phpBB Weekly

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Episode Duration: 49:55
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), Micheal Cottingham (Techie-Micheal), and Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty)

This episode of phpBB Weekly is dedicated to phpBB supporters everywhere. (But no, there isn’t actually any chicken soup involved; we left the food behind with BBGourmet a few weeks ago.) Instead we’re joined by frequent phpBB Weekly guest Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty), Support Team Leader. Along with Micheal (veteran Support Team Leader), we have quite an interesting discussion.

We start by talking about JimA’s recent post on the phpBB.com Blog discussing why being a phpBB supporter is a rewarding experience as well as some things that you need to know before you start supporting. Yuriy and Micheal share some of the Support Team’s perspective on what they do to oversee community phpBB supporters and ensure that the Support Forums are a productive place.

Yuriy then overviews the Support Toolkit, which was recently made available for public preview via the phpBB Codeforge. The Support Toolkit will eventually become a tool that will be able to automatically perform a number of troubleshooting tools semi-independently of a properly-functioning phpBB installation. It is definitely a project that we will continue to keep a close eye on at phpBB Weekly.

Our last poll question was “What should be featured on the next episode of BBGourmet (if there ever is one)?” The top choice was “Deck 15 Donuts” with 5 votes (45%), although you know that David probably voted for that one multiple times, including once during this particular episode. Second choice was “Some poisonous recipe with vBulletin added to it” with 4 votes (36%). There was 1 vote (9%) for “User Permissions Parfaits,” 1 vote (9%) for “Yummy Apple-Blueberry Bars (YaBB),” and 0 votes for “Invision Power Brownies.” This week’s poll question is “What’s the most important advice to give a phpBB supporter?” and the poll will end on May 9th. Vote in the sidebar on the right-hand side.

The MOD of the Week is easyPortal by Noxwizard, and the Style of the Week is Pro_ubuntu by Ishimaru Chiaki.

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Episode Duration: 1:36:42
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), and Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty)

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“Hooray…new features!” was the headline of this episode of phpBB Weekly as the long-awaited phpBB 3.0.3 update was released. We take another look at some of the new features in this release.

Also, Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty) joins us on this show to talk about his recent promotion to Support Team Leader and to give us a glimpse of the direction that the future Support Team will be taking.

Finally, in the third segment of our Building a Successful Community series, we talk about the things you should know about recruiting and maintaining quality staff members on your forum. Yuriy shares some experiences that the phpBB.com teams have learned, David shares his experiences from StarTrekGuide, and Douglas shares some experiences from communities that he ran in the distant past.

The MOD of the Week is Milestone Congratulations by MartectX, and the Style of the Week is coffee_time by abble.

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

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Episode Duration: 1:09:07
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), and Jordan Lewis (Hank the Cowdog, representing Albertie Einstein)

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The era of change must be upon us. Not only did Barack Obama get elected as the next American president, but the changes within the phpBB teams just keep on coming with each passing week. This week it was announced that Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic) is stepping down as Support Team leader (but is staying as a member of the Support Team) and will be replaced by Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty). We briefly discuss this announcement, and there’s word that there could still be more structural changes coming soon to the phpBB project; stay tuned…

In the more immediate future, however, phpBB 3.0.3 RC-1 has been sent out to the QA Team for testing, which means that the long-awaited next update to phpBB3 is likely on the way very soon. Why is it long-awaited? There’s actually a number of new features coming in this release, such as template inheritance, changes to the moderation queue, and new permissions for sending private messages to multiple recipients. We go through the new toys coming in this next release in detail.

Finally, our President Bertie contest has officially ended with two elections that were held during the week, and on this episode, we announce the winner of the Bertie Mons Presidential Election: Albertie Einstein of the Intellectual Party, sponsored by Hank the Cowdog! We perform Albertie Einstein’s inauguration ceremony live on the show, and Jordan (Hank the Cowdog) delivers an inaugural address as well. The contest may be over, but Bertie Mons will continue to thrive on StarTrekGuide. Oh, and if anyone has figured out where the good people at SCOFF Media have disappeared to, please let us know…

The MOD of the Week is Activation Justification by TerraFrost and the Style of the Week is 4poziomSEO_orange by gokin.

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

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Episode Duration: 1:10:35
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty), and Paul Sohier (Paul)

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Londonvasion is now officially over (can you believe it?), and to wrap-up the big event, we bring on a great panel of team members to tell us all about their experiences at the conference. MOD Team Member and phpBB Weekly Co-Host David Lewis (Highway of Life), Support Team Member and Londonvasion Coordinator Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty), and MOD Team Member and phpBB Team-Slapper Paul Sohier (Paul) join us for a delightfully fun and interesting episode as we look back on the accomplishments made in order to pull off the first-ever real-life gathering of the phpBB team members. We also look ahead at what 2009 will possibly bring. Plus, keep your eyes open for the videos from Londonvasion which will be coming out later this week, hopefully.

Douglas also gives us another update at the phpBBHacks.com Idol where Round 2 of voting is now open.

Additional Links Mentioned in the Episode:
Dave Rathbun’s Londonvasion Recaps
phpBB.com Announcement: Beyond Londonvasion
phpBB.com Blog Post: Things We Took from London
Londonvasion Central
David’s Londonvasion Photos
Yuriy’s Bertie Lawyers
The Magnificent Seven Touring London
Paul on the Bus
Yuriy’s Bertie Collection (mentioned in the after-show)

The MOD of the Week is Highlight from Search Engine by joebert, and the Style of the Week is Dark Fantasy by Daniel Exe.

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

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Episode Duration: 1:27:53
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples), David Lewis (Highway of Life), Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic), Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty)

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Well, the inevitable has happened: it was announced this past week that phpBB2 will be going end of life later this year. Although nothing is happening immediately, download links for phpBB2 will be removed in October, followed by support ending in January, and all security patches ending in February, at which point phpBB2 will be officially retired and the teams will focus exclusively on phpBB3 from here on out. Other teams have or are in the process of announcing their individual plans surrounding the retiring of phpBB2.

We are joined on this episode by Ashley Pinner (NeoThermic), the Support Team Leader, and Yuriy Rusko (Marshalrusty), a Support Team Member, to talk about this announcement. They talk about the many reasons that led this announcement to be made, particularly this early, and why the teams have decided that this decision is for the best. We also discuss how users hearing about this can prepare for the change, as well as assessing opinions pulled from the discussion topic on phpBB.com and the discussion on Star Trek Guide.

Also, we look ahead to our giveaway drawing in three weeks, and share the finalized list of prizes that we’re giving away. Plus, we look at our latest Londonvasion plans.

The MOD of the Week is Users default avatar for phpBB2 by leviatan21, and the Style of the Week is TheEighties Template for phpBB2 by phpbbmodded.de.

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