link below to read on only if you’re very interested in the details of migration and I’ll warn you it is pretty lengthy because it addresses almost every one of the questions we’ve received from the member base of v1.0 to date.
Key questions we’ve received about migration
What happens to your v1.0 site(s)? What happens to your v2.0 beta site(s) I’ve created? Does it mean something to me only if I’m an admin of a v1.0 site or does it affect all members? I hope to answer these questions to the best of my ability as succinctly as possible here to help you understand what you need to do, what you don’t need to do and what you should expect to have happen with any Calendar Items, News threads, Recipes, Photos, History threads, Polls, Files in the file cabinet.
Copying data from v1.0 to v2.0 means understanding the data we’re copying
I and the other folks working on migration here at myfamily.com are very aware of the content that is in each of the sites in the MyFamily.com v1.0 web sites that each of you use day in and day out every day. Everyone here at MyFamily.com fully understands that there are families, organizations, businesses, groups of friends, classmates, etc. that have collected sometimes tens of thousands of photographs and conversations over the past 8 years on your MyFamily.com v1.0 site. Each and every time we approach the task of migrating the content our users have generated we come away with a renewed happiness when we understand the creativeness that our users continue to bring to our site and we appreciate the fact that you continue to choose our site to preserve your memories and to strengthen the bonds of friendship and family.
There is one site that MyFamily.com sponsors each year that helps administrators of sites connect with other administrators of sites called the “Admins Family Site” (accessible at http://www.adminfamily.comif you weren’t already aware of it) which actually helps lots of site administrators learn new skills, learn more about the features in MyFamily.com v1.0 and now are actively involved with discussing what they like and what they think could improve in the MyFamily.com v2.0 Beta site. This is a community driven effort that is just people sharing tips and tricks and other information with each other out of the goodness of their hearts on their own time and goes to show what a strong user community we have in MyFamily.com.
The members of this administrative community are likely some of the most advanced users of MyFamily.com and have some of the most complex content due to use of several features discovered by the community over the past 5 years they have been collaborating on the admins site. Some advanced techniques for content and site manipulation include custom formatting (css styles, ect.) to produce custom banners, custom backgrounds, “hidey holes”, along with a few others. The MyFamily.com v2.0 Beta team has marveled at the fact that many of these techniques were even discovered by the members of MyFamily.com never mind implemented with such great success – another testament to creativity of our users. I will address some of the implications this has for our migration process in just a bit.
Feature parity of v1.0 vs. v2.0 Beta a ways off
If you were to go looking for some of the features that you have used and loved in the MyFamily.com v1.0 release you can clearly see that the MyFamily.com v2.0 Beta site is lacking at the very least customize colors/layout, categories, calendars, family trees, recipes, and a couple other odds and ends. Rest assured these features and many more are on the list to be developed. And, I can assure you, we’re working to meet and exceed the functionality of the v1.0 site on an aggressive but sustainable pace that will allow us to provide a better, faster and improved experience over v1.0 by the end of 2007.
In this brief timeline below you can see how rapidly we’ve been adding features to the MyFamily.com v2.0 Beta site:
Are these features “fully baked”? No feature of any web site is fully baked – I consider everything on our site as something that is a potential target for improvement based on the needs of our members. We might decide to re-write some portions of features or introduce replacements for a feature based on feedback recieved from our members. We just want to build a site that keeps all members engaged and makes it easy to stay active and connected with those that matter most in your life. We will continue to iterate and revisit the feature list every 30 working days or so and work on the features deemed most important at that time.
This approach to running a project is sometimes called “Agile Development” (for more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_development). As you can see this has allowed us to get new features out the door every 15 to 30 days consistently since November 2006. But I’d also like to point out that this means it could be several weeks/months for every bit of functionality from the MyFamily v1.0 site to be re-written and/or improved upon and released in the MyFamily v2.0 Beta.
Why announce migration at all?
So why are we even talking about migration? Why did we ever mention it? I mean the beta site looks nothing like the v1.0 site, the beta site doesn’t have a number of features that the v1.0 site does have, and all of your data is on the v1.0 site which has the richer functionality.
Well – to tell the truth members asked us to talk about migration. Through feedback on our site, through feedback in the Admins Site, and through focus groups we contacted.
Lots of members were concerned when they created an account on v2.0 or logged in using their existing account and didn’t see all of the content they had on v1.0. We actually heard from a number of people that were trying to move content from v1.0 to v2.0 on their own and in some cases the amount of content they were talking about was non-trivial (think 10,000 images, 10,000 conversations!) and we wanted to make sure that every one of you got a clear explanation that your v1.0 site content will certainly be copied to the v2.0 site and that it will be completely seamless to you – no work on your part, no tool to run, nothing to do but login to the v2.0 site once we have copied your content and notified you that your migrated site is ready.
So let’s discuss some of the mechanics of the process in more detail now.
Already started a site on v2.0 with the same Site Name as I have in v1.0
That’s fine. It’s not necessary to start the same site you have in v1.0 and manually copy data over to v2.0. When we do get to the point of exposing your migrated sites on v2.0 it just means you’ll likely see a site with the same exact name twice in your “sites” drop down. It seems it should be pretty simple for you to rename one of them so that you can tell the two apart. Just remember – there is no need for you to move anything yourself from v1.0 to v2.0 – we do it for you.
Migration can (and will) happen ahead of the “user interface”
In the 1.0 site just about every type of content can have what we call a threaded discussion associated with it. That’s just our way of saying that we could format the discussion with indents and understand whose post is a response to whose post. These threaded discussions happen on photos, on news items, on recipes, just about everywhere. And inside any post within one of these threaded discussions you can enter some text or embed some html, apply a style/theme, upload a file, or add a web link. And each post records some basic information such as the time that each post was made in that thread, the number of individual posts in that thread, the category the post is in, the “hidey hole” that post is buried in. This is what I would call “metadata” – which is nothing more than a fancy word for this “extra” information for each post.
We have been working very hard to implement the base functionality to allow any member of the MyFamily v2.0 Beta sites to quickly and easily enter data into the v2.0 site. This is why we concentrated on getting News (previously called Notes), Photos, Comments, voice notes, and voice comments into the site first so that you could all write messages and post pictures into the site.
But you may have noticed if you’ve been using the v2.0 Beta that we did not have conversations formatted as threads nor could you embed HTML or upload a file and attach a post you made. Well, the place we store all of these conversations (a database) we already have the ability to store threads, attachments, etc. and our web site just needs some time to catch up.
I like analogies because people seem to relate to anything in the real world better than computer lingo… If you used to own a black and white TV you could only see shows in black and white even if they were broadcast in color… but then one day you went out to the store, bought a color TV and all of a sudden you could see all the same shows in full color including re-runs that you previously had seen in black and white only. In this case – the TV station is like our storage system which is capable of sending out full color and we have all the tools to tape in color, edit in color, etc. back at the station but the web site code that is available for you to interact with our storage system is like a black and white television and you only get some of the functionality. Then once some members of our team increase the capabilities of the web site and threaded discussions are available and you can upload files to a post and you have a rich html editor… it’s like seeing the same show again after you bought the color TV. Does that help make more sense? I hope so.
While we do the migration of the data from v1.0 we’re actually enhancing some of the capabilities you have to organize and search and filter on this data. Some of this will not be apparent until the web site code catches up with all the work we are doing on the back end storage system. I will say we’ve put a lot of thought into complaints about how search worked in v.10, about how users use “hidey holes”, about how many sites ignore the content types like Recipes, News, History, etc. and use them to mean something else entirely… these and many other member behaviors were studied and considered while building the storage system for the new site and it will just take some more time for the features to trickle out to allow you to be more efficient in searches and in optimizing the time you spend on your site.
For instance – organizing your data on the v2.0 beta site today is difficult because we have exposed VERY minimal ways of editing the metadata associated with your photos and news. There is nothing on the site that exposes the ability for you to set a category for a note or photo, nothing that allows you to specify a set of tags for a note or comment. That is why you can only sort on some of the metadata we collect automatically as you upload images – like who it was uploaded by, when it was uploaded, and if you’re uploading an image taken with a digital camera it’s usually possible for us to determine when you actually took the photo (if you set the camera’s clock).Wouldn’t it be great to be able to assign arbitrary categories just like you did in MyFamily.com v1.0? Heck yeah – and we’ve got support for it in the system we store all of your data in – but we haven’t had time (yet) to build the functionality that allows you to select the category and then sort or filter content based on the category. That will take us some time.
But, since I’m working with the data on the backend behind the web servers I can access all of the information that we plan on exposing in the UI later – namely categories/tags and threaded discussions and other things that allow me to move the data that you have on the MyFamily v1.0 site to the MyFamily v2.0 site. I can move all of the photos, and make sure to associate all of the category information that you have spent time with organizing, all of the “hidey hole” names and one day we will eventually rank the work to expose categories or filtering based on categories as something we do in the next 30 days when we sit down and plan out our work using the Agile development methods I described above. Only then you will be able to see the categories of data from the migration. To be honest we haven’t made a firm decision when to expose the migrated sites – we may wait to be closer to feature parity of the v1.0 site adn we may expose each type of content as soon as we have it migrating in a consistently good fashion (i.e. expose pictures, then news, etc. as soon as we have them ready). It’s something we’ll discuss within the team – please do share your opinion with us.
