hi everyone,

after trying out this new forum for over a week, and based on everyone's feedback, I think the best thing to do is to stick with this forum. I realize there are still many things that are to be desired for this new forum, and I will work on this, particularly with the style and layout of this new forum. However, I should also note that not only is this forum faster than the last one, but that it also has a lot more different types of tools and options than the last one, particularly with regard to finding out where other members are in the forum and what topics they're looking at, as well as being able to sort topics by date, poster, post, and a variety of other criteria which makes navigating the forum much easier.

If anyone has any suggestions, please make them now, as I will be making many of the stylistic and layout changes to the forum this weekend to make it even better, and in order to retain what was best from the old forum.

take care,
Shawn

I agree with you, Shawn.

Having used and observed this new forum now for some days, I have come to see it is much better than the old one and offers many heretofore unknown advantages and features which I now use regularly and would greatly miss. This forum seems more intelligent than the other, more sophisticated; I like that.

There have been many subtle changes hereabouts in recent days which are entirely to the good, and which I welcome enthusiastically.

So I vote: Yes.

And thank you so much for all you have done and do always to make our forum the very best.

Check out the sonnets when you have a minute between tasks this weekend.

I am in unbreakable solidarity with you, my dear comrade, always!

Namaste.

thank you, Steve, for the nice feedback. I've made several style changes since you made your post above, and the forum's reaching a satisfactory point, I think, but there's still much that can and will be done.

in solidarity,
Shawn

Hello Shawn.. Bravo!!

Imagine my suprize when I arriaved today to see Yabb replaced by IPB. I just installed one of these myself!!

For me the final choice came down to choosing between phpBB and IPB, but I've been very happy with the desision so far.

I've been running Snitz forums since 98 on another site, but knew I did not want those for this new one. They simply are not robust enough. I also quickly dismissed Yabb as an option. Those just aren't stable enough - even running on mySQL as opposed to MS-SQL, and I wanted to run mine on MS.

Well, so far so good. IPB has come through in almost every area, including support!! I purchased a lifetime liscense which includes support. So far I've had a few questions, and they've answered me almost immediatly each time.

Anyway, now it's just a matter of skinning it. I have one prepackaged skin installed already for the late night folks. Lemme know if you want a copy..

Screen Shot


But I'm really out to make my own. As such, I'd love to trade links or notes with you on this. While IPB rocks, there isn't a while lot out there info wise on skinning it. I have, however, tracked down at least two decent skinning tutorials and I also have one fully commented[U] default CSS file. If you'd like a copy, please let me know. And again, feel free to contact me on MSN Msgr or via e-mail.

Oh - and maybe it's okay to drop this.

My new site is at: http://azedia.com



Cheers!
Jatava

aka J.K. Bowman
http://spider-food.net
http://glassbottom.com

hi Jatava,

I'm glad you were pleasantly surprised by the switch to the new forum, and I'm happy to hear that you're also using IPB. A very promising website that you have, by the way. Will it really be ready by this Jan?

Yes, I would like very much to trade links, if you're still interested.

By skinning, do you mean changing the template? If you have any skin files, I'd be interested to see what they are and whether I could find any use for them. I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to use them because I like to play around with the forum source code in order to customize it and add additional features, and because I've already changed around the source code, I'm not sure if I'll be able to implement the skins that you're using (though if I can't, then I can always modify the code more to enable the use of skins).

I agree, IPB is a great board, and in fact, the best I've come across. I never really liked PHPBB, though it has many similarities to IPB. YaBB SE I'm very fond of, though I still think IPB is better. Nonetheless, there are several features from YaBB SE that are absent from IPB, such as being able to see the full content of recent posts, or being able to see when a post was last modified, or having a 'stats' page. Also, I think the default YaBB SE style is superior to IPB's default style, which is one reason why this forum looks something like a hybrid of YaBB SE and IPB, because I incorporated some of the YaBB SE style and layout into this IPB forum in order to improve the style. Of course, there are many features that IPB has that YaBB SE doesn't, too many to list here, though it includes being able to see where people are in the forum, and also the much greater control you have over exactly what threads on a board to display, and what order they're in.

take care,
Shawn

p.s. I like your pic

Hey Shawn,


First, on the board, lemme give ya a few links you may not have yet.

