phpBB Weekly

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Episode Duration: 1:29:49
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), Micheal Cottingham (Techie-Micheal), and Tom Beddard (subBlue)

On this episode, we’re joined by a very special guest, Tom Beddard (subBlue), the designer of the subSilver and prosilver themes for phpBB2 and phpBB3, respectively. We chatted with Tom about his experiences working with phpBB and with the teams, and what it’s like to write a completely new phpBB style from scratch (unlike most phpBB styles which are usually based somewhat on either subSilver/subsilver2 or prosilver). He also shared some thoughts for people interested in making styles for phpBB. (If you want a good read, be sure to check out his featurette on designing prosilver.)

David and Douglas also spend a bit of time discussing the future of community bulletin boards, and whether or not they may be on the decline in the future what with all the other new means of communication popping up around the internet. In the course of the conversation, David describes Google Wave and Douglas describes P2 and discuss how bulletin boards could borrow some of these ideas to improve usability and become more like a modern web application.

There is no MOD or Style of the Week. Our last phpBB Weekly Poll Question was “What would be the coolest CAPTCHA plugin to have installed on your board?” Here are the answers:
“If they’re using Internet Explorer 6, who cares if they’re a bot or not? You know what to do with them…” 10 votes / 56%
“Ask the user what CAPTCHA stands for. If they know the correct answer, they’re probably a robot.” 3 votes / 17%
“Ask them to explain why the front REALLY fell off. That will weed out bots AND Australian senators.” 2 votes / 11%
“Attempt a Jedi mind trick on the user. If it doesn’t work, they’re probably a robot, or too smart to feel at home on your board anyway.” 1 vote / 6%
“Burn them at the stake. If they survive, they’re probably a robot. (Well, it worked at the Salem Witch Trials, right?)” 1 vote / 6%
And 1 “Other” answer:
“Pick the Bertie -captcha.”
Total Votes: 18

Finally, Douglas and David announce that this episode is our last episode on TalkShoe, because we are moving to uStream! They give a rundown of all of the details. As a reminder, there will be no live episodes on August 15 or 22; our next live show will be on Saturday, August 29. That episode will be our first episode broadcasting on uStream, and our first episode to adopt our new 1 PM EDT recording time. Keep an eye on phpBBWeekly.net as we make this transition over the next few weeks.

Finally, we close out the show by wishing a happy birthday to Meik Sievertsen (Acyd Burn) in our usual phpBB Weekly way.

Just a heads up for those of you who may be interested that I will be interviewed on WordPress Weekly this Friday, January 9th at 8 PM EST (0100 UTC on Saturday 1/10). Like our show, WordPress Weekly is a live podcast recorded on TalkShoe by Jeff Chandler (Jeffro2pt0), a good friend of this show, and he does a really good job with WordPress Weekly. We’ll likely talk a bit about phpBB Weekly, discussions on phpBB vs. WordPress from a code and/or interface standpoint, and maybe some of my experience with personal blogging (a subject that has nothing to do with phpBB whatsoever).

As a TalkShoe-based podcast, you can join-in to WordPress Weekly the same way you join in on our show (just use Call ID 34224 instead). Just wanted to mention it in case you’re interested in listening in!

Just a reminder, phpBB Weekly will NOT be live on January 10th or 17th. We will be releasing a non-live episode (#094) during the interim, and our next live episode will be on January 24th.
–Douglas Bell, Co-Host of phpBB Weekly

Hello everyone,

If you guys haven’t noticed, the month of June is quite a busy month for both myself and David. I had a trip to China earlier this month and will be leaving this Saturday and all next week on another excursion, and David just got back from a couple of days in Vancouver in addition to a very busy work schedule. So we’ve been kind of busy, but rather than cutting out almost all of our episodes for this month, we still wanted to try to get a full month of phpBB Weekly for you all, especially with everything that’s happening right now.

So here’s what’s up. Episode #065, which David recorded on June 7th, will be edited and released either today or tomorrow. David is in the process of getting the recording over to me. Episode #066 was already released on Tuesday.

Instead of doing the episode that we had scheduled for this Saturday live, we’re instead going to do it off of TalkShoe before I leave on my next excursion, which means that there will be no live episode this Saturday. It will be released tomorrow or really early on Saturday, unusually early for phpBB Weekly.
Our next live episode will be on Saturday, June 28th at the normal time. David will be doing it without me because I won’t be getting back until that afternoon, but we’ll try to get it edited and released on the usual schedule.

So that’s that; just wanted to fill you in. Thanks for your patience and thanks for continuing to listen to phpBB Weekly!
–Douglas Bell

Hello everyone,

I’ve gotten some notification from TalkShoe that they are making a minor change to their setup. Effective immediately, if you are not registered on TalkShoe and you enter the chat room as a guest (i.e. as Guest 1 or Guest 2, etc.), by default you will be blocked from having the ability to participate in the chat until I unblock you.

As was explained to me by Dave Nelsen (TalkShoe’s CEO), they have been hearing from many other calls on the network who have been affected by these anonymous guest chatters who have come in and typed a lot of porn and profanity into the chat, but once the hosts blocks them from the chat room, this person just has to close the window and reopen it to enter into the chat room as another guest, thus causing hell for the host of the TalkShoe call.

Luckily, phpBB Weekly hasn’t (yet) been affected by this, however for now, this change is universal (in May, they will be providing the ability to toggle this option once they build the toggle into the system). In the meantime, if you try to join in on the show as a guest chatter, you will not be able to chat by default until I notice and unblock you. It is annoying for me, and it’s annoying for you, but that’s what happens when a couple of rogue users spoil it for everyone. (I’m sure many of you have similar experiences in your own communities as well.)

If you would like to get around all this annoyance, feel free to register for free to TalkShoe. It only takes a minute, and once you’re registered, not only will you have your own username for us to identify you with, but you will not be blocked upon entering the chat room, and so neither of us will have to worry about this new obstacle.

Anyway, that’s just an FYI for you all to take note of. Hope to see you on Saturday!

Those of you who have eagle eyes, or perhaps actually care for some reason, may have noticed that TalkShoe, the website that hosts the live recording/streaming of our show, not to mention our infamous chatroom, has just launched a brand new version of their website, including new features. I thought that I might share the most important aspect of what’s new, mostly the things that are important to phpBB Weekly’s listeners.

The biggest new aspect is that TalkShoe now offers a web-based version of their client. That’s right, you no longer have to download the TalkShoe Live! client in order to listen to the show live and join in the chat room. The chat room operates directly in your web browser. Furthermore, you do not have to be a TalkShoe member to participate in the chat room! This means that the entire live phpBB Weekly experience is accessible to anyone, both chat room and calling in live, without registering on TalkShoe! (Although if you do register, you’ll get a more recognizable username than Guest205, for example.)

Note, however, that the downloadable version of TalkShoe is still available (now called TalkShoe Live! Classic). TalkShoe Live! Classic provides a more robust version of the chat room and audio stream, and is also required for using TalkShoe’s free ShoePhone service. Personally, I will continue to use TalkShoe Live! Classic to ensure that I can maintain a connection to the chat room.

Nevertheless, we’re really excited about the new version of TalkShoe, and we hope that it will open up the opportunity to be a part of the show, live as it’s recorded, and also to be a part of our thriving chat room, to a much wider audience. We invite you all to try it on our next live show!

Finally, as one additional reminder, if you have any issues connecting to the live episodes on TalkShoe, we have a special support thread available.