I am probably going to end up kicking myself for not taking advantage of the Invision Power Board sale that ended on 30 June.  Because it looks as if I am getting closer and closer to porting at least one of my forum sites over to IPB.

I spent a few hours playing with an IPB demo board (thanks IPB!) on the 30th.  Yeah, I know, I should have been doing that a week earlier.  It is pretty foreign to me, although I did notice the admin control panel was vaguely reminiscent of the MyBB layout.  So while it seemed really different, the experience I have with MyBB was helping me find my way around.

It would really be nice to learn that Crawlability is working on a solution for Invision, with all the functionality of their vBSEO package for vBulletin. I have enjoyed success by using the vBSEO script on my sites and the idea of losing all their advantages is not comforting.

Invision is using friendly URL’s in their 3.0 release, but search engine optimization is so much more than just having human-friendly URL’s. I’ve looked at Community SEO as a possible replacement for vBSEO, if I do go ahead with the conversion. Unfortunately, from what little I have been able to learn about Community SEO, they have a log row to hoe, in order to catch up with vBSEO’s functions.

I’ve used vBulletin long enough to become familiar with it and have enjoyed running the script on all four of my forum sites. However I feel Internet Brands is lacking in customer relations and I am struggling with giving them any more of my money.

The suggestion Internet Brands has no idea of how they are going to handle license pricing for vBulletin 4.0 is ludicrous. I’ve yet to see a company develop a new product without first doing a cost analysis and staging that up against a market analysis to see if the new product will even be feasible in the marketplace. Yet IB continues to say they are working on pricing and no real decisions have been made. I call B.S. on that one.

If that is the case, then this is just one more reason to be leery of doing business with IB. If they have developed a product with no knowledge of what their development costs were going to be, then they are quickly going to find themselves lost in today’s competitive market.

I am never one to make a change just for the sake of change, but I’m not going to be hobbled by IB’s inefficient and cavalier attitude with respect to customer relations. And I am reminded that doing the same thing I’ve always done is going to guarantee I will receive the same results I’ve always received. Maybe it is time to make the switch, just for the sake of doing it.

Excuse me, it’s time to do some more studying on the Invision Power Board platform.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I’ve used vBulletin software for about 4 1/2 years now and have always been pleased with it, for the biggest part.  It has its shortcomings, to be sure, but it has still been a solid platform for me over the years.

In the last couple of years, Jelsoft realized the social networking sites were getting huge, so they started trying add in half-assed features to the vBulletin platform.  The new features have been absolute losers on all four of my sites.  A couple years ago, I installed a now-dead blog script on a couple of my sites.  The script was vBlogetin and it really worked quite well in its beta releases.  Jelsoft came along a few months later with their ‘official’ blog add-on, which still comes up lame against the old vBlogetin platform.  But my users made it pretty clear – if they wanted a FaceBook-type profile page, they would set it up on their FaceBook accounts.

vBulletin has now also released a development tool that is completely worthless for any forum site I have ever visited.

Jelsoft, the company behind vBulletin sold to Internet Brands some time back and I’m not real pleased with the direction IB is steering the ship.  IB announced a complete rewrite of the vBulletin platform (currently at release number 3.8.3) was going to take place and be offered as vBulletin 4.0.

As time has progressed, the ‘complete rewrite’ has been reduced to a rewrite of the templating for the forums.  The long-awaited Admin control panel has been pushed back for a later release of the software.  The long-awaited Content Management System is going to be part of vBulletin 4.0, but it will apparently only be available as part of a suite offering – the forum script, the blog script, the project tools script and the CMS script.

I can only guess this is a failed attempt of IB to actually sell their project tools licenses.  I have used a vBadvanced portal script for years and wasn’t overly excited about having to pay for the vBulletin CMS script.  After hearing it is being bundled with the project tools and blogs scripts, I’ve given up on ever using the CMS at all.  I’ll either stick to the vBadvanced portal or work on a bridge between the forums and a WordPress front page.

There has been a lot of cussing and discussing over some allegedly ‘leaked’ information from what is a staff-only forum section at vBulletin.com.  It sounds as if IB is going to change their licensing structures when vBulletin 4.0 is released.  Instead of a license owner paying $40 to renew a license, which gave the owner access to download the latest and greatest vBulletin version, it sounds as if IB now wants to sell everyone a new license in order to use vBulletin 4.0.

