Zarconia-Boonex Changes

Hello everyone!

 

Zarconia - the long-time favourite dedicated hosting provider for Dolphin and UNA is closing down. This has happened rather quickly, and so we're still working out some of the details, but generally, it is one of the significant factors that prompts us to initiate overall business consolidation without further delay. Here is what we plan to do:

 

 

1. Zarconia is the provider behind all Boonex hosted plans. We are taking over all existing servers and accounts and will continue supporting, servicing and updating them as usual.

 

2. Over the last two years, we made a significant investment in developing our own Cloud hosting orchestration tools, including launching, cloning and billing for the UNA accounts. We're currently making further improvements of backup systems.

 

3. Next week we will stop accepting new orders for hosted Dolphin plans here at Boonex.

 

4. Monthly license price for Dolphin is adjusted to $50/month, which matches the UNA Professional plan, as they are interchangeable. UNA Pro plan includes access to automatic downloads and basic support for all UNA PowerApps and activation of UNA Mobile Apps (coming soon).

 

5. All current license holders and subscribers will be grandfathered-in without extra cost.

 

6. Permanent licenses for Dolphin can be exchanged to a lifetime UNA Pro plan, but sales of new Dolphin Permanent licenses will stop next week. Clients with established sites or pre-existing Boonex accounts will be able to buy a Permanent license by request anytime until the end of the year (2018).

 

7. Right after the UNA 9 RC10, we will release a service update for Dolphin

.Pro with fixes and critical improvements. More info TBA.

 

8. All new customers interested in launching a community website will be encouraged to start with UNA, especially when an all-in-one, hosted solution is required.

 

9. Next week we are releasing an update for the Dolphin-to-UNA migration tool and manuals. We will also be providing migration assistance and professional services for everyone ready to make the move.

 

10. The all-new-Dolphin will be powered by UNA framework and will be pre-configured as a generic Social Network Solution. Current work on the configuration is happening at https://online.me. The combination of modules and settings will resemble the typical Dolphin .Pro setup. As a configuration package, it will allow to "quick-start" a social networking site, but it can be modified just like any other UNA instance.

 

11. In about 2 weeks we will release UNA RC10, with over 100 improvements, including user-configurable Notifications and support for the new UNA Mobile Apps (based on ReactNative). Our comparison observations show that typical UNA instance achieves much higher user engagement for a community site, as well as better overall user feedback on UX and features. There is also significant interest and demand from institutional, corporate and educational clients, in part thanks to the UNA licensing policy and the full-scope services that we provide for implementation, ongoing maintenance and custom development. Therefore, we believe that despite potential transition difficulties and costs, most clients would find it justifiable to upgrade their sites to UNA in the short term, and would benefit significantly from the active platform development in the long term. We commit to treating the Dolphin to UNA transition projects as the top priority in the meantime.

 

12. Nathan from Zarconia agreed to continue supporting our Dolphin and UNA clients as a member of UNA Team. We are looking forward to working with him more closely now and in the future, as he is a highly respected community champion with tremendous experience, working with us for many years. We are confident that this pivot will bring a new wave of growth and will allow us to engage Nathan to work as part of UNA Team more and more over the coming months.

 

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I am personally very grateful to Nathan and Zarcon for the years of Boonex-Zarconia collaboration. Understandably, the market has changed, and we see more people using Cloud-based services for hosting their sites, making traditional hosting business less competitive. Perhaps even more relevant is the fact that we have been actively developing UNA and UNA Cloud recently, which suppressed inflow of new Dolphin sign-ups. While there will be different opinions and perspectives on this, we do what we believe is right, and is best for the end-users at large. And so, we take this change not as a disruption, but rather as an opportunity to take the plunge and commit to the course of action we deliberated for a long time. This will be a hugely testing period for everyone concerned, but we will be doing our best to help everyone achieve the best outcome.

 

Thank you!

Heart Head Hands
7 Sep 2018

Additionally, anyone who is currently with Zarconia and is unsure about the further steps is most welcome to contact us via support@boonex.com or support@una.io to discuss options. We should be able to either uphold ongoing commitments instead of Zarconia or offer alternative solutions.

Heart Head Hands
7 Sep 2018

Nathan and Zarcon will be missed for all the help they've given website owners running Dolphin.

