• Audio and video elements that free media from being dependent on plug-ins, and give Web developers greater control over how media will appear on a Web page
• Capability to drag and drop elements within and among Websites
• Private browsing feature that prevents Firefox from recording your Web activities
• One-click deletion for specific Websites: similar to private browsing, right clicking and selecting “forget about this” for any Website in Firefox’s Web history will delete all history records relating to that Website.
• Wi-Fi based geolocation (opt-in feature)
• Downloadable fonts so pages look exactly as the designer intended

SMF was created to replace the forum software YaBB SE, which at the time was gaining a bad reputation because of problems with its Perl-based ancestor software YaBB[citation needed]. At the time, YaBB was attributed to causing resource allocation problems on many systems. YaBB SE was written as a rough PHP port of YaBB, and had many of the same resource and security problems of the older YaBB versions. Joseph Fung and Jeff Lewis of Lewis Media Inc., the owners of YaBB SE and the original owners of SMF, made the decision to convert to a new brand and name.

SMF started as a small project by username "[Unknown]" (one of the YaBB SE developers) and its main intent was to add more advanced templating to YaBB SE. The project then slowly grew to address common feature requests, efficiency problems, and security concerns. A rehaul of YaBB SE had been in development for several years, but was superseded by this then competing project. Popular interest in the new YaBB SE fork sparked a complete rewrite of the code, with security and performance in mind. This eventually became today’s Simple Machines Forum.. The first SMF release was SMF 1.0 Beta 1a, released on 30 September 2003 to Charter Members only.

On the 23rd of October 2006, Simple Machines LLC was registered in the state of Arizona, and the transfer of copyrights from Lewis Media to Simple Machines LLC was completed on the 24th of November 2006 during a three-day retreat in Tucson, AZ. This was done for the "[solidification of] the team’s commitment to continuously providing free software, without the perceived risks of corporate influence"

Future

On 8 April 2007, Simple Machines announced the introduction of their next version, SMF 2.0 [8]. SMF 2.0 has been in development alongside SMF 1.1 since December 2005. This version will have many new features, including:

• Database abstraction – with support for PostgreSQL and SQLite planned alongside that of MySQL.
• Automatic installation of packages into themes other than just the default.
• Email templates to simplify customization of forum emails.
• Moderation center including post, topic and attachment moderation – to allow approving of user content before it is made public.
• User warning system.
• Additional group functionally including group moderators and requestable/free assignable groups.
• WYSIWYG editor to provide an intuitive user interface to those users not familiar with BBCode.
• Permission improvements such as group inheritance and permission profiles to further reduce the complexity of the permissions system.
• File based caching for a performance increase on all forums regardless of whether an accelerator is installed.
• Mail queuing system to stagger the sending of emails to improve performance on large forums.
• Advanced signature settings to allow the administrator of a forum to more tightly control the contents of users signatures.
• Personal messaging improvements including ability to automatically sort incoming messages and a variety of display options.
• Improved upgrade script with better timeout protection and simpler user interface.
• Custom profile fields to enable administrators to add additional member fields from the administration center.
• Use of OpenID.

The first public beta of SMF 2.0 was released on Monday, March 17 2008.

Localization

SMF is available in over 38 languages[9], including Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Ukrainian. It can be translated to other languages by volunteers. UTF-8 and non-UTF-8 encodings are available for all.

Modifications

SMF has a modification base repository for free modification hosting and tracking via the Simple Machines main site. Many modifications, or "mods" as they are usually called, have been created and distributed free of charge, including an arcade, profile additions, gallery, RPG system, spam filter, various SEO features, and many more. Before being listed on the SMF Mods site, the mod is validated by the SMF Team, to ensure that it complies with the SMF Coding Guidelines.

The Package Manager included in SMF is one of the flagship features. It allows an administrator to install modifications and updates to SMF without having to modify the code of the script, usually with only a few mouse clicks.

The SMF team

The Simple Machines team includes graphics, documentation, customization, localization, marketing, and management divisions. The SMF support staff and users also provide free support on the official community forums. Their duties include helping forum owners with troubleshooting and optimization.

