It still is shelved for the time being, but to at least get us started with image and photo hosting service I have decided to reactivate a license that I had for a commercial software package that will allow us to do just that and be up and running in time for the Holiday season too.  It has taken a  couple days of development and testing to ensure complete integration with the Boardoo environment as well as to integrate with the Customer Support (and Billing) center.

We have a little more testing to do before the official launch but the service is on track for launch sometime this weekend, most likely on Sunday.  Keeping with the spirit of Boardoo’s free service offerings we will offer a free image hosting plan as well as two higher levels of service:

FREE Plan

250 MB Disk Space
1 GB/month Bandwidth
No Branding On Images
Our Branding On Your Pages
Create Slide Shows
Create Auction Galleries

Standard

1 GB Disk Space
5 GB/month Bandwidth
No Branding On Images
No Branding On Pages
Create Image Portfolios
Create 360 Spins
Create Slide Shows
Create Auction Galleries

Premium

5 GB Disk Space
15 GB/month Bandwidth
No Branding On Images
No Branding On Pages
Create Image Portfolios
Flash Photo Portfolios
Create 360 Spins
Create Slide Shows
Flash Slide Shows
Create Auction Galleries

Pricing for the two enhanced plans has not yet been determined.  I’ll make a front page announcement when the service is up and ready for use.

It has been a while since we did our last full refresh of the phpBB backend.  Unlike probably every other free forum host on the internet we use our own customized version of phpBB; we did not just purchase a "multiforum" script and open our doors.  Instead we have chosen to create our own enterprise-class phpBB virtualization solution based around phpBB 3 using Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition as a backend.  That makes us even more unique as a quick web search did not turn up a single free forum host that uses MS SQL Server.

For some time we have been quietly working on a "version 2" if you will of our backend forum hosting engine.  While it’s not quite ready for use, it will be soon.  To prepare for its debut, we’ll be conducting a code audit/refresh on phpBB to ensure that all updates have been applied as well as to roll in some additional functionality too.  For starters, we are looking to add a shoutbox, and SEF (Search Engine Friendly) URLs to our codebase, as well as to update language support as well.

I do not have a timetable as of yet for the launch, but it will be sometime in November, preferably before Thanksgiving.  Your opinions matter; please feel free to share your comments and suggestions on what you would like to see in our new platform.

Things have been very busy lately to say the least.  With the economy being what it is, many including myself have to work more than one job to make ends meet.  In my case, I work at a local TV station in the engineering department.  For the first time in many years we have a strong presence at the Great New York State Fair, and this has required a huge time commitment on my part.

New York State Fair - Day 1

I still have many great things planned for Boardoo in the very near future.  Probably the biggest change will be the total integration of all of our hosted phpBB forums into our social networking backend.  This means one person can join multiple forums while using the same username, password, and even user profile, but maintain seperate signatures and other forum-specific details on each forum.  There will be a unified private messaging system across all forums along with integrated chat.

You will still have total control on your forum, banning users, restricting user signups, even custom profile fields will still be available.  I know that it might sound a bit complicated, but it isn’t.  As we get closer to making this change, I’ll be posting more information on how things will work.   This exciting change will be the last major modification to Boardoo before we launch a large advertising campaign!  This fall is going to be big; stay tuned!

My girlfriend fared much better at the casino this evening, pocketing $50, compared to my loss of $10, lest I still have my 5 souvenier bottles of wine from vacation to look forward to over the coming weeks.  It’s nice to be home though, even if a day early, but it won’t go to waste.  The grass is so long it would be easy for one to lose their car should they venture off the pavement.  If the weather isn’t condusive to yard work, then I suppose I shall start work on the social networking project I have in mind for Boardoo.  More on that later.

Finally, I apologize for not posting as often as I wanted; for some reason moBlog decided to stop working altogether, and for no apparent reason.  I have a couple other neat photos to share, but not before a good night of catch-up sleep.  Cheers!

Now, I’m no stranger to visiting the jumps with this being my 3rd time, but this time a chair lift ride was included.  The views were spectacular, although the cloud cover varied throughout the entire time we were there.  Tomorrow marks the end of our short escursion with a few activities in mind before our return back to camp. 

It was tonight while posting these pictures that I decided that the 50MB of storage that we were including with the starter plan was not all that great, so I’m going to change it effective immediately pending another review.  Free blogs will now get double the space; 100MB and that change includes all existing blogs as well!  Just another reason why I hope that you choose to start your blog here.

  

I love taking pictures, especially when I’m on vacation in the mountains.   The outstanding photo handling abilities of Wordpress was one of the reasons I chose this platform for our new blog offering.  But for someone who is known for taking gigabytes of pictures in a single day, I know that as nice as it is, it’s not enough for a serious picture taking fanatic like myself.   I’ve been looking at various photo site packages like Gallery 2 and Coppermine as a potential offering here at Boardoo.  What would you like to see here at Boadoo for your photos?   I would like to get your opinion.

Blue Mountain Lake

On the bright side, we made it to Blue Mountain Lake!

Camp in the rain!

Which reminds me, support respone times will be a little slower for the next few days since we are both away. Rest assured though, we are still “minding the store” plus I plan to post occasionally throughout our long weekend too.

Boardoo Blogs! offers free Wordpress powered blogs with no limits on posts, comments, links, etc, and you also get 50 MB of space for uploading pictures, videos, and other files for posting in your blog!  Best of all, I’m giving you all of that, plus a selection of 150 hand-picked Wordpress themes to choose from, and a personalized subdomain for free!

Here is the Signup Link Just follow a couple steps to get your blog activated and you will be blogging in minutes, I promise!  One more thing, if you already have a Boardoo Free Forum, you can actually put your blog under your forums subdomain!  Unfortunately our order system won’t allow you to do that during signup, so to start with, pick a temporary subdomain and then open a support ticket indicating you wish to have your blog and forum share the same subdomain.  My staff will take care of the rest.

Happy blogging!