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aaronk
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| Posted: 15 August 2024 at 3:39pm | IP Logged
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If you are a current paid subscriber, I tried sending you an email with this information today. Some of the addresses I have were not valid, so I'm reposting the info here.
As you probably already know, Pat is retiring from keeping the website updated and has handed it off to me to continue maintaining. There is, unfortunately, no way to move the PayPal subscriptions from his account to mine. As such, I strongly recommend you log into your PayPal account and CANCEL your subscription TODAY (currently being paid to Patrick Downey). Rest assured, by cancelling within PayPal, this will NOT affect your access to the database. I have a list of all active accounts and when they expire, and you will continue to have access until your expiration date. Once you’ve reached the end of your paid subscription, you will be able to resubscribe (and I really hope you do!) by using the checkout button on the website, which is now connected to my PayPal account.
Here are the steps to cancel your subscription:
1. Follow this link: https://www.paypal.com/myaccount/autopay/
2. Use your PayPal account credentials to log in.
3. Find “Patrick Downey” in your list of Active subscriptions and click on it to view the details.
4. At the bottom of the details that appear, you should see a link that says “Remove PayPal as payment method.” Click this link and then confirm on the next screen.
The exciting future of Top40MusicOnCD.com
I have hired a web developer to give the site a much-needed update, visually and functionally. While I do not know how long these changes will take, your continued paid subscription will help cover the expenses and your input can help determine what the future site will look like. I welcome any suggestions on what you hope to see on the newly updated site. Please feel free to reply to this thread to let me know.
Again, thank you for being part of our little community of CD collectors. I look forward to talking with you soon.
Aaron Kannowski
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Aaron Kannowski
Uptown Sound
91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop
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PopArchivist
MusicFan
Joined: 30 June 2018
Location: United States
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Posts: 1524
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| Posted: 17 August 2024 at 9:40am | IP Logged
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aaronk wrote:
The exciting future of Top40MusicOnCD.com
I have hired a web developer to give the site a much-needed update, visually and functionally.
Aaron Kannowski
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Aaron,
Some of the "charm" of the board is this old style message board. The bell and whistles are nice on some sites, but here as long as you know some html to bold and italics and link (which some don't know of course) you can consider it retro. Retro isn't bad.
I don't know what you have in mind but would love to know. Anyways thanks for caring and allowing us a space to truly enjoy the music we collect.
__________________
"I'm a pop archivist, not a chart philosopher, I seek to listen, observe and document the chart position of music."
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chendagam
MusicFan
Joined: 27 August 2006
Location: United States
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Posts: 365
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| Posted: 17 August 2024 at 11:19am | IP Logged
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Hi Arron,
I have to agree that as soon as I read your post I started
taking screen caps of the site because I just love the old
school look. I wouldn't mind an update but there is a lot
of charm about the way it is now. Just my two cents. I
hope you are doing well.
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PopArchivist
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| Posted: 17 August 2024 at 12:57pm | IP Logged
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chendagam wrote:
Hi Arron,
I have to agree that as soon as I read your post I started
taking screen caps of the site because I just love the old
school look. I wouldn't mind an update but there is a lot
of charm about the way it is now. Just my two cents. I
hope you are doing well. |
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Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.
__________________
"I'm a pop archivist, not a chart philosopher, I seek to listen, observe and document the chart position of music."
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aaronk
Admin Group
Joined: 16 January 2005
Location: United States
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Posts: 6513
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| Posted: 17 August 2024 at 3:52pm | IP Logged
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Concerning the forum, it's been broke for a while, but
we've all learned how to navigate around the issues. For
starters, I can't leave registration open, because we
immediately get attacked by spam bots. Second, if
someone forgets their password, it's not possible to
retreive it via email. Instead, they have to email me,
and I have to reset it manually. There are also some
issues with the search and formatting.
