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 (34.6 MB)

Episode Duration: 1:00:32
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic), Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty)

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

We’re back from our vBulletin April Fools joke to throw a very full episode at you all as we catch up on the plethora of phpBB news that has been churning out over the past week or two.

We start off by briefly chatting with David about Star Trek Guide’s Deck 15 Stunt that they pulled for April Fools Day, including lobbying for him to release the code he used for Deck 15 as a MOD. Afterwards, we spend a little time talking about the upcoming phpBB 3.0.1 release (can you say “bugfixes,” anyone?), and discussing the beginning of the minor release candidates and the associated phpbb-qa mailing list.

We then turn to the 3.2 “Ascraeus” front and discuss some of the latest SVN checkins, including the beginnings of the new BBCode parser that Marek (APTX) checked in, and the new Database Abstraction Layer (DBAL) function that DavidMJ has committed, as well as the beginnings of a completely retooled posting API. We’ll be sharing more details about these new features soon once we learn more about them ourselves.

We take a bit of time to discuss once again the future of phpBB2, and how long it will last. NeoThermic calls in to offer some of his comments, and we spend some time discussing why some people would be in favor of killing phpBB2 and why others would be against it.

For the main part of the show, Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty) joins us to talk about Londonvasion 2008, the first major phpBB conference taking place all day in London on Sunday, July 20th, 2008. We chat with Yuriy about how Londonvasion came about and what will be taking place there, as well as beginning some initial discussions for how phpBB Weekly will plan to cover the event. If you have any suggestions for how you want us to cover this event, please see our Londonvasion Topic in the phpBB Weekly forum.

There was no MOD or Style of the Week this week since we were limited on time for this episode.

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

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 (35.1 MB)

Episode Duration: 1:01:20
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

Douglas returns from picking up around the Bay Area, and after telling an interesting and disappointing story from his excursion (which has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with phpBB3), he takes the reins and very thoroughly goes over the topic of banning. Covered on this show is why would you want to ban users? How do you ban users using phpBB? What are the differences in banning controls between phpBB2 and phpBB3? We also talk about how the phpBB3 warnings system can fit in here and discuss the importance of having set rules and guidelines on your forum, along with a cautionary warning about not getting carried away with banning users. (After all, you want to attract users to your forum, not send them away!) And then, Douglas selects two MODs of the Week which bring some of phpBB3′s enhanced banning functionality within the grasp of phpBB2 administrators. David also gives us the latest lowdown on recent changes to the phpBB teams, including a brand new Support Team leader, and then we announce some of the exciting episodes that will be coming up.

The two MODs of the Week this week are Ban Reasons and Temp Ban, both by eviL<3 for phpBB2. The Style of the Week is Thor by Wizardly for phpBB3.
If you would like to recommend a MOD or Style of the Week to us to be featured on a future episode (subject to our approval), bookmark it on del.icio.us with the tag “phpbbwmod” or “phpbbwstyle”.

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