Sadder still seems to be the strong-arming of Dolphin-to-UNA migration.

Frown

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Michel - Meta-Travel.com
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TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel
7 Sep 2018

I can provide Dolphin hosting.  I will migrate your site from your current host at no charge.  Also, I won't force you to move to UNA just so you don't lose all your hard work and time you put into your Dolphin site.

Geeks, making the world a better place
7 Sep 2018

I'll be watching developments here while keeping an eye on other Dolphin Hosting Plans.

Although I have looked at UNA and watched the videos I'm pretty convinced it's not for us and what we want to achieve.

I'm sure some people using free Dolphin software might be tempted by a migration to UNA Cloud Hosting though; and wish them well. 

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Michel - Meta-Travel.com
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TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel
8 Sep 2018

 

Also, I won't force you to move to UNA just so you don't lose all your hard work and time you put into your Dolphin site.

 Also, we are not forcing anymore to move either. We do recommend it, but as I said many times now, if you choose to stay on the current server, with the current plan, and current platform - we will continue supporting it. 

Heart Head Hands
10 Sep 2018

 

 

Also, I won't force you to move to UNA just so you don't lose all your hard work and time you put into your Dolphin site.

 Also, we are not forcing anymore to move either. We do recommend it, but as I said many times now, if you choose to stay on the current server, with the current plan, and current platform - we will continue supporting it. 

 
And maybe improve it for the benefit of the other's who would like to stay. Area that needs attention are Payment and store system, admin cant sell due to Vendors not allowing payment its buggy (FYI Anton already check it he confirmed settings are all correct). We are thinking to make our own store and payments as it is useless for now.

"Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow." @ www.dexpertz.net
10 Sep 2018

Payment module to work correctly should be a priority. It's so frustrating to have to do things manually.

 

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Michel - Meta-Travel.com
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TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel
24 Sep 2018

You really do have to wonder how this mob survives.

Ladies and gents. We know there are several thousand options available out there and I don't plan to become immersed in any heated discussion over which is best. All I'm offering is a GUIDE to what's available at a reasonable price before you commit yourself to something else.

I/we use a VPS at Digital Ocean. It costs us US$10 a month for a "droplet" which seems to do far more than we need at our stage of development. Although the droplet has limitations, "DO" uses some kind of pooling arrangement based on bulk usage. We seem to be offered ten to twenty times what we signed up for in terms of bandwidth.

We use Ubuntu with PHP 5.6 and that allows us to use Sentora as a control panel.  We're running three Dolphin sites and a few others with no problems at all. In all honesty, we can't fault it.

There's a learning curve because DO doesn't offer operating support. Hey for ten bucks for a VPS, what can you expect. Want more details, then contact me.

24 Sep 2018

 

I can provide Dolphin hosting.  I will migrate your site from your current host at no charge.  Also, I won't force you to move to UNA just so you don't lose all your hard work and time you put into your Dolphin site.

 I have had GG hosting my site for a bit over a year and no problems. Just saying,

Everyday is a new beginning.
24 Sep 2018

Hello 

24 Sep 2018

New here and this is not making me feel any better about the platform and leaves me questioning if it is the right one for me to build my sites on. Also, if you are no longer taking on new hosting orders,

"3. Next week we will stop accepting new orders for hosted Dolphin plans here at Boonex" because of the collapse, why have you still got the 2 sites up as recommended hosting providers or are they separate to Boonex and aren't effected by the collapse? If they are effected then you guys are really slow at removing that from your page and I would have wasted my money signing up for something that is no longer in service. 

I had been feeling ok about setting up and publishing my sites to the web with your platform but now am not so sure that it is the right thing to do considering that there are other open source platforms that have great reviews, available. Why should I stick with you guys?

27 Sep 2018

Zarconia was also on the list of Recommended Hosts, Zoro.

They were removed as soon as we heard the news.

Credit where credit is due, Boonex has been quick to respond to this issue.

The other two hosts are just that, recommended hosts.

As for which software to use for you web site... play around with everything and use what feels the best for you.

Raving reviews mean little when different people have different requirements and different levels of expertise.

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Michel - Meta-Travel.com
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TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel
27 Sep 2018

hi there I just cancelled my account with Zarconia because no one answered my help ticket whats going on with theses people? even if you take something over you should still communicate and help people.

