What's Ahead for RadioWest?

[jon]

Late last night, Version 3 of phpBB was officially announced. As you may know, phpBB is the software used for the RadioWest discussion forum. As I understand it, it is the most popular discussion forum software in the world. Because it is Open Source, there are no license fees for the software, and we have access to the "source code", allowing us to make small changes as required. A large number of tested changes have been developed by others and are shared, a few of which we have used.

Last Spring, we moved away from the InvisionFree software site for a number of reasons, but the rapidly declining up-time near the end was the real decision maker. I built a Test Site first, and that will pay real benefits as we move to Version 3 of phpBB in the months ahead, as we get things figured out with the new version on the Test Site rather than on this site. The problems that you may remember -- an 80 hour time discrepancy for Guests is one that comes to mind -- were all caused by the conversion software from the old (formerly free) version of InvisionPowerBoard used by the InvisionFree site. It was written many years ago by a student, who no longer supports it. Since it was the "only game in town", using it made more sense than losing all of the content on the previous site.

Before Spring, we hope to be using Version 3 of phpBB. But there are some other opportunities that also make sense to do around the same time. Our hosting is provided by the Zoom group of companies. One of their other companies offers all we need at a slightly lower price than we are paying now, but the big attraction is clustered redundancy. If a server (processor, memory, motherboard, network card, etc.) fails, another server automatically takes over, without interrupting the smooth running of the site. There are other minor benefits, most notably daily, instead of our current weekly, backups of the site.

The only tricky part of a move is the phpBB database. It cannot be in two places at once, which is the trick you normally use when moving Web sites -- put everything on the old and new sites, and wait the 24-48 hours for all the Name Servers around the world on the Internet to be updated with the new site's IP address, i.e. - RadioWest.ca may point to the old site in Perth, Australia, while it points to the new site in Horseshoe Bay, B.C.

But the phpBB "Community" came to the rescue in hours. I posed the question on the official phpBB discussion forum, and the first answer was the right one -- move the database in advance, and get the old site (internally, within phpBB) to point to the new site's phpBB database.

I won't be able to work on any of this until at least the end of January, as I am right in the middle of building a completely new "infrastructure" for all of the Web sites that Radiofan and I take care of. I am using the Edmonton Broadcasters Club web site redesign as the project under which I am building this infrastructure.

The key driving force is to put information in a database, rather than sitting in Web pages surrounded by HTML tags that make it hard to maintain. The Club wants to be able to query information, such as "Who worked at CJCA between 1956 and 1958?" so that convinced me of the need for the database approach. It also allows multiple people without an HTML knowledge to be responsible for updating the information in the database.

After a lot of looking at Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS), I chose Etomite, as it was the most popular software that seemed really focused towards databases. I am now building the pieces that will allow Etomite to be used (1) to update databases by people without any HTML knowledge; and (2) to create and update database-driven Web sites without any knowledge of php programming, but with some HTML and phpMyadmin knowledge. And using them to build the Club's new Web site.

We are also looking at moving edmontonbroadcasters.com and calgarybroadcasters.com into a heavily structured database-driven design that will allow those queries like the Club wants: "Who worked at CJCA in any of the years between 1956 and 1958?"

So far, I'm really impressed with what I can do with Etomite, especially how fast it is to build and update Web sites when you stick to Templates, Cascading Style Sheets and Chunks. Chunks, for example, define the formatting of tables of information obtained from a database. So, a very simple change to a Chunk alters the appearance of a huge table of information on one or more Web pages.

I'm also very impressed with the level of Support available through Etomite's web site. To date, I've only had to ask one question -- all the rest were answered in existing documentation or forum discussions. Etomite has also proven very reliable.

Finally, I should answer the very good question that may be on your mind: why upgrade phpBB to Version 3? Security and support are the primary reasons. Hackers are constantly looking for ways to break working computer systems, and they target popular software. For example, they built bots that spammers use to automatically sign up to phpBB sites worldwide, and advertise their wares. RadioWest was heavily targetted until I found out that hackers had used OCR technology to decode the random graphic characters you used to have to enter to sign up. It won't be long before no more security fixes are being built for phpBB Version 2, so we need to move to Version 3 in the not too distant future.