Migration means copying a lot of data
We have a lot of sites on MyFamily v1.0 – so it’s going to take a while for our computers to copy all the data from v1.0 to v2.0 the first time. Then hopefully we’ll be in a position to just copy the new data that is posted each day from v1.0 to v2.0. We hope to do this nightly – it might happen more frequently, it might happen less frequently – we’re still coding and testing to decide some of these issues.
What does this mean for you? Well – it means that for a the period of time that MyFamily v1.0 and MyFamily v2.0 Beta exist and we are actually doing our nightly push of data from the v1.0 site to the v2.0 Beta site that if someone comments on a photo in v2.0 that comment does not make it back to v1.0. It means that once you have a significant enough set of people actually using v2.0 Beta on your site it is likely best to ask everyone to use the v2.0 site since that is the only way you would get to see any posts made on the v2.0 site.
MyFamily v1.0 and MyFamily v2.0 Beta will co-exist for a while
I would like to assure you that we have a lot to do on the v2.0 site to bring it up to parity with some of the functionality of v1.0. We have work to do until we’ve reached parity and even once we have achieved parity there will certainly be a period of time where you would have the ability to use v1.0 or v2.0.
So the time between the two triangles above is the period where it’s really up to the members of a site when they want to make the switch over to v2.0 and it’s not until the second red triangle that you’ll need to start using v2.0. I imagine most sites will have moved over long before then – because remember our migration process is one way only from v1.0 to v2.0 – so that means that if some members of the site are using v2.0 and posting content then the folks using v1.0 of the site are not seeing that content at all. It’ll really be up to the members and admins of the v1.0 sites to tell the folks to start using v2.0 because new content is being posted there that they’ll never see on the v1.0 version of the site.
I do anticipate we’ll work out something at some point during this transition period that would allow an admin user to switch their site to v2.0 ONLY so you can avoid this condition.
“Yes, yes Dave – but WHEN will this happen?” – I can’t really answer that yet we’re not close enough to this happening – that’s why there aren’t any dates associated with the timescale. It’s meant to convey the order things will happen, not when they will happen. So there will be clear signs and once we’ve achieved a full migration the first time, once we’ve achieved feature parity with v1.0, those will be milestones where we’re ready to get more firm with the dates closest to that milestone. There is no date we have written on a white board here in Bellevue, no date I have in my head, and no date that is pre-determined in any way – it is truly too early to even make a guess. Again, we’ll be looking to the feedback from site admins and members to help us determine when the right time is.
What about the _____ feature? It’s important to my site!
Every site is unique and some sites rely on one feature or set of functionality more than some others do. Here is a brief list of the things that are on most sites and how they will migrate…
| V1.0 | V2.0 | Notes |
| News | News | Threaded news not yet implemented on v2.0, planned shortly. |
| Photos | Photos | Threaded discussion attached to photo planned shortly. |
| File Cabinet | File Cabinet | Planned for implementation, not yet scheduled |
| Reviews | Threaded Discussion | There may or may not be a section titled ‘Reviews’ – all of your data will move forward to the new site and be tagged in a way that you could build a section that just contained the reviews from your old site |
| Recipes | Threaded Discussion | There may or may not be a section titled ‘Recipes – all of your data will move forward to the new site and be tagged in a way that you could build a section that just contained the reviews from your old site |
| Polls | Polls | Polls are not used on a majority of sites. The data from prior polls will certainly be able to move forward and we will look into whether there is a way we could improve polls to make them more useful to our members. |
| Categories | Categories/Tags | You may hear them called categories, you might hear them called tags |
| Hidey Holes | Categories/Tags | You may hear them called categories, you might hear them called tags – I anticipate at some point in the future we’ll allow you to create your own “sections” of the site by specifying a specific tag/category you can make an item show up in that section – this would duplicate the functionality of hidey holes on the old site. |
| Special Banners/Formatting | Advanced HTML | Special banners folks did on the MyFamily v1.0 site are bound to a very specific set of HTML/CSS styles that they were able to read on from the style sheets in the v1.0 site. We have new style sheets. There will likely be a way to still do an advanced HTML edit and allow you to ‘hack’ together banners as good looking as you like. We will move all the data from the old site forward but we won’t be trying to automatically “clean up” and css style names from the v1.0 style sheets to the v2.0 style sheets. We’re working with some admins very familiar with v1.0 and trying to help them build up the knowledge that lets them help others on the “Admins Family Site” to succeed in changing their v1.0 banners to v2.0 banners. Also, we may spend some extra time introducing some features that allow you to have more control over the look and feel of your site. Exactly what we do here is likely to depend on member feedback. |
| N/A | Stories (Formerly SnapGenie) | No equivalent on v1.0 – new functionality |
| N/A | Voice Notes | No equivalent on v1.0 – new functionality |
| N/A | Voice Comments | No equivalent on v1.0 – new functionality |
| We’re working through this – we know a lot of people use their myfamily.com account as their primary email – we’re looking for ways to improve spam handling, provide more reliable service | ||
| Super sites | Some sort of premium site | We’re working through how to provide even better services above and beyond a custom url. We haven’t settled on the final set of functionality for our premium site/user experience but we are trying to find more value to put into the package to make it an even better deal for our premium users |
| Family Trees | Family Trees | Moving it forward and based on some recent intra-company talks looks like we’ll be able to expand/extend the functionality here and tap into ancestry in new nad exciting ways – will take a while to get implemented but we’re excited by the possiblilities. |
So long story short… one more time…
If you take only 5 things away from this blog entry….
- You do not have to manually migrate your own v1.0 site to v2.0 – we’ll do that for you
- If you have a site named the same thing on v1.0 and v2.0 it doesn’t matter to us – we’ll happily create another site with the exact same name when we migrate and you’ll wind up with two sites on v2.0 with he same name
- Your data is going to move nicely between v1.0 and v2.0 but you might have to clean up some formatting if you’re using advanced HTML features that include CSS classes/styles
- It will be a while before we have parity of all the v1.0 features on v2.0 and it will be even longer before we even think about turning off the v1.0 version of the site
- It will be a while before we epose your site migrated from v1.0 to v2.0 for you to check it out – we’re actively working on it each day.
Thanks for reading…
- Did this help you? Let us know.
- Do you have additional questions? Let us know.
- Do you know a v1.0 site member or adminsitrator that is confused about “migration”? Refer them to this post if it helped you.
Thank you for being a v1.0 customer!
Filed under: Architecture, Features, Planning, family, migration
GreaT recap of what has been happening and good explanation of what that is to come.
Some time you think you have said all that needs to be said and then someone questions what was said. Makes for clear understanding all around.
Thank you Dave, you seem to have a really good team working on the Beta site. I am enjoying being involved.
Wonderful update!
Thanks Dave.
I am going to post this link on my reg site.
Mitsy#9
Awesome Dave, Thanks so much for the great explanation !
)
Thank you so much Dave! Sounds like I am going to love the new 2.0.
I sure like the idea of having an Admin User Switch for us to decide when we think all is fine. Will save everyone lots of confusion.
Thank you for all your hard work and letting us be part of making this great site!
Thanks especially for taking time to answer all our questions and keeping us up to date, it is appreciated.
this is great Dave…such a thorough and easy to understand explanation. Thank you so much!!
Thanks so much for this detailed explanation, Dave. Sounds like you are moving right along. We really appreciate your keeping us updated….
Thanks for the detailed explanation, Dave.
Thank you very much for taking time to explain what you are doing & what you plan to do. It is all very exciting, yet sorta scary,waiting for the new sites to “blossom”. Your explaination really helps me to understand what is happening & what your plans are for the new sites. I haven’t invited members to the new site yet, but I plan to do so in the near future.
Dave:
I have been a huge doubter about the possibility of creating a new platform for our website that will meet the expectations of my members. This posting has allayed most of my concerns. I believe that MyFamily I is the Rolls Royce in the world of “Family Websites” and was certain that would all change with the upcoming migration to the new platform. The features and format of the existing platform makes it possible for users to truly interact with each other in cyberspace in ways which enhance their family ties. The interaction of calendars, banners, photos and news and file cabinet enable the users to create a tapestry of positive family interactions. I believ now that the the new platform will embrace those same capabilities. Thank you for the clear explanation of what lies before us. I am now on the bandwagon……Thanx for knowing that we needed this kind of clarity about those plans.
Thank yo, Dave, for this in-depth explanation of the migration. After 6 years of being a MF admin, I am really looking forward to the update!
Thanks to the team for all of their dedication.
I hope you seriously consider keeping the recipes section. We use that quite often to share recipes on two sites I visit, the one I administer and the actual family one my niece administers.
Terrific update.
This is the best and most informative update since Beta was opened,thanks.
Thank you so much – this has cleared up more questions for me. I look forward to new features on the beta 2.0 and updates by the Beta Team!
Dave your update – every single word of it – is most reassuring.
I agree with Dave Inchuasti about MyFamily always having been the Rolls Royce of the industry. Your sites have allowed my Dad’s big family to remain close regardless of the miles or the ages and computer skills. Some of the new conveniences I see cropping up in 2.0 will really be nice for our family to use.