28 Sep 2018

I was a bit surprised to see Andrew tell someone to send an email to support@boonex.com or support@una.io
for questions about the hosting.  I know people have complained in the past that emails to support@boonex.com were not answered in a timely manner.  As for Zarconia, I do have to wonder if they took on more customers than a small company could handled; I really don't know what caused Zarconia to close and for Boonex to take them over.  If Boonex is going to take on Zarconia customers, then they have to set up better support, it should include more than just an email address.  I am a small company and my customers can email me, text me, or phone me if they have issues with their sites and they can reach me even if I am on holiday; Dean can contest to this.  I am not using a ticket system at this time since my customer base is small.  I do think Boonex needs to look at a better support system if they are going to take on all the customers of Zarconia and still develop their platforms.

Geeks, making the world a better place
28 Sep 2018

 

New here and this is not making me feel any better about the platform and leaves me questioning if it is the right one for me to build my sites on. Also, if you are no longer taking on new hosting orders,

"3. Next week we will stop accepting new orders for hosted Dolphin plans here at Boonex" because of the collapse, why have you still got the 2 sites up as recommended hosting providers or are they separate to Boonex and aren't effected by the collapse? If they are effected then you guys are really slow at removing that from your page and I would have wasted my money signing up for something that is no longer in service. 

I had been feeling ok about setting up and publishing my sites to the web with your platform but now am not so sure that it is the right thing to do considering that there are other open source platforms that have great reviews, available. Why should I stick with you guys?

I could easily host your site on a VPS or Dedicated server.  The issue that caused me to reflect is that Boonex states they are going to stop selling licences.  That means I can still host your sites but they will have the Boonex bug popping out (if you don't already own a licence).  I don't understand this move because if people want to host their own Dolphin Pro sites why wouldn't you accept the money that people are willing to give you to remove the bug?

Geeks, making the world a better place
28 Sep 2018

When we were with Zarconia, their support was outstanding; but, to be honest, we didn't need it much.

Our new Dolphin Hosts were superb too. Again, after set-up, transfer and https certificate we didn't need any support. For start-up, they have a live messaging system in place which helps  with initial questions.

As always, ask the questions you need answers to and go with those who answer best.

Steve, if you don't feel anyone can handle your Dolphin hosting properly (and as you don't have a Dolphin license) perhaps you need to think about using different software; or learn to set-up a server yourself.

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Michel - Meta-Travel.com
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TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel
29 Sep 2018

I'll just add that I was paid up with Zarconia until the end of the year; having just paid a six-monther in July.

Even though they said they would terminate hosting at the end of month, I didn't anywhere complain to anyone nor ask Zarconia for monies back.

Sometimes we just have to 'man up' (to use your own terminology), take things on the chin and get on with it.

TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel
29 Sep 2018

1. All our support emails (support@una.io and support@Boonex.com) are being attended actively now. If yours is missed, please CC to uno@boonex.com. 

 

2. Zarconia had some issues with replying lately and we are trying to fill in where possible. Overall we are ensuring that there’s no disruption to existing services.

 

3. I’ll be cleaning up this and some other topic on Monday as we don’t need any flame talk here. If you need our support and believe that you’re entitled to it, please email us (see point #1).  

Heart Head Hands
29 Sep 2018

Flame talk, or criticism that one does not wish to hear?

Geeks, making the world a better place
2 Oct 2018

Monday came and went with no further information from Andrew. Another empty promise, another missed deadline.   There was no flame talk on this thread, just critisism. You should lern  to recognise the differences.

Steve E
2 Oct 2018

1. I believe we've displayed more than adequate tolerance and appreciation of criticism. If I feel like I have to repeat myself over and over then it's a flame. 

 

2. I said that I'd be cleaning up the forum on Monday, but so far there were other priorities, so it's OK to stay as it is for now. Also, see point #1 - we do welcome criticism. 

 

3. Unfortunately, our communication with Nathan is very sketchy now. We don't know what's behind it, but we try to do everything possible to maintain services. Just a few hours ago we gained access to tickets and already work with them. We're also paying for all services to the upstream provider regardless of whether we're getting paid or not. Copping it all, and trying to sort it out. 

 

Cheers!

Heart Head Hands
2 Oct 2018

Hello Steve!