The main focus, though, will be to update the searchable
database. In addition to getting it up to today's web
standards, I have quite a few ideas that I'd like to
implement. As I mentioned above, I'm very much open to
ideas for new features and improvements. There's no
sense in giving the site a refresh if everything looks
and functions the same.
__________________
Aaron Kannowski
Uptown Sound
91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop
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prisdeej
MusicFan
Joined: 02 July 2011
Location: United States
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Posts: 279
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| Posted: 17 August 2024 at 5:24pm | IP Logged
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PopArchivist wrote:
aaronk wrote:
The exciting future of Top40MusicOnCD.com
I have hired a web developer to give the site a much-needed update, visually and functionally.
Aaron Kannowski
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Aaron,
Some of the "charm" of the board is this old style message board. The bell and whistles are nice on some sites, but here as long as you know some html to bold and italics and link
(which some don't know of course) you can consider it retro. Retro isn't bad.
I don't know what you have in mind but would love to know. Anyways thanks for caring and allowing us a space to truly enjoy the music we collect. |
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Actually, I think change is inevitable. The website and forum has gone unchanged since I came along in 2011, possibly longer than that. This HTML format is a bit of a learning curve
at first, and it can be wonky depending what system you're using. I'd like the ability to change my forum username if this is something that can be implemented in the future. I
agree with others, this forum and digital book work just fine, but the website itself could use some color.
__________________
Dave L.
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mjb50
MusicFan
Joined: 28 April 2021
Location: United States
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Posts: 309
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| Posted: 17 August 2024 at 9:48pm | IP Logged
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Hopefully with whatever forum upgrades are coming, some effort will be made to set up permanent redirects in the web server so that links will keep working.
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JMD1961
MusicFan
Joined: 29 March 2005
Location: United States
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Posts: 185
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| Posted: 18 August 2024 at 2:35am | IP Logged
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Late yesterday, I got an e-mail from PayPal stating that
Pat had cancelled my auto-payment. I'm assuming that this
takes care of that. Is there something else I need to do
at this point?
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Paul Haney
MusicFan
Joined: 01 April 2005
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| Posted: 18 August 2024 at 4:21am | IP Logged
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One thing I've learned from my 32 years at Record Research is that you can't please everyone. I even butted heads with Joel a few times over
the years. Sometimes he'd listen, sometimes not, but ultimately as the owner, he had the final say. Pat did a terrific job for many years and
has earned his retirement. I'm confident that Aaron knows what he's doing and I for one can't wait to see how this site will evolve under his
stewardship.
Edited by Paul Haney on 18 August 2024 at 4:29am
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Santi Paradoa
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Joined: 17 February 2009
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For the most part change is good, so I would say "it's about time." One thing I hope happens eventually is that the online database gets expanded
with entries for songs from the past that should have always been included. I give you a couple of examples:
From 1963: "A Love She Can Count On" by the Miracles. The song hit #'s 31 (BB), 43 (CB) and 37 (RW) for a total of 111. Take that total, divide by three and you get 37. It should be in the online database.
From 1973: "Pretty Lady" by Lighthouse. The song hit #s 53 (BB), 31 (CB) and 33 (RW) for a total of 117. With an average of 39 it should also be in the database.
From 1980: "I Don't Want To Walk Without You" by Barry Manilow. Peaked at 36 (BB), 43 (CB) and 40 (RW) with a total of 119. By now you probably realized that if the total is 120 or less it belongs in the database.
There are several more songs like the above from the 50s, 60s, 70s and early 80s that could be added, making the online database that much more valuable to collectors. Now would be a golden opportunity to consider doing this.
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Santi Paradoa
Miami, Florida
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aaronk
Admin Group
Joined: 16 January 2005
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| Posted: 18 August 2024 at 12:37pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for all the responses so far! I would like to add that when Pat and I talked about me taking it over, he also recommended that it needed an update, as the code was written 20 years ago.
Forum username changes: Noted!
Permanent redirects: Noted!