I’m really looking forward to our new sites and have a deep appreciation for all the work that is going on behind the scenes to make it as easy as pie for all of us.
Since I have a super site, I’m was particularly glad to see you mention that they are being considered as well!
Great update!
Dave, this is FANTASTIC!! You have really covered everything! I’m glad I read to the very end – I have a MUCH better picture now about how everything is happening (and I am reassured that knowing WHEN is not necessarily the big issue I thought it was!
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Thank you, Dave, your “long version” post is extremely reassuring. On my family site we’d miss the Polls, Recipe and Review sections if they were no longer available for expansion, but we’d miss our present HTML capabilities far more. It’s good to know there should eventually be ways to utilize all that on the new sites.
Why didn’t you solicit input/opinions from current My Family site owners? Or, if you did, how did I miss it?
Question: if renewal is coming up for space on my current site, will it be prorated and/or carried forward somehow at the transition? Kind of aggravating that I’m currently paying for extra space to store pix….
I, too, have read every word of the “long” version here. And all the replies. This is all so “positive” — and allays so many of my fears.
Thank you, Dave!!!
I look forward to future “updates,” as the long, slow process moves forward. Thanx!! to you and your team, for all your hard work!!!
Good job Dave!
I too am going to link some of my family members to this entry. I’ve been trying to explain how I believed MyFamily 2.0 was going to work but you’ve done it best!
I see some responses here today that are mentioning sadness to learn certain fixed “categories” may not be retained. If I understood you correctly there is no need to worry about that. It just means that MyFamily 2.0 will stop using certain “FIXED” category names, like “RECIPES” and will allow us to give it a category name of our own. I believe this is in reference to the fact that many MyFamily administrators use the FIXED categories to store something else entirely.
For example, I used the HISTORY category to store multimedia like audio, podcasts, musical lyrics, poetry, video, etc. I had to do this because there was no “Multimedia” category, and I didn’t really need a HISTORY category.
You’ve said that none (NONE) of our current data/information on MyFamily 1.0 will be lost during the 2.0 migration. So if we have RECIPES, we will continue to have them after the migration. They just might not be in a predefined fixed category called “RECIPES”. It will be up to us to determine which category name to give them and I’d assume we could decide to call the category “RECIPES” if we want to do that. Or it could be called “THE RECIPE BOX”.
You’ve answered most of my questions. I’m still a little concerned about the HTML/CSS section. I don’t mind if I have to “rework” some of the CSS. I DON’T want to lose any of the fantastic open ended functionality MyFamily 1.0 has concerning HTML/JavaScript/Multimedia/CSS etc. I want to be able to insert all the HTML/CSS I want and be as creative as I can be in what I want to display for MyFamily members.
I don’t want to find that I’m limited to a handful of HTML codes like bold, italics/underline, link and image (as so many other sites restrict you to using). If I can code it, I want it to work!
I’m not saying that any new HTML Editor you give us has to offer all that for the basic family member, but there should be a “backdoor” feature that lets us continue to express our creativity.
Brother John
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania USA
I read the long version and I can’t wait until Myfamily 2.0 is done. I know it will be better and greater than 1.0. I reallly looking forward to all of the new features that it will bring. Dave you explain it very will and with your charts that was even better.
What other company takes the time to explain what they are going to do. They just do it. MyFamily is the only one I know of who really cares about what the customer wants. So again Thanks for all of your hard work and really thinking about our needs.
Thank you very much for this explanation. It went a long way toward assuring me that we are not likely to lose a lot of the features we’ve come to appreciate and enjoy on 1.0. I also appreciate knowing there is a users group available for myfamily.com users! I’ll need to check that out soon; I’d love to learn more tricks on how to spruce up the site!
Maybe I’m impatient, but wasn’t the update supposed to be today. I excited to see the changes, but I have not seen any yet.
I hope when you make the changes that you will make it possible to print a list of members with addresses (and phones and email), instead of having the index card format that requires so much paper (on myfamily.1) And it would be nice if Mac users could access the beta version. (I don’t think they can now, can they, if they don’t have the latest Mac version?)
Mac users can access the site, and as long as they use Firefox instead of Safari, they shouldn’t have any problems using the new site. I have three Macs, and all of them can use the site (under Firefox).
All I can say is “ditto” to all of the replies and add my own “this was and excellent presentation of what’s happening and whats to come Dave! Thank you, thank you! Patti McCreight
I cannot get to my Beta site tonite, but was able to open a site I set up just to use as dicussion. That in turn gave me access to the our blog.
Also was able to get on the Genealogy Admin Beta site.
Maybe I have a grimlin out there some where.
anyway will check in tomorrow to see if things staighten out. Left a note in feedback.
goodnite all
A lot is talked about here but I believe it all comes down to how user friendly the site becomes. Will it be easy for the non-programmers (don’t do HTML) to customize the look and feel of their site? Will 2.0 make it easy to create and post formatted News and Calendar events? Will my picture uploads appear in the same order as I selected during the upload? Will I be able to attract members to my site and hold their attention when most are not computer literate?
Site seems to have gone back to the slow mode. I still can not get to the beta site that has the most enties.
If it were a site that had important info I would be freaking out about now. It’ a good thing its beta and Myfamily has a chance to fix things.
now for a question, is ther anyway to keep the tumbnails at the large size or do they always default back to the mid size.
I like the large size with all the details showing.
Cannot sign out either. Will just shut off the computer and check in later.
must be really slow, of course I’m impatient anyway.
I have tried to get to the sign in page at the beta site to no avail.
I’m still able to log onto the site that I started that has nothing on it, therfore I am still able to get to the Blog. to leave comments
Jesse, You don’t have to go in through a 2.0 site to reach the blog. I made a shortcut on my tool bar. Or you can bookmark and save. When you go to your 2.0 site, do you see anything? I sometimes get only text and headlines, no images. Usually I can get the full page if I click “Refresh” icon.
I’m glad you plan to retain and improve all of 1.0’s functionality; however, I’m pretty concerned about having to change all the HTML/CSS code I created. I spent 100s of hours creating that code for literALLY 100s (maybe 1,000s) of pages on our supersite, including many photo pages, not just history pages, news pages, or the front page. I fear those pages all look garbled in 2.0 and their artfulness will be basically defunct. For that reason, I plan to stick with 1.0 until the very last moment. Maybe I can copy all the most artistic pages for another venue and just accept that those pages will not look the same on 2.0. Even deleting the HTML/CSS formatting I did on those pages would be far too laborious to undertake. I have a massive family (great-grandparents have over 800 descendents) and many have been amazed at what a “magical” family website I’ve created for them to enjoy. sure, I can still create the “magic” for everything new I post on 2.0, but I fear the “magic” will disappear for a lot of what I’ve already created on 1.0. We have almost 3,000 photos on our supersite and over 300,000 words of comments, history, stories, etc. Probably about 3,000+ pages altogether.
Robin Rokey
In light of what I just said in the above comment, I would hope for a way to retain 1.0’s stylesheet(s) for the 1.0 material even after it has been migrated to 2.0. That way everything, including HTML/CSS code, would migrate exactly as is. Perhaps there could be some sort of “archive” option for those who wanted it. Oh by the way, I even did HTML formatting for all—that’s right, ALL— of members’ comments on our super site, and there are thousands of comments, so there’s no way i could even think of changing all of that code for 2.0. Without some sort of “archiving” option, I fear much of the material I’ve created on 1.0 may not even be readable after the migration. Thanks for listening. I’m a severely disabled person, by the way, so I’m pretty tired most of the time anyway, but the thought of all this is making me even more tired. Maybe I can view all my 1.0 work as “sand painting” or “temporal art” or “sidewalk art” or whatever. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Robin Rokey
Url for the MyFamily Blog is http://myfamilycom.wordpress.com
Danielle thanks,
I did finally get back on today for just a minuite, but got kicked off and still have trouble getting on. Yes I figured that out also so I still have access to the blog where I can holler for help either ther or feedback.
[...] We also continue to make progress on developing the tools and processes we need to migrate information from the 1.0 site to the beta site. For more information on this please see our blog post about migration. [...]
Will my photo albums already created on 1.0 be preserved in the migration?
I know there have been suggestions from administrators about wanting an archiving feature for their sites. I have not seen any response to these feature requests. Can you update me on these proposed features for 2.0?
So, let me see if I understand part of this migration thing correctly. When you move the 1.0 site to the 2.0 site, if we already have a site on the 2.0 version, you’ll create ANOTHER site for the 1.0 stuff? Will there be a way to merge the two? Right now, my users are a little confused by the fact that are two sites and having two sites that look the same will only make it worse. Not to mention, there are pictures posts, and now events that are on the 2.0b site that wouldn’t be on the 2.0-moved-from-1.0 site. Are there plans to allow the admins to merge them or have I just misread something altogether?
FYI – I love the new beta site. Much cleaner, easier to use.
Chris, this is a reply I wrote to a similar question on the Admin sites:
“First of all, the “beta” sites we are creating now are NEW sites, mostly for practice and testing. They have and will have no connection with our existing 1.0 MyFamily sites. For instance, the Geneologist Admins started a beta site that they are now inviting all of us to. I still don’t belong to the GA and probably never will (sorry guys, not enough hours in the day!), but playing on their beta site gives me an idea of how it is handling a large site. These new beta sites will continue to exist and be available to their members even after the final switchover, far down the road. Right now they are free so we don’t have to worry much about them.
