I wish you would have read the thread that Fran linked to before posting multiple 'on fire' smilies.
We are upgrading the forums and moving to a larger server. Because of the size of this board and its level of activity, this is no small process. Thomas, our fantastic tech admin, has shut down some of the capabilities, including PMs and search features so that he can accomplish our move without incident and without having to shut the forums down altogether.