Just a few months earlier, Facebook released their new Like Button which is popping up on most popular websites and forums. Implementing this button with phpBB forums isn’t as simple as grabbing the code generated from Facebook’s configurator. That is, if you want it to work properly with the dynamic pages of your forum.

The configurator generates two sets of code for you to choose from, Iframe and XFBML, both of which will link to the static URL you provide. Most people want it to link to dynamic pages, specifically, the phpBB thread that is being Liked. Two things must be done to accomplish this: modifying the code provided by the configurator, and configuring phpBB to allow the Facebook bot access to your forum. (Full credit goes to this phpBB thread for providing guidance.)

Modifying the Iframe code

<iframe src=”http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yourwebsite.com%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D{S_FORUM_ID}%26t%3D{S_TOPIC_ID}&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:30px“></iframe>

I highlighted two important parts of the above code:

1. www.yourwebsite.com – replace this with your own URL. This also assumes you installed phpBB in the root directory. If you happened to have installed phpBB in a folder, you will need to replace the URL with: www.yourwebsite.com%2Ffolder
2. height:30px – By default, the configurator sets it to 80 which is much too large. I found 30px to be the perfect height but you may play around with this number. You may also set the width, which appears twice in the above code, to whatever you feel works best for you (450 is the default)

Inserting Facebook Like Button into phpBB

The above code should be pasted into viewtopic_body.html. Where in that template should the code belong?

Personally, I wanted the Like Button to appear right next to the Post Reply button as this would give it the biggest exposure. Here’s how:

Find:

<div class=”topic actions”>

<div class=”buttons”>

Paste below:

The Iframe code modified above.

Adding a new phpBB bot and configuring bot permissions

The final step will ensure that Facebook has the required permissions to pull your thread titles correctly.

In phpBB, login to the Administration Control Panel. Under Quick Access, select Spiders/Robots and then Add bot.

Use the following settings:

• Bot name: FaceBook [Linkcheck]
• Agent match: facebookexternalhit/1.1

All other settings not mentioned can be left default or blank.

Now, you need to ensure that this new bot has access to your forums. Still in the Administration Control Panel, click on the User and Groups tab. Under Groups, click on Groups’ forum permissions. Select Bots from the drop-down menu and hit submit. At this point you should select the appropriate forum sections (All forums would work) and hit submit. Here, ensure that you assign the Bot access role for each forum section and click Apply all permissions.

At this point, the Facebook Like Button should be configured correctly for the dynamic pages of your phpBB forums.

I had been using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 for almost a year now because it handles 2 things of which I peruse daily:

1. E-mail. I have nearly a dozen e-mail accounts (and growing) that I need to keep track of and individual logins is a hassle, not to mention a thing of the past
2. Calendar. I like to schedule everything and I mean everything. More as a personal journal/log of my life than as a reminder of what’s to come. It also synced well with my smartphone which I then synced to Google Calendar for backup purposes

Stealing Outlook’s thunder

Yesterday, I made the switch to Mozilla Thunderbird. It lacks the calendar feature, but I found myself using Outlook more for its calendar than its email. And I find myself preferring Google Calendar over Outlook’s. It also didn’t load as fast as I would have liked and seemed to hog a lot of system resources, so all reasons went against Outlook.

Free is better

It seems like I’m becoming a huge fan of free (i.e. Google Calendar) and open source (i.e. WordPress, Thunderbird) programs, not only because it is cost-effective but, to put it bluntly, better.

Thoughts on Thunderbird

Thunderbird loads extremely fast and comes with a lot of great features standard. Setting up e-mail accounts can be as easy as typing in your e-mail and password into the wizard, especially if you’re using an e-mail from a major provider like Gmail. I did have to use the manual setup for several of my e-mails to ensure that I was using the proper server name, port, and security settings.

It doesn’t look as visually-pleasing as Outlook, but great things don’t need to come in great packages.

