Is your website secure? What if you learned that half a million websites have been hacked via SQL Injections just since last January? On this episode, David Lewis is joined by Paul (of the MODs Team) and Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic, Support Team Leader), in which they discuss how site owners can be aware of SQL injection vulnerabilities, how they can prevent vulnerabilities in their own site, and how you can identify possible SQL injections within MODs that you download. And for MOD authors out there, they discuss the phpBB3 framework and how you can use it to prevent SQL injections in MODs.
Plus, have you ever run phpBB3 and made a change to your site, but nothing changed? That’s probably due to phpBB3’s caching of content, templates, and themes. David and the others discuss how to properly purge the cache with phpBB3, as well as discussing the differences between the different kinds of cached content.
And of course, Londonvasion is getting ever-closer, and so we’ve got your latest fix on Londonvasion news right here, as usual. Stay tuned as we finalize phpBB Weekly’s own Londonvasion plans over the next few weeks; we’ll be keeping you posted.
Douglas had another test to complete during this episode of phpBB Weekly, and David apparently had a harder time hijacking team members for this episode, so he was joined this time by his brother, Francis Lewis (Handyman). With the retirement of phpBB2 still holding the #1 slot for phpBB discussions across the internet, David and Francis talk a bit more about the retirement news, albeit from somewhat more of a teams-based angle. During this episode, they talk a bit about how the EOL of phpBB2 will help the phpBB3 branch (as well as 3.2 Ascraeus development) in the long run. They also discuss some of the enticing phpBB3 features that users and MOD authors can see as they slowly transition over to phpBB3, including a look at how and why phpBB3 is more “stable” than phpBB2, some of the interesting aspects of phpBB3’s Database Abstraction Layer (DBAL) and an overall analysis of why phpBB3 doesn’t require as much MODding as phpBB2 did.
In other news, the MOD Database Cleanup is slated to be completed in full on Wednesday, April 30th Saturday, May 31st, and David and Francis talk a bit about will be taking place. They also provide an update on the latest news with Londonvasion and the Star Trek Guide MODs Manager, as well as a status update on the MOD Team’s upcoming Package Manager (codenamed Blinky).
The MOD of the Week is Full Syndication Suite for phpBB3 by Schumi, and the Style of the Week is Avalon for phpBB3 by CyberAlien.
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Douglas was on the last day of a ten-day trip during this episode, and so David Lewis took control of this episode. Joined by Francis Lewis (Handyman`), Josh W. (A_Jelly_Doughnut), and Paul Sohier (Paul), David proclaimed this episode the “MOD Team Takeover” episode. After talking about the release of phpBB 2.0.23, the “still furry as hell” edition and the first release of the phpBB2 line in almost 14 months, they move on to talk about the latest news with the Joomla!-phpBB RokBridge project. They then focus on MODs for the rest of the episode, including how to support your MODs, how to create a MODX script and package your MODs, and how to avoid having your MOD insta-denied. You can find lots more information about these topics in the MODs section of phpBB.com.
The MOD of the Week is Auto Groups MOD for phpBB3 by A_Jelly_Doughnut, and the Style of the Week is KTuk Purple for phpBB3 by ktbabe.
phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.
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.
The first day of December means that the end of the year is staring straight at us as we plunge into the holiday season, but here at phpBB Weekly, we prefer to plunge into another tutorial.
After wishing happy birthday to phpBB team members Paul and Anon, we dissect through the release announcement of phpBB3 RC8, which was announced just hours before this episode. And, as usual, we ask the same question that everyone has been asking since May: will this RC go golden master, or is there yet another RC coming down Santa Claus lane?
This week also saw the execution of the MOD Database Cleanup. We take a look at why and how it was done, and learn a bit about Douglas’ early MODding life in the process.
Finally, David guides us through a mini-tutorial on registration settings and usergroups in phpBB3. For more information on usergroups in particular, check out the Group management and Permissions sections of the phpBB3 documentation, or check out the Custom usergroups Flash tutorial.
The MOD of the Week is Vote Manager for phpBB2 by soapergem, and the Style of the Week is Christmas for phpBB2 by CyberAlien.
phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.
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.
phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.