 

I've sent you letter here, please answer me ASAP.

2 Oct 2018

Andrew, at this time I think a more transparent business approach may be prudent. It's reasonable to say that frustration and confusion is rampant on both sides.

The header at the top of this page is hardly a statement of stability to those who have invested hundreds, if not thousands in Dolphin and third party mods.

Nor is your new pricing policy (above). You're literally telling everyone to go elsewhere!

2 Oct 2018

All right. Time to get back to constructive talk. 

I am sorry for lack of transparency and botched transition for anyone affected by Zarconia closure. We are now getting on top it and allocated resources to make sure we respond and follow through on time. 

 

As for changes on this site - we are changing Boonex (brand) into a more agency-style business that offers services for UNA-based implementations. Most of these are assisted transitions from Dolphin. In the meantime we want it to be clear that we are supporting the old Dolphin and will do so at least fornthe next 5 years. In five years from now we would expect UNA-based Dolphin solution to become a no-brainer uograde path for everyone and also become more accessible (not needing expensive paid services). 

 

As for support in general - please always email to support@boonex.com or support@una.io - these emails are actively attended responce time is quite healthy. We are coming out from a long development cycle and will further improve it now. 

Heart Head Hands
2 Oct 2018

We continue selling the license. Just not the hosted plans anymore as we can not provision VPS and dedicated hosting services cost effectively. We do provide cloud hosting for UNA because it has orchestration layer for instant deployment and gives no access to files. 

  I don't understand this move because if people want to host their own Dolphin Pro sites why wouldn't you accept the money that people are willing to give you to remove the bug?

 

Heart Head Hands
2 Oct 2018

 

UNA-based Dolphin solution

A Dolphin solution, could you expand on this as it actually doesn't make any sense; could it be that you worded this wrongly?  I am being serious here.  On the face of it you are saying there is a problem; Dolphin, and UNA is the solution to that problem.  Or are you actually saying that the problem is that Dolphin is eventually going bye bye and the solution will be to move to UNA?  Well, a solution could be to stay with Dolphin Pro and hire developers if there is a security issue or you want to add features (which could be done through modules as is the case now).  Another solution would be to move to Oxwall, Elgg, phpFox Social, Social Engine, as well as plugins for Wordpress and Joomla.  I have only name a few social platforms that one could consider over UNA.

I did a lot of testing of different platforms and I settled on Dolphin because I liked the structure, both front-end as well as database.  Andrew, I know you are excited about UNA but I have used UNA, I manage a UNA site and I am sorry but UNA is not a suitable alternative for Dolphin; it is not suitable for most things in my opinion.  I have used UNA as both a user and an admin and I do think you are making a mistake with dumping Dolphin for UNA.  However, that is just my opinion.  I have already held discussions with my team and we will never move to UNA because it would cause a large disruption for our members; probably resulting in members leaving in droves if they had to deal with using UNA.  You see, I have real members and I listen to those members about what the site should and shouldn't be.

The other side is that you have lost the trust from the Dolphin community.  We have listen to you saying a lot of things, such as when UNA is out of RC and released as final you will then turn your attention to Dolphin again.  The promise of LEAP/Dolphin 10.  Can we trust Boonex?  Many of us are questioning that and are leery of staying with Boonex in any form.  I have seen some great developers already have left Boonex and thinking of developing for other platforms, not for UNA but for other platforms.  I guess it depends how it goes in the next five years.  You have already pushed us aside with the new boonex.com website.  Could you at least put the Dolphin Pro website back up in a subdomain?  dolphinpro.boonex.com would work.  Trust in a company is very important from a consumer viewpoint; I would give some thought to that.  You have created a lot of bad will over the last year in case you have not noticed from the forum posts.  Many companies larger than Boonex has gone the way of history and bad will can be a contributing factor. 

I could say more but I think I will leave it at that for now.

Sincerely

Geek Girl

Geeks, making the world a better place
2 Oct 2018

 

We continue selling the license. Just not the hosted plans anymore as we can not provision VPS and dedicated hosting services cost effectively. We do provide cloud hosting for UNA because it has orchestration layer for instant deployment and gives no access to files. 

  I don't understand this move because if people want to host their own Dolphin Pro sites why wouldn't you accept the money that people are willing to give you to remove the bug?