Support just means that, if our phpBB-based discussion forum starts doing funny things, no one is going to help us if we are still using Version 2 a year from now.

[cart_machine]

Jon, upgrades are always good provided they:

A. Don't cost more (how can you tell I was in radio management? )
B. Don't confuse people trying to find stuff. Nothing's more annoying than going on a message board and finding the layout is completely different, and then watching as it gets tinkered with every couple of weeks. A change should be as seamless as possible.

Well, there's a C., too, which you've already alluded to: that data doesn't get lost. Otherwise, how else will TD's low-brow "pussy" joke be preserved for generations to come? (and of all the people here to expound on that particular subject...)

cArtie.

[Russ_Byth]

Can someone put this into English for us folks who try to keep it simple using words that people actually speak. Thanks!

[jon]

Summary:

(1) In a few months, we need to update the software that runs this discussion forum. If you are at all observant, you will notice some differences in the site's "Feel".

(2) In a couple of months, we plan to move to a different hosting company with even more reliability.

(3) We will do everything we can to minimize interruptions at the time of the actual Changes (1) and (2) above.

(4) Neither Change will move us away from http://www.radiowest.ca/forum

(5) By the middle of next year, we hope to have EdmontonBroadcasters.com and CalgaryBroadcasters.com "smart enough" to let you ask questions like who worked where when?

(6) I'm building the plumbing that should allow Radiofan and I to more easily improve other Web sites, including the other (non-discussion) areas of RadioWest.ca

[Russ_Byth]

So THAT'S what it meant! Thanks Jon!

[Jack Bennest]

I have been monitoring how many new topics and replies to old ones since Monday. The list which I wish I could show here is staggering.

The amount of threads, posts and contributions is indeed great to see on lil ole RADIOWEST


Merry Christmas gurls and guys - lets keep up the pace and the quality.

[PMC]

Technology provides the tools that we grow to depend on, and usually the tool craftsman has a goal of making that software better.

Wanted to point out that all of what Jon says is actually, much more, and if he detailed it, then the content would become a snooze fest for those, not into the buzz words.... virtual addressing being an abstract example.

Great work Jon !

[Mike Cleaver]

When computers made their debut in broadcasting, I was faced by staffers who claimed they couldn't learn to use a computer until they knew exactly how it worked.
The point being, you don't need to know how it works, just how to make it work for you.
Dick Smyth was dead set against computers, refusing to even have one on his desk until a half hour lesson showed him how much time he could save and how much more quickly he could scan through stories, copy, paste and modify them instead of going through yards and yards of teletype paper and trying to find stories he'd ripped from the papers in that messy pile on his desk.
And this was just the rudimentary BN system that only allowed you to work with text, before the introduction of INES, which married text and audio.
Newsroom computers for radio have reached the epitome with Burli, a multifunctional miracle program that integrates wires, the net, email, audio etc.
I started with teletypes, 5 in the CHUM newsroom, and Royal typewriters with three carbon rolls, two copies for air and one for the file.
Don't even talk about filing for audio or text.
It was file cabinets and reels of tapes back then and a constant job to index and archive everything.
Now, it's done automatically with global search abilities.
Plus we can all communicate through the "internets" using "the Google" as the Bush League President asserts.
Just be thankful there are computer professionals working mostly in the background to make things easier for those of us who use them every day.
The best IT guys and gals are the ones you can talk to and say, "Can you make it do this without me having to keyboard in a huge number of instructions?"
This board is pretty simple to use as it is now.
Improvements to make it better are more than welcome.

[David in North Burnaby]

Its already a very smoothly operating board imho. I'll look forward to seeing the upgrades. Thanks very much to those concerned, your efforts are much appreciated.

[johnsykes]

Being one of the old gits on this site, I must say how thankful I am for people like Jon and Radiofan......you are the greatest!!!