One of my current clients is building out a new site. While I was online editing (using vi directly on the server, as I like to do) I found that just saving the files would sometimes take several seconds. And this is for a 2K file, not something incredibly large. So the first thing I did was run the “top” command, and here’s what I saw:

load average: 4.29, 3.06, 2.92

On some boxes, a load of 3.0 might not be bad. The “big board” that I am frequently talking about runs on the same server as the phpBBDoctor blog. If I hit 2.0 I’m really surprised. And since I have a quad-cpu box, I don’t really get worried until I get closer to 4.0. Yet the client box I’m working on is regularly over 6.0 or even 8.0 during the day. The stats posted above were captured at 2am central time, so hardly a busy time of the day. Yet still the numbers are what I would consider quite high.

I gave that information to my client and suggested they needed to talk to their host about the server load. It should not take 3+ seconds to have a file saved from vi by any stretch.

Then, it’s on to my next tool. I take the IP address for the domain (easily found with a simple “ping” command in most cases). I then use a tool like that found at www.myipneighbors.com which will tell me how many other domains also respond to that IP. Generally hosts are using virtual hosting so they don’t run out of IP addresses. By doing this a host can essentially offer unlimited domains on the same box with only one IP address. Hmmm, unlimited domains. Does that start to sound like a bad omen?

I went through this with a different client who was at a host that will remain unnamed but rhymes with why-power-web. Their very active site was on the same server that had over 500 sites, and that was the most I had personally seen. However, when I did the IP lookup on the server I was talking about above, here’s what I got: there are 737 sites sharing this IP address. 737! That’s a fairly large airplane, and way too many sites to host on a single server.

Conclusion? You get what you pay for. I am afraid that my client is going to be quite disappointed when they launch their new site on this new host.

Oh, and the host response to the first concern, about the server load being so high? It was something like, “Our boxes have multiple CPU’s so a high server load is not an issue.” They may have multiple CPU’s, but a high load is certainly an issue. We’ll have to see how long it takes them to fuss at my client because phpBB2 is “overloading” their already overloaded box.

The link was the “Don’t Log In as Administrator” post that I made on the Doctor Board some time back. If you haven’t read it, the point of the article is that you should not make your user name (your “regular” user name) an admin account. Set up a separate account, even call it “Administrator”, so you can post whatever you want as your own account and then do the board management as the administrator account.

Anyway, the point was this other person had no idea the person they were talking to had already been using me for some small services for their board. It was quite rewarding for me, actually, as I never know who might be visiting or what sort of value they might be getting from my site. It’s nice to know that someone finds my ramblings useful.

I told them that the answer currently was “No.”

If all of my virtual projects (finished and unfinished) were physical objects, I would probably not have room to live in my house. Yes, it’s that bad. I have projects that I am more passionate about, and they tend to get revisited from time to time. For example, the phpBB Doctor MOD Manager has not seen any coding time for over half a year. I have a paying client that has exhibited extraordinary patience with me while I finish his new site. And I have existing sites that are up and running that I need to keep tabs on. And I have just recently started doing something with a domain name that I first registered in May. Of 2002.

So yes, some projects take longer to germinate than others. But that’s okay.

Or at least I hope it is.

Anyway, one of the projects that I haven’t even started yet is to review / work with phpBB3. I have downloaded it and run the conversion script on my largest board, just to confirm that it would fail. (It did. No surprises, I have heavily modified that board.) But that’s about it. So the long and short of it is, I don’t believe that I will be doing anything with phpBB3 for at least a year.

You can check back next July and see if that’s still true.

I’ll post more about what this means to me personally and to the phpBBDoctor.com in a future post. I’m still thinking.

What didn’t happen
We didn’t launch the phpBB Doctor site to the public. That a personal disappointment, but since nobody really knows what we have coming it’s probably not that big of a deal. I do hope that we won’t go another entire year without a public launch, but only time will tell.

We didn’t get a release for phpBB3 aka Olympus. Great strides were made, to be sure, and I’m excited that the developers have been through (as I type this) four public beta cycles. I consider this to be a very good sign that phpBB3 will be coming sooner rather than later. This isn’t intended to be a slam on the developers… as I can certainly understand what they’re going through having several often-delayed projects of my own. It’s just an observation, nothing more.

What did happen
This blog started. I wanted to have a way to share some thoughts and comments about the phpBB Doctor site, about phpBB, or any technical matters. I already have a personal blog for family and friends, but only a few of them are really interested in the technical side of what I do. So rather than clutter up my personal blog with technical stuff and vice versa I decided to start a second blog.

Even though we didn’t launch the full site, we made major progress on the “behind-the-scenes” stuff. So even though we’re not launching yet, we are a lot closer to doing so than we were at the beginning of the year.

Despite the lack of a public launch, we did bring on some new clients for phpBB consulting and MOD work. I’ve posted in a prior post about Elfquest.com coming on board, and there are some other new clients welcomed to the phpBB Doctor this year as well. And there is at least one client that will be leaving phpBB for another forum solution in 2007, so we will bid farewell to them in the coming months.

