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 (73.5 MB)

Episode Duration: 1:20:16
On this episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), Francis Lewis (Handyman), Micheal Cottingham (Techie-Micheal), and Paul Sohier (Paul)

Talk about one whacky reunion episode. Douglas comes in fresh off of his high school graduation and is stumped as to why he is not entirely fast asleep during the show. David and Francis make their grand return after 3 months’ absence, and as a skit, they hold a SCOFF News-style interview of Australian Senator Collins about a crashed oil tanker. Paul will slap Douglas to high heaven if this episode isn’t released before the end of May, and we have all kinds of crazy technical difficulties throughout the show. (And yes, that stuttering that happens during the first 2-3 minutes? That’s David’s fault too.)

Nevertheless, we have kind of a random discussion episode, during which Micheal shares a bit more about the FTP Trojans that we discussed last week, we share rumors on what’s taken so long for the release of phpBB 3.0.5 (and typical to fashion, it was just released today), and David shares the incredible saga that has taken him and Francis away from phpBB for the past few months and continuing for the next few months as well. Douglas takes the opportunity to share some plans for helping to revitalize phpBB Weekly during the remaining summer months of David’s prolonged leave of absence, and we also talk a bit about the best readme file ever.

There is no MOD or Style of the Week this week. Our phpBB Weekly Poll Question is “Who would be your favorite guest on phpBB Weekly?” Vote in the poll in our sidebar on the right; the poll closes Saturday, June 13.

And don’t miss the little bonus featurette at the end of the episode; I spent a lot of time editing that!

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 (22 MB)

Episode Duration: 38:25
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples)

In celebration of the 20th episode of phpBB Weekly, we have switched to a new recording strategy. Those who listen live on TalkShoe will not hear the opening/closing theme music, but instead the show will be recorded locally, and then I will edit in the theme music (and any other applicable sounds) after the fact and re-upload the show. This will result in a faster turnaround time for episode releases and much higher sound quality. Enjoy!

What’s the one thing that everyone tells you to do when you have an active phpBB board, WordPress blog, Drupal website, or anything else? Back it up! In this episode, I cover a number of different ways to back up your files and your database–some of the methods are phpBB-specific, and some aren’t.

For backing up your files, just download them to your local hard drive via an FTP client or your webhost’s File Manager. For backing up your database, phpBB2 and phpBB3 have built-in backup tools which work with all of the databases that they support. While phpBB3 has a good backup system, I recommend Vic D’Elfant’s SQL Backup MOD instead for doing backups of your phpBB2 database. However, the SQL Backup MOD is only compatible with MySQL, so that option is not available to other databases. In addition, phpMyAdmin has an excellent Export tool which allows you to backup entire databases (not just phpBB) with a lot of flexible options. cPanel also has a Backups section which can automatically download a gzip of a database backup. Or, try generating a Full Backup to create a tarball of your entire webspace, files and database included.

Whichever method you choose, remember to have a regular time to run these backups, and always backup your board before you install MODs or update phpBB, so that you’re safe if something goes wrong.

The MOD of the Week is Registration Stopper for phpBB2 by Fountain of Apples (hey, I don’t talk about my own MODs that often, this is the first time in 20 episodes!), and the Style of the Week is Brushed Metal for phpBB3 by Robin Huurman.

Also, a shout out and a thank you to the Star Trek Guide Forums, who will be promoting phpBB Weekly in each of their upcoming newsletters! Thanks for helping to spread the word!