IBS CSS Guide (visual)
http://www.duggyd.co.uk/css/

NBS Designs
http://invision.nbsdesignz.com/

Chris Designs - skinning tutorial
http://www.chris-designs.com/

IB Skinz
http://www.ibskinz.com/
(you can see a lot of skinning examples if ya sign up for their forum and change your settings in control panel)...

IB Planet
http://ibplanet.com/

Invision Things
http://invisionthings.com/ (has the best tutorial)

And finally, here is a fully commented CSS file. If you decide you want to play around with the design of this thing it might be handy to ya. I had looked all over before I found one - commented.

hi Jatava,

thanks for the links. I'll have time this weekend to check them all out, and also to make some of the changes on the To Do list I posted here. I'm not familiar with MS-SQL. What made you decide to go with that instead of MySQL? How is it owning your own server? When more money becomes available, I wouldn't mind moving Mind-Brain.com to a dedicated server, but am not completely sure what to expect from this. Btw, your site at spider-food.net is very informative and interesting. What online goals do you have now?

Hey Shawn,

If you decide you want to play around with this, I hope those help. While I found IBP to be highly customizable, I had a hard time finding good resource sites on that subject. In fact, I've considered that after I 'get it down' I may create a Lynda.com type tutorial on the process and sell it. The market for something like that seems large.

Also, thanks for the kind comments on Spider-Food, and the invitation to talk abou myself a bit. I hope you won't be sorry..

This may be overkill, but it seems like a good time for another introduction.

I was the Assistant Risk Manager for a Fortune 500 drug comapany for about 12 years. I checked out of that in 98, however, wanting to 'be my own boss,' and loving the Internet so I thought that was the way. Mentally I envisioned being a webmaster, working from home - in flip flops, and sporting my Ray Bans. It sounded cool.

I quickly found out, however, that doing that was much more complicated than I'd imagined. Being a one man shop meant not only having to learn what seemed like everything, it also meant that even though I honestly was hanging my hat out as a full time developer - I also had to compete with everyone who had a copy of Front Page. It seemed at the time that almost everybody wanted to be a webmaster, everybody had a copy of Front Page, and they also had the same flip flop dream.

I decided then to distance myself from the Front Page crowd and summized that the way to do that was with Dreamweaver. As a one man shop I respected the hand coders, but doing it that way just wasn't cost effective for me. It took too much time and time was money. Dreamweaver then seemed like the way to go.

Well, within a year Macromedia named me what they call an "Evangelist." (Now called Team Member)... And I thought that was really cool. But there was only one problem. That gained me some crediblity among the developer crowd, but it really didn't translate into more business. My peers (competition) knew what it meant, but potential clients didn't. As a result, I felt like I was still competing with everyone who owned a copy of Front Page (no offense to those who use it ). So, what I basically did was turn my peer group into my client group.

I eased up a lot on my role as an Evangelist. And focused instead on SEO. The result was the Spider-Food.net website. And since I was already well known in the Macromedia community, I had an almost instant following. Business boomed. All my peers (i.e. my competition) had now become my clients.

The site took off like a bottle rocket too. We were named Netscape's What's Cool Site of the Day, About.com's Best of the Web, and even now I believe SF is ranked among Yahoo's Most Popular for SEO. Which prolly brings me to the question about MS-SQL.

