SurfiOnline

MacZOT is once again at it again, this time a competition called CollaboZOT. Basically, it is a huge scavenger hunt with sets of clues provided each day. People are members of teams which work toward the solutions to gain extra prizes.

They’ve also got a MyzteryMegaZOT happening which is worth over $160 for $24.95. Basically they’ve done what they do best, negotiate with developers to make Mac users happy with discounted software. Only two of the applications within the ZOT are known to the public, iClip and FolderBrand – the rest, well, it’s a surprise.

MacZOT are also trying to get the Pzizz sleep module included in the ZOT:

MacZOT.com Fans want Pzizz because ‘According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation and its effect on work performance may be costing U.S. employers some $18 billion each year in lost productivity. Another study pushes this cost to over $100 billion.’ – link to full article

I’ve recently seen two sites which have been very much inspired by two of my sites. The question is, how do I take this?

People have ripped my layouts before, it happened to Michele the other week, and now it’s happened to me again. The difference here is that these sites have been inspired only by certain parts of my layouts. Usually I’d go nuts and bring on the cursing but this time I’m not sure if I even want to.

How’s that for an update?

Over at AdmnFusion, they have an interview with me about MyBB, my personal life and some other crazy thngs.

It might be worth the read to a few.

Yes, we’re still working on it. As I’ve already told numerous people, we’re taking the time on putting together a quality and stable release, a lot better than all past releases on MyBB. There are going to be improvements everywhere. Major commits have slowed down recently and there is concentration being put in to existing features as well as attention to detail on others.

New Captcha Images

Captcha images are the random images generated on registration used to disallow automated registrations. The current ones in MyBB suck because they were fairly easy for bots to bypass. I’ve just put in place a new system which is fairly extensive and random which should improve a lot on the existing captcha images.

• The system supports using random TTF (True-type fonts) for characters if your server supports Freetype. A directory exists in which you can upload your own custom TTF fonts which will be randomly selected per character. TTF based characters also randomise in terms of size, angle, colour and shadow position. Servers which do not support TTF fonts will use plain GD fonts in multiple characters and offset positions, but “blown up” bigger to take up more space on the canvas.
• Along with the previous random ‘dots’ on the canvas of the image, there will be random circles, lines, and squares which are also random colours.
• Strings are now only 5 characters – which still leaves for a huge number of possible combinations but allows the characters to be spread out and easier to read by people.

For example, four generated images.

The first image shows standard generation using the built in (ugly) GD fonts, the second shows generation with Trebuchet MS as the font, and the other two show the use of random fonts per character.

Translatable Settings

“But I could already do that by renaming them…” you say. Bad idea! We override them during upgrades, you’ll make them only available in one language. With 1.2 you’ll now be able to do this with the aid of language files:
/**
* Translation instructions for settings and setting groups:
*
* Groups:
* * Obtain the group name (not title) from the edit group page.
* * Add language variables in the following format:
* $l['setting_group_{name}'] = "Group Name Here";
* $l['setting_group_{name}_desc'] = "Group Description";
*
* Ex:
* $l['setting_group_general'] = "General Settings";
* $l['setting_group_general_desc'] = "Description of general settings here";
*
* Settings:
* * Obtain the setting name from the edit seting page.
* * Add language variables in the following format:
* $l['setting_{name}'] = "Setting Name Here";
* $l['setting_{name}_desc'] = "Setting Description";
*
* Ex:
* $l['setting_bbname'] = "Board Name";
* $l['setting_bbname_desc'] = "Description for board name here";
*
*/

Nifty.

Subscription Mail Queue

In the code, I’ve also implemented a queue based subscription mailing system. For small boards this won’t make much of a difference but those boards with a larger user base and many people subscribed to threads and forums will notice the difference.

The way it works is when a reply is made to a subscribed thread, all emails for the subscribers are generated and then stored in the database. At the end of each page view, MyBB checks to see how many messages are in the mail queue – if there are some, it will send a maxiumum of 20 of those messages per page view until the queue is empty.

Other New Things

• Theme CSS can be cached to the file system.
• MYBB_ROOT and MYBB_ADMIN_DIR constants define locations within MyBB. All opened files/folders are referenced with these paths.
• RSS & Atom (Yes, Atom support was also added) auto discovery.
• Mr. Clippy (a paperclip) is making his way to threads with attachments. From now on, MyBB tracks the number of attachments per thread and displays a little paperclip on the forum display page with that number.
• Support for MySQLi (MySQL Improved)
• For moderators, the number of unapproved threads/posts in a forum is displayed on the index, the number of posts unapproved in a thread is also shown on the forum display page.
• Search flood checking – A user can only perform 1 search in x seconds.

There is of course, more than that and we’re working to get a release ready.

I bought two new toys today which I’ve been in need of quite a while.

• 20″ LCD Monitor – Samsung 204B (Silver)
• 2 port DVI/USB KVM Switch

Has cleared a hell of a lot of room on my desk and given me a huge area of workspace on the screen.

Of course, I’ve shifted my main Windows PC in to the other corner of the room so it is missing from beneath the desk (sure does beat not being able to sleep because of blue LCDs on the case. )