The beta team is ‘creating’ sites in the new format to match each and every site that currently exist in the 1.0 format. They (their servers and machines!) are copying content from your site to a beta2.0 formatted site. Eventually, when the beta format has more functionality like the 1.0 we are used to, those new sites will be available to us, alongside our ‘old’ sites. And when we have finished giving our input and helping the developers make the beta format REALLY good (waaaay down the road!), the old format will be retired, put to rest, pulled the plug on, and all our stuff will show up in the new format, organized the way we like it, with some new whistles and bells. You will still have the NEW beta sites you created in the beginning for testing and learning and you can do whatever you want with them then.”
If you (Chris) have started a new beta site, my suggestion is that you make it clear to your members that it is for practice only! Anything you want to have on your final 2.0 real site should still be posted to your 1.0 site. When the copying is done, it is my undersanding (from the person who is doing the copying) that it will be ongoing, but ONLY ONE DIRECTION – that is FROM the 1.0 to the new 2.0, not the other way around. And if you named your practice beta site that same as your original site, you will have two sites with the same name, but not the same stuff. And you can change the name of the practice site at any time.
I hope this helps. It really sounds much more confusing that it actually is. At least so they tell me!
Irene I think you explained very well. some times I have a problem expressing myself, so I stay out of the complicated discussions.
Not the best typer or speller either.
I think thing are comeing around since I came on and I’m glad iI am a part of the process.
What a huge relief! Thank you so much for the great deal of time & effort put into this post. You have explained the process extremely well & it is very much appreciated. I’m looking forward to the changes.
Hey! I didn’t put that little smiley there! just a plain old typed one! How cute!
Thanks, Shelley and Jesse. When we were first told that patience would be required, I found it hard to swallow! But gradually, I am seeing things I like, and I see the developers responding to people’s suggestions (and, OK, complaints!) and I’m finding patience a little easier!
Seems like thing get down to a crawl and then we have a release to play with.
We need to be kept occupied.
Another concern I have is this: After migration to 2.0, will all the links I’ve inserted still work? Our site has over 3,000 pages and around 1,800 links (at least) that I’ve inserted throughout those pages. For instance, one family member asked whether a wedding photo of so-and-so was available. Below her inquiry, I inserted a link to the wedding pic she wanted. Postmigration, if the URLs in those links change even slightly, they won’t work. Here’s my suggestion: Rather than retiring 1.0 altogether, archive it and simply disallow creating anything new on 1.0 after 2.0 is in place and fully operational. Make the 1.0 archive readily available on 2.0 so members there can access the old stuff. Of course, this would screw up the thoroughness of search results, so maybe it’s not a very good solution. But some sort of archiving ability ought to be available so that everything from 1.0 (including HTML/CSS) appears exactly as it was created on 1.0. Someone posted the following comment on our site today, and I think it demonstrates why this issue is so important:
“Last week I thought I had accidently knocked my historical pictures off the scrapbooking table into the garbage, and had already taken garbage out. I searched through all the garbage in the house, but the big can had already been picked up. I was awake all night fretting about this disaster, but consoled somewhat by the knowledge that I had posted a lot of the pics and could copy them from the site. Fortunately, I found that my sister-in-law had taken them to her house to work on some scrapbooking also—but that really made me realize the value of this site!!!!! If we all share what we have, we won’t have to worry about historical items being lost! Robin, I’m so grateful to you for putting this all together.”
So what does this quotation say to you? To me, it implies an expectation of permanence—the same permanence we expect when we create a family scrapbook for future generations. When we paid for space on MyFamily.com, that’s what we all expected. Everything we created (including HTML/CSS code) was created with this expectation. So I respectfully request that MyFam adminisitrators do everything in their power to avoid accidentally knocking our priceless heirlooms into the garbage can. We shouldn’t have to rework anything that we’ve already done. I’m sure all of us, especially those (like me) who manage a supersite, will greatly appreciate the permanence of their creations being honored and maintained verbatim. I can’t envision how migration from 1.0 to 2.0 will preserve all URLs exactly as they were. However, if that is possible, then hooray and more power to MyFam’s revisionists. If it is not possible, though, then all of 1.0’s inserted links (or hotlinks or whatever they’re called) will become dead links (i.e., useless). For the most part, MyFamily.com has been great so far. I just hope it stays that way. Finally, please don’t misconstrue this critique as negativity. It’s a legit concern.
Cheers,
Robin
Wow, We can’t wait for the new 2.0 to get up and mobile. All our questions have been answered and we look forward to the migration at a later date.
Kudo’s to Dave the the team for the excellent efforts to date.
Regards,
Terry
About the polls function — our family uses this and it is a lot of fun. I think part of the reason it isn’t used by more people is that you cannot comment on your poll choice, and no updates are given when there are new poll results.
How about implementing a poll object something like wp-polls?:
http://www.lesterchan.net/wordpress/readme/wp-polls.html
Why is the url redirect for my family’s site (lilleston.myfamily.com) sending me to a beta site promo page, trying to force me to become a beta tester and burying the link to the working site? If it’s doing that for my other family members, most of whom can barely turn on a computer, you’re going to completely screw me over and they’ll stop participating on the site. That is really dumb.
I’d also note that the redirect is part of the SUBSCRIPTION for which I PAID.
I did not experience this and hope that none of my family did either. You guys working on this need to be very careful from here on out. If this beta site you are developing begins to impact our existing sites, we will be VERY unhappy. I’ve developed parallel sites myself in the past but NEVER did I impact the non-test area – it was left pristene until I was ready to release the new version.
I got stuck in limbo someplace.not very happy about it. my motto is if it aint broke then dont fix it, dont know why you folks at myfamily broke it
I had a user complain about the forced beta testing too. I was still able to get to the old site by using a link from one of the emails.
Irene:
Here’s the deal (FYI, I’m a systems admin so I deal with this kind of stuff all the time). I do understand the transition they are trying to make and that the beta 2.0 sites are completely different from the 1.0 sites (that was clearly explained when they sent out the notifications about beta testing the new version). What I don’t understand is why they would create ANOTHER 2.0 site when we already have a beta 2.0 site set up that they could simply upgrade the full 2.0 version and move all our 1.0 stuff into.
Thanks to your explanation, I now understand that these beta sites are only for testing, but this was not explained clearly before (as far as I remember), so before I found out that these beta sites are basically worthless (read: that the stuff created on this new site won’t be combined with the new 2.0 sites later), I had gotten most of my users signed up for it and they’ve already posted gobs of pictures and news stories.
So back to my question: are they going to provide a way to combine the current beta 2.0 sites with the future 2.0 sites so we have all our stuff on the same site?
I too want the answer for that. I didn’t know it was a testing site only and now will it be transfer to the future 2.0 beta site? Some already start adding photos….
I need to know how to submit all of me family tree genealogy. Much of what I have done has been used by others, but I submitted my data way back when FTM was starting up, but it was never put into the system. I wouls like to submit it now, just too illiterate to know how. I need very basic info. Thanks
I just wanted to say it helped me immensely to read this blog. Why don’t you post a link to it on the front page of your Beta site? It would sure eliminate a lot of confusion and expectations.
I too am one of those skeptical people who like the program like it is….V1. If you can move us to one place, then why not fix what is wrong with the software?
What do you plan on doing with all the stuff you copied from the old sites when you are done? Will the information on the old sites be destroyed or will it be screened and dissected for use on some of the genealogy websites? What if we choose not to renew our websites once the change has been made? I see a lot of information on Ancestry from people who are no longer members. Will you take our information from our sites if we choose to close our sites?
I am also disappointed that we will have to repair some of the HTML codes that you are going to destroy during the transfer. You are talking about a lot of work for some of our bigger sites.
Needless to say unlike most people here I am not very enthused about the new changes.
Erika – there is already a link to the blog on the Beta sites. It is located right between the My Account and Feedback links. Top left of the page.
Oops! That should be the Top Right of the page.
Okay so what all of you are saying is everything I cleared off of my original site and placed on the Beta site will be deleted and my 6 years of work will be gone in a second. I have taken everything off of the old site and placed it on the Beta Site, so I did the wrong thing and i will lose everything, If that is the case then I think I will
cancel everything and stop running a family web page.
Do you still have your 1.0 site? I would not cancel anything until contacting MyFamily.com personally and asking for help.
I still have it although it has no content on it. I have tried to contact them all i get is a response that they appreciate my
comments but they can not reply to every message they receive. A lot of good that does for me. I guess i could move it all back although the thought of that makes me want to pull all of my hair out….
Debbie, you can still keep the beta site you have decided to move all your stuff to. We can use the Beta 2.0 sites to test features if we already have a 1.0 site. But we can keep our newly created Beta 2.0 site when it officially becomes MyFamily 2.0. Things we do on beta 2.0 will not transfer back to 1.0. Things we do on 1.0 will all transfer to 2.0.
Here is where I think the confusion is going on. The team is moving(migrating) all of our stuff from 1.0 to 2.0. We do not need to do that ourselves.
You need to contact the MyFamily office in Utah not the 2.0 design team in Washington for 1.0 problems.
