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Some will say that's long and some are probably right but let me explain...

Where to start?  Ok, 2 months ago I wasn't expecting this great adventure.  At the beginning of January I decided it was time to give more than a facebook page to our little group.  My idea was a forum.  I have some experience with phpBB but was looking for something different.  I like to explore and learn new stuff.  So I began looking around what were the possibility.

I first visited SMF and played with it a bit but kept looking for other solution.  Having some experience with WordPress and somewhat familiar with it, I decided to take a look what was available and, I don't remember how, but one day I found Simple:Press.  What attracted me to it was the fact a brand new version was about to launch.  I took a deeper look by installing the RC and was surprised by all the options available.  I spent some time customizing it and I was actually having fun! 

Being french I had a look at the french translation and it was not up to my expectation, and with most of the products there is usually a french canadian version available, but it wasn't the case here, so instead of asking to modify the french translation, I asked to get a french canadian version.  It was a matter of hours before it was set and I started working on this right away.

Still wasn't sure were I was going, I was nonetheless putting more hours into this, I believe for my own personal knowledge.  Next I had to find a theme for WP.  There are sooooo many that it's easy to lose so much time looking for the right one.  After a few days I heard od Suffusion for the first time.  And this time again, a brand new version was about to go live so I took the beta for a spin, and what a great free theme it is!  So many options in there!

So to get this short, it took me 2 months to test, report bugs, translate, customize and more.  By then, both S:P and Suffusion launched their final version I was waiting for.  After which I was still making small changes to get it where I wanted.

It was a lot of work, many evening spent on the compute,r and my girlfriend could tell you it was maybe too much.    The fact is that I'm not an expert in anything.  I have some knowledge but still learning.  A quick example is CSS.  If I put all the hours I spent together into debugging it, it may represent 5 full days.  Someone skilled in CSS would have made it in 2 hours.  I was lucky that the staff here was of great help.  You'll see as an example, how I played from my own with the 2 Quick Links at the top.  I managed to hide the repetitive QL name and move the drop down a bit and make it behave a bit different from what you see here.

I have no idea how successful this is going to be but I knew that from the start.  I haven't made it for money as there is no memberships and no ads.  Maybe in the future?  It would only help pay the hosting and such.  So I don't know if people will adopt this new website or not.  I did it as a hobby first.  I wanted to look into something new and have fun.  Of course I hope people will like and use it, but we never know...

Going live is another great moment when you reach that stage.  You see people taking a first look and some leaving comments.  I'm sure there will be enough to be rewarding.

Now I'll be able to get back to normal operation, I mean family care and such.  Of course I'll still have to monitor how it's going and keep up with updates, and that was expected, but the big workload should be something from the past.

So that was my story.  I took the time to write this because I walso wanted to thank everyone here who helped.  If this seemed a lot of work to me, think of all the work Mr Papa, Yellow Swordfish and Brandon have put in the last year writing up S:P which is is a lot more complex and time consuming than what I've accomplished.  And they are not over with it yet!  Kudos for the great work and I wish you best of luck!

StreetPassQC