Happy Anniversary! Options

[Coomer]

Hello,
Today marks a special date. A year ago today, 6G Celicas was released to the public, and since then has developed incredibly, due to the loyal members of the community and everyone who's helped me out along the way. A year ago today the site was nothing. Today it has over 1,700 members and over 60,000 forum posts, along with a large parts database and many helpful how-to articles, all contributed by members of the site.

So to celebrate, today I'm releasing a project that I've been working on for two months. As you may have noticed, the look of the entire site has changed. The main site sports a different design and added features, while the forums are similar but have minor changes and added features. Below are a few of the changes.

New Login System - This login system uses the same system as the forums do, so displaying who's online and such will be more accurate and easier. Also, this solves the problem that John had with the pages not working when you press the back button after you view someone's profile from the forums.

Multiple Photo Uploads/Deletions - Users can now upload up to five photos for a part or how-to article or their car at one time through the use of one form. Also, users may now delete as many photos as they want from their profile from one page.

Members' Rides Search Form - Visitors may now use a form to search for specific members' rides by location, car color, username, email, and AIM name, in addition to the fields already provided.

Group Buy Section - Logged in members may now start group buys through a form. Once submitted, I'll have to authorize the group buy before it's displayed on the site, and once it's displayed, users will be able to register for the group buy and things like that. It's too much work to explain how the whole system works right here, so I'll allow you guys to experiment with it when I launch the site.

Shorter Registration Form - This new shorter registration form will entice more visitors to register, because it no longer has fields for the user's Celica info. These fields are now on their own seperate form that's linked to from the "Manage your Account" page.

New Celica Type Options - Users may now choose SX, SX-R, and ZR from the Celica type fields. These are all Australian models of the sixth generation Celica.

Google Adsense Ads - As you may have noticed, the site now has some Google Adsense advertisements. These aren't your typical "You may already be a winner! Click Here!" advertisements though. Instead, these advertisements are targeted to the exact page that they're on, which may actually help you. For example, if you're reading a forum topic about Eibach springs, it's likely that the advertisements will show up for places to buy Eibach lowering springs. Also, the ads are just text. No pop-ups, blinking, no images, no animation, just text. This allows the ads to hardly slow down the site at all.

All I ask is that if you see an ad that interests you and you'd like to help out, click it. Every click benefits the site, but clicking on every advertisement madly for a week and then stopping will not help the site, and in fact will hurt the site. If you despise the ads, simply don't click them. If you are willing to click a few ads per week, I want you to know that I greatly appreciate it. The ads almost act like a micropayment system, in which you pay with small bits of your attention rather than money. Don't worry though...if the ads don't work well, the site isn't going to go to a pay-for-membership model or anything like that. The money from the advertisements will simply go into making the site better.

Anyway, enough with the advertising. That's all that I can think of for now that I've changed on the site.

I'd just like to take the time to thank each and every one of you for making the site what it is today. It's amazing how much the site has progressed in a year, and it wouldn't be possible without you guys. Thank you!