You can call 1-888-265-7491 between 10 am and 7 pm (eastern) Monday-Friday
Email them at adminsupport@myfamilyinc.com
or use the Live Chat 9am-7pm (eastern) Monday-Friday
http://myfamily.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/myfamily.cfg/php/enduser/live_support.php
Boy, you don’t checkin for a few days and a lot happens on the blog, just not much on the beta site.
I did notice the volumn button has been fixed on the story section.
Will have to see if I can find any other improvements.
Can not wait to see what the april upgrade brings
Yeah, there’s been a lot of silence on the myfamily.com side. I wonder what they are working on now that’s taken their attention away.
Yeah, maybe they’re just hunkering down to finish the April update! They still come by and check out the various sites – 1.0 Admins and 2.0 Gen Admin – they belong to , but they don’t say much!
Too long without any input from them! My interest is waning fast! After visiting the Genealogy Admins site several times, I am not optimistic! I absoslutely HATE the way they are handling the news section. I want a list of headlines that I can pick from and not have to scroll through all of them to find something. Also, the list of users is so long – why not put a limit on the number displayed and use a “more” button to display the rest if someone wants to see them. Also, could someone tell me what screen resolution they are designing to?
I’m just getting bored waiting. I will add a lot of photos and text next week so we will have some thing on the site when it comes time to edit and organize. If that every comes
Actually, I think they have been very busy sorting out the log-in mess. People trying to get to the 1.0 log-in page were being redirected to the 2.0 page, sometimes even when they were not even members of a 2.0 site! That seems to have been fixed now, and maybe they are back working on the next release.
I agree, Linda! I am patiently (NOT?!) waiting for the next release to have news headlines, in bold if I haven’t read the latest reply, and to see more than three of them on the front page. The design team seems very fond of PHOTOGRAPHS!! And they’ve left a lot of front page “real estate” to display them! The long list of members has been mentioned to the design team, but you really should use the feedback button to mention it again!
Okay, Irene, I used the feedback button and told ‘em again and included some other stuff that’s bugging me too…like all the photo real estate, etc. I would rather see photos handled like 1.0 with the title showing up only ..just like the news items and in bold (like you said) to show I haven’t seen or read it. In fact, at this point of the process, I wish they’d just can 2.0 and put some effort into making 1.0 better.
Maybe they could put list titles with smaller preview pictures. Or… maybe they could have previews when you roll over the titles maybe. That would save a lot of real estate. The recent photograph additions are just not necessary the way they have them displayed.
I did not see a history section mentioned in the chart at the beginning of this thread. Would this, like reviews, be able to be put into a customized section?
Jeff, those are some good ideas!
Gloria, I didn’t see the history section mentioned nor is the reviews, recipes, or polls listed. If you think these are important (and I do because my family uses all of these heavily) send the beta team some feedback by using the “feedback” function at the top of your beta test site. I think I remember seeing in one of the beta team posts on one of these blogs (good luck trying to find it!) that these sections were some of the least used and that they were considering NOT including them in the 2.0 release.
Oooo, I didn’t see that; in fact, I have heard them say they are interested in giving the administrators the ability to create and rename different sections. I wouldn’t woory about sections at this point.
From what I understand, the problems with 1.0 are in the code. The new format will eventually allow almost all the stuff we’re used to, plus new gizmos. The art of writing code for websites has changed dramatically (and fundamentally, the way I understand it) in the last 10 years since MF started out.
Lots of great feedback, discussion, insights, criticisms. Irene and others, you’re right, we’ve been pretty quiet the last couple weeks as we’re hunkered down on the upcoming release and managing the redirect issues. But believe me, we’re reading all this good community discussion. We’re just very focused on the features coming out real soon.
Thanks Kyle, Irene, Linda and others for answering questions for newer visitors to the blog and 2.0.
Couple quick responses (sorry I can’t address them all):
1. No matter how many times we change the family homepage, it’ll never be exactly what each and every site Admin wants for their site(s) layout or design. So, being able to customize the family home page is planned, but won’t be part of this upcoming April release.
2. Linda, we’ve been designing to a 1024×768 browser. About 85% of our visitors can accommodate that or larger. But we recognize that’s not 100%, so as we work on various pages, we try to ensure each will also work on 800×600 better than they have.
3. Debbie, sorry for the confusion. You could have left all your content on the 1.0 site and we would have moved it all over for you, as Kyle mentioned. However, we will NOT delete 2.0 beta sites, so there is no need to worry that we might. You can keep on using it as your primary/only family site if that’s what you’re now doing. We’re thrilled that you are. Also, you don’t need to keep your 1.0 site if there’s nothing in it. That is completely up to you.
4. Chris, you ask a good question: Will a 2.0 beta site I create and use now be merge-able with a 1.0 site that is migrated to 2.0? We don’t have an answer for you on that yet. But we will get one and post it to this blog. Our intent with having 2.0 open for use during development is for people to try it out and give us feedback, rather than to be used as a full fledged substitute for your 1.0 site(s). But some people seem to be using 2.0 exclusively, perhaps people who have 1.0 sites, but don’t have years and years of content on them.
Thank you, Sean! Looking forward to the April release and, of course, ready to give you our comments.
Thanks for the mini update Sean, have enjoyed the ride so far. We were discussing the merge fafor just the other day and was wondering about all we are developing on the 2.0 site would be transferable to the migrated 1.0 site or if we should plan on not being able to easily. Anyway seems the staff is pretty well on top of things. look forward to the release.
Question to anyone out there: I have been telling a friend about myfamily.com and will show her my 1.0 sites soon. She may want to start up a site for her immediate family and far away cousins. Should she start now? With 1.0 or 2.0? When newbies go to 1.0 to start up are they directed to beta? I sure don’t want to get her confused at the start.
Danielle, that is a very good question! I don’t know what I’d recommend. I’m not even sure if one can create a new 1.0 site. You might show her both sites and let her make her own decision. Be sure to tell her that if she chooses 2.0 that it is NOT finished.
Danielle, I would encouage your friend to go ahead and open a site on 1.0 and or if she can live with the features that are available to 2.0 for now, then open a 2.0 site.
What the team is telling us is that anything and everything we post to 1.0 will be migrated to 2.0 right up to and including the day they finally flip the switch to turn of 1.0. For a period of time whe they get the data transferred, we will have dual sites that are identical except one will be the old format of 1.0 and one will be the new 2.0 format.
In 2.0 your friend wouldn’t have all the cozy features we have in 1.0 but they’d have the ability to do Voice Notes and SnapGenie presentations right on the site.
So it if is important that they can communicate in voice messages I’d tell her to lean toward 2.0. If not then start a 1.0 site and experiment with 2.0 like the rest of us are doing while it is being built.
Thank you. I will give her the options. “Cozy features” of 1.0 would be my first choice so they can begin their albums easily.
Danielle, I agree. I’d also be concerned with how most of her users are going to connect to the internet. If they are mostly dial-up, then the voice feature and SnapGenie will not be of much use.
Hi guys,
How bout copy paste albums from Ver.01 to the 2.0 Beta? Just modify version 1 so we can do right click and copy the whole album.
Thanks…..
Just this month I paid for a year for v 1.0 if v 2.0 will be free what and my data will be transferd, what about what I have paid?
Arjen,
We’d love to modify 1.0 to enable that, but it would take a lot of time and we are solely focused on building the new service, and migration – which will allow the copy/past-like functionality for all content types, not just photos.
Richard,
1.0 has more features than 2.0, and we don’t have ads on 1.0 sites. If you don’t mind those two things, and would prefer to use the 2.0 service, because you subscribed this month, go ahead and contact Member Services via the form on 1.0 OR 2.0 and ask for a refund. Mention my name.
If you ask for a refund, please understand that there’s no guarantee that anything you created or uploaded on 1.0 this month will be migrated to 2.0. If you haven’t created much or anything on 1.0, or don’t care about what you created on 1.0, AND don’t mind ads on your site and a sub-set of features, feel free to use 2.0 as your exclusive site – and again, you can get a refund of your 1.0 site fees.
For many people, the 2.0 site has enough of the features they want or need to start a family site. For long-time 1.0 members however, 2.0 doesn’t yet meet their needs, they many people are waiting until we have the sufficient set of features before they start using 2.0 exclusively.
Thanks and let us know if you have any more questions.
In reference to photos, Myfamily has lost a lot of ‘richness’ of content with prior size constraints, which now seem to be behind them. To get used to the tight size constraints, my two sites (and I am sure many other users) had to downsize the photos. This took them below (in many cases) what one would like them to be at for printing, which is now again a potential revenue source for Myfamily.
I would suggest that it would be a good tool for myfamily to add (perhaps in 2.0 only) an ‘up-res’ option, where we can reupload the original photo without disturbing the dialogue and text that is attached to the photo.
Also, as many discussion groups (Yahoo, etc.) offer, they have two categories of administrators: Owner (who can do anything) and other (which the owner can check what they can and can’t do). This better granularity of user definitions would improve again that which was on Myfamily 1.0.
Kind Regards,
William “agthorn”
Wow, William, the photo “up-res” suggestion is a great one. We’ve done the same dumbing down to save space too. MyFamily will not sell too much stuff to my family because most of our photos are at such a low resolution they would not be worth printing or putting on a mug, etc. To be able to upload a higher resolution replacement without losing all the comments would be great. Did you send them a note about this via the “feedback” function?
