- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 15,226
Instead of dragging this out, I'm just going to cut to the chase:
Effective May 1, I will be taking over ownership of BladeForums.com and OneStopKnifeShop.com.
First, I'd like to thank Mike Turber for helping me get BladeForums.com and OneStopKnifeShop to where they are today. Without his teamwork, the Internet Knife Community would have a completely different face. Mike's decision to move on to other projects has been a long time coming, and this is going to give him the opportunity to devote more time to his wholesale business, as well as bringing several new products to market. If the 154CM EDC and Microtech Bali-Song are any indication, we should see several Good Things in the coming months. Rest assured, Mike will be sticking around the forums, lending his knowledge to the community. Instead of speaking for him, I'll let Mike make any announcements he wants about what direction he's moving in and what he's doing.
Now, I know that you guys are going to have several questions, and I'm going to try to answer several of them right now.
What does this change of ownership mean for OneStopKnifeShop.com?
As far as the back end goes, you won't see much of a change - I've been running the show at 1SKS since January with regards to daily operations. We're going to try some new procedures regarding available stock and pricing issues, but other than that, it should still be business as usuall - you all know my commitment to customer service, and those of you who have experienced problems with us in the past few months should know my dedication to making sure you get taken care of properly, no matter what.
As far as front end improvements, first we'll be moving to a newer office / shop, one with ample room for us to grow into. Our usable office space is going to roughly triple, and we're going to be a lot more efficient several of our processes. I'm kinda proud of the new place; It's actually a steal for the price, and with more space / less overhead, we are going to be better able to serve our customers.
Second, I'm going to be doubling our phone lines and adding to our sales staff. This should help prevent the famous "I keep getting your answering machine" email's that seem to be coming these days - it's always nicer to be able to get through when you want to place orders, check availability, or track your package.
Finally, we will be hosting 1SKS locally on our own servers. This means that we won't have the space restrictions that we had previously, which means more products, more pictures, and a better selection overall. In the end, this means happier customers. I don't want to go into too much more detail because I don't like tooting my own horn, but neat things are in the works.
Future possibilities include changes to our storefront software to allow for "user accounts" and a more comprehensive "order status / tracking" system I'm investigating. These will be added as time and cash flow permit.
Now for the second, and probably more important question,
What does this change of ownership mean for BladeForums.com?
Well, first off, we're going to be seeing a series of changes around here. I've just signed paperwork to get BladeForums.com a brand new server. The current PII 450 with 576 mB RAM is going to be replaced with a brand new, dual PIII 866 with a full 1gB of RAM - so we're going to see a significant boost in our server speed and power (duh). We'll also have RAID 5 hardware which will make us that much safer should a Bad Thing happen to the server. We will be migrating from the old server to the new one in a few weeks, so keep in mind that there will be some down time coming up.
Tangentially - if you are a Linux Guru and live / work in the Jacksonville Florida area, and want to get some free knives (like a Sebenza, or HALO III, or some such), let me know - I'm going to need some help getting the server set up properly.
We will also probably be switching forum software in the coming months. We all know that the UBB software is a dog when you have a forum our size. Searches take forever. Yvsa breaks the forums.
We have to archive forums after a certain size. Etc, etc, etc. So, we'll be migrating to a new forum software package in the near future, one that appears to be much less server intensive, much more stable, and much more feature rich than what we are operating now.
Oh, and guess what? The new software looks like it can support custom user titles - so Walt Welch will finally be a Whacko, something long overdue.
This being said, all of this is not going to come about without some cost. New servers are expensive. New software is expensive. T1 lines and rack space and setup fees are all expensive. Changes will have to be made around here. While I do not have everything set in stone, we have to either start to feed ourselves, or die of starvation. This means that we as a community are going to have to make some tough choices, and not everyone is going to be happy.
I will talk about this more when the time comes, for now I wanted to just lay the groundwork and let you know that we are considering several options for the future of this community.
In closing, thanks again to Mike for helping lead this community to where it is today. Without him, Knives on the Internet would not be what it is today.
Thank you, as well, for being a part of the greatest knife community on the Internet. We've been through some big changes in the past, and we're going to keep growing and improving in the future. With close to 11,000 members, we've had some "interesting" experiences to say the least and I'm sure we're going to have more of them in the future. Rest assured, we aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and only want to make this site even better for the future members.