Thunderbird alerts

Initially, I was disappointed about the fact that if you turn on sound alerts for new e-mails, it applies to all your e-mail accounts. Of course, I was being picky at this point as even Outlook didn’t allow for this option.

But shortly afterward, I recalled that this isn’t Microsoft, it’s Mozilla and like its popular Firefox internet browser, it allows for addons - utilities programmed by ordinary users that can extend a program in limitless ways. I was positive that there was at least one person who programmed my need. And I was right. More importantly, I found additional addons that proved just as useful.

Here are the 3 alert-related addons I installed for Thunderbird:

• Mailbox Alert – This allows you to pick and choose which e-mail accounts you wish to attach sound and/or message alerts. Remember to disable Thunderbird’s own sound alerts if you use this addon. Personally, I only use this addon’s sound alert feature and prefer Thunderbird’s own message alerts which display useful information unique to each e-mail (i.e. subject). The addon can only display a pre-set message of your choice.
• New Mail Attention – Thunderbird, apart from its message/sound alerts, does not give you any indication of new e-mails if you have the program minimized. This addon will cause Thunderbird to flash in Window’s Taskbar, similar to receiving messages from just about any instant messenger.
• Blinking Alert – Thunderbird’s message alerts can be subtle, especially if you don’t disable auto-hide. This addon will make message alerts blink with your choice of a variety of colors and at the frequency you choose

An idea: alert for specific queries

Here is my idea for an alert-related addon, one that I could not find in the database: a Thunderbird alert that sounds/displays when certain keywords appear in the to, from and subject fields, and message body. Perhaps even attached documents if possible.

Unified folders (inbox)

Apparently, there was something called a ‘Smart inbox’ that would display e-mails from the accounts of your choice in a single folder. From a quick Google search, I found that this option was no longer possible with IMAP but only POP in newer versions of Thunderbird which is unfortunate. IMAP is superior.

However, there is a nice workaround: View > Folders > Unified. You will still be able to view your e-mails in their own individual folders, but this will also create a ‘Global inbox’ named Inbox that aggregates all your e-mails into a single folder. No choosing from which accounts though.

In the message body of this Inbox folder, I like to enable the viewing of an additional column called Account. This allows me to determine which account the e-mail was originally sent to.

If at any time your account reverts back to a regular member account (effectively locking you out of the admin control panel), don’t fret! You can manually configure it back to a Key Master role in phpMyAdmin:

1. Look-up your user_ID in your user table (bb_users or wp_users*)
2. Search for this ID in the umeta_id column of the usermeta table (bb_usermeta or wp_usermeta*)
3. Set the meta_value to a:1:{s:9:”keymaster”;b:1;}

*I included the wp_ tables in case you were using the WordPress user tables instead.

I will be going through the steps on how I achieved the following:

1. Convert vBulletin 4 to bbPress (specifically, I converted from vBulletin 4.0.1 to bbPress 1.0.2)
2. Integrate WordPress with bbPress to share the same users table
3. Make the WordPress database contain the central user database (optional)

Preamble

I decided to test out bbPress using my existing vBulletin 4 installation. This is rather tricky due to the lack of converters out there; as of this post, there are no direct converters from vBulletin 4 to bbPress. I also wanted to integrate (share the user database) between bbPress and WordPress. This allows a user to sign up only once to access both your WordPress and bbPress installations.

In my case, I wanted WordPress to contain the central user database table. This meant that my bbPress forum would connect to the WordPress user table. Why? Merely a personal preference. This takes a little more work (then simply using bbPress’ user table) and has its limitations.

I will explain all of this in detail below.

Initial thoughts on bbPress

To be blunt bbPress’ basic, out-of-the-box features are primitive compared to all the major forums I’ve used – myBB, phpBB, vBulletin, and Invision. bbPress is a forum stripped down to its core – it doesn’t even come with basic viewing permissions (yet). It is a massive downgrade from vBulletin 4. If you’re like me, you will get a lot of headaches downgrading to bbPress.

