Mind Swatches (BLOG)

We have recently updated our support and discussion forum to phpBB3. Because of all the forum spam I was getting with the previous version of phpBB, my original intention was to move to a different, less widely know/exploited forum package, like the Simple Machines Forum, which I’ve heard good things about.

After reviewing phpBB3, I was impressed with the CSS-based, XHTML strict validating layout so thought I’d give it a try before moving on. So far, spam has dropped off considerably. It’s not entirely gone, but it’s now easily maintainable. I don’t know how much of that is due to improved security features or just the fact that it’s not yet as widely known and aggressively attacked, but I suppose that should become clear soon enough.

it took me a while to get to customizing the appearance, but did the bulk of that today and am getting used to the new styling system.

I wish there was a more direct method for integrating Askimet, but so far it hasn’t proven necessary. If you’re already running phpBB2, then it’s probably worth the effort to upgrade.

For anyone interested in RIA (Rich Internet Application) development, a new portal developed by O’Reilly and sponsored by Adobe has just gone live:

InsideRIA.com

For more information about the site, see the blog entry here:

blog.everythingflex.com/2008/01/21/introducing-insideria/

As someone who is interested in becoming more involved in the Adobe development technologies (specifically ColdFusion and Flex), looks like a good reference and community to be involved in. I’ll initially be there more for the purpose of learning than helping as my focus has always be more in the PHP/MySQL/JavaScript realm.

I’ve always been a book person when it comes to learning new software or scripting languages, but for the last month or so I’ve been trying out the online training library from Lynda.com. I started out using it to brush up on the new CS3 versions of Adobe software (and it was great for that), and have since moved on to try to use the site to learn something that I’m not already very familiar with.
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Just finished a quick site for my friend Ryan Hoffar to display and sell his artwork. He has some unique (and disturbing) snowflake designs in the site’s gallery if you’re in the market for hand cut fine art snowflakes (and who isn’t), or if you’re just bored and feel like browsing: www.MisterFlakes.com