Bob Crabb

I just upgraded with no issues, at least none discovered yet. Jayson, I'd restore my backup of the database and WP files, and then do the upgrade again from square one.

I agree with that, and once it is set up, running a forum can be as simple or as complicated as a person wants it to be. She just has to decide if she really wants to do it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have now had a chance to check out a few, and although I am biased toward phpBB3 for my own use, for someone who is opening their first forum I still like SMF the best. PunBB is also nice too if a person doesn't want a lot of features, but I don't think it is any easier to administer than SMF. After all this, I think that my friend has come to realize that there is a heck of a lot more to administering a forum than what she initially thought, so I think the project is shelved for now.

A friend of mine is thinking of starting her own internet forum. I set up a demo for her of two systems that I have some experience using, phpBB3 and SMF. I think that the administration of phpBB3 is probably way too complicated for her, and of the two, SMF is probably best suited to her needs. However, I wanted to ask all of you for some suggestions if you have any experience using a simpler, less featured BB script, that is secure, reliable, and supported. For example, I've looked at one, PunBB, but haven't had a chance to really check it out. Does anyone have any thoughts on punbb, or any other simple forum script that is written in PHP? Thanks, Bob

If Tech Support was an Olympic Event, TCH would surely win GOLD !!! Firstly, they handled a site move request last week ahead of schedule, and secondly, the few problems that occurred after the move were handled very quickly. Did I say quick -- how about lightning fast!!! Last week, right after the site move, I found a problem and submitted a ticket. Alex fixed, posted, and closed the ticket in THREE MINUTES, and then this morning I discovered a problem, and submitted a ticket. Looking at the timestamp in the Help Desk record, Tina fixed the problem, posted a response, and closed the ticket within FIVE MINUTES!!! I and many others have said it before, and I'll say it again. TCH is amazing; you folks really know how to take care of your customers. Many thanks to you all. Bob

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Dick and Bruce -- Thank you!!! That is what I was hoping to see. I'll download the latest SK and plug it in my new blog.

I used to have a Wordpress blog, and on the recommendation of some of the gurus here, I installed Dave's Spam Karma. It worked extremely well, but now I am setting up a new blog, using the latest release 2.6.1, and I don't see that Spam Karma is compatible with anything later than WP 2.1. Is anyone using SK with Wordpress 2.6.1? If it isn't compatible, what is the best spam blocker to use with the new version of Wordpress? Thanks, Bob

I just tested this using WP 2.6. I copied and pasted some Chinese characters from a web page, and I input some Japanese kanji using IME. Both worked fine. I think that the key here is to make sure that your encoding is set to UTF-8. Check your "Encoding for pages and feeds" setting under "Reading Settings". If that is set to UTF-8, and you are still having problems, look at the page source for the following tag: ><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> If it is something other than UTF-8, then the character set is probably hard coded in your template. In that case, check the header.php file for your template, and edit accordingly.

On the results page from the who is search, look under the heading "Server Data". That might show the hosting company name. If it does not, then look in the registry data at the name server addresses. For example, all of my sites are set to XYZ.TOTALCHOICEHOSTING.COM . That is displayed in the who is data, and from that it is easy to assume that the sites are hosted at Total Choice.

If you do a who is search on, for example, http://www.whois.sc , you might be able to tell where the site is hosted. If the hosting company isn't listed as such, you might be able to tell by the name server addresses. Best of luck, but I doubt that the hosting company will grant access to you without the permission of the deceased owner's wife.

Preferably the swimsuit issue I just thought of some more: -- A collection of landscape photos by Ansel Adams -- A collection of short stories and quotes by Mark Twain -- A compilation CD of works of Warren Zevon -- A compilation CD of works of Frank Zappa

Only if you have the disappearing div problem without it.

OOPS -- looks like you figured out a solution while I was composing a post.

Reading about this problem, it sounds really similar to something that I experienced when I was designing a new style template for my message board. I think that it is an IE problem related to a child element div having background properties and not rendering in the proper height, making the background sometimes disappear. I chased my tail for a few days trying to figure it out, but finally solved the riddle. I don't know if your problem is the same, but this might be worth a try. I would try a couple of things. First, go back to square one. Then add a height: 100% declaration to maincontainer. If that alone doesn't work, change the height declaration of masthead to 100%, and add a div inside masthead, with a single CSS declaration of height: 350px (or whatever was the original height property of masthead). I hope that this helps.

