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 MP3 Episode (51.9 MB) | Download Episode Chat Log | Watch Video on Blip.tv

Episode Duration: 56:39
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), Francis Lewis (Handyman), Adam Reyher (AdamR), Cullen (Brainy), and OSCONvasion Attendees

Listen in to the “Berties of a Feather” session that we held at OSCONvasion 2009 and streamed live on the internet. During this hour-long session, we discuss a bit about community management with our audience members, Adam delivers a PowerPoint presentation on how to successfully build a new community with phpBB, and Douglas leads a discussion on how community members can get more involved in phpBB and discussion of some ideas that we would like to see in the future to foster even more community involvement in phpBB.

Much more info (with photos) about OSCONvasion is available here. We will have a complete wrap-up of our great time at OSCON and OSCONvasion on tomorrow’s regularly-scheduled episode.

Todd Cochrane, the CEO of RawVoice, the parent company of the Tech Podcast Network (which phpBB Weekly, of course, is a part of) will once again be doing his 24 Hour Podcast event this weekend. He will be broadcasting continuously for 24 hours, starting with a pre-show at 10:30 AM EST tomorrow (Saturday), and ending at 11 AM EST on Sunday. During his 24-hour broadcast, he will be interviewing numerous other tech podcast hosts, running the monthly Tech Podcast Network Roundtable, and recording one of his own podcasts. This event will also be raising money to support disabled veterans, with a goal of $3000, and donors will be entered in a giveaway drawing that will take place at the conclusion of the 24 hour podcast.

The 24 Hour Podcast will take place on TalkShoe, so you can join the fun there the same way that you join the fun on phpBB Weekly (their Call ID is 10832). Todd will also be streaming video live on UStream.

So don’t miss out on this exciting event and its worthy cause! We also hope to see you on phpBB Weekly tomorrow, live as always!

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 (58.2 MB)

Episode Duration: 1:41:40
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), and Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic)

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

Now that we’ve emerged from Londonvasion, we came on this episode still a bit hungover from the excitement of the event, and a little but unsure of what to cover, so we decided to talk about some of the latest news from phpBB.com, not expecting that the episode would turn out to be as long as it did. We’re also joined on this episode by Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic), the Support Team leader.

The phpBB Discussion forums have been reorganized into one basic, general phpBB Discussion forum. We talk about what the change means and some of the reasons why it was implemented.

Then, there’s a new post on the phpBB.com Blog about template inheritance, a new feature coming in phpBB 3.0.3 based on some requests that originated at Londonvasion, and provides a way for style authors to simplify their styles by basing portions of them on other templates (like prosilver or subsilver2, for example). We talk a bit about template inheritance and describe how it will work.

Finally, for a topic that David requested, we discuss an ongoing discussion on the phpBB.com forums relating to the recent blog post on MOD Author feedback. We cover some of the issues that were brought up in this discussion and talk about how the MOD team should and better communicate with the MOD community, and some of the other documentation, ongoing projects, and tools that the MOD team is working on to help out MOD authors. The MOD team continues to accept feedback on the MOD Database and the validation process.

The MOD of the Week is RedBar3 by cherokee red, and the Style of the Week IS AeroBlue by jrolson.

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

We’ve been talking about wanting to do this for some time; now it’s official. For a special episode of phpBB Weekly happening on Sunday, July 20, we will be streaming part of the Londonvasion conference live! In a phpBB Weekly exclusive, we’ll be broadcasting the “Open panel discussion, question and answer led by the phpBB Team Members” at 4 PM London time, which is 11:00 AM EDT/15:00 UTC (view local time) via our chatroom on TalkShoe.

Although we will be primarily streaming the session (and so any discussion taking place between ourselves will not be heard by the Londonvasion attendees), our own David Lewis will be listening in and keeping an eye on our live chat room, and so if you have a question that you would like to ask the team members, there’s a good chance that David will be able to relay your question over to the team members and you’ll be able to have your question answered. Plus, this will be the only part of Londonvasion being streamed live in any form, so this will be a great chance for those of you unable to attend Londonvasion to listen in and participate in what could very well be one of its most interesting sessions.

We hope that you’ll plan to join us live (or else stream it via the badge on our site) for this exciting special episode of phpBB Weekly, and please share this announcement with anyone else who would be interested!

And of course, be sure to check out Londonvasion Central for lots more complete coverage of Londonvasion.

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 (62.4 MB)

Episode Duration: 1:49:04
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), and Patrick O’Keefe

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.