However, we must keep in mind that bbPress is still in its infancy. When I mentioned that bbPress was primitive, I don’t really mean that in a negative way. The developers are taking the correct approach in creating a solid core before moving on to the bells and whistles. Look at where WordPress is today. Its userbase is incredibly large and supportive, and I don’t doubt that hundreds of quality plugins will be available for bbPress as well.

The limitations of converting

Converting from vBulletin 4 to bbPress isn’t without its speed bumps. Since there’s no official converter, it will not go as smoothly as one would hope.

The only solution (as of this blog entry), is to convert vBulletin 4 to phpBB3. Then from phpBB3 to bbPress. What happens along the way?

• All your members will default to either the member or administrator role. This means groups like moderators will become ordinary members and you’ll need to reassign their role
• Passwords won’t work. All members will need to reset their password (by having them click the reset password link in bbPress to have a randomly-generated password sent to their e-mail accounts)
• Certain features like attachments may not transfer over (bbPress is no where near as feature-rich as vBulletin 4 and therefore won’t be able to retain everything)

If you’re fine with the above and mainly want to transfer your posts and members, then keep on reading!

Converting vBulletin 4 to bbPress

As mentioned above, you will first need to convert vBulletin 4 to phpBB3.

Step 1: Install phpBB 3

Install a fresh copy of phpBB 3 in the same domain as your vBulletin 4 forum. For example, if your vBulletin is located at www.yoursite.com/forums, then phpBB must be also located at www.yoursite.com.

However, you may install phpBB3 to a different mySQL database. I recommend that you select a database where you want bbPress to be installed (you will see why in step 3).

The official phpBB download page can be found here.

Step 2: Download the vBulletin 3 to phpBB 3 converter

That is correct, the vBulletin 3 (not 4!) converter as that’s the latest version out there. You can download it here.

After you have downloaded the .zip file, simply upload the 2 folders to your phpBB directory.

Do not run the convert yet as you will run into errors. The fix can be found in the modified convert_vb30.php file which can be find here (thanks for the fix excelcoder!) Be sure you rename that file before uploading it!

Proceed to run the converter. Instructions can be found at the official phpBB forum here. Basically, you will need to provide certain information such as where your current vBulletin folder is located and the database information.

Your conversion should go smoothly. The converter will probably tell you that the search index hasn’t been built yet. Don’t worry about this; when you convert to bbPress later, search will work. You may notice that viewing permissions aren’t functioning properly, for example, hidden forums are visible to all regular members. Don’t bother to tinker around in phpBB’s admin control panel to fix the permissions. When you convert from phpBB 3 to bbPress, you’ll just run into the same problem.

As long as all your posts are present and displaying properly, and all the members are transferred, proceed to the next step.

Step 3: Download the phpBB3 to bbPress converter

Instructions on running this converter and the download link can be found in the bbPress support forum here (thanks wmnasef!) I’ll summarize the steps here:

1. Download and install bbPress. bbPress can be installed anywhere including a different domain. Use the database I mentioned in step 1! (Reason: the converter requires the phpBB forum to be installed in the same database as bbPress in order to run.)
2. Download the converter
3. Upload phpbb3tobbpress.php into your phpBB3 directory
4. Upload _phpbb3_pass.php into the bb-plugins directory
5. Run the phpbb3tobbpress.php, for example, http://www.yourforum.com/phpbb3/phpbb3tobbpress.php

Everything should convert smoothly. At this point, you’re probably looking at the admin panel and banging your head against your desk thinking – where are the bloody features?! Well, since you’re already there, be sure to set the appropriate members to the moderator role, etc.

WordPress Integration

WordPress integration allows both your bbPress forum and WordPress blog to share the same user database table. If you’re using the default prefixes, then the bbPress user table is named bb_users, and wp_users for WordPress.