I can only ask that you continue to show the same level of support and community that brought us to where we are now, and bear with us as we continue to grow to meet your needs.
Kevin
------------------
Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
Insert witty quip here
Effective May 1, I will be taking over ownership of BladeForums.com and OneStopKnifeShop.com.
First, I'd like to thank Mike Turber for helping me get BladeForums.com and OneStopKnifeShop to where they are today. Without his teamwork, the Internet Knife Community would have a completely different face. Mike's decision to move on to other projects has been a long time coming, and this is going to give him the opportunity to devote more time to his wholesale business, as well as bringing several new products to market. If the 154CM EDC and Microtech Bali-Song are any indication, we should see several Good Things in the coming months. Rest assured, Mike will be sticking around the forums, lending his knowledge to the community. Instead of speaking for him, I'll let Mike make any announcements he wants about what direction he's moving in and what he's doing.
Now, I know that you guys are going to have several questions, and I'm going to try to answer several of them right now.
What does this change of ownership mean for OneStopKnifeShop.com?
As far as the back end goes, you won't see much of a change - I've been running the show at 1SKS since January with regards to daily operations. We're going to try some new procedures regarding available stock and pricing issues, but other than that, it should still be business as usuall - you all know my commitment to customer service, and those of you who have experienced problems with us in the past few months should know my dedication to making sure you get taken care of properly, no matter what.
As far as front end improvements, first we'll be moving to a newer office / shop, one with ample room for us to grow into. Our usable office space is going to roughly triple, and we're going to be a lot more efficient several of our processes. I'm kinda proud of the new place; It's actually a steal for the price, and with more space / less overhead, we are going to be better able to serve our customers.
Second, I'm going to be doubling our phone lines and adding to our sales staff. This should help prevent the famous "I keep getting your answering machine" email's that seem to be coming these days - it's always nicer to be able to get through when you want to place orders, check availability, or track your package.
Finally, we will be hosting 1SKS locally on our own servers. This means that we won't have the space restrictions that we had previously, which means more products, more pictures, and a better selection overall. In the end, this means happier customers. I don't want to go into too much more detail because I don't like tooting my own horn, but neat things are in the works.
Future possibilities include changes to our storefront software to allow for "user accounts" and a more comprehensive "order status / tracking" system I'm investigating. These will be added as time and cash flow permit.
Now for the second, and probably more important question,
What does this change of ownership mean for BladeForums.com?
Well, first off, we're going to be seeing a series of changes around here. I've just signed paperwork to get BladeForums.com a brand new server. The current PII 450 with 576 mB RAM is going to be replaced with a brand new, dual PIII 866 with a full 1gB of RAM - so we're going to see a significant boost in our server speed and power (duh). We'll also have RAID 5 hardware which will make us that much safer should a Bad Thing happen to the server. We will be migrating from the old server to the new one in a few weeks, so keep in mind that there will be some down time coming up.
Tangentially - if you are a Linux Guru and live / work in the Jacksonville Florida area, and want to get some free knives (like a Sebenza, or HALO III, or some such), let me know - I'm going to need some help getting the server set up properly.
We will also probably be switching forum software in the coming months. We all know that the UBB software is a dog when you have a forum our size. Searches take forever. Yvsa breaks the forums.
Oh, and guess what? The new software looks like it can support custom user titles - so Walt Welch will finally be a Whacko, something long overdue.
This being said, all of this is not going to come about without some cost. New servers are expensive. New software is expensive. T1 lines and rack space and setup fees are all expensive. Changes will have to be made around here. While I do not have everything set in stone, we have to either start to feed ourselves, or die of starvation. This means that we as a community are going to have to make some tough choices, and not everyone is going to be happy.
I will talk about this more when the time comes, for now I wanted to just lay the groundwork and let you know that we are considering several options for the future of this community.
In closing, thanks again to Mike for helping lead this community to where it is today. Without him, Knives on the Internet would not be what it is today.
Thank you, as well, for being a part of the greatest knife community on the Internet. We've been through some big changes in the past, and we're going to keep growing and improving in the future. With close to 11,000 members, we've had some "interesting" experiences to say the least and I'm sure we're going to have more of them in the future. Rest assured, we aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and only want to make this site even better for the future members.
I can only ask that you continue to show the same level of support and community that brought us to where we are now, and bear with us as we continue to grow to meet your needs.
Kevin
------------------
Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
Insert witty quip here
