phpBB Weekly

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download AAC Episode (43.2 MB) | Download MP3 Episode (84.2 MB)
Download Episode Chat Log Sorry, somehow got deleted from the server.

Episode Duration: 1:27:42
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

Our penultimate episode of 2009 was also Douglas’ last episode of 2009 coming from Washington, DC. David and Douglas actually spent a lot of time at the beginning comparing notes about finals, the weather, Christmas trees, etc. Douglas also offered an early review of Google Chrome for Mac, and placates the many demands from everyone in the #startrekguide IRC channel who wanted it mentioned that SyntaxError90 is the newest member of the MOD team.

Our main topic of discussion on this episode takes a look at a question posed this week in the phpBB Discussion forum asking if phpBB is falling behind, to which we share our thoughts. We also take a look at some early (and unconfirmed) details about phpBB4 that appeared on the phpBB Development Wiki and discuss what they would mean for the potential long-term future of phpBB.

Finally, we recognize the winners of the 2009 phpBBHacks.com Awards, including the MOD and Style winners, which are our MOD and Style of the Week. The MOD of the Week is Censor Block by Thoul, and the Style of the Week is 1impression by gokin.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download AAC Episode (34.2 MB) | Download MP3 Episode (66.5 MB)
Download Episode Chat Log

Episode Duration: 1:09:18
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

phpBB Weekly is back, Douglas is on a normal computer, and all is right with the world!

We cover a lot of ground on this episode. Douglas recaps our interest to find a phpBB Weekly Clerk (Editor’s Note: we’ve now found one!), voting for the CAPTCHA Plugin Competition begins, and a few new members join the phpBB teams.

In addition, we spend some time discussing a post made on phpBB.com concerning accessibility issues with CAPTCHA plugins, particularly for the visually impaired. We also look at the MOD team’s recent blog post on the MOD Validation workflow, and ponder why “Insta-Deny” is a trademarked term. Also, David tells us a bit about the upcoming new StarTrekGuide MOD Manager, which they are currently soliciting feedback on.

Our next phpBB Weekly Poll Question, which goes until Saturday 10/31 (a week longer than indicated on the podcast), is “If you were to add a step to the MOD validation workflow, what would it be?” Cast your vote here!

The MOD of the Week is Forum SEO by stokerpiller, and the Style of the Week is Gerbang Kasih by napy8gen.

Join us on Saturday when we’ll continue our discussion about CAPTCHA accessibility with special guest Bernard Maldonado of Solona!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download AAC Episode (40.8 MB) | Download MP3 Episode (79.5 MB)
Sorry, no chat log this time! We haven’t figure out the best way to log the uStream chatroom yet…

Episode Duration: 1:26:48
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

Okay, so it’s not all-new and it probably won’t blow your mind (not in a good way, at least), but nevertheless, phpBB Weekly is back! With a new presence on uStream, a new timezone, and (for Douglas) a new “studio” and a new operating system, it could be called all-new, except that we still have the same outlook on life. And the same tendency to talk, and talk, and talk.

On the phpBB news front, the second release candidate of the phpBB Support Toolkit is out now, and it’s also the first release to be officially supported and recommended for use. The deadline for the Best CAPTCHA Plugin Competition has been extended to this Friday, and we will be covering it in much more depth next week.

In the “At what point will they quit tinkering and finally get a ‘gold master’ label out” category, development of the much-anticipated 3.0.6 release continues and more new features continue to be inserted. David and Douglas focus on two significant additions on this episode: the Newly Registered Users Group (to make it easier for moderators and administrators to observe the actions of newly registered users to ensure that they aren’t tending towards spam), and Submitting Statistics to phpBB.com (to optionally and anonymously submit usage and server statistics to the phpBB Development Team).

Finally, David and Douglas spend some time recapping our interview with Lorelle VanFossen by bringing the discussion about helping to bring around more community events and meetups into the phpBB community. We cover a range of thoughts on what the phpBB teams and community members can do to help phpBB reach out beyond its own online community.

Our phpBB Weekly Poll Question is “What should be the next ‘tool’ added to the Support Toolkit?” The poll will start in the next day or two on the right sidebar, and will end on September 12.

The MOD of the Week is IE6 No More by VSE, and the Style of the Week is Blue Stripe by BlackburnRavers.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download AAC Episode (33.3 MB) | Download MP3 Episode (62.2 MB)

Episode Duration: 1:07:51
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), and Lorelle VanFossen

Surprise! Sure, we’re on a three week break, but we couldn’t just leave you in the lurch without an episode of phpBB Weekly to regale yourself with. We’re joined on this special non-live episode by one of Douglas’ good friends, Lorelle VanFossen.