 

A sincere thank you for this decision.

Geeks, making the world a better place
2 Oct 2018

Thank you, Geek Girl! I really appreciate your input and passion in protecting the DolphinPro users. I hope I can commujicate that we are not some huge corporate gang trying to extort money from everyone. Far from it. In fact, I’ve personally not drawn any income from either Boonex or Dolphin For the last four years. Everything we earn goes into developers wages. Now, from business perspective we want to deliver a great product and also support our clients as well as we possibly can. 

 

Now, UNA was initially meant to be just a large Dolphin upgrade, but then reality kicked in. its like with house renovation - if you pull up the floor you have to paint walls, fix the roof, change doors.... and you end up with a different house. So, we got this new platform, designed to be better than Dolphin or any community platform for that matter. It took 6 years to get to this stage but watch it now - we can iterate really quickly and already have some production sites showing much better KPIs than Dolphin-based ones. We also finally have proper Messenger, user-controlled notifications, feeds that work with various content types, multiple profile types, really effective navigation builder and all of it in an actually responsive UX. We have now locked down feature updates and focused on service updates for a couple of months to make it really stable. Webmasters that spend some time to reach to that “aha” moment and see what we actually mean by this framework send us vey positive feedback. 

 

Mind you, UNA is more like framework, while Dolphin is a CMS. That means that you have to build your site with UNA, while with Dolphin you can have a turnkey install. Also, note how we licensed UNA under MIT license to allow for the following:

 

1. We want to work with the core framework more and allow 3rd party developers/agencies to develop UNA-based solutions (their own prebuilt CMS+services packages, hosting and other service offerings). UNA is more like Drupal for social. Dolphin is like Wordpress for social. 

 

2. You can configure your own admin layer with UNA. The UNA Studio is not an admin panel. It’s a configuration system. You can call your implementation something like, say, GeekSocial and build a admin layer via Pages builder, permissions, Navigation builder and whatever additional functionality you may need via custom templat or additional apps. There are methods available allowing your custom UNA apps to override other apps functionality, styling, etc. 

 

3. We now know that we can effectively set up a custo site based on UNA and achieve functionality that was unthinkable before with any off-the-shelf platform. It takes time though, so we offer our services, at cost, to launch such projects. Using our own online.me site as a reference boilerplate we put together a “social network” solution, which we offer as a new “Dolphin” for anyone who wants to engage us to build it. Those who can’t afford it can DIY using documentation guides and community support at https://una.io - we make sure to respond quickly and also update documentation very actively now. 

 

4. As for looking after anyone who already invested into Dolphin.Pro, we are trying various options and made  few commitments.

First, we will continue offering the Licenses. 

Second, we will continue addending the support forum and will actually improve this support. 

Third, we will produce a large update after UNA 9 Final to help with outdated functionality issues.  

Forth, we will continue producing service and security updates at least until 2023 or more If there’s no easy and straightforward upgrade path from DolphinPro to UNA by then. 

Fifth, we treat all current transition requests as a priority. 

 

And finally, our ultimate goal is to make UNA work as a base integration framework, supporting APIs like DTP to allow integrated use of multiple platforms and services on top of the standardised database and authentication service powered by UNA. This is why the Studio looks like an OS with “apps” rather than a typical CMS admin/setttings panel. Once we Achieve that DolphinPro would be the first CMS to be fully integrated. So, interoperability or upgrade path won’t be a problem. 

Heart Head Hands
3 Oct 2018

I hope there will be an upgrade path sooner rather than later. My 2 networks combined have 40,000 users. Data loss would be devastating, and I will lose a lot of members if it happens :( 

3 Oct 2018

 

I hope there will be an upgrade path sooner rather than later. My 2 networks combined have 40,000 users. Data loss would be devastating, and I will lose a lot of members if it happens :( 

 There is already a migration tool available. Contact us to discuss if you would like to try this now. If you’d prefer to wait please be assured that there’s no reason to expect loss of members or anything like that. Dolphin will contonue to be supported And updated. 

Heart Head Hands
3 Oct 2018

 

 

I hope there will be an upgrade path sooner rather than later. My 2 networks combined have 40,000 users. Data loss would be devastating, and I will lose a lot of members if it happens :( 

 There is already a migration tool available. Contact us to discuss if you would like to try this now. If you’d prefer to wait please be assured that there’s no reason to expect loss of members or anything like that. Dolphin will contonue to be supported And updated. 

