Download Episode

Sponsor: Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts/.

On this episode, Patrick O’Keefe (owner of the iFroggy Network of blogs and communities) rejoins us on phpBB Weekly, this time to talk about his just-released brand new book, Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards. After first talking with Patrick about how and why he wrote the book, we then go chapter by chapter, looking at the various points that he makes in his book and discussing them.

We do highly recommend this book (no, we’re not getting paid to say that) because it covers a lot of important things that prospective community admins should know that you won’t find in any user manual. If you want to find out more about why we’re so excited about this book, check out (no pun intended) this episode.

In addition, we wrap up our listener survey by doing our prize drawing! Winners have been notified by e-mail and should reply to the e-mail in order to receive their prize.

Related links for this episode:
Book Website
Book Press Release
ManagingCommunities.com Blog
CommunityAdmins.com Forums
Douglas’ Review of the Book

Example phpBB 1.4.x Website
eviL<3's MOD for Dealing with Ban Evaders (link coming once David uncovers it!)

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

Tags: admin, book, community, discussion, drawing, episode, giveaway, guest, listener survey, management, Managing Online Forums, Patrick O'Keefe, review

I don’t know if you’ve been by our phpBB Weekly forum recently, but a lot has been happening there recently. David and I have been discussing the idea of making phpBB Weekly’s branding a little more “Olympusy”–that is, more in tune with the phpBB3 artwork. While I have been and continue to remain to this day a big fan of the phpBB2 “hut” image that graced the phpBB.com website until March 2007, times have changed, people have upgraded, and the upcoming “end of life” of phpBB2 has shown us that it’s time that we start getting caught up.

David has designed a cool new album artwork proposal which we’re currently seeking feedback on and are considering adopting sometime in the next month or two. However, we’re also hoping to adopt a new theme for our phpBBWeekly.net website that reflects the new artwork but still has some originality. Star Trek Guide member Midnight Phoenix is custom-designing a brand new WordPress theme just for us (and donating his services as well, by the way), but he’d be interested in hearing your suggestions, particularly since David and myself only have a very short wishlist. If you’d like to contribute your comments and participate, check out the discussion topic on our forum!

Tags: artwork, comments, design, feedback, forum, Midnight Phoenix, Olympus, phpBB3, theme

Hello phpBB Weekly listeners,

Those of you who have seen our TalkShoe page recently have noticed that we have a very exciting month of May planned (as far as phpBB Weekly episodes are concerned), and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to sum up what’s on the agenda for the next few weeks.

First of all, as you’ve noticed, there will be no episode on Saturday, May 3rd. The reason for this is partially because Douglas is out of town, and also because he has been (and continues to be) busy prepping for AP exams at school, and this will neither give him the opportunity to be at an episode of phpBB Weekly nor to be able to edit it, so we’re just going to give him the week off. (Actually, he’s already out of town–this post was scheduled a week ago!)

Patrick O’Keefe (who was on episode #050 on February 9th) will be joining us again on May 10th for phpBB Weekly #061. His new book, Managing Online Forums, was recently released (Douglas just reviewed it on his blog, too), and so he will be joining David and Douglas to talk about his excellent new book in detail. Plus, we will be doing the prize giveaway for the listener survey that we launched back in March, so this will be an episode that you will want to be here for. (By the way, you still have time to fill out the listener survey–we’ve only gotten about 30 responses so far, so hie thee hence and add yourself to the lot!)

David will be doing another solo episode on May 17th (Douglas has to present a workshop that day) and so we will announce the topic of discussion at that time.

On May 24th (episode #063), we will be joined by Matt Mullenweg, the founder and “Chief BBQ Taste Tester” of Automattic, the people who produce the very popular WordPress blogging software, and also produce the up-and-coming bbPress forums software. We’ll break away from phpBB a bit on this episode to chat with Matt about bbPress and the very different philosophy that it utilizes for BB-based communities, as well as learn about some of the experiences that Automattic has had building WordPress and bbPress as open-source programs, comparing them a bit with phpBB’s open source life. It should be an interesting episode.

Finally, rounding out the month of May, we will be joined on episode #064 (May 31st) by the hosts of the recently-created phpBBIreland podcast. They’ll join us to talk a bit about their new show, as well as the phpBBIreland.com community and the Stargate Portal, a portal for phpBB3 that they develop.

Anyway, we’re certainly looking forward to some exciting episodes this month, and we hope that you’ll join us!

Tags: announcement, episodes, guests, May, plans, upcoming

Download Episode

Sponsor: Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts/.

Douglas had another test to complete during this episode of phpBB Weekly, and David apparently had a harder time hijacking team members for this episode, so he was joined this time by his brother, Francis Lewis (Handyman). With the retirement of phpBB2 still holding the #1 slot for phpBB discussions across the internet, David and Francis talk a bit more about the retirement news, albeit from somewhat more of a teams-based angle. During this episode, they talk a bit about how the EOL of phpBB2 will help the phpBB3 branch (as well as 3.2 Ascraeus development) in the long run. They also discuss some of the enticing phpBB3 features that users and MOD authors can see as they slowly transition over to phpBB3, including a look at how and why phpBB3 is more “stable” than phpBB2, some of the interesting aspects of phpBB3’s Database Abstraction Layer (DBAL) and an overall analysis of why phpBB3 doesn’t require as much MODding as phpBB2 did.

In other news, the MOD Database Cleanup is slated to be completed in full on Wednesday, April 30th Saturday, May 31st, and David and Francis talk a bit about will be taking place. They also provide an update on the latest news with Londonvasion and the Star Trek Guide MODs Manager, as well as a status update on the MOD Team’s upcoming Package Manager (codenamed Blinky).

The MOD of the Week is Full Syndication Suite for phpBB3 by Schumi, and the Style of the Week is Avalon for phpBB3 by CyberAlien.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

Tags: blinky, DBAL, end of life, episode, Francis Lewis, Handyman, MOD Database, MOD Database Cleanup, MODs, MODs Manager, phpBB2, phpBB3, Star Trek Guide, status, transition

Download Episode

Sponsor: Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts/.

Well, the inevitable has happened: it was announced this past week that phpBB2 will be going end of life later this year. Although nothing is happening immediately, download links for phpBB2 will be removed in October, followed by support ending in January, and all security patches ending in February, at which point phpBB2 will be officially retired and the teams will focus exclusively on phpBB3 from here on out. Other teams have or are in the process of announcing their individual plans surrounding the retiring of phpBB2.

We are joined on this episode by Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic), the Support Team Leader, and Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty), a Support Team Member, to talk about this announcement. They talk about the many reasons that led this announcement to be made, particularly this early, and why the teams have decided that this decision is for the best. We also discuss how users hearing about this can prepare for the change, as well as assessing opinions pulled from the discussion topic on phpBB.com and the discussion on Star Trek Guide.

Also, we look ahead to our giveaway drawing in three weeks, and share the finalized list of prizes that we’re giving away. Plus, we look at our latest Londonvasion plans.

The MOD of the Week is Users default avatar for phpBB2 by leviatan21, and the Style of the Week is TheEighties Template for phpBB2 by phpbbmodded.de.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

Tags: announcement, Ashley Pinner, discussion, end of life, episode, guests, Marshalrusty, NeoThermic, news, phpBB2, retirement, Yuriy Rusko