If you followed my Converting vBulletin 4 to bbPress guide above, then all your users are currently residing in bb_users.

In the following, I will go through the steps for integrating bbPress with WordPress, regardless of whether you choose bb_users or wp_users as your main user table.

Step 1: Login to your bbPress

Once logged in, click on the Admin link. Click on the WordPress Integration tool (Settings > WordPress Integration).

Step 2: Set User Role Map

For WordPress administrators, the bbPress role would be bbPress Key Master. Everybody else should be set to bbPress Member. Click Save Changes and return to the same page.

Step 3: User Integration > Cookies (part 1 – the form)

Farther down the page, you should see an area named Cookies. Cookies allow users to login at your WordPress blog without having to login a second time at your bbPress forums, and vice versa.

I’ll divide cookie setup into 3 separate steps to make things easier.

The first part with the form contains instructions that are relatively straightforward and involve minor copy-and-pasting.

Step 4: User Integration > Cookies (part 2 – the plugin)

Near the bottom, it will ask you to install a bbPress plugin for WordPress. The easiest way to do so is in the admin area of your WordPress and clicking Plugins > Add New. Simply search for bbPress Integration and install it. What this plugin does is give you a simple piece of code to add to the config file for WordPress (wp-config.php). Save the file, but don’t close it yet!

Step 5: User Integration > Cookies (part 3 – the config files)

This is the final step for setting up cookies. It involves additional edits that you need to apply to wp-config.php and bbPress’ config file (bb-config.php).

First, access these randomly-generated constants. Find the related code in wp-config.php and paste the constants into it. Do the same for bb-config.php.

Step 6: User Integration > User Database

Step 2 is critical before you can perform this next step so make sure user roles have been mapped.

Note: the following assumes that you are using the default prefixes: bb_ for bbPress and wp_ for WordPress. If not, substitute the following instructions with your own prefixes.

The table prefix you select may depend on 4 different scenarios:

1. Both your WordPress and bbPress have no registered members except for yourself. Either bb_ or wp_ will work depending on your personal preferences.
   
2. WordPress contains all your users. Use wp_.
3. bbPress contains all your users. Use bb_.
4. bbPress contains all your users but you want to use the user table in WordPress. Use wp_ and do step 7.
   

If you chose scenario 4, hit Save Changes, and move on to step 7.

Otherwise, you’re basically done! Just fill out the advanced database settings if your WordPress is installed on a different database than bbPress. Hit Save Changes and skip the rest of this guide.

Step 7: Renaming users and usermeta tables

This step is required for scenario 4 (as outlined in step 6) because if you set the table prefix to wp_ and do nothing else, the threads and posts in bbPress will no longer be linked to the original user from the bbPress user table. That’s because at this point, bbPress is accessing all posts/threads in the bbPress database while attempting to access the users from the WordPress database.

For this step, you’ll need access to phpMyAdmin.

If bbPress and WordPress are installed on the same database, you can execute a simple SQL query such as:

RENAME TABLE wp_usermeta TO wp_usermeta_ignore;

RENAME TABLE wp_users TO wp_users_ignore;

RENAME TABLE bb_usermeta TO wp_usermeta;

RENAME TABLE bb_users TO wp_users;

This basically swaps the user tables (and their related usermeta data) by renaming the tables. The bbPress user and usermeta tables basically replace the WordPress counterparts (the code simply renames the original tables instead of deleting them).

It’s rare to see advertisements on a company’s website. It does make better sense to attract potential clients instead of directing them away from your website.

The creative community appears to be trending the other direction.

Newer advertising networks like Fusion Ads and the DECK deliver targeted traffic by displaying advertisements solely on creative and design websites.

There’s nothing wrong with this concept. I can see how it would benefit a web development firm or freelance designer greatly. What I find odd is seeing these same individuals using the service to display their competitor’s ads. Is making a couple of dollars really worth losing a potential client?