 Great, I submitted a request for a demo just the other day, hoping to move both my networks over.

3 Oct 2018
Now, UNA was initially meant to be just a large Dolphin upgrade, but then reality kicked in. its like with house renovation - if you pull up the floor you have to paint walls, fix the roof, change doors.... and you end up with a different house. So, we got this new platform, designed to be better than Dolphin or any community platform for that matter. It took 6 years to get to this stage

Oh Dear,

This does not sound good.

Six years and you have nothing better than you had eight years ago.

Where could Dolphin be if you invested those six years where it really matters?

What's to say that in four to five years time you'll not be looking at yet another Project X and try to call it Project C.

To be honest, UNA looks worse than Ning did ten to twelve years ago.

I really don't get it. If people don't want to buy the house because they don't like it's location, painting the front door won't make much difference.

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Michel - Meta-Travel.com
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TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel
4 Oct 2018

Having used Dolphin Pro, Una and Zarconia in the past, I'll simply say this.

Una's administrative interface is not and never will be as easy to wrap your head around as Dolphin. It's like taking a step backwards in web development. Modules have been the web 2.0 standard for getting anything done online. Especially ones that generally improve if you ask the developer to help you with achieving certain functionality as not everyone knows how to work with API access. The same can be said for the database, as ultimately, the way in which information is stored online today hasn't changed. Making more complex web apps a bit trickier to navigate using the same technology. This is why Dolphin has been so instrumental in keeping around what other software packages have only maintained for years.

In terms of features, Dolphin is king. In the early days, before there was dolphin, there was Ray, Orca and some other name I forgot what it was. After dolphin, there was Trident, now Una. Una might have the heart where dolphin's should've been all along, but the important thing to remember here is that it still exists. I can understand what it's like to divide your attention between two products. A user base that loves dolphin, won't want to follow the person who created it to another platform. This can be seen where history at Ning and Phpfox proves as much. And yet, despite it all, I know what it's like to get burnt out as a web developer as well. so finding a direction seems like a stable ground in environments full of change and uncertainty. I know how easy it is to follow the hype. But maintaining an existing feature set should not need to be as challenging, which is why I'm happy the source code for all that Boonex has ever messed with, unlike Vbulletin or IPBoard, remains relatively easy to access. With Una, this is no longer the case. What worries me about the Una change, is that things we can't access, we pay for. PHPFox and Ning have long since taken such a direction, with Social Engine soon to follow suit. Word Press offers both cloud and open source, something I hope Boonex can continue to do.

At this point, I don't care where the developer's minds are at. I care where our minds are at as Network Owners, Admins and Facilitators. When Dolphin software stops being made available online to download or buy, who will archive the code and help it grow even when we can't do it? There's got to be a developer out there who recognizes the importance of web social 2.0 apps as stand alone eye candy for interested markets. Such as dating, community engagement and other notification attractions. Having said this, there's certin aspects to Una which are appealing. But if feature sets were brought into Dolphin, the risk as many people say, would be minimal. The code, completely updated. The migration, subtle. As no database or file changes would need to be made to existing sites. Which is the most ideal migration one can hope for in a website transition.

The future of the web relies on white label communities. Instead of brand recognition. I can see the appeal for Una to exist to fill such a need. A brand behind the platform. I'm curious as to why modules such as spaces, orgs, jot messenger and a more detailed integration with an app natively built to be better than Rocket Chat couldn't be ported into dolphin. My main issue with dolphin is that nobody has updated the interface for other members to be added in as full site admin. I'd have already switched to it and not looked back if this were the case. Along with a member import .csv file. Some things are just too standard right now in terms of import capabilities. Especially in use cases where over time, your member data email lists can become clogged up with member addresses no longer in service. What happens to your reputation over time as your email sending ability gets tainted with unused addresses for instance. Bulk tools to manage this automatically, such as the ones used with a program like Sendy, would help. But to date, no social app out there has thought to address this. The same is true for GDPR. If dolphin provided a tool to download members data when signed into said user account, this would solve this issue. Again, WordPress fulfills this need as they've developed solutions to both these problems. They're the only community of web software that has.

The web today has evolved into a few basic standards.

