Despite us being somewhat early, this episode was our special for April Fools Day 2008: our best attempt to pretend to be a weekly live podcast all about vBulletin. We tried our best, but we couldn’t resist throwing in a few good doses of surprise and sarcasm.
On this episode of vBulletin Weekly, we look at the history of how vBulletin came to be and where it is today. For those of you who are new to vBulletin, we discuss the requirements of running vBulletin, the licensing fees (ever heard of those?) for vBulletin, and the long multi-step installation process. Plus, the first release candidate of the next major release of vBulletin, 3.7, just came out a week or two ago. We take a look at some of the wildly inventive new features coming in 3.7, as well as our opinions on them. Plus, we discuss a bit about the unique idea of “threads” that vBulletin offers, and answer some questions from our angry mob chat room about vBulletin.
Today marks a very special milestone for phpBB Weekly (for any podcast, actually): our fiftieth episode! To celebrate, we bring you an interview that Douglas has been looking forward to for ten months. Patrick O’Keefe, the administrator of the iFroggy Network and phpBBHacks.com, joins us for a very interesting discussion.
During the interview, Patrick talks about phpBBHacks.com, including how and why it was started back in 2001 (yeah, it predates phpBB2!), and how it has grown and expanded in its seven year history. We also take an unbiased look at some of the differences between phpBBHacks.com and the phpBB.com MOD Database, and how phpBBHacks.com has become one of the most popular third-party phpBB sites on the internet (well, according to Google, anyway). He also talks a bit about his two websites for community administrators: ManagingCommunities.com (a blog) and CommunityAdmins.com (a community for communities). Finally, he tells us about his new book, Managing Online Forums, coming in late April. We will be reviewing his book on a future episode of phpBB Weekly, as well as giving away a copy! Stay tuned for more details on that.
David also answers a question in the TalkShoe chat room revealing that Ascraeus will feature the much-requested RSS Syndication feature built-in. We briefly talk about the significance of that feature addition.
And at the end of the show, David gives us his exclusive ski tips, based on the bloopers he endured earlier this week.
For our special holiday treat, phpBB Weekly brings you a collection of some of the best moments of 2007. Follow us as we look at how the show has grown in the past 43 episodes, and also as we retrace the steps of some of the biggest phpBB news in 2007.
The following clips are featured in this Best Of (the time in parentheses indicates the beginning timestamp of the clip in this Best Of episode):
Episode #001: The Beginning of phpBB Weekly (4:21)
Be sure to join Douglas for phpBB Weekly #045 on Saturday, December 29th as we officially close out the year 2007 and look ahead towards 2008. For now, have a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.
We were hoping that this episode of phpBB Weekly just might turn out to be a shorter show, but apparently it wasn’t going to happen. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a rather interesting and informative show that came bundled with a rather interesting and informative live audience.
phpBB3’s Permissions system is one of the most powerful and most comprehensive new features, but also one of the most intimidating, as Douglas can tell you from experience. We go through the basics of using phpBB3’s permissions system and also look at a number of common things that can confuse people about the system (like why no one can see the forum you just created or the difference between Yes, No, and Never). For more information on the Permissions system beyond what we’ve covered in this episode, check out the Flash tutorials on managing forums and on custom usergroups. You can also check out the Setting Permissions quick start guide, or the more detailed section on users and forum permissions.
Then, Douglas gives us a phpBB History Lesson, as we take a look back to the release of phpBB 2.0.11 which took place exactly three years ago on November 18, 2004. We look back at the highlighting exploit that caused that released and which caused the infamous Santy worm of December 2004 which defaced over 40,000 phpBB-based bulletin boards and hurt phpBB’s security reputation, and we look at some of the changes that the phpBB teams in response to the uproar. Josh W. (A_Jelly_Doughnut), one of the MOD Team members, also comes on briefly to look back at the Santy worm with us. Finally, we take a look at what has changed with security in phpBB3 and the various steps that have been taken by the teams in the last three years to ensure that nothing like this happens again.
Additional links mentioned: howdark.com “exploits” howdark.com exploits - follow up phpBB 2.0.11 released - Critical update phpBB 2.0.11 upgrade reminder Netcraft: Santy Worm Spreads Through phpBB Forums
The MOD of the Week is User Shield for phpBB2 by Wo1f, and the Style of the Week is DAJ_Glass for phpBB2 by Krezno.
phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.
This episode was supposed to be the first episode with David “Highway of Life” Lewis as our new co-host, but unfortunately, he couldn’t make it. It was still a full episode as Douglas tried to explain MODX without getting too technical or too boring. A big thanks goes out to the many who participated in the show and called in!
In this episode, Douglas gives a brief history of MODX, talks about its advantages and disadvantages, and also talks about the MODX Packaging Guidelines and Versioning System, as well as identifies some resources for MOD authors to use MODX. Many of these can be found at the MODX Resource Centre. It’s also encouraged that MOD authors verify that their MODX package is correct with the mEAL pre-validator tool. There were a few things that the MOD team had not made 100% clear at the recording of this episode. They will probably be submitting me corrections to mistakes that I may have made; these will be mentioned in the comments section of this post and at the beginning of the next show.
Douglas will be away in Sacramento on the 14th and at the WordCamp conference on the 21st, so the next live episode will not be until Saturday, July 28th, at the usual time. If there is a big announcement/news from phpBB in the interim, we may release a special episode (not live) to talk about it. Think of this as like my “summer vacation”.
A Word from Our Sponsor
About phpBB Weekly
phpBB Weekly is a live podcast that covers the latest news on the phpBB forum software, including various tips and tutorials on using phpBB as a user and as an administrator, and highlighting various MODs and Styles that are available for phpBB on the web today. The show is hosted by Douglas Bell and David Lewis.
On this website, you can listen to the past episodes of phpBB Weekly, find show notes for all of the previous shows, and find out information about upcoming episodes. You should also check out our phpBB Weekly forum.
The badge below also lets you quickly load past episodes of phpBB Weekly, or listen to episodes live when they are recorded most Saturdays at 12:00 PM EDT (16:00 UTC). See the About page to learn more about the show, and also learn you can participate with the show.
vBulletin Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.