Something worth noting is the companies I linked to above display advertisements on their own site as well. That’s a first for me.

To display different content depending on whether or not a user is logged into your phpBB forums, simply use the following code in your template files:

<!– IF not S_USER_LOGGED_IN –>

Text between these tags will be displayed to guests.

<!– ENDIF –>

<!– IF not S_IS_BOT and S_USER_LOGGED_IN –>

Text between these tags will be displayed to members.

<!– ENDIF –>

This piece of code is particularly useful in the index_body.html or overall_header.html template to entice guests to register at your forums.

Not too long ago, Mike Babcock made a prophecy to the media. He pointed to the two teams that had won a series from a 3-0 deficit – the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1975 New York Islanders – and suggested that there was a cyclical pattern.

TSN recently proved how difficult such a feat was for teams across different sports and mentioned it had only happened once in MLB and zip in other leagues. I may have gotten the leagues wrong, but the point of the matter is that it is a rarity. So when Babcock said 2010 was the year, it was astonishing when his prophecy was fulfilled on May 8, 2010. Here’s his quote:

We can talk about the Maple Leafs and the New York Islanders and all that stuff, but that’s how hard it is to do. Every 33 years or so you got to be due, so I figure it’s our turn.

Too bad he got the team wrong. The Philadelphia Flyers pulled the upset to stun the Bruins instead of his Red Wings over the Sharks.

Made some small changes to the blog. Worth mentioning is the removal of all advertisements and modification to the category names I used in this blog. The latter inadvertently changed all the permalinks as well, but I don’t think there’s a need for me to 301 redirect the old links since judging by this blog’s traffic, any loss is probably negligible.

I also recently made the switch from MediaTemple’s grid hosting service to WiredTree’s managed VPS hosting (specifically, the VPS1024 package). It’s one of the best purchases I’ve made online. Fantastic customer service that respond within 15 minutes on average (as opposed to that number in hours) and incredible speeds so far. If you’re interested in them, feel free to use my affiliate link!

Expect more blog posts from me in the upcoming weeks. I know I say this every year, but consistency is now a priority of mine. The blog is due for a major custom makeover so expect that too.

After upgrading to WordPress 2.9.1, I encountered a problem when using the media file uploader. Any attempts to upload an image would return an HTTP error:

WordPress Media File uploader

There are many solutions out there, but unfortunately none of the ones listed worked for me. I did find a very simple fix however.

HTTP error fix

The answer was right in front of me! Specifically, in the uploader popup window:

You are using the Flash uploader. Problems? Try the Browser uploader instead.

The Browser Uploader worked perfectly fine for me.

Update: It has been brought to my attention the following solution is buggy and may not return full results. I will update this post when a working solution is found.

There is currently a problem with Blogger’s Search Box gadget. For many users, searching with this widget will return No Results even though the search terms are present in the blog posts.

This Search Box widget is useful for several reasons. The main reason is that many users would like to place the search box in other areas of their blog. Some people have also disabled the Blogger Navbar which contains a working search box, perhaps because it appears on top of the entire blog and may pose as a design issue for some.

Here is my very simple solution if Blogger’s search function is not working for you.

The Navbar’s search

If you do a search via Blogger’s Navbar, you may notice the search results URL will look like this:

http://www.website.com/search?q=searchterm

My solution will return return the same URL and thus the same results as though you are searching via the Navbar. I actually have no idea how this works, perhaps someone can enlighten me with a comment below.

Here’s the solution:

Create a Blogger search widget

Login to your Blogger account and head over to Layout > Page Elements. Click on Add a Gadget at the bottom of the page and select HTML/Javascript.

In the Title field, enter Search or something similar. In Content, paste the following code:

<form action="search" name="input" method="get">
<input value="Search" name="q" size="20" type="text"/>
<input value="Go!" type="submit"/>
</form>

Hit Save and position the widget in the desired location. That’s it!