The IP address information for a poster is stored in the phpbb_posts table in phpBB2. In my Checkbox Challenge MOD it’s also stored during registration attempts. The IP address stored after being converted to hex and is then stored as an 8 character string. This is then decoded on the fly when requested. Sometimes you might want to decode the IP from the character string by using MySQL directly. It turns out there is a very simple formula to do that.

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The bbProtection folks have launched a blog. The most recent post mentions that they’ve opened up the IRC channel for input from the user community.

At this point I would like to mention that I was invited to join the bbProtection team a few weeks ago and I accepted a limited role. I won’t be doing any coding (at least that’s the plan). My role is more of an enthusiastic user than anything else, I guess. I have offered my input as to the relative value of some of the features being considered and suggested some others. I hope to be able to provide some value as far as the database design and tuning, as that’s where my main expertise lies.

Why mention this now? Because if you do pop in to the IRC channel as discussed on the team blog, I may be there as one of the team members that you see. I don’t go into IRC every day but if I am signed on, I will be in the channel. If you have any concerns or comments about the service I would be happy to hear them, as would any of the other team members.

See you there.

In the previous post of this series I went through the first three categories of the feature list comparing phpBB2 with phpBB3. I added my own notes comparing that comparison (if you follow what I mean ) with the features I have in my own highly-customized implementation of phpBB2. This is the next post in that series and I will cover the Anti-Spam, Data Management, and Registration feature categories.

As a disclaimer: this post is not intended to be a criticism of phpBB3 in any way. It is simply a way for me to formally review the features provided by the latest version as compared to what I am currently using, and help evaluate whether I should prioritize an upgrade or remain happy with what I have.

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In this post on the official phpBB.com blog the development team has announced something really cool that came out of Londonvasion… template “fallback” system. It’s one of those changes that makes you think, “Hey, why didn’t someone notice that before?” More…

I recently joined the 21^st century and purchased a smart phone (a blackberry). I’ve been using it for quite a few things, including browsing the web, posting on blogs, and even using my phpBB2 boards. It works okay, but it would work a lot better with an appropriate style.

I’ve done some googling, but if anyone has a link or suggestion for a source for a decent style for phpBB2 that caters to mobile users, that would be great. Links accepted.

I have seen some folks that include code that forces users into a style choice based on the browser string… for what it’s worth I don’t intend to do that. Instead I will take a domain like www.example.com and supplement it with mobile.example.com. That way the user makes the choice rather than me. If they want to browse the full board on their mobile device, I will let them. If someone wants to browse the “slim” version from a regular device, why stop them? I haven’t worked out the details on how that will work yet, but I will be sure to post them here when I do.

But first I need the template / style.

At Londonvasion 2008 I delivered a talk about various anti-spam techniques available for board owners. One of the challenges that is facing board owners today is that spammers are getting more creative at masking their true intentions. They post stuff that looks like legitimate content but it contains cunningly masked spam. Unless a board owner takes the time to research the rest of the web, it can be difficult to determine if the same content is appearing on other boards.

That’s where a service like AKismet (for Wordpress) or bbProtection (for bulletin boards) comes in. More…

As a brief recap from the introduction post for this series… the goal for this series of posts will be to sit back and try to take an objective look at the feature comparison list posted at phpbb.com and determine the following:

• Do I have that feature already as a MOD?
• If so, does it meet or exceed what is provided by phpBB3?
• If not, do I have a compelling need for this feature, enough that I would either consider writing it as a MOD or upgrading?

I plan to go through the feature chart section by section, and at the end of each section I will assign a point value of +1, 0, or -1 based on where I think I am. By the end of the analysis I expect to have a much better idea of where I stand with my own code, or just how important the things are that I am missing.

As a disclaimer: this post is not intended to be a criticism of phpBB3 in any way. It is simply a way for me to formally review the features provided by the latest version as compared to what I am currently using, and help evaluate whether I should prioritize an upgrade or remain happy with what I have.

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In the first post about this MOD I introduced the basic concept of a daily digest and described how the scheduled process worked. The other half of the system is the user interface that allows the user to mark which forums they want to subscribe to. I will cover that (and a bit more about the database design) today.

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In the first post in this series on working with recursive data I talked about several different ways to store the information in a database. Some of them were promising, but they all had complications of some kind or another. I was using the phpBB Doctor Project Manager database design as an example, but there are quite a few different scenarios where recursive data will be found. Since SQL is not a recursive language, I am trying to find the best way to model the data so that I can access it with minimal fuss.

As an example, in my project management system I need to be able to quickly and easily identify the parent task, if the task has any sub-tasks (child records), and which tasks are at the same level (siblings). I would like to be able to traverse the tree in either direction (up to the parent or down to the child) without using recursion. In order to do that, I need a model that is different from anything presented in the prior post.

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Here is a wide shot of the conference on Sunday when it was open to the general public as well as team members. Hmm, I recognize that person in the lower corner, but what was he doing?

Oh, right, here’s what was going on…

I was composing a blog post right at that moment. If you run a wordpress blog of your own, you might be able to recognize the standard wordpress posting screen. I sat way towards the the back of the room, as I didn’t want to disturb anyone around me with my typing. It turned out that other folks ended up sitting in the back as well, but there were enough laptops running that one more didn’t seem to matter. The hotel wireless, which had been so bad the day before, performed quite well. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they placed a wireless access point right in the room with us.

This image was posted by a team member from phpbb.fr who shared his pictures on flickr.