This page
contains news about this website and matters relating to it.
It is not intended as a replacement for the "What is
New?" pages (See Home & Genealogy
menus) which will contain details of
regular updates to the website.
Changes to this Website
Observant users may have noticed the URL for this website has changed from http://www.. to https://www.. and back again several times over the last couple of weeks. We thought that we should explain why this happened.
As concern about Internet security has increased in recent times several browser providers have started to give security warnings for http sites and several of our users found these tiresome. A few Clan members reported that they could not even access certain pages on the website. This was clearly unsatisfactory. Your Webmaster team therefore decided that we should upgrade the site from http to the more secure https encorporating SSL.
After this task had been completed it was quickly discovered that the password protection to our secure members only pages had stopped working. This was clearly very undesirable and the site was immediately converted back to http.
Having taken advice from our provider, it was decided that a completely new method of protecting the secure pages was needed. Following testing a new solution was installed on the site over a period of five days and is now live. Your acting Webmaster would like to thank all those who assisted with this task. The site has now been converted back to https and appears to be working normally.
Users may notice a change in the method of logging in which is now effected by a “pop-up”. User Names and Passwords have generally not been altered. However if your original User Name contained any spaces then these have been removed – thus "Andrew Thomas" should now be entered as "AndrewThomas".
We would be most grateful if users report any difficult that they have using the website. Thank you.
Webmaster Team
Added
22/09/2018
A milestone for the Website
5
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0
0
0
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The 13th of September 2016
was a special day (or night!) for our Website.
At about 11:00 pm (BST) the counter on the home page
registered its 50,000th hit. As it happens the person
who generated that hit was your Webmaster - working hard
collecting information for a forthcoming
newsletter.
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Of course, other than
being a nice round number, the figure 50,000 does not
have any real significance. Some users may access the
website from a different page following a search and
others may have favourites set up that take them
somewhere other than the home page. A single user may
have visited the home page hundreds (or in the case of
the webmaster thousands) of times.
*****
What we can say is
that, since the website opened for business in July
2009, the homepage has been visited an average of just
over 19 times per day. That does not seem very many
really - food for thought!!
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Added
14/09/2016
Useful Information for
Members
*****
In response to a request
from the United States a new "Useful Information"
section has been added to the Members area of this
website (link).
Initially it will contain information relevant to
members planning to travel to Scotland in general and
the area around Glenshee in particular. Other useful
information may be added in due course.
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Please do let our webmaster know
if there is anything that you think should be added to
this section.
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Added
14/06/2015
Issues with Secure Log-On
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A number of members have recently reported having
difficulties logging onto the secure pages on the
website whe using their ipads. Their log-ons work
fine on a conventional computer.
*****
Your webmaster has reported
this issue to Bravenet, the providers of
the security software, and has been told that in
theory there should no problem. Their tests have shown
that the log-on works fine using the latest
version of iOS 9 and Safari. They do suggest that,
if users encounter problems, they should check
that they have all the latest software updates and
then clear their cookies and cache.
*****
If you are having this
problem will you please let the Webmaster know.
He would like to hear from those of you who are using
the log-ons on ipads without difficulty so that he can
judge how common the problem is. Thank
you.
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Added
25/10/2015
Website Archiving - An Update
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The
original archive of the Clan MacThomas website desribed
below was taken on 24th April 2014. We can now report
that a further snapshot was taken exactly one year later
on 24th April 2015.
Presumably the UK Web Archive will continue to
take further snapshots on an annual basis. The
chairman of our archive committee is
delighted!
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It is interesting to see
what has changed over the space of a year - or maybe the
webmaster team are just a little sad!
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Added 15th October
2015
Website Archiving
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As
many readers will know the content of the Clan
MacThomas website is hosted on a .co.uk domain -
although many of you may access it via a .com or .org
address.
*****
Your Webmaster team is
therefore delighted to announce that the British Library
(UK Web Archive) has agreed to take an archive copy
of our website on a regular basis. Members can view the
archive copy by clicking here. For
further information about the UK Web Archive please
click here
to a view a video issued by the
Library.
*****
The archive copy will not
include copies of our secure pages and it also appears
that many of the photographs have not been stored. It
also seems that some of the menu buttons do not work -
although the content behind the buttons may well be
stored.
****
Added
31/12/2014
Website
News
******
A new "Website
News" page has been added to the News area of our
website - you are on it now.
*****
This page will contain
information about major changes to the website or
matters that relate to it. The page is not intended
to be a replacement for the "What is New?" pages which
will continue to report regular updates to
the existing sections on the site.
*****
If you have any questions
about this new page please contact
the webmaster.
Observant users may have noticed the URL for this website has changed from http://www.. to https://www.. and back again several times over the last couple of weeks. We thought that we should explain why this happened.
The
original archive of the Clan MacThomas website desribed
below was taken on 24th April 2014. We can now report
that a further snapshot was taken exactly one year later
on 24th April 2015.
Presumably the UK Web Archive will continue to
take further snapshots on an annual basis. The
chairman of our archive committee is
delighted!
As
many readers will know the content of the Clan
MacThomas website is hosted on a .co.uk domain -
although many of you may access it via a .com or .org
address.