I've had some reliability issues with the web server over the past few days, so I've moved the forum to another hardware platform.  I'm doing some other updates to the VMware host server, but everything should be stable by the end of the night.


-b0b
(...sorry!)

As you might have noticed, I've upgraded the forum.  It was a couple of minor revisions (2.5 > 2.5.1 > 2.5.2), so don't expect anything too spectacular.

I've also made a couple changes to forum settings:

• Fixed e-mail services!  This has apparently been broken since November 22nd, 2007, which just goes to show that I procrastinate almost as much as Briney.
• I've increased the maximum number of attachments per post from 1 to 5.
• I've added the new Office file formats of .docx and .xlsx to the list of allowed extensions.  Let me know if I missed any: jpg jpeg gif png sf zip txt bmp mp3 mpg doc xls ppt ico avi pdf docx xlsx 
• I've increased the file attachment limit from 10MB to 100MB.
• File attachments with the same name as an existing attachment will automatically be renamed upon upload instead of overwriting the original file.
• The maximum avatar size has been increased from 65x65 to 125x125.  We may need to go derper larger.
• The maximum size of an avatar file was increased from 1MB to 10MB.  That should be enough even for Briney.
• Increased search results from 100 to 250.
• The registration timeout (to receive an e-mail and click on the registration link) was reduced from 168 hours to 72 hours to cut down on the ridiculous number of active registrations from spammers.
• Add god, love, sex, and secret to the list of banned passwords.
• Increased personal message limits to absurd numbers (10,000+).

I also updated some registration settings that are apparently bugged.  I was sending an e-mail to new users (all 0 of them) with an automatically generated password, but the password contained special characters that are blocked by IIS.  This effectively prevented them from ever logging in.  I eliminated the automatically generated password so new users can specify their own passwords upon registration.

Here is the complete list of changes from the YaBB update:

New and Enhanced Features:
---------------------------
- "X Posts Before Web Links"
- YouTube media support
- Admin: added 'Required on Registration' Extended Profile entries to registration log
- Admin: added choice to allow users to delete their own accounts.
- Admin: added choice to send 'registration denied' emails when no reason is given for rejection.
- Anti-spam modules: SpamFruits, HoneyPot and Anti-Spam Question with admin choice to activate
- Censor checks on PM and attachment names
- URL Encoding (Ban Email and Attachments)

Bug Fixes:
---------------------------
- Display names in UTF-8 character fixed
- Fixed deprecated code in Admin/Backup.pl, Admin/ModuleChecker.pl, Sources/Subs.pl
- Hide Login, Register, Reset Password in Maintenance Mode
- Incomplete date in Last Zip backup
- Language Dropdown Menus fixed
- Mail to Groups fixed
- Rebuild Membership bug fixed
- Missing YaBB tags in ManageTemplates.pl
- Optional Gender on Registration
- Javascript error in BoardIndex.pl
- '+' in email and file attachment names
- Ex-Member stops ability to modify other posts
- Date bug in Extended Profiles
- Extended Profiles: Required on Registration with Admin Edit Only blocking User Profile editing
- Security/IP blocking issue with downloads with bad names
- List images in Personal Messages
- Erroneous contexthelp messages on Smilies in Personal Messages posting screen
- Redirect problem in Login screen
- N/A after post delete
- Incorrect error text in UserCP
- Negative number of PMs
- Images in quotes
- Changing case in Display Name triggers Duplicate warning
- Send Topic can be accessed when disabled
- noparse disables Newsfader
- Extra Javascript line in Subs.pl
- Forum Jump not disabled in Maintenance mode
- Greybox images fixed
- Space in Displayname bug with Password reminder/reset
- Issues with all-number user names and Admin Approval of Registrations mode
- /me code reformatted

Documentation Fixes:
---------------------------
- Updated Quick Guide
- Graphics Changes/Cleanup
- Language fixes/improvement 

Edit:  I restored the silver default.css we came up with the for the last upgrade to replace that awful blue theme.

The theme is called Dark Shadows, made by a "Derek Barnstorm" I will change some of the images/font colors soon, and I can't say that I like the "new posts" flashing gif on the main page. But I'm glad we are back to a dark theme!

Fun fact:  We've had 89,825 user registration attempts by spammers.

I got a promotion, so I'm celebrating with more Internets.  Hopefully, the forum will be a bit snappier.  I upgraded from 12Mb down/2Mb up to 27Mb down/7Mb up.

With the 2mb upload, it was going to take me nearly two years to complete the initial backup of my file server to the cloud.  Hopefully I can cut it down to 4 months or so now!






-b0b
(...not great, but not shabby for good ol' TR.)

Whoops, forum was down for a couple hours because I'm retarded.  I've been implementing stronger, unique passwords for everything and forgot to update the password used for the Forum service account.


-b0b
(...sorry!)

The_Fat_Man wrote on Mar 13^th, 2013 at 2:44pm:


Plot twist:  I am a robot.

My Internet connection was mostly borked this morning.  Called Comcast and found out the whole neighborhood was down.  Apparently, squirrels chewed through a distribution cable, exposing the copper core, which then kept shorting out from the rain.


-b0b
(...now hates squirrels.)