Thanks for the info, Dick, and it is good to know that you plan to include the module in the next PHP update. I upgraded a phpBB2 message board to phpBB3 about a month and a half ago, and prior to that, I experienced this problem on a test board that I had on my site. I found a reference to this problem in the phpbb.com forum, and edited my config file accordingly. The odd thing was that prior to the fix, the board did work for a day or so, then suddenly, I started getting the blank page when trying to access the forum. My apologies; I should have posted a note on the TCH forum about it then. For those with phpBB3 forums, if you want to check your config.php file, look for this line: >$dbms = 'mysqli'; and if $dbms is defined that way, change it to: >$dbms = 'mysql';

A matchbox size replica of a John Deere tractor An assortment of baseball cards Two compilation discs, one Blues, the other Jazz A Payday candy bar

You could certainly use frames to do what you are wanting to accomplish, but a page with frames is not very search engine friendly. There are a few other alternatives. You could use PHP in a variety of ways to put variable content in the box. One way would be to put a function call in the box and code a function with a switch that would get the file contents of a variety of html files, depending upon the case set in a get variable in the menu link. You could use AJAX, to which I am a total noob, and can't be of any help. Or, you could code all the content into the page, in hidden elements, and use javascript to toggle the visibility of the element. I've done that before using some code that I had found, so I dug up the javascript and used it in this example. If you decide to use that method, here is an example from which you can use as much of the code that might apply to what you are wanting to do. ><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> <title>Toggle test page</title> <style type="text/css"> <!-- body { background-color: #000000; color: #E5E5E5; } .wrapper { width: 750px; height: 500px; margin: 0 auto; } .half_wide { width: 50%; height: 100%; float: left; } .menu { text-align: center; } .menu a, .menu a:visited { color: #E5E5E5; text-decoration: none; } .menu a:active, .menu a:hover{ color: #FFFFDD; text-decoration: none; } .menu a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } .content_demo { font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: bold; } #div1, #div2, #div3, #div4 { position: absolute; top: 10px; padding: 7px; visibility: hidden; } --> </style> <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- function toggleDiv(id,flagit) { if (flagit=="1"){ if (document.layers) document.layers[''+id+''].visibility = "show" else if (document.all) document.all[''+id+''].style.visibility = "visible" else if (document.getElementById) document.getElementById(''+id+'').style.visibility = "visible" } else if (flagit=="0"){ if (document.layers) document.layers[''+id+''].visibility = "hide" else if (document.all) document.all[''+id+''].style.visibility = "hidden" else if (document.getElementById) document.getElementById(''+id+'').style.visibility = "hidden" } } //--> </script> </head> <body> <div class="wrapper"> <div class="half_wide"> <div style="height: 92%"> </div> <div class="menu"> <a href="#" onclick="toggleDiv('div1',1)" onblur="toggleDiv('div1',0)">HOME</a> | <a href="#" onclick="toggleDiv('div2',1)" onblur="toggleDiv('div2',0)">ABOUT</a> | <a href="#" onclick="toggleDiv('div3',1)" onblur="toggleDiv('div3',0)">PORTFOLIO</a> | <a href="#" onclick="toggleDiv('div4',1)" onblur="toggleDiv('div4',0)">CONTACT</a> </div> </div> <div class="half_wide"> <div style="border: 1px solid #E5E5E5; height: 100%;"> <div id="div1"> <div class="content_demo"> this is the "home" content </div> </div> <div id="div2"> <div class="content_demo"> this is the "about" content </div> </div> <div id="div3"> <div class="content_demo"> this is the "portfolio" content </div> </div> <div id="div4"> <div class="content_demo"> this is the "contact" content </div> </div> </div> </div> <br style="clear: both" /> </div> </body> </html>

No problem, guys. I updated my live board today. It is pretty heavily modified, but the auto update program worked very well, and I was able to merge all the modified files without issue. With this release, you can also download a set of code changes in MODX format. I wouldn't recommend applying all the code changes by hand, but if you have a heavily modified board, it is good to be able to quickly scan to see what files are affected, and in what area the changes are applied. Also, if a conflict develops in the auto updater, you can force the auto updater to skip a particular file, and just apply those changes by hand after doing the auto update.

The phpBB Group announced a new release, 3.0.2, today. It addresses mainly bug fixes, but according to the info on their site, it also addresses a minor security issue. Read more about it here: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.p...4&t=1059565 I just upgraded my test board, and everything seems to work ok. If I have time this weekend, I'll try upgrading my live board.