1. Digital file formats aren't going away any time soon. Requiring in Dolphin terms, the use of 4 modules built extremely well. Photos, sounds, videos and files.

2. The ability to add custom information into a database. In Dolphin terms, this would require a discussion forum for comments. Blogs for presenting information which is well written. Articles, news as extra and admin only unnecessary tools for promotion. Sometimes blogs could also be seen as a community wiki. And comments for additional side notes, adding further opinions as responses to main ideas.

All the other features built in any php or ruby app control how the two main features of a social site are set up. If you take a platform like Una, that could combine ways in which check boxes, radio buttons, drop down menus, short and long text areas with editors and other web standards for inputting information to a database. All you'd need to do, is create a dynamic way in which a text editor and a place to upload files can be handled. This could be so easily done through one module only. Kind of making both Dolphin and Una old news in a way, should this ever be implemented in a platform dedicated to custom dynamic sets of information alone.

The problem here, is that peoples attachments to improving one tiny piece of this overall puzzle, leaves little speculation for improving the puzzle itself. If a company wants to break this puzzle into many pieces, sold separately via developers, this begs the question. Are we just boxes for new puzzles to fit our communities into somehow? Or will the direction of Una support the greater puzzle as a whole. Dolphin's feature set for the most part supports the greater puzzle as a whole. with a few tweaks, it could be completed in less time than it would take for Una's interface and custom module set to be completed. If we strip away the duplicate modules, leaving room for the existing ones to have custom instances of itself, based on web standards such as custom information sets with database and file integration. this leaves little to the imagination in terms of what web developers should expect overall as a future prospect for software companies.

In truth, crossroads gives way to many possibilities. I only hope the ones seen here, are an example of what could be built if we allow the possibility to lead the community administrator in 2019 and beyond. Instead of the brand of actuality.

It's sad to see Zarconia go. I hope the new licensing structure for Una and Dolphin can benefit the developers and be affordable for all who purchases it.

5 Oct 2018

Right now absolutely no reply to tickets for three days at Zarconia. A big change!

For the worse???????????

 

Is there a number/

How to get some reply somehow so that a site there can be transferred?

6 Oct 2018

I get no reply since 12 days...  zarconia is death. I made a Backup and looking for a new Hoster. This is shit. Why must Dolphin die? Now, we are forced to come to una, but I don´t like it. For what I have all my licenses? For what I have invest a lot of money in my sites? Is this really the big End of Boonex Dolphin???

6 Oct 2018

Sad. Sad to see our dolphin die.

An earthquake for our small structure.

We have thoroughly tested Una and we will not migrate because the product does not meet the expectations of our members.

Thank you Andrew for your work for years.

Thanks also to all the contributors who helped us.

We wish you good luck in your projects.

Bye

7 Oct 2018

 

Now, UNA was initially meant to be just a large Dolphin upgrade, but then reality kicked in. its like with house renovation - if you pull up the floor you have to paint walls, fix the roof, change doors.... and you end up with a different house. So, we got this new platform, designed to be better than Dolphin or any community platform for that matter. It took 6 years to get to this stage

Oh Dear,

This does not sound good.

Six years and you have nothing better than you had eight years ago.

Where could Dolphin be if you invested those six years where it really matters?

What's to say that in four to five years time you'll not be looking at yet another Project X and try to call it Project C.

To be honest, UNA looks worse than Ning did ten to twelve years ago.

I really don't get it. If people don't want to buy the house because they don't like it's location, painting the front door won't make much difference.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michel - Meta-Travel.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here! Here!.  I have said the same; think about where Dolphin could be now if the effort for UNA had been applied to Dolphin.

Geeks, making the world a better place
8 Oct 2018

 

Sad. Sad to see our dolphin die.

Don't worry, it is not going to die.  Andrew Boon himself has stated that Dolphin is open source.  It will have to have a new name but the good thing about open source is that the code can continue on even after Boonex is a distance memory.

Geeks, making the world a better place
8 Oct 2018

 

I hope there will be an upgrade path sooner rather than later. My 2 networks combined have 40,000 users. Data loss would be devastating, and I will lose a lot of members if it happens :( 

Here is the thing, if you moved to UNA you may still lose members.  Our team has met and discussed a migration to UNA and the consensus was that it would be such a huge disruption that our members would probably leave.  I caution you about just moving to UNA without perhaps setting up a UNA site and invite some of your members to test it and see how they feel about it.  A good sample size would be at least 30 members.