Nothing is cast in stone yet, but many vBulletin license holders are shopping for alternative software packages.  Invision Power Board just released their new offering, IPB 3, and it is a pretty sporty script.  I know several vBulletin admins have already ported over to IPB 3 and I am giving it serious consideration myself.

I have had good luck with the addition of vBSEO to my forum sites and have not been real excited about leaving it behind, if I do decide to use another forum platform.  I had some conversation with the people at Invision today and they assure me we can at least redirect all of my vBSEO’ed URL’s over to the IPB 3 URL’s, so that is a plus.  I still am reluctant to leave behind all the features of vBSEO, but I am not going to be held over a barrel by the people at IB when it comes time to renew my vBulletin licenses.  I already have a significant amount of money invested in my forum software licenses and paying much more is not going to be an option for me.

Now it comes down to a point of seeing how much IB wants to bend everyone over for their new licensing structure.  And weighing that against trying to learn an entirely new forum platform, if I should decide to switch to IPB.

Until today, if anyone had asked what I felt was the best forum script available (short of the enterprise solutions), I would have said vBulletin without a second’s hesitation.  After spending time playing around with an IPB 3 demonstration forum today, I’m starting to feel like vBulletin is a distant second-place.

There are times I wish I had never bothered trying to set up a forum in the first place.  And today is one of those times.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

It’s hard to believe I let this blog slip and slide the way I have.  But no more of that, as I just finished upgrading to the latest and greatest version of WordPress, upgraded all the plug-ins and even installed a new style.  (And we’re looking good, if I do say so myself!)

Life has really been hectic.  We’ve gone from three  vBulletin forums to four.  We still have the CLS Forums, the T-Bucket Forums and the Clann Alba Forums, but we’ve just added a new site, the Na Fir Dileas USA Forums.

The Na Fir Dileas USA site  is an entirely new challenge.  Some pals of mine in Scotland formed Na Fir Dileas (which is Scots Gaelic for The Loyal Men) several years back.  Just recently they made the decision to establish a Chapter here in the U.S. and another Chapter in Canada.  We’re still in the process of tying up all the loose ends with the U.S.A. Chapter, but we do have our discussion forum up and running.  If any of you are interested in Jacobitism and Scottish History and Scottish Independence, be sure to stop by the Na Fir Dileas sites.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Two weeks ago, the decision was made to move the CLS Forums, the Clann Alba Forums and the T-Bucket Forums to a KnownHost Virtual Private Server.

Which left a hosting plan being unused at Downtown Host, as this blog and one other were still being hosted on another company’s server.  The service with that particular hosting company was lacklustre to say the least, so we decided to move the blogs onto our Downtown Host hosting plan.

The move was completely uneventful, as the database for this blog was bruised a bit and the database for the other blog was a bit of a train wreck.  But after a couple hours work to restore everything, we are now back up and running.

We’ve always had excellent service with Downtown Host, so we hope this move will prove to be a positive one.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Today was just one of those days.  It didn’t seem it would ever end and when I got home, I really wasn’t in the mood to do much of anything.

Some people look forward to a relaxing drink to signify the end of the work day, but I find relaxation in a really good shave.  And since I wasn’t much in the mood for any problems, I decided tonight was going to be back to basics night.

I broke down my Merkur 23C and gave it a good soaking with some Scrubbing Bubbles.  After it had soaked for a couple minutes, I used an old toothbrush to give it a good cleaning, rinsed it off and loaded it with one of my trusty Derby blades.

If you’re read this blog much at all, you’ve doubtless picked up on how much I like to use Mama Bear shaving soaps.  Mama Bear offers some interesting scents and the soap never fails to make a really great lather.  But tonight, none of the tubs of Mama Bear shaving soaps were even touched.  After my Omega brush was allowed to soak in a hot lathering bowl of water, I dumped the water and laid in a dollop of Proraso Green.  I gave the brush a couple shakes to get rid of the excess water and then mixed up an amazing bowlful of warm, rich lather.

Three passes later, I had once again reached shaving perfection.  A cold water rinse followed up with a generous splash of Pinaud Clubman and life was good again.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites