phpBB Weekly

Hello phpBB Weekly listeners,

Those of you who have seen our TalkShoe page recently have noticed that we have a very exciting month of May planned (as far as phpBB Weekly episodes are concerned), and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to sum up what’s on the agenda for the next few weeks.

First of all, as you’ve noticed, there will be no episode on Saturday, May 3rd. The reason for this is partially because Douglas is out of town, and also because he has been (and continues to be) busy prepping for AP exams at school, and this will neither give him the opportunity to be at an episode of phpBB Weekly nor to be able to edit it, so we’re just going to give him the week off. (Actually, he’s already out of town–this post was scheduled a week ago!)

Patrick O’Keefe (who was on episode #050 on February 9th) will be joining us again on May 10th for phpBB Weekly #061. His new book, Managing Online Forums, was recently released (Douglas just reviewed it on his blog, too), and so he will be joining David and Douglas to talk about his excellent new book in detail. Plus, we will be doing the prize giveaway for the listener survey that we launched back in March, so this will be an episode that you will want to be here for. (By the way, you still have time to fill out the listener survey–we’ve only gotten about 30 responses so far, so hie thee hence and add yourself to the lot!)

David will be doing another solo episode on May 17th (Douglas has to present a workshop that day) and so we will announce the topic of discussion at that time.

On May 24th (episode #063), we will be joined by Matt Mullenweg, the founder and “Chief BBQ Taste Tester” of Automattic, the people who produce the very popular WordPress blogging software, and also produce the up-and-coming bbPress forums software. We’ll break away from phpBB a bit on this episode to chat with Matt about bbPress and the very different philosophy that it utilizes for BB-based communities, as well as learn about some of the experiences that Automattic has had building WordPress and bbPress as open-source programs, comparing them a bit with phpBB’s open source life. It should be an interesting episode.

Finally, rounding out the month of May, we will be joined on episode #064 (May 31st) by the hosts of the recently-created phpBBIreland podcast. They’ll join us to talk a bit about their new show, as well as the phpBBIreland.com community and the Stargate Portal, a portal for phpBB3 that they develop.

Anyway, we’re certainly looking forward to some exciting episodes this month, and we hope that you’ll join us!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are going to have to cancel phpBB Weekly for this Saturday, January 12th. David’s move to Spokane, which has been the cause of his absence for the past few episodes, has unfortunately had some issues which have slowed it down. Therefore, he will not be able to be here this Saturday for phpBB Weekly. At the same time, I will be out of town for a meeting, and will not be here for phpBB Weekly. Therefore, we are not going to be recording an episode this week.

phpBB Weekly #047, which was intended to be the episode where David will be revealing for the first time what’s new in phpBB 3.2, will be postponed to next Saturday, January 19th. David promises that he’ll be there, and I’ll also be there, so it will be great for both of us to be on the show at the same time for the momentous occasion. Even better, David will be joined by MOD Team member Josh W. (A_Jelly_Doughnut) and Development Team member David M. (DavidMJ)*, who will be joining David in revealing what’s new in the up-and-coming 3.2. And, of course, I will be there, serving as the curmudgeon offering my opinions and judgments on the revealed features, and asking as many more-in-depth type questions as I can, while also making sure that the episode doesn’t trump two hours. And, based on past experiences, with something this big going on, you can expect that there will be some more team members lurking about on TalkShoe, especially now that TalkShoe is more accessible now.

Oh, and of course, we invite you to not only come live and be among the first to learn about the new stuff coming in the next major release of phpBB, but also join in with your own questions and comments! Come in live to the chat room and share your opinions on the new features as they’re introduced, or call in live on the show and talk with our guest team members! Or, if you have questions and comments that you’d like to share, feel free.

Finally, the last thing that I am going to pitch is to ask you all to mention what some of the features you’d like to see in phpBB 3.2. After all, this podcast isn’t just for hearing what the team members have to say, it’s for hearing what you, the community, has to say. Who knows (David does) whether or not your most-wanted feature will actually be showing up in 3.2, but sound off in this topic about what you want the teams to deliver in 3.2, and we’ll be sure that they hear what you want them to hear.

In order to keep the discussion for this particular episode in one easy-to-find place, the comments for this post have been closed and we ask you to please respond in the phpBB Weekly forum topic.

We do apologize for the inconvenience of suddenly canceling this weekend’s episode, but we’re really looking forward to the exciting episode that we have planned for the 19th, and hope to see you then!
–Douglas Bell

* Guests are subject to change without notice.

Hello everyone,

As I am blogging right now, the weather folks are predicting a very bad rain/wind storm headed towards the San Francisco Bay Area (where I’m located), and have mentioned that it’s very possible that the high winds could cause power outages tomorrow and Saturday. With any luck this will not happen, but in the slight chance that I am without power on Saturday morning, I will not be able to alert anyone online about it, nor will I be able to be here live for phpBB Weekly. Furthermore, David will also not be on this Saturday’s episode as he is still in the process of moving to Spokane. So, in the chance that I am unable to make it this Saturday for phpBB Weekly due to power outage or any other possibility, you’d just have to live with the fact that the TalkShoe stream would be silent and that episode #046 would be postponed to next weekend.

I am not canceling this weekend’s episode, I am just alerting you all to the possibility, due to this storm, that I may not be able to make it in the event that there is a power outage here. Hopefully nothing will happen and phpBB Weekly #046 will proceed as normal. See you all (hopefully) on Saturday!
–Douglas Bell