A quick status report on the Windows Secrets merge

We’ve officially finished merging posts that were in WindowsSecrets.com. You should be able to find most (although, regrettably, not all) of them here. I’ve bumped our server allocation up by a factor of two or more, so the site should be quite spritely.

ProTip: For now, you’ll find it much faster to search the site using Google; just put site:askwoody.com at the end of your search string. Yep, we’re working on it.

For those of you with usernames brought over from Windows Secrets (they’re prefixed with “WS” as in “WSBillG”) and regular AskWoody account names, I can start merging your accounts. There’s no inherent advantage to having an account with or without the “WS.” But those of you with two active accounts may want to pull all your posts into one account, to make it easier to keep track of things. If you want to merge two (or more) accounts, from any source, please email me (CustomerService@AskWoody.com), and tell me the usernames on the accounts.

If you have a username that’s an email address, make sure the old email address account is the one that’s going to get obliterated in the merge. We’re still trying to stomp out usernames that are email addresses — for your privacy, if nothing else.

Your MVPs have been hard at work making lots of changes, some of which you’ll see, many of which are behind the scenes. For example, you can now upload files attached to your posts (“Replies”) as long as they’re under 2 MB. Most filetypes are supported. All of them are scanned for malware.

We’re also working on bringing over all of the old Windows Secrets Newsletters, and making them more easily available. Susan’s cooking up a new downloadable format for the Patch Watch lists. We’re going to try to tie together the Newsletter and Lounge efforts more tightly. Lots and lots of things.

I’m going to wait a bit — let the changes stabilize — before tackling the next big effort: Redesigning the site. I really want to create a forum navigation pane that’s as good as the old Windows Secrets vBulletin-based listing. But it’s going to take time. When we’re ready to kick that effort off, I’ll let you know.

I also plan to reinstate the free newsletters, which is a different kettle of fish entirely.

Thanks, everybody. MVPs have helped enormously, and keep the site working. Plus members are footing the bill. We aren’t quite up to being financially stable, but that will come. And each of you reading, posting, asking and helping, are making it work.

If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.