On my SharePoint sites at work I administer, I can give my users full administration privileges, webmaster privileges, contributors or reader. Those 4 options work pretty well. Most folks don’t want full administrator privileges. Few want webmaster and most are designated contributors. The “reader” designation would be equivalent to “guest” privileges on MyFamily.com. Again, you should send your suggestions to them via the “feedback” function. They do read what’s here but it seems feedback gets quicker attention, especially when more than one person suggests something.
“Up-res” by upload and replace as you suggest is somehting I’ve added to our list. I love that – we’ll see which sprint it makes it into.
Keep suggestions rolling in – we’re really hoping for input like this from all users to help us help you make it an even better site going forward.
Thanks!!!!!
I am our family websites administrator and have been for years on 1.0 but even I have gotten bored with the same-ole, same-ole with very little options. Several of our members have stopped checking in long ago.
Hopefully 2.0 will breathe some new life into the family websites and we can get something newer, more up-to-date. Would very much like to see a slideshow of an album, or just various pictures on the site to keep it entertaining. I love the VoiceNotes feature.
I started thinking today, well I need to start moving things over, but am glad I caught myself by reading your blog. There are comments on pictures and things that I do not want to lose. I’ll wait for MF to convert everything over. If it works out great…I’ll be starting a website for my husband’s family.
Anticipation…..we’re waiting.
You can already view an album as a slideshow. You can do this one of two ways: go to the list of albums and click on “slideshow” underneath the album you want to view, or go to the list of albums, click on the album, then click on “view as slideshow”.
I cannot access the Beta 2 website anymore. When I clicked the link to get to my website I used to have 2 choices, the original Beta 1 or the new Beta 2 site. Now my link goes directly to the old site with no other options.
Help!!
Thanks,
Diane
Type in “http://beta.myfamily.com/” to get there (omit the quotes).
Does anyone know if there is a way to limit the amount of photos that display per page? I have 1000 photos and they are all displaying on one page, and this page is just crawling. Is anyone else having issues with how slow it is?
Has anyoone had any problems when sending out invites to the new 2.0 site? I have sent out numerous invites and no-one has received any. Except my husband , who received his on his laptop computer. I can’t figure out what the problem is.
Also after all of the above reading I am a little confused. I did realize that this is a testing site but after reading the comments was concerned that all of the albums and pics that I have posted on the new 2.0 site would be lost. Is that true or will my albums & pics still be on the site when the two sites are combined? We do have a family 1 site but it has a different name so I am assuming that they wouldn’t be combined and they would continue to be 2 seperate sites. Is that correct?
Thank you
Janice
Your 1.0 site will be migrated over to the finished 2.0. All that info will be there, with the same name. It will just be in the 2.0 version. Any 2.0 Beta sights will just be left as is. You may use them as a second 2.0 site. But NONE of the information on the Beta 2.0 site will be migrated to the finished 2.0 site. The Beta site will be a full working version of the finished 2.0.
So, if your two sites (your 1.0 and your beta 2.0) are for the same family, the info on the beta 2.0 site will not be combined to the finished 2.0 that contains the info from the migrated 1.0.
Dear Sir,
Please see below and also, we did receive an e-mail addressed to “Bart” for a website “Kinkeepers of the World” (and my site is named, “Name That Tree”) with a link to my website. We have NO member named “Bart” : Please advise, as I have written numerous times and get the same response from you, “What browser are you using”?
Claudette Pfingston
, 4 hours ago
WELL !!!!!!!!!!!! This program won’t let me add a file in any way, shape, or form. But, I am not a computer whiz, either, LOL.
I will have to send it to you in an e-mail. If anyone figures out how to add a file, please let me know.
Thanks,
Claudette
Re: Packet #2
editdelete
Claudette Pfingston
, 34 minutes ago
Well, here I am, again. This myfamily.com Beta2 is going to be “the” new website format for myfamily.com at the end of this year. Personally, I don’t care for it. If I add a link, it is not hi-lited, I can’t add files, and there are no dates when we add a comment, but, it does show “added 11 minutes ago”, etc. I have been trying to click on the “contact us” at the bottom of the page, but it won’t work. If anybody sees a ship passing by us, PLEASE ask for help, we need it.
I have been cutting and pasting to my word pad, so I can keep track of what is being added to this site. If, this, is the new format for all of the myfamily.com websites, they need to go back to the drawing board and regroup!
Claudette
WHY is my mailing address still showing? It was required, but states that “Mail (will not be published) (required)”??
Please remove my mailing address from the blog posting.
Thank you.
My members still do not get announcement e-mail notifications for Myfamily.com Beta2, but I get e-mails for Myfamily.com announcements for other sites that I am a member of.
When I click on one of the “What’s New” listings, I get a little box saying, “Loading”, but the new info never comes up. I’ve had the same results using either Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers. It’s frustrating, because it says that members have left comments, but I cannot view them, even if I go through all the photos or albums to which they might refer.
Thanks.
My members of myfamily Beta 2 DO NOT like the scrolling to view the postings on the site. They are sending me e-mails asking how to view the information that has been posted. They also want to know how to add files. One of my postings “disappeared” from my site. I did not remove it, but it is gone.
Could someone please address these issues here on this blog?
I personally like the myfamily.com 1.0 prior websites as they are more easily navigated.
Thanks
what one earth is going on?where is my family site? why has everything changed? Where are all my documents, filing cabinet, photos etc?. Links don’t work and yet my annual subscription has been billed normally with no advice that the site would be changed or that I would not be able to access it.
if you were going to set up a new site and test it then why not do it as a link from the regular site rather than the main address for myfamily.com?
This post helped me develop some faith in the designer’s vision. I always thought that v1.0 was designed by programmers fresh out of college who were more concerned with impressing each other than how the site would be used by the unsophisticated user. I begin to like what I see but I still can’t understand why I should invite any of my members to use this site while v1.0 content is still not available. Migration shoud have been the first task – not nearly last.
The migration plan looks good, but I can always anticipate problems. In this case, I see only two ways to implement the “daily” migration with respect to threaded conversations. The new postings from v1.0 must be merged behind the new and old posting on v2.0 or v1.0 will be merged into v2.0 by timestamp. In both cases, I anticipate some conversations appearing nonsensicle, stupid, insensitive, or mean – because a post was written on v1.0 without knowledge of an earlier post on v2.0.
I would like to see such updates controlled – possibly at the admin’s discression. 1) Don’t allow updates to a thread on v1.0 once it has been migrated to v2.0. 2) Don’t allow updates to a thread on v2.0 untill it’s x days old and don’t allow updates to a thread on v1.0 after it’s x days old.
It would be nice to have a little backward migration. Not a whole posting but an indicataion of new postings. For example, a user on v1.0 would see indicators like: “1 new commens have been posted to this photo on v2.0.”, or “3 new replies have been posted to this thread on v2.0.” This would be a great incentive to user migration.
Oooh! Things I never thought of!!! As far as inviting anyone… I didn’t name my beta sites the same as our 1.0 sites. Just asked a few very close family members, who might drop in once in a while to see the progress and not go crazy. I am just adding photos and news to experiment with. Not enough to feel like I have invested a lot of time and energy in a site we won’t use in the future.
It just occurred to me to wonder if our 2.0 designers have been deeply involved as members of a 1.0 family.com site.
I would think that when the migration takes affect, the 1.0 sites will be unavailable as each family’s site is migrated and becomes the 2.0 version. I would also think that a notice would be sent stating that your particular family site is in the process of being upgraded so please do not post until such and such a date. At least a notice sent to the administrators so they can explain it to their members in a way that is easy for them to understand. Most of my members are unaware of the 2.0 work in process. It would just confuse the heck out of them.
Then after that family’s site’s migration is completed, an automatically generated email sent to that site’s administrator to let him/her know. That administrator can then compose an announcement to all its members as to the site being ready for use once again along with whatever explaining that administrator feels is necessary.
Just a complete shutdown of a family’s 1.0 site as it is being migrated and then activation when it is completed with the administrator being the one being notified and doing the notifying. A few days after the adminstrator’s notification by MyFamily.com of the shut-down date due to migration, MyFamily.com could put a big notice across the top of that family’s site stating that the site is temporarily off-line and to check back on such and such a date, in case the administrator did not do his/her duty notifying his/her members. Then, after the migration is completed, when the family logs onto MyFamily.com they will go to the 2.0 site, not the 1.0 site.
I don’t see where this would cause any problems with postings as nothing would be posted on the 1.0 after the migration. I think if we make too big a deal about the changes, too much in advance, it is going to confuse the members of your family. I simply am just letting them plod along as normal. When the site changes, they will see a new site and ask questions or figure it out. As administrator, when I am sent notice of the migration, I will send out a newsletter to all my members and explain it all. I think they will get curious and members who have not visited or have not visited in a long time, will visit the new site to see what has changed.
It isn’t that difficult to figure out, except for those stupid areas where you have to scroll the mouse around in order to see where you can type something! Again, making areas where info goes noticeable is NOT clutter. The news thread is apparently going to be changed to make it more user friendly, so that won’t be a problem either. I also think the MyFamily should have a very straight-forward help file on each part of the new site. Written in a way that an inexperienced user can understand. Because of this, I don’t think I need to make a big deal about the 2.0 conversion. Just let it happen.
