UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat VERY disappointed with UBB/Infopop

Many years ago, I was interested in starting my own forums. At the time, the messageboard I frequented, www.camaroz28.com , was utilizing UBB.

Wow, I thought, amazing functionality and looks. So, I purchased a license for www.cofba.org , my local car club and went to town. I've loved it. Until now.

Last year, we were promised a new SQL-based UBB to compete with VBB, somewhere around the first quarter of 2005. This being said, I talked my club members into again using funds to purchase a UBB renewal specifically for their new SQL board.

It's now August and I'm being *****ed at because we spent this money on a renewal (expensive at that) so we could install the anticipated release of Infopop's SQL software. Where is it? I keep getting excuses and put-offs. Yay, we wait again. An update would be nice now and then, and not the same spiel of "we're running private test boards, be patient".

We didn't shell out the excessive amount of money for a renewal license to:

1) Not see any additonal UBB upgrades
2) Not see this SQL software as promised, especially in the time period specified

This being said, I have another messageboard for a car club that has recently purchased a license for VBB, and Jelsoft only requires their renewal fee to be $30/yr. Thanks Infopop, talk about price gouging and providing little in return.

VBB so far EXCEEDS anything I've even seen or expected from UBB! It's interface, ease of configuration, hacking ease, etc. are all levels above what UBB has provided me.

This being the point, I'm seriously debating and considering bringing up to my club about moving to VBB as a replacement for my current UBB at COFBA. I, along with my fellow club members, are tired of paying this ridiculous renewal fee to Infopop for sub-standard software and far, few between releases. Especially considering we're now getting blown off about the SQL software supposedly in production from Infopop.

Honestly, we're gonna wait another few weeks and hope to see a Beta release from Infopop to the public. If not, I will be asking Infopop for a refund of my current renewal fees as we've seen NOTHING from them that warrants them accepting our money for the year. Nothing.

If for some reason they do release their software by then, it had better be something good. VBB has shadowed UBB something fierce, and I'm getting to the point to where I'm actually LOOKING FORWARD to casting UBB aside in favor of something better proven and with more available options. VBB.

Thanks for listening to my rambling. But I'm tired of shelling out $100+ a year to Infopop for sub-par software and no-show expectations

Some valid points, not sure what's going on at madrona park/infopop/monkee

As for vb, it's got some good features, but most of it's complete feature-clog, it's not nearly as fast as most other php/mysql solutions (threads included) and designed for developers - not your everyday internet user - I'd have to turn off 95% of its 'features' for it to be usable by most of my personal site members and the general internet population. The 'feature' overkill makes it look like a chinese phonebook to most internet users, allows many portals for hackers to step through, and drags down the server - most of us cannot afford the dual servers it would require for a decently busy site

This isn't a vb support forum tho, if you want to discuss them feel free to go there to do it.

I believe it's "Groupee" allen... But I agree on the monkee definition...

I've found VB to be a little, bloated seems to be the correct term...

CHANG!

I have to agree the wait has been rather long without anything more then screen shots. Then agin I have seen 2 new letters claim UBB 6.7.3 is going to be released but yet see no site running a beta version of this yet.

Unfortunatly IP err Groupee used to be the for front for message boards. Unfortunatly they have been out paced for a long time and now seems like they are scrambling to play catchup to the rest of the industry. How long had I heard IP hold hard and fast against PHP/MySQL solutions.

While Hostboard runs on a system based on UBB I have struck a deal with another company to port Hostboard over. I most likely would have stayed with UBB and have Hostboard almost completly ported over to 6.7.2 but with its demise and the eventual lack of support and a loss of the development community I saw the writting on the wall and gave up 6 months of development in favor of supporting a company who has a very agressive development community where I can find someone to assist me in my quest to build a better site.

As far as VB goes it does not take alot of power to run as my twin 1ghz 4gig RAM system powers it without even the slightest hickup. In fact in runs almost as fast as Hostboard and the only reason it does not is Hostboard was desinged with a single purpose. Also I think the only reason VB does not seem to run quickly is to proprly runa heavily used message board system you really need to properly configure your server for it and unfortunatly most use the base defaults or are running on a shared system where they can not optimize the server for the application. I do however agree the interface can use a bit of freshening in the way things are aranged as it does seem bloated.