We even brought on our first additional developer, albeit for a project that is probably not going to happen. So even if the public features of this site are not changing much, the private functions are very much alive.

I got several MODs approved, and added quite a few to the MOD Catalog here at this site as well. I had several MODs rejected too. I really admire the dedication and efforts put forth by the MOD validator team. I certainly value their input, as it makes me more thorough in my coding for the next project. I like to think that I write good code, but there is always room for improvement.

I was asked to join the phpBB.com moderator team last year, and therefore have nearly completed my first year of service.

Goals for 2007
Launch this site – even if we have to launch with a minimal set of features rather than the full suite that’s in the works. I have decided to take time away from finding new clients and concentrate on existing projects instead.

Complete the integration of phpBB with my photography site – This project is even more delayed than the launch of this site, as it’s last on the priority list when clients come calling. I am now in a holding pattern trying to decide whether to go forward with phpBB2 or phpBB3 when it’s out, as I am quite certain that phpBB3 will be released before I have time to complete my integration plans. It would be an excellent way to learn the new code.

So there you have it, a few thoughts about 2006 related to phpBB, the phpBBDoctor site, and some personal goals for 2007. Check back in a year and see how I’ve done.

A few days ago I was approached by someone I had met on phpbb.com with the idea of doing an interview. My first response was… “who, me?” followed by… “why me?”

Despite the initial reaction, I decided to go ahead and see what came out of it. The process involved a lengthy IM conversation across more than a few time zones. The final result was … if I may be so !($humble) to say so … actually fun to read. The author (known as damnian at phpbb.com) posted the interview in two parts on his blog.

Meet the Doctor
Meet the Doctor: Part II

So my thanks to damnian for asking me, and for doing an awesome job of processing several hours of rambling down into a reasonable amount of information without losing the feel of the conversation.

Thanks, and well done.

If you manage more than one phpBB board, or even if you only manage one but it is heavily modified, you will probably recognize the value of this system. There are several challenges in running a modified board. The first is managing / merging code from different MODs that may or may not be compatible with each other. The second major challenge is upgrading your board when updates to the core phpBB code are released. In some cases an update from the phpBB Group can break a MOD, so wouldn’t it be nice to know that? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to apply the “fast” upgrade process of overwriting your board and then reapplying your MODs all at once?

Our MOD CE is the first step towards solving these issues, and it’s built on the foundation provided by the MOD Managerâ„¢. The core purpose of this system is to allow someone to select a set of MODs from the phpBB Doctor catalog and then run a check to see if all of the selected MODs can be installed together. This system does a series of checks on the selected set of MODs, and returns a report that identifies potential conflicts. It should be noted that this is only a potential list; it is possible that an identified conflict is not, in fact, an issue. But there are limits to what can be done to review program code with a program.

The first step is quite easy… finding the common files that are shared across one or more MODs. If there are no common files, then there should not be any conflicts. For example, let’s consider a package of MODs named MOD 1, MOD2, and MOD 3. MOD 1 alters memberlist.php, MOD 2 alters index.php, and MOD 3 alters viewtopic.php. Clearly there are no conflicts, and all three MODs can be installed on the same board.

Now suppose that MOD 1, 2, and 3 all modify index.php in some way. The next step in the compatibility check is to see which lines of code are included in FIND commands. If there are no conflicts in the FIND commands, then the assumption is made that there is no conflict with installing the set of MODs. Our MOD CE is smart enough to detect overlapping FIND operations during this process, so if one MOD looks for line 10 – 12, and the next MOD looks for line 11 – 13, then this will be detected as a potential conflict.

The reason for looking for overlapping FIND targets is simple. If the FIND operations don’t match (or overlap) then the subsequent operations (like adding or replacing) will be performed on different areas of the code, and therefore should be compatible. For example, we have two very simple MODs in the phpBB Doctor catalog that all modify index_body.tpl. One of them makes the forum icon clickable, and the other makes the “view online” icon clickable. While they both modify the same file, they do not modify the same code, so they are compatible with each other.

Finally, if there are FIND commands that potentially conflict between the 3 MODs the next step is to see what is actually done after those FINDs. If there are any REPLACE operations (in-line or otherwise) then a flag is raised. Any ADD operations (before or after) are not considered conflicts.

This system is not guaranteed to be 100% foolproof. It may highlight potential conflicts when, in fact, there aren’t any. But we believe it represents a quantum leap forward in MOD management in that you can quickly and easily check to see if a collection of smaller MODs can be combined into one larger one.

And that, coincidentally, is the purpose of the next custom feature to be offered by the phpBB Doctor, our MOD Package Builderâ„¢. Details on that in a future post.

1. Design
2. Write
3. Document
4. Support
5. Update

I’m going to talk about each of these in upcoming blog entries. First, I want to talk about the middle piece: Document. Why start there?

Because I think most MOD authors have at least some experience with designing and then writing code for their MODs. But one of the challenges of writing MODs — not just writing code for your own site(s) — is documenting the code so that it can be distributed. If you have a large library of MODs as we do here at the phpBB Doctor this is even more important.