Charter Members

People who wish to support Simple Machines with a donation of 50 USD yearly are rewarded with a Charter Membership. This grants access to a hidden section on the forum and advanced beta versions to test before they go public. Advanced support for SMF including installation and upgrades by the staff are also provided. Charter Members also get access to a private Helpdesk staffed by the Simple Machines Support Team where Charter Members can receive one-on-one support outside of the public forum.

SMF and free software

SMF is occasionally criticized for not being available under a free software license; the developers acknowledge this. Redistribution of the software, even unmodified, is not allowed without written permission. The source code is not redistributable either, although it is allowed to distribute instructions on how to modify it.

Minimum System Requirement

To run SMF, the webserver you’re hosted on must meet a few simple requirements. These are not terribly high, and as such most hosts meet them.

• Any webserver that properly supports PHP, such as Apache or Internet Information Services (IIS).
• PHP 4.1.0 or higher. The following directives are required to be set correctly in php.ini:
  • the engine directive must be On.
  • the magic_quotes_sybase directive must be set to Off.
  • the session.save_path directive must be set to a valid directory.
  • the file_uploads directive must be On.
  • the upload_tmp_dir must be set to a valid directory.
• MySQL 3.23.4 or higher.
• at least 512 kilobytes of storage space in the database, although more is highly recommended.
• about two and a half megabytes of storage space on the web server, although more is recommended.

Recommended System Requirements

However, for best performance and use, a bit more is suggested. This includes the following:

• Linux or another Unix based operating system.
• The GNU Aspell and its dictionaries for spell checking support.
• Apache with AcceptPathInfo set to On (Apache 2 and later only) for queryless URL support.
• PHP 4.3.0 or higher, with the following set in php.ini:
  • the max_input_time directive is set to a value of at least 30.
  • the post_max_size and upload_max_filesize directives are set to the size of the largest attachments you wish to be able to upload.
  • the session.use_trans_sid directive set to Off.
  • the memory_limit directive is set to at least 8M.
  • the max_execution_time directive is set to at least 15.
  • the register_globals directive is set to Off.
• MySQL 4.0.15 or higher with query caching enabled.
• GD Graphics Library 2.0 or higher.

Links

• Official Website
• Download SMF
• SMF Mods
• SMf Themes
• SMf – Powered-by

phpBB was started by James Atkinson as a simple UBB-like forum for his own website on June 17, 2000. Nathan Codding and John Abela joined the development team after phpBB’s CVS repository was moved to SourceForge.net, and work on 1.0.0 began. A fully functional, pre-release version of phpBB was made available in July.

phpBB 1.0.0 was released on December 9, 2000, with subsequent improvements to the 1.x codebase coming in two more major installments. The final release in the 1.x line was phpBB 1.4.4, released on November 6, 2001. During the lifetime of the 1.x series, Bart van Bragt, Paul S. Owen (former co-manager of the project), Jonathan Haase and Frank Feingold joined the team. phpBB 1.x is no longer supported and virtually no websites continue to use it.

In February 2001, phpBB 2.0.x began development entirely from scratch; the developer’s ambitions for phpBB had outgrown the original codebase. Doug Kelly joined the team shortly afterwards. After a year of development and extensive testing, phpBB 2.0.0, dubbed the "Super Furry" version, was released on April 4, 2002, three days later than intended.

Work on phpBB 3.0.x began in late 2002. It was originally intended to be released as phpBB 2.2, and the first planned feature list was announced on May 25, 2003.[4] However, as development progressed, the developers realised that phpBB 2.1.x (the development release cycle for 2.2) had eliminated virtually all compatibility with the 2.0.x line, the version number for release was changed to 3.0.0, in keeping with the Linux kernel versioning scheme. In September 2005, Paul Owen resigned as the Development Team Leader and Meik Sievertsen was promoted to the role.

In March 2007, the phpBB teams had planned to undergo a short round of server maintenance, however the server crashed during the outage, suffering a double-disk failure and causing phpBB.com to be down for the full week. (The phpBB teams indicated that phpBB, the software, was not the cause of the outage.) However, due to the unexpected outage, the teams decided to change their original plans and launch their brand new website, powered by phpBB3 and the new prosilver theme. This was a big surprise to most, as the theme had been a heavily guarded secret, never before seen by the public, and was originally not intended to be revealed until the final release of phpBB 3.0.0. Initial feedback was split, with many applauding the new theme and others criticising a number of new design decisions, particularly the decision to display the user info on the right side of the viewtopic page (phpBB2′s subSilver theme had displayed it on the left).