Geeks, making the world a better place
8 Oct 2018

 

 

Sad. Sad to see our dolphin die.

Don't worry, it is not going to die.  Andrew Boon himself has stated that Dolphin is open source.  It will have to have a new name but the good thing about open source is that the code can continue on even after Boonex is a distance memory.

 

It ain't over till the fat lady sings!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_ain%27t_over_till_the_fat_lady_sings

8 Oct 2018

 

I get no reply since 12 days...  zarconia is death. I made a Backup and looking for a new Hoster. This is shit. Why must Dolphin die? Now, we are forced to come to una, but I don´t like it. For what I have all my licenses? For what I have invest a lot of money in my sites? Is this really the big End of Boonex Dolphin???

I am working with someone that is facing the same now.  I caution Boonex about removing any sites or servers; legal issues could result.

Geeks, making the world a better place
8 Oct 2018

Besides their ticket system which currently is giving no responses, does anyone have a method of reaching Zarconia about domain transfer?

9 Oct 2018

Geek Girl means well and does so much more for the Dolphin community than many floaters.

I propose Jerome and Geek Girl take over the Open Source project.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michel - Meta-Travel.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TravelNotes.org - The Online Guide to Travel
9 Oct 2018

 

Besides their ticket system which currently is giving no responses, does anyone have a method of reaching Zarconia about domain transfer?

Send an email to support@boonex.com.  I think domain names are to be handled by you.  If you have never transferred a domain name before, you get a special "key" from the registrar that you then put in to transfer to a new registrar.  (note to anyone; yes, I know it isn't called a key but I couldn't remember the correct term at this moment; I haven't transferred domains lately.)  The extra step is to prove that you are the owner.  If the domain has a transfer lock on it, the lock has to be removed before the transfer can take place.

Geeks, making the world a better place
10 Oct 2018

 

Right now absolutely no reply to tickets for three days at Zarconia. A big change!

For the worse???????????

 

Is there a number/

How to get some reply somehow so that a site there can be transferred?

 

Hello Michael.

The problem is that we are new to domain management on Zarconia. We were working on your ticket, but to no avail so far. I have invited a developer, so this job should be done soon.

10 Oct 2018

 

I get no reply since 12 days...  zarconia is death. I made a Backup and looking for a new Hoster. This is shit. Why must Dolphin die? Now, we are forced to come to una, but I don´t like it. For what I have all my licenses? For what I have invest a lot of money in my sites? Is this really the big End of Boonex Dolphin???

Hello.

I think I replied to your ticket.

What is your user name at Zarconia?

10 Oct 2018

IgorL.

At Zarconia, I am unable to access the cPanel. I mentioned that in a ticket # 141737


how to get into cPanel if the usual URL does not work?

11 Oct 2018

 

IgorL.

At Zarconia, I am unable to access the cPanel. I mentioned that in a ticket # 141737


how to get into cPanel if the usual URL does not work?

 

 Your server was erased, so you won't be able to access anything.

I'm trying to find your backup. If I find it, I will provide you with the access.

11 Oct 2018

Igor,

 

Why are you not replying to my tickets? And Why is my server offline, both my datingsites AND my 10 websites is not working, this has never happend for the 6 years i used Zarconia and Nathan. I need my server back online now so i can transfer to another host. I mean seriously, are you kidding me, this is just not okay! Really!? Hosting is a trust relationship, and let me tell you, I don't trust Zarconia any more, not after this episode. I've wrote more that 5 support tickets and a handfull of emails. What am i paying 129 USD for? Im soooo frustrated right now.

 

If you don't know how to give the correct support/service , then let Nathan close down Zarconia, IN A PROPPER AND RESPECTFULL way, instead of destroying all the great work/support/effort Nathan, put in to get this far. To excecute "Nathans baby" (Zarconia), in this way, that's just wrong!

 

Username in Zarconia is: Tor & Lisa

11 Oct 2018
11 Oct 2018
 
 
Below is the legacy version of the Boonex site, maintained for Dolphin.Pro 7.x support.
The new Dolphin solution is powered by UNA Community Management System.