So what did I do? I wrote an add-on for phpBB… the phpBB Doctor MOD Managerâ„¢.

If you’ve checked out the forum, or even if you’ve just been reading this blog, you might have noticed the MOD Managerâ„¢ menu link at the top of the page. (The link doesn’t have the â„¢ ) If you click that link, you’re prompted to log in. That particular feature is limited to registered members of our board at this time. Actually, even if you’re a registered member that’s not good enough… you also need to be a member of at least one of the specific groups that have access to that page. (Access managed, I might add, by one of my favorite MODs: “Page Permissions”)

So what does it do?

By its name, you might guess that it has something to do with managing our library of MODs, and you would be correct. But it actually does more than that.

First, yes, it is a repository of all of our MODs. But it’s not just a listing, it’s far more than that. I have designed a database that contains all of the MOD components. At a very high level, it contains a MOD header, a list of MOD objects, actions on those objects, revision notes, even MOD author notes are stored in this database. MOD objects are generally files, but they can be anything that has an associated MOD action.

The list of phpBB files was created and stored in our database to support this system. Some examples of actions that don’t require files are SQL and DIY.

By storing everything in the database, our MOD becomes data. And with proper coding, interface, and templating, you can do whatever you want with the data once it’s in the database.

A brief side track: there are several common formats used to distribute a MOD. You can use BBCode, the phpBB Group’s MOD Template, or even just raw text. (A new development over the past year is the XML MOD-X template, more on that in a moment.) If you consider each of these to be a template, and the MOD is data, then … do you see where this is going?

As I write a MOD, I capture and store all of the MOD instructions into my MOD database. Sometimes — especially when I don’t do a good job in advance of designing my MOD — I enter the MOD steps into the database in the wrong order. It doesn’t matter, once I get everything entered into the system I have a “resync” process that puts everything in a specific order. Makes it nice and tidy.

The point of all of this?

When I complete a MOD, my documentation is also done. If I have done my job correctly and entered all of the MOD steps as required, I don’t have to do any more work.

I can run the phpBB Doctor MOD Validatorâ„¢ on this MOD, and it will validate all of the “Find” operations on any version of phpBB that I have on file. Normally I would only be interested in validating against the most current, but I can do older versions if I need to.

Suppose that an update to phpBB makes significant changes to posting.php for some reason. I can with a few mouse clicks get a list of all of the MODs in the phpBB Doctor catalog that modify the posting code, and run the MOD Validatorâ„¢ on each of them individually, or all at once. So there’s another major advantage of this system… when new versions of phpBB come out I can in a matter of minutes know exactly which MODs will break (because of missing “Find” operations, at least) due to the update.

Now here’s the best part… suppose that you have a library of 50 MODs or so. (We actually have more than that in our catalog, most of them are not currently publicly documented.) Suppose as a hypothetical example the MOD Team at phpBB.com comes up with a new XML MOD template format. Without this system I would have to go through each and every MOD and convert them to the new format.

But not now. All I have to do is build a proper template that extracts the MOD instructions and displays them in an XML output template. By doing that, I can process every MOD in the catalog and output the new format in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Now I don’t have the XML output template built yet, but I do have templates for showing basic MOD steps (the default), BBCode (useful for posting within a topic), and of course the venerable phpBB Group MOD Team’s text (.mod) format.

What does all of this look like?

One of my easy (but fun) MODs is called Annual Stars. It allows you to have a star by your name for each year of membership on the board, and it has been validated and released at phpBB.com.

See how it looks for yourself. (Link opens in a new window)

The phpBB Doctor Page Permissions MOD allows me to set custom permissions based on url page names in combination with url parameters. By knowing the ID for that MOD and the proper calling syntax, I can grant public access to that one specific MOD and let you play around with the various output formats. So the link I provided above will give you a taste of what’s going on behind the scenes at the phpBB Doctor, without revealing all of our secrets.

I believe that our custom phpBB Doctor MOD Managerâ„¢ is going to give us a real advantage once our MOD catalog crests the 100 MOD mark. This post is just a preview of one of the many exciting things we have planned for this site. If you’re thinking ahead you might have already figured out some of the other advantages that this system will give us, but I’ll save that for another blog post. This one is long enough.

Why mention that here?

One of the reasons I enjoy spending time at phpbb.com is meeting new people. Some of those folks eventually become clients of the phpBB Doctor. Some of those will also become friends. The other day I was exchanging comments with someone named “richardpini”.

The initial Elfquest books that I have were all put out by WARP Graphics. They later had a series that was picked up by Marvel Comics, but the originals are what I have and love. WARP stands for Wendy And Richard Pini. See where this is going?

Turns out that “richardpini” was, in fact, “the” Richard Pini of Elfquest fame, and he runs a phpBB forum at www.elfquest.com/forum (naturally). How cool is that? Since exchanging those initial notes I have worked with Richard on a number of small tweaks to his board, as well as providing general assistance / explanations for some of the code that we’re changing.

Richard was kind enough to give me a quote for my scrolling testimonials area on my home page as well. It just goes to show, you never know who you’ll meet on the ‘net.