On April 30, 2007, phpBB founder and co-Project Manager James Atkinson officially resigned from his duties towards phpBB, citing personal circumstances. With the announcement also came the announcement that phpBB was now newly independent, and that the team leaders would be collectively taking charge of the decisions in the future of the project. At the end of May, an announcement was made that Jonathan "SHS`" Stanley, the other co-Project Manager, was stepping down as well for personal reasons.

On July 7, 2007, the teams announced that phpBB had been nominated as a finalist for the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards in the category of "Best Project for Communications". At the end of the month, SourceForge.net announced that phpBB had won the award for "Best Project for Communications", and in honour of the award, SourceForge.net donated $1000 in phpBB’s name to Marie Curie Cancer Care. phpBB also won a "Thingamagoop" from Bleep Labs, and "bragging rights for a full year."

On September 6, 2007, the teams launched an official phpBB podcast. It was recorded by a rotating group of phpBB team members with occasional guests, and discussed a number of phpBB-related topics, as well as answering questions e-mailed in from listeners.

The first beta of phpBB3 was released in June 2006, and the first release candidate was released in May 2007. The phpBB3 codebase received an external security audit in September, which was done by SektionEins. Finally, phpBB 3.0.0 "Olympus" (also dubbed the Gold release) was published on December 13, 2007.

The teams launched a new phpBB weblog in July 2008. The blog is written by phpBB team members on various topics related to phpBB and provide users with a unique inside look at the activities of the phpBB teams.

The phpBB teams held their first-ever phpBB users conference in London on July 20, 2008, which was titled "Londonvasion 2008." Londonvasion featured presentations by phpBB team members on various topics important to the phpBB community, MOD authors, and developers. Londonvasion provided a unique opportunity to socialise with members of the phpBB teams. The event also represented the first time that most members of the teams had a chance to meet each other in person.

More on PhpBB

• phpBB2 was the predecessor of the present-day phpBB3. Developed during 2001-2002, the source code was written primarily to run on PHP 3.0 and 4.0 (version 2.0.13 upped the minimum requirement to PHP 4.0.3 due to a necessary security fix), and by the time that phpBB3 was released in late 2007, …
• phpBB3 is the current stable version of phpBB. Following over three years of development and an eighteen-month beta/release candidate stage, it went gold on December 13, 2007. Some of phpBB3′s major features include: Modular design for the Admin Control Panel, Moderator Control Panel, and User Control Panel Support for multiple database management systems, …

Other Information

• Developed by  The phpBB Group
• Stable release  3.0.4  (December 12, 2008)
• Written in  PHP
• Available in  Multilingual
• Type  Internet forum
• License  GNU General Public License

Links

• Website  http://www.phpbb.com/
• Downloads
• PhpBB Mods
• PhpBB Knowledgebase
• PhpBB wiki
• PhpBB powered-by.org

Founded by noted technology entrepreneur Steve Perlman (WebTV, QuickTime) and incubated within the Rearden media and technology incubator, OnLive spent seven years in stealth development before officially unveiling in March 2009.

OnLive, together with its Mova subsidiary, lies directly at the nexus of several key trends, all of which are reshaping the way we think about and use digital media:

• The shift to cloud computing, displacing the limitations, cost and complexity of local computing;
• An explosion of consumer broadband connectivity, bringing fast bandwidth to the home;
• Unprecedented innovation, creativity and expansion within the video game market.

Pioneering the delivery of rich interactive media to the home, OnLive will change the way that entertainment applications are created, delivered and consumed.

On Beta

Currently Onlive.com is in beta, To sign up you need to be at least 18, based in the US and have a broadband-connected PC running Windows Vista®/XP®, or an Intel®-based Mac. Sign up for beta

In the News

• Few startups have a chance to revolutionize an industry. But if entrepreneur Steve Perlman’s OnLive lives up to its goals, the company will disrupt the entire video game industry — to the delight of both game publishers and gamers. – venturebeat
• The founder of a new service that plans to stream on-demand video games over the internet says he feels like he has a big target on his back. No wonder, given that Stephen Perlman’s vision to revolutionise the way games are distributed and played has been talked up as threatening the future of the console and of retail stores. – BBC

Links

• Onlive.com