Cindi, I am pretty sure migration actually started a few months back. It is something that is done on the backend. Much like they do with the features. They build them and keep them “hidden” from us until they are ready to release.
I don’t know how far they are into the migration but it is quite possible some sites are already completely migrated just not visible to us.
I am guessing it would have to be a site with no categories, recipes, history, family tree, polls. Otherwise, wouldn’t those areas be lost in space?
[...] was one very good entry from their blog on March 26th which explains quite of bit of the process of migrating our stuff from 1.0 to the 2.0 [...]
How can they start migrating when the 2.0 is not complete and what is on there is not working properly? Where are all my recipes, reviews and polls going?
What happens to what is still being posted in 1.0 if the 1.0 has already been migrated to the INCOMPLETE beta 2.0?
Was the person who stated the migration has begun a MyFamily.com person or just someone who is guessing?
MyFamily.com people, please clear this up.
Has the migration started to the incomplete, and fautly completed sections of the beta 2.0?
What happens to the items in the categories you have not incorporated into the beta version?
What happens to what is still being added to the 1.0. If you are already migrating and people are still using 1.0, you will have to do the migration more than once to get all the information over? Will you have duplicate info migrated over?
Are we going to be forced to start using 2.0 before it is completed and error free since you are starting the migration BEFORE most of we use has been incorporated into 2.0 and much of 2.0 is not even working properly? I certainly do not want to pay for 3 faulty 2.0 sites because I am moved from 1.0 before 2.0 is complete and correctly programmed.
Cynthia please read the entry by Dave Quick. That would actually be the entry that yours and my comments are on.
Especially the section headed,Migration can and will) happen ahead of the “user interface”
When you read the entry you will see they have said all along when we first have access to our new 2.0 sites they still will not be complete. They will still need some TLC.
Stuff automatically continues to go from 1.0 to 2.O until 1.0 is shut down.
A quote from Dave’s explanation:
“… it means that for a the period of time that MyFamily v1.0 and MyFamily v2.0 Beta exist and we are actually doing our nightly push of data from the v1.0 site to the v2.0 Beta site that if someone comments on a photo in v2.0 that comment does not make it back to v1.0. It means that once you have a significant enough set of people actually using v2.0 Beta on your site it is likely best to ask everyone to use the v2.0 site since that is the only way you would get to see any posts made on the v2.0 site. …”
———
I thought the migration was from 1.0 to 2.0, not from 1.0 to BETA 2.0. My 1.0 sites do not have Beta sites, as far as I know. I have a created a beta site for two of them. Nobody visits to check it out. I just post things to test it out.
Just to make sure, and hopefully, I will not confuse anyone, The v2.0 Beta Dave mentioned, he said the 1.0 is being migrated to v2.0 Beta. I thought the 1.0 was being migrated to 2.0, not 2.0 Beta. “… it means that for a the period of time that MyFamily v1.0 and MyFamily v2.0 Beta exist and we are actually doing our nightly push of data from the v1.0 site to the v2.0 Beta site …” Does he really mean that myfamily people will be doing a nightly push of data from the v1.0 to v2.0? NOT 2.0 Beta? Isn’t the one that 1.0 is being migrated to the 2.0? Isn’t the beta 2.0 sites we are using just for testing, unless that is your only site and nothing is to be migrated from 1.0, then it will become your 2.0?
Is 1.0 being migrated nightly to what will be 2.0 or is it being migrated to a beta 2.0 and have to be migrated again to 2.0? If it is being migrated to what will be our 2.0 site, that is how it should be worded.
“… It means that once you have a significant enough set of people actually using v2.0 Beta on your site it is likely best to ask everyone to use the v2.0 site since that is the only way you would get to see any posts made on the v2.0 site.”
Don’t we want a significant number of people using 2.0 when it becomes available, not beta 2.0 (which we have now to test on) and then switch to 2.0? If they are using Beta 2.0, that info won’t be on the 2.0. I have three 1.0 sites. I have 3 beta 2.0 sites. Nobody goes to the beta sites, except me. My understanding is the beta 2.0 sites will just be there and the 1.0 will be migrated to 2.0, not the beta 2.0 sites I created. I realize the beta 2.0 sites created will be complete programs, but we have always been told the 1.0 will be migrated to new 2.0 sites, not our test beta, so why do we want a significant number of people using beta 2.0?
All this beta and non-beta is too confusing.
Cindi, Beta 2.0 and MyFamily 2.0 are one in the same. The “Beta” before the 2.0 just refers to the stage of development a product is in. It makes it easier to understand if you just refer to them as 2.o and forget about adding “beta”.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/b/beta_test.html
Yep, it sure does.
Kyle, what you say may be true. BUT what if a person has named his or her 2.0 site a different name from their 1.0 site? My 2.0 site and 1.0 site have the same name BTW.
I am pretty sure this has been covered somewhere on this blog. Probably bears repeating.
If you have a 1.0 site, that one will migrate to 2.0 automatically. The 2.0 site you are using today will not be the one it migrates to.
Numerous people can have the same site name on 1.0 or 2.0. It is the site id # that distinguishes them.
—————–
Hope I don’t steal Sean’s thunder…LOL
A member of the design team says a new release should come out tommorrow(Thursday July 12). File Cab, Video, improved News section and more are to be on tap. Just remember this will be the first version of the File Cab and Video. So be sure and check it out and utilize the feedback link.
http://beta.myfamily.com/ContactUs.aspx
Thanks, Kyle. I’m also pretty sure it’s been covered somewhere in this blog too but folks don’t always know how to find previous posts. There is just too much confusion out here. I have always thought that when everybody (beta team, 2.0 beta users, etc. agrees that 2.0 is fully operational, they (MyFamily.com) will switch all 1.0 sites to 2.0. In other words, one day my family will visit our 1.0 site and the next time they visit it will be a 2.0 site. Hopefully, the login process will be seamless! Whatever I’ve put on my 2.0 beta (named the same as my 1.0 site) WILL NOT be migrated. That’s why I’m not putting anything new on it. All my new stuff goes on my 1.0 site.
One of my guest on my website clicked the “create a new website” and now he has a new website where he is the administrator and I am a member. His website is listed under “my accounts”. How can a guest do that if I am the administrator for my website? Now, there are 2 websites in my accounts, but I don’t have control over the one he created.
Please advise.
Thanks
That seems correct to me. I am admin of one of the sites under My Account 2.0 and I am a member of the other one. Your guest created the other one, so he is the admin. Hope he didn’t name it the same as yours. If it were in the “paid site” world, I’m thinking he would have to pay for it, not you. Someone tell me if I am way off base.
He did not name it the same as mine, but his site is listed under my account name and he is the administrator. He was a “guest” on my website. Doesn’t he have to have his website listed with his account and not mine?
I just logged on to my website. I see the new format with the links at the top of the page. NOW, when I click on all photos, all of “my” photos are gone and the only one that shows up is his photo. What happened to ‘my’ photos???
I had to have a password to create my website. I did not give my password to him. So, he can have a website, using my account (which has disappeared from my website–no link for that, now)?
My photos are back on my website. But, his website is still listed as one of my accounts.
I have access as a user (not administrator)to another distant family member’s 1.0 site and both of those show up in my logon box because I chose to use a universal logon for both of them. Both of those show up under “edit my account” on 1.0. Seems like the photos thing might be a glitch.
My beta2 page does not show up on my 1.0 sites. Now, the “my account” is gone on my beta2 pages. Can someone tell me how to access the “my account” for beta2 websites?
Thanks
I have a memnber who cannot access my website. Do you have any suggestions on how to help her view the site? She clicks on the link and it directs her to a sign in page and then nothing happens.
I deleted the 2 websites that were made by my guest and where the other one came from, I don’t know. Well,one of the websites is back. When I click on the link for my favorites for my website, I am taken to the website I did not make.
I wrote to the beta.myfamily.com e-mail, but I still get the automated e-mail that ask what browser I am using. I have answered that question numerous times. I have phoned myfamily, but that hasn’t helped the matter, either.
I do not want to lose my members due to the fact that they can’t access my website.
PLEASE address these issues here on this blog site. Isn’t this blog for members to address problems about the migration of v1 to v2 websites? If so, it seems no one is reading my postings or doing anything to help me. You ask for “feedback”, well here it is. Please answer my questions.
Thank you.
MyFamily 1.0 photo upload problem:
==================================
There seems to be a problem with the express upload for MyFamily.com 1.0
The wizard runs through as normal, and near the end when you select sites to upload to, there is a message saying that no sites are found to upload to and the wizard ends. I have 3 sites, and the normal browse upload works fine..
Has anyone come across this?
Seem like I can’t bulk upload photos at the moment..
Chris
MyFamily.com 2.0 BETA Wiki – http://wiki.feis.herts.ac.uk/Myfamily.com
What impact on universal logons, if any, will migrating our 1.0 sites to the 2.0 sites?
I have a few issues here. First, one of my members tried to access the Beta 1 site and was sent a “sorry this invite has been removed”. She can’t get on either of the versions. I have only invited a handful of members to the new version for just this reason. I spend all my time trying to explain to the few I did invite how to deal with all the problems.