Cancellations in PayPal: Yes, Pat tried to manually cancel anyone who had not already done so. Hopefully, he was able to take care of all the remaining accounts.
Database expansion: Noted!
I'd also like to echo Paul's sentiments about Pat's terrific job in maintaining the database over the years. The physical storage and organization of 33,000+ CDs is a part-time job by itself. On top of that, he's single-handedly cataloged all of those in the online database. It's an incredible amount of work.
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Aaron Kannowski
Uptown Sound
91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop
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PopArchivist
MusicFan
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| Posted: 19 August 2024 at 7:47am | IP Logged
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aaronk wrote:
I'd also like to echo Paul's sentiments about Pat's terrific job in maintaining the database over the years. The physical storage and organization of 33,000+ CDs is a part-time job by itself. On top of that, he's single-handedly cataloged all of those in the online database. It's an incredible amount of work. |
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Aaron,
It is a fantastic job. He did an incredible amount of work. There are still plenty of Top 40 hits with no pages in the database but I think that can be fixed with you taking over. These days though less and less hits are on CD for the more current Top 40.
Are you going to keep the same pricing structure that Pat did?
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"I'm a pop archivist, not a chart philosopher, I seek to listen, observe and document the chart position of music."
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aaronk
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| Posted: 19 August 2024 at 7:51am | IP Logged
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The pricing is the same right now, yes. I don't think it has changed in the last 20 years.
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Aaron Kannowski
Uptown Sound
91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop
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ChicagoBill
MusicFan
Joined: 06 November 2019
Location: United States
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Posts: 193
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| Posted: 19 August 2024 at 10:29am | IP Logged
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I was so glad to see the memberlist cleaned up. More than half of them were spam. I still wonder
what happened to some of the usual members who would post things weekly, and then nothing. I know
of some that have since passed away, but I can't believe the rest just lost 'Interest'. -Bill.
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aaronk
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| Posted: 19 August 2024 at 10:44am | IP Logged
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I'm glad someone noticed, Bill! It took me over an hour to manually delete about 350 profiles, and yes, most of them were Russian spam bots that registered in 2008 and/or people who had zero posts and hadn't logged in since they day they registered years ago.
__________________
Aaron Kannowski
Uptown Sound
91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop
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aaronk
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To add to Bill's point about people losing interest, I've also wondered what we can do to encourage a little growth here on the forum and with the searchable database. I do love our little community, but as Bill pointed out, there aren't many of us. Over 20 years, there are only around 250 people who have ever registered and posted something. There could be hundreds (or thousands) more who just lurk and have never registered, and that's also fine. It would just be nice to see a few more join in the conversation.
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Aaron Kannowski
Uptown Sound
91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop
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LunarLaugh
MusicFan
Joined: 13 February 2020
Location: United States
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Posts: 364
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| Posted: 19 August 2024 at 3:39pm | IP Logged
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"Patrick Downey" is already in my inactive accounts tab in the autopay list so I'm assuming I do not need to take any action until its time to re-sub?
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Listen to The Lunar Laugh!
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aaronk
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| Posted: 19 August 2024 at 8:20pm | IP Logged
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Yes, it sounds like you're all set until the end of your subscription period.
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Aaron Kannowski
Uptown Sound
91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop
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VWestlife
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| Posted: 21 August 2024 at 4:16pm | IP Logged
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I'm also in favor of keeping the design and layout of the
web site and forum simple and efficient.
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eriejwg
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| Posted: 21 August 2024 at 7:08pm | IP Logged
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I often visit this site on my phone. While the site has
it's charm, I'm hoping the updated design will be mobile
friendly. When visiting the site, I have to currently
expand it so I can read it.
I know you have great things planned for our little
community. There are members I've seen come and go and
hopefully those that left a while ago will have a reason to
come back.
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John Gallagher
John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment
Snapblast Photo Booth
Erie, PA
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Topic: Important Update for PAID SUBSCRIBERS
