phpBB Weekly

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Episode Duration: 1:21:43
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), Micheal Cottingham (Techie-Micheal), Cullen Walsh (Brainy), and Samuel Thompson (SyntaxError90)

We hit this episode of phpBB Weekly coming right off of the excitement from OSCONvasion (all except Micheal, who couldn’t make it). Despite the fact that it was just a small meetup, most of which was spent touring the OSCON Expo Hall and downtown San Jose, it was still a lot of fun, with a lot of good discussions that took place. And it does go down as the first-ever phpBB meetup event in North America, after all. Douglas, Cullen, and Sam (who were all there) spent the first half hour of this episode recapping the various things we did and discussed at OSCONvasion. Be sure to follow the OSCONvasion tag on Flickr to see some of the great pictures we took around OSCON. And of course, audio from our live session is on phpBB Weekly #115, and video will be posted this week by AdamR.

It was announced just a few hours before this show that UMIL 1.0.0 Gold was released. The Unified MODs Install Library (UMIL) truly is the missing tool to allow actions like making database table changes, adding permissions, config options, or modules to be done automatically, and now that it’s fully stable, MOD authors and MOD installers can take full advantage of it.

Finally, the MOD Team has announced a Best CAPTCHA Plugin Competition. This contest, which will help make a broad and diverse number of CAPTCHA plugins available for download and install at the launch of phpBB 3.0.6, offers free phpBB3 Berties to the best CAPTCHA plugins developed by MOD authors and submitted beginning in late August. The first submitted CAPTCHA plugin to be approved to the MOD Database will automatically receive a Bertie, plus a Bertie will be awarded to the team’s favorite CAPTCHA plugin and another to the favorite CAPTCHA plugin voted on by the community-at-large. We also take a look at the recently-revealed details of the default CAPTCHA plugins coming in 3.0.6, and go over what you need to know to build your own CAPTCHA plugin.

Our next phpBB Weekly Poll Question is “What would be the coolest CAPTCHA plugin to have installed on your board?” Vote in the poll on the sidebar at right; the poll ends on August 8th.

The MOD of the Week is Show First Post Only to Guest by Primy, and the Style of the Week is jblue by jbones.

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Episode Duration: 1:00:21
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and Micheal Cottingham (Techie-Micheal)

Again, sorry about the late release on this one; it’s been near-impossible to find a chance to get this episode edited! In our defense though, phpBB 3.0.5 STILL hasn’t been released, even though we talked about it on this episode eleven days ago!

On this episode, due to a late start, we wound up being joined again by phpBB Support Team Leader Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty) alongside Micheal Cottingham and Douglas Bell. Having missed out of two weeks’ worth of episodes, we primarily spend this episode recapping on a bit of phpBB news.

UMIL’s third release candidate is out, and so we spend a little bit of time recapping UMIL and its future importance for phpBB3 MOD authors. We also note that RC-1 of phpBB 3.0.5 has been released to the QA Team for testing, which contains a number of new features and changes and lots of bugfixes. (It has, after all, been more than five months in the making.) It should be released on phpBB.com fairly soon.

Finally, the MOD Team announced that they have released policies for MOD validation which contains details on what they look for during validation, insta-deny/repackage policies, etc. All MOD authors planning on submitting to the MODs Database should read these policies carefully, as following this policies will help you avoid having your MOD be denied!

Our last Poll Question of the Week was “What’s the most importance advice to give to a phpBB Supporter?” The top answer was “No matter what your signature says, you can kiss the sanctity of your PM box goodbye” with 5 votes (42%). Next up was “If someone actually figures out that they should use the Support Request Template, then they deserve premium service” with 4 votes (33%). Next up was “Let the Support Team deal with idiots. That’s where they get their fun.” with 2 votes (17%). And last was “Speak softly and carry a big stick” with 1 vote (8%). Receiving no votes was “Never tell people to ‘search,’ only to ‘follow directions.’”

The MOD of the Week is phpBB Mood Swings by Xanta Media, and the Style of the Week is SkyLineBlue by MartectX.

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Episode Duration: 37:47
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and Micheal Cottingham (Techie-Micheal)

On this shorter episode, we clean up from the deliciousness of last week and get back to “normal.” Douglas and Micheal take a look back at a number of the April Fool’s pranks from the previous week (see links below) from phpBB communities and other websites.

UMIL 1.0 RC-2 was recently released by the MOD Team, and we briefly recap UMIL and what it does, but don’t get into many details about the new RC without David’s expertise on the subject.

Finally, Micheal discusses a recurring issue of people claiming that phpBB3 has vulnerabilities and exploits that do not exist (like this recent example). We discuss a bit about the ramifications of these and the best way that phpBB, other security firms, and web hosts can respond to these. See also this phpBB.com blog post and this discussion topic.

April Fools Links Mentioned on the Show:
Community April Fools Jokes
Deck 15–DO NOT ENTER!
New Tech “Products” for April 1st
Google’s Gmail Autopilot
Woopra’s Webcam Enablement Feature
UC San Diego’s Acceptances April Fools

Our ongoing Poll Question of the Week is “What should be featured on the next episode of BBGourmet?” Vote in the poll on the sidebar to the right. Poll ends on Saturday, April 11.

The MOD of the Week is Save full drafts by asinshesq, and the Style of the Week is SpringFlowers by BillStur Styles.

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Episode Duration: 1:14:35
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

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David had snow on the brain during this pre-Christmas/holiday episode of phpBB Weekly, though with the ridiculous amount of snow that eastern Washington state has been receiving (as evidenced on David’s webcam), who could blame him. And with free snow giveaways being advertised on the SCOFF News Report, which we couldn’t help but replay during this episode, it’s easy to imagine yourself in the midst of the insanity of the Northwestern Winter Wonderland. Throw in the fact that Douglas has figured out David’s sound effects method and you’re in for one crazy holiday fun-fest.

But this episode wasn’t all fun-and-games. We did review the list of phpBBHacks.com Awards winners and noted their accomplishments. Congrats to all of the winners. Plus, David tells us about UMIL (the Unified MOD Installation Library) which was recently previewed by the MOD Team as a way for MOD authors and MOD installers to automate the process of installing modules and performing other functions necessary to the initial installation of a MOD. David describes what UMIL can do, how it works, and its current and possible future relationship with AutoMOD (the new official name for Blinky).

The MOD of the Week is Guess Timezone 2 by TerraFrost, and the Style of the Week is DirtyBoard2.0 by abble. Additionally, the opening music is Flu Ride – Bob Rivers and the closing music is Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer – Elmo & Patsy.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays for all of us at phpBB Weekly. Thank you so much for continuing to listen to our show and making this a worthwhile venture for us. Peace & blessings to your and your family during this season and through the new year.

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