I made another site and would like to delete it. How do I do that?
On the new Beta 2 version I tried to edit a members information (email address) but in order to do so I was sent to the “re-invite” page. How can I edit the information without having to re-invite members?
Finally, it is my understanding that if I pay $29.95 I won’t have any ads or pop-ups on the site. I have been paying twice that ($60) for 2 years now and I have ads and pop-ups on the Beta 2 site. I’d sure like to see them GONE!
I realize this is a major project for MyFamily but I’m not very impressed so far with what I see. Personally, I’m just waiting for you to finish up and then once we’re all moved into our “new home” I’ll be able to make a better assessment of the final project. So far, not so good.
Thank you for your time.
Diane
Diane, the money you are paying is for your 1.0 site. The 2.0 sites are free to us, which why the ads are there. 2.0 will later offer paid sites with no advertising.
My 2.0 sites have the same universal login as my 1.0 sites. The system knew who I was already when I signed up for 2.0. So I just clicked on my UserID and that was that. My guess is there should be no effect. That is based solely on my experience though.
I’m finding it difficult to navigate around in Beta2. Why not have a link from the original MyFamily onto Beta2; just as there is a link from Beta2 to the Original site – until original is disbanned?
Just from my perspective, I do not want a link from my original site to the 2.0 site because not all of my family members have been invited to the test site and I certainly don’t want to create more confusion than there already is. Heck, even the ones I have invited to the test site have stayed away from the 2.0 test site, with only a few even trying it more than once. So please, MyFamily, don’t link my original site to my 2.0 test site.
I am sure there are still untold numbers of people that don’t know anything about MF 2.0. Adding the link at this point from 1.0 to 2.0 would serve no purpose.
When our sites are migrated and we are having access to both sites would be a better time to have the link. That way they we are seeing our own sites in both versions.
The team has not told us yet how we will go back and forth between the two. A link on 1.0 would be a good option.
Not only that, your 1.0 version is not going to be migrated into your Beta version. The 1.0 is going to be migrated into a new 2.0 versions. The link would serve no purpose.
I also have only told about .1% of the members about the beta 2.0. It is not finished, the parts that are finished still have some bugs. What is the purpose? It is pretty much just for testing and not using as a replacement or a connection with 1.0 (since they are NOT going to be combined).
I noticed one of my members took a peek at the 2.0 about 12 hours ago. But that has been the first since May. It simply is not a replacement or addition to 1.0.
If you are an administrator, you should be checking into the beta periodically and playing around with the features so you know where they are, how to access them and how they work for when 1.0 is migrated. Just a tip.
Just read the migration blog and now I think I fully understand what its all about and am now anxious to see it happen.
My only concern is why do I need to have two v2 sites with the same name. Why not just delete one??
Alice,
Once we’ve migrated your 1.0 site over to 2.0, if you no longer want the non-migrated 2.0 site, you can certainly delete it. Up to you. We’ve also been hearing some requests for a “merge site” feature – which we will consider.
Will we be able to view microfilms in the net some day?
What are the System Requirements for myfamily.com2.0Beta v2.0 to work smoothly?
My daughter has set up a site for her husband’s families Chrisp Stone etc and I am having trouble opening that myfamily.com2.0Beta site.
Six times I tried, my PC just grinds and grunts and the site NEVER opens well for me. I eventually give-up in disgust and disappointment.
BTW: I am still using the OLD The Boudville Family-powered byMyFamily.com (with Blue Tabs) which I have NO Trouble with.
I am on 56k broadband connection
using Windows 98 with 3GB Memory (1.5GB spare)
System Resources kept above 80%
Pentium (r)II Processor
32.0MB RAM
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106IS
Cipher strength: 128-bit
Manufacture Date 4.10.1998
Made in Taiwan
Works fine for most things except Skype VoIP & Myfamily.com2.0Beta
(I believe I need Windows XP for VoiP)
Any advice will be appreciated.
Richard Boudville
RBOUDVILLE@aol.com
Perth, Western Australia
Mr Dave Quick,
Correction:
My broadband speed is 256k
Richard Boudville
Dave,
Could you please answer this question? I have been trying to get a straight yes or no for quite some time and the answers simply do not make sense. This is the statement you made in your migration article and THIS is the statement that has me concerned as the word “NEW” is mention all the time when MyFamily is talking about the nightly migration. Here is your statement and then I will tell you my take on the statement and the question and why I need to know:
” … Then hopefully we’ll be in a position to just copy the new data that is posted each day from v1.0 to v2.0. We hope to do this nightly – it might happen more frequently, it might happen less frequently – we’re still coding and testing to decide some of these issues. …”
You said you will just be copying the NEW data from 1.0 to 2.0 nightly (or however often you end out doing it). I inhereited a site that never had anything deleted. I deleted over 100 pages over a few days. That was very time consuming as I could not just check a box on a number of posts and say to delete them. I had to delete them one by one, each time the “show all” box took be back to the last page with the newest post. Then I had to scroll down to the page I was on and continue. I had to do this over and over.
Then I read you are only copying the NEW data over. In other words, since you had started this nightly migration before I started deleting, all my deletions are still in the 2.0 because you only copied new data? Is that what that is saying? Copying “NEW” data to me says only new postings are being copied over and NOT a picture of the site as it is that night – thereby reflecting all moves, deletions, etc.
I need to know this so I know if I am going to have to delete all those posts again (I read through them all to make sure they were not posts that would be referred back to often for information – ie tips on site useage) I also need to know this so I know if I should continue with the housekeeping or stop doing it until the official migration.
So, my question is, your nightly copying, is it a copy of just NEW posts, or is it a copy of the site as it is that night – reflecting all deletions and moves.
I have been getting the run-around. I was even told you don’t know, which makes absolutely no sense since this is a question about what you are doing right now. It seems to me that this question would have an answer of yes or no because it is happening and I believe you know what you are doing.
Could you please answer this question? Thank you very much. I am sure I am not the only one who wants to know. I am sure there are others who have been deleting and would like to know if those deletions and moved are showing up in your nightly copying.
If you are indeed taking a “snapshot” of the site as it is, then you should state it that way and not say that you are copying the new information.
Thank you.
This was the question I mailed MyFamily. I have left out the NEW ADMINISTRATOR’S Name and address in this reply.
Question to MyFamily………
Dear MyFamily,
We recently added a NEW ADMINISTRATOR to our Pickett Place Family site. Her name is B…………….., and of course is a member of our family site. B……….. is not receiving the same notices that I and another administrator are receiving about MyFamily.com 2 Beta. It would be helpful if she was receiving notices about the features and migration to the new MyFamily.com 2 at some future date. B…..’s addresses is …… ………………………….
Sincerely, V Wichman
MyFamily reply…………
Just site administrators are receiving that notice.
My reply now to MyFamily
Dear My Family, B…… is an administrator !! So how did MyFamily not understand this?
hiow would i go about changing over to 2.0beta. if you could help me i would really like to do this.
thank you
sherry isenberg zefko
As administrator I have received email notification that our site has been moved over to the new 2.0. That’s great, but there is a problem. I am not listed on there as the administrator; therefore, I am not able to use the utility menu to make any changes….I am actually listed as a “guest”. Help!!!!
Sherry,
We are waiting patiently (ha) to have our sites ready and for MyFamily to migrate them for us. Do you have a 2.0 Beta site to “practice” on in the meantime? The advice has been to make a 2.0 site at MyFamily.com and name it something other than your 1.0 site. You can add a few pictures and invite someone to help you post news and access the features.
Then keep watching this blog http://blog.myfamily.com/ to see if there are notices about migration.
Glenda, I just saw this email address elsewhere on the blog migration@email.myfamily.com maybe it will get to the right person to help.
I have placed a link on my 1.0 site to take the members to the 2.0 Beta site. Even though some expressed this would not be a help, I want my members to learn right along with me, how to post pictures and documents. They don’t do very much on the 2.0 but they are at least there looking over what I have posted. I tried to put items in all the catagories on the site so they can see how it will look. I know that I for sure don’t want to end up being the only one that understands the system when we are migrated.
They are not trying to add a link, or anything difficult, but some are posting pictures and messages. They seem to understand that we have no choice in this move. They are not happy campers but they will all learn right along with me or we will all sink together.
I am learning to put pictures on for the Front Page.
Yes, I am unhappy about a lot of this 2.0. We will not even have the catagories that we need.
I need to re-invite members that keep geting kicked off.
That is the main reason I have placed a link for them to use to get back to Beta 2.0.
I am showing them how to make an Album for themselves.
I will continue to complain if I think it will help improve things.
Jerri
Jerri, Eventually the categories will show up. They just have to build that portion and get it released in 2.0. I don’t know a timetable for that though.
Thanks Kyle, That is good.
Why can’t I get to myfamily2.0 from myfamily1.0…
Thanks !
The way I understand it they are keeping the 1.0 site. Why go through the aggravation to migrate to tge 2.o beta? just keep the 1.0 site.
I haven’t seen anything recent about the migration. Any news? I would love to have my site migrated to 2.0. It needs a change.
Just bought a box of pictures at an Auction in Wagoner, OK and found an Indian Picture singed by
Jesse Davis ‘58. I was look,ing on the computer and found this. Any of your family artists???? Thanks