At the time (this is about 3 years ago) business was going so well I decided to buy my own box. But at the time I really didn't feel like getting in the "server wars" over the decision. I just didn't want to make 'the wrong' decision. And not being really a server guy or a database guy, going with Microsoft instead of open source seemed like the way to go to me. Mentally I think I envisioned it as a choice between IE and Netscape, which may have been wrong. But I didn't want to take any chances. I'd already been through one battle in the browser wars - trying my best to root for and support the other guy. But in the end giving up to the Goliath. Which as I said, may have been poor thinking on my part. Not really being well versed in this particular area - I really don't know.

Anyway, to make a long story short - (which is difficult for me ) I wound up in a quick marriage to a lady who suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder. I honestly didn't know that at the time we got married. But almost as soon as we did my life went completly haywire. I spent about a year trying to get her help - trying to get me help - trying to do something. But if you are familiar with this disorder perhaps you can understand just how futile that attempt was. Dealing with suicide threats, drug addiction, and much worse became the norm for me very quickly. We were divorced about one year after we were married.

Unfortuantly also, at the time we were divorced I could look back and see I'd really done nothing with Spider Food. I'd not updated it in a year. But the info was still accurate. The site was still making money. And as a result, following all that I just decided to go out and be something of a dharma bum for a while.. lol

And the thing is, Man. I had a blast..

I spent the last year just kinda digging on my spiritual studies. Getting happy. Smelling the roses. Hanging out with Garchen Ripoche. Taking my bodhisattva vows. Traveling. Reading. Loving. Studying physics. And basically, just having the time of my life.

I even had what I believe Maslow would refer to as a peek experience, although I've not studied his description of that. But alas, now it's time for me to slow down a bit. I plan to do so by creating a site named Azedia.com which I hope will help some folks who also wind up involved with a BPD.. and simulatneously open them up to the idea of spiritual growth as a method of recovery from that experience. Kinda like A Road Less Traveled does for a lot of folks. Even if somebody doesn't really agree with Peck, that book gets a lot of folks at least started on the idea of spiritual growth - and asking some of the even deeper questions that are covered here on Mind Brain.

Oh yea - and I also need to update Spider-Food. But as you can imagine, that's not really the site where my heart lies at the moment. Right now I'm intrested mainly in Azedia.

Anyway, Shawn. - as I said, it's hard for me to give a short answer to things. lol Perhaps now you'll trust me on that.. But I promise, I am workin' on it.

I will tell ya this though, Man. Even do it right out here on the boards so you can get the full compliment. I think Mind Brain is one of the best sites and forums I've seen on the web. Also, a home run for me would be for folks to spend some time at my site - get interested in some of these deeper questions - and ultimately make their way to Mind Brain after they've outgrown Azedia.

In saying that I don't mean to suggest I'm gonna 'preach' from Azedia though. lol.. No No no.. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell ya I hate that. Even when I do it myself. But for me that would be a home run, because as a Bodhisattva, I really get a kick outta helping folks 'wake up.' And I'm aware that a lot of the subjects discussed here will help folks do just that- in whatever form 'waking up' is right for them.

So, anyway man - just keep on rockin. Thanks also for making Mind Brain avaliable. There's some really good stuff in here. The forums read as well as some of the better books I own. And if you ever get interested in Windows hosting, just let me know. I'm sure we can work something out. I have way more room and bandwidth than I'll ever use. It's possible that we may be able to help each other then.

Although I am a developer I'm willing to bet you know more than servers than I do. And since mine is colocated I'm really on my own in that area. I was partnered with Dan Short on that http://web-shorts.com/bio.htm , .. A very loose friendship arrangement. I helped him with SEO and he helped me with my server issues (usually just small questions)... But I'm trying to free msyelf from calling on him whenever there is a server issue. His career has just grown too large, I feel, for me to bother him with that. And I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of our friendship. He is still, however, there if all goes to hell. Which so far, thankg gosh, that has not happened.

Oh.. p.s.. And one more thing...

As per my avatar, thanks. That's actually the first in a series of em. After a while he starts to wake up.. I animated him...

He comes from here though.
http://www.alexgrey.com/

Cheers!