Lorelle is primarily affiliated with the community of WordPress, the popular open-source blogging/CMS software. However, we invited her on this show to discuss her experiences with WordCamps, various WordPress community events that have been organized all over the world during the past few years. On this episode, Lorelle shares some of the energizing experiences from past WordCamps that she’s been to and spoken at, and David and Douglas also share some of their experiences from Londonvasion and OSCONvasion.

More importantly, though, Lorelle shares some guidelines for individuals interested in organizing local community meetup events, and share some of her opinions on how the phpBB community could help ignite more local community meetups for our project.

But this podcast isn’t all just talk, this is probably one of the funniest episodes we’ve had to date, because Lorelle is a riot. Without a doubt, one of the craziest moments comes when Douglas shares that he won the grand prize from the OSCON Passport Program, a Pogo Linux Intel Workstation.

Links mentioned in this episode:
Douglas’ Previous Podcast Interview with Lorelle
No Fact Zone
SOBCon
Kickstarter
WordCamp Whistler
Teens in Tech Conference
An Open-Source Look at the Cost of WordCamp Dallas
WordCamp Hong Kong
WordCamp Portland and the Fairy Blogmother
Beer and Blog
Now if those links don’t get you interested in listening to this episode, nothing will!

Other Resources for Organizing Meetups:
Upcoming
Meetup.com
Tips for Planning and Organizing a WordPress Event and WordCamp (via The WordCamp Report)
WordCamp and WordPress Meetups – The Events Heard Round the World (via Lorelle on WordPress)
phpBB Events and Meetings forum
And a new resource for phpBB event/meetup organizers that we’re going to start working on soon…

Find Lorelle at…
Lorelle on WordPress
The WordCamp Report
Camera on the Road
Her AWESOME book: Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging
… and almost every WordCamp event out there!

That said, enjoy this special episode of phpBB Weekly, and join us when we return on Saturday, August 29th at 1 PM EDT (1700 UTC) when we return live on uStream!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3 Episode (74.8 MB) | Download Episode Chat Log

Episode Duration: 1:21:43
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), Micheal Cottingham (Techie-Micheal), Cullen Walsh (Brainy), and Samuel Thompson (SyntaxError90)

We hit this episode of phpBB Weekly coming right off of the excitement from OSCONvasion (all except Micheal, who couldn’t make it). Despite the fact that it was just a small meetup, most of which was spent touring the OSCON Expo Hall and downtown San Jose, it was still a lot of fun, with a lot of good discussions that took place. And it does go down as the first-ever phpBB meetup event in North America, after all. Douglas, Cullen, and Sam (who were all there) spent the first half hour of this episode recapping the various things we did and discussed at OSCONvasion. Be sure to follow the OSCONvasion tag on Flickr to see some of the great pictures we took around OSCON. And of course, audio from our live session is on phpBB Weekly #115, and video will be posted this week by AdamR.

It was announced just a few hours before this show that UMIL 1.0.0 Gold was released. The Unified MODs Install Library (UMIL) truly is the missing tool to allow actions like making database table changes, adding permissions, config options, or modules to be done automatically, and now that it’s fully stable, MOD authors and MOD installers can take full advantage of it.

Finally, the MOD Team has announced a Best CAPTCHA Plugin Competition. This contest, which will help make a broad and diverse number of CAPTCHA plugins available for download and install at the launch of phpBB 3.0.6, offers free phpBB3 Berties to the best CAPTCHA plugins developed by MOD authors and submitted beginning in late August. The first submitted CAPTCHA plugin to be approved to the MOD Database will automatically receive a Bertie, plus a Bertie will be awarded to the team’s favorite CAPTCHA plugin and another to the favorite CAPTCHA plugin voted on by the community-at-large. We also take a look at the recently-revealed details of the default CAPTCHA plugins coming in 3.0.6, and go over what you need to know to build your own CAPTCHA plugin.

Our next phpBB Weekly Poll Question is “What would be the coolest CAPTCHA plugin to have installed on your board?” Vote in the poll on the sidebar at right; the poll ends on August 8th.

The MOD of the Week is Show First Post Only to Guest by Primy, and the Style of the Week is jblue by jbones.