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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.

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Douglas was off taking a test during this episode, so he couldn’t make it, but then again, David forgot that it was Saturday, which is why the live stream of phpBB Weekly never happened! Whoops. Anyway, David managed to grab together a couple of team members to talk to for what could almost pass as another episode of the Official phpBB Podcast. So, on this episode, he’s joined by Paul Sohier (of the MOD Team), Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty of the Support Team), and Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic, Support Team Leader).

Anyway, this past week, the inevitable phpBB 3.0.1 was released featuring dozens of bugfixes, including two security-related fixes. As this marks the first non-RC-related update to phpBB3, they spend a little bit of time reviewing the process for updating from 3.0.0 to 3.0.1 and the importance of keeping your boards up-to-date. In addition, they discuss other common support issues with upgrading and how upgrading relates to the importance of keeping core code changes in MODs down to a minimum for compatibility.

They then discuss the recent alpha release of a MOD by naderman (of the Development Team) of the Sphinx Search Plugin for phpBB. Sphinx is a free open-source SQL fulltext search engine that is now another option that you can use for indexing your board’s content on your search page, and will quite possibly be showing up in phpBB 3.2 “Ascraeus.”

Yuriy gives us a quick update on the latest Londonvasion details (and by the way, you should also check out phpBB Weekly’s latest Londonvasion plans), and David tells us about Star Trek Guide’s new MOD Manager, as well as how you can obtain the “Borg Invasion” style that was used for STG’s recent April Fools joke.

No MOD or Style of the Week was selected this week, but we promise that we will make up for lost time next week and get back into the MODs and Styles selections.

Technical Note: Apologies for the background sounds in this episode–David discovered after the fact that he forgot to turn off his Skype sound effects!

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David did do one thing for this show when he joined the phpBB teams: he found a bunch of team members who were anxious to be guest hosts on phpBB Weekly. On this episode, we’re joined by guest host Yuriy Rusko, better known on phpBB.com as Marshalrusty, a member of the Support Team.

First off, David and Yuriy talk about the first episode of the new Official phpBB Podcast, which I guess is meant to differentiate it from this podcast. But then, they end up talking about the Official phpBB Podcast so much, including recapping a bit on their talk about the COPA and COPPA laws, that this show effectively is now the phpBB Podcast podcast.

However, we do have an interesting discussion with Yuriy about dealing with spam, (including CAPTCHAs and other anti-spam measures), security, and his experiences giving support for phpBB. David also takes a moment to recognize a few of the phpBB team members who have recently stepped down to return to their normal lives, and their many many contributions to the phpBB project.

The MOD of the Week is Font Type BBcode for phpBB2 by Templater, and the Style of the Week is BF Vista Style for phpBB3 by Frost.
If you want to recommend a MOD or Style for us to promote, bookmark it on del.icio.us with the tag “phpbbwmod” or “phpbbwstyle”, and we might feature it on a future episode.

Additional links mentioned during the show:
Marshalrusty’s Preventing SPAM post
Dave Rathbun’s Doctor Blog
Marshalrusty’s Registration Auth Code (RAC) MOD
Info/Application to be a MOD Team Member

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It’s last minute partially because I just found out about it. What can I say–David’s getting better at organizing this show than I am!

However, I am excited to announce that on this Saturday, September 8th, we will be joined by special guest Yuriy Rusko, better known on phpBB.com as Marshalrusty, Support Team Member and one of the administrators of the phpBBHelp Unofficial Support Forum. If you’ve ever asked a question in the phpBB Support Forums within the last 3 years, chances are that you know who Marshalrusty is. He will be joining us on phpBB Weekly #029 to talk about his experiences giving phpBB support, both before and after he came on the Support Team. And of course, if you join in on the show live, starting shortly before 12 PM Eastern (1600 UTC), he’ll be here to answer your questions!

Again, sorry for the last minute announcement, but I hope you’ll be able to join us this Saturday for this special episode of phpBB Weekly!