Your vb is almost as fast as your flat-file forum? I would admit that's *quite* an accomplishment

There's a beta of 6.7.3 here: UBB.classic™ 6.7.3 - it shouldn't be much longer coming

Yea it would be if Hostboard used a flat file system :rolleyes:

So a forum modified from flat-file to a combo of perl/flat-file/mysql is faster than a forum built from the ground up in php/mysql? That sounds even better

Well almost...

You have to understand Hostboard was purpose built for 1 function. Feature sets were built in and are used through the entire system. Options that were not needed were completly removed. Products like UBB, VB are feature rich and contain options that are not necessarily needed by everyone but yet are added as more and more requests for it are received. The hard part about this is being able to have a fine balance of features vs performance that can be run on the bulk of servers/hosting services out there.

Seeing as Hostboard does not have the amount of features that VB has it is quite understandable that there are less calls to the database tables, less calls to variables, less calls to other files thus more work for the software to preform.

Then going back to the issue that most people do not have the luxary of having a server dedicated or purpose built/configured for running 1 specific application would also have a negative impact on overall performance.

Overall I am generaly impressed with any developer that can balance the fine line of performace vs features and run it on almost anything. It is just that fine line that is arguably the point as to who feels is acceptable or not.

exactly my argument concerning vb since v2.0

I don't recall hearing such a notion. If they were so against PHP/MySQL, why does threads exist?

Seriously. Why spend all of the time you did hacking classic to use an actual database, then complain about the lack of a dev community and then come to the dev community and rant about the lack of 6.7.3 beta, and confess that you are switching to another product anyway. You got a classic to use a MySQL database. Good for you :rolleyes: You of all people should know that quality code takes time. You've said it yourself, you spend 6+ months hacking a version of classic to use at HostBoard! If HostBoard has to be customized so much, why not roll your own package with the exact features you want? You could write it in CF, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, whatever tickles your fancy, and it would be exactly what you want.

I have a feeling this whole conversation will be repeated over the new package eventually....

I did not develop the original Hostboard. Hostboard was originaly based on UBB v5.x For the pure fact that at that time I was only a casual user of message boards and very new to actualy running a system like this (previously ran a 24 line BBS back in the day, before the internet existed and then interfaced that to become the first dial up ISP in CT) and the users were comfortable with UBB I thought it in the best interest not to rock the boat in terms of users knowledge or what little I knew at the time.

Although not 100% sure I beleive IP purchased Threads as a stop gap for a product with a MySQL backend as well as a solid platform to at some point base a product line on. Why else would they purhase something that did basicaly what UBB did?

I am sure there are archived threads about the merrits of what IP stayed with flat files vs a database backend and I belive the primary premis was it was able to run on more platforms, which would have been true back in the day. However current technology and solutions have database installations more of the norm instead of the rare.

I would love to have Hostboard become its own platform. A few problems face this dream. First I am not a programmer and do not have the time to learn. Between working as a network engineer, running Hostboard & running a monster truck on the circuit time is precious. So I am relegated to working with whom ever I can find.

For me it is probaly more of a fustration level not to mention the leaving of a small community that I ahve seen grow over the years.

My point was that forums are written for one purpose, if they can't do that right then the developers shouldn't be writing it. Adding features at the expense of usability and performance misses the mark for 90% of the market. UBB.Classic does the right things right for 80%+ of the market.

UBB.classic™ - it has real bits of panther in it, so you *know* it works. Studies show that 60% of the time it works every time

I agree 100%. The hard part is trying to decide what feature sets are important to make it in to the product and then how to optimize the system for performance.

Of course updating code and adding features is what everyone wants less the product beomces stagnent. Just a fine balancing act in the end. Though I would guess it is not the general forums that dictate what gets added but rather the corporate clients and most requested from sites that tend to be larger filtering down to the smaller (if that made any sense)