ssTek

For those wondering if this site has any costs, the answer is, "No". The forum software is phpBB and the backend supporting it is XAMPP -- a ppApp, BTW . XAMPP is itself a free and open source cross-platform web server stack package, consisting mainly of the Apache HTTP Server, MySQL database, Filezilla FTP Server, and interpreters for scripts written in the PHP and Perl programming languages. The e-mail protocols (IMAP, SMTP and POP3) are handled by hMailServer a free, open source, e-mail server for Microsoft Windows which includes built-in AntiSpam/AntiVirus mechanisms. The forum itself is protected by ZB BLOCK & StopForumSpam. Any file hosting is done at various offsite facilities such as Netkups, LastOS, and now BinTray. The firewall, gateway, router, and dynamic DNS (FreeDNS) are handled mostly thanks to DD-WRT. Everything else such as server maintenance, security, domain name, and IP's are all handled by yours truly as part of another ongoing enterprise -- Vergitek as you've probably already surmised -- but a freebie regardless.

So it really is totally free --which I believe is as it should be. How many other boards or forums can claim that? All you have to do here is just enjoy yourselves and never worry about donating money or anything.

If you really want to contribute then get actively involved here. Besides open source developers, we need more users of the tools (read testers LOL).

That is interesting how it is hosted.

I think that if you want more users testers for the software then you need to promote this website more.

pacav69 wrote:That is interesting how it is hosted.

I think that if you want more users testers for the software then you need to promote this website more.

Agreed. Any suggestions on how we should go about it?

When the tools are ready to have an official release, maybe with announcement threads at Ryan's and Wincert, instead of redirecting folks to LastOS direct them here? Maybe have ssTek as the public face and LastOS as the developer's forum? Maybe not, but just throwing it out there. I think Ghost mentioned the idea of possibly having a developer's forum so that would be a way to do that. Might not work though. Anyone else's reaction to the idea? Or other suggestions? I definitely don't want to force that in any way.

Cheers and Regards

Or simply have here as the developers' forum instead since it is already titled that anyway. Also, since the Google.Code servers would most certainly be up to the task (probably even more capacity than LastOS), I don't see why we shouldn't just make ssTek the primary links and LastOS as backup. Make sure to put into all the credits mention of LastOS (with an honorable one to Glenn L Chugg/ReturnOfNights)

I don't think it makes too much difference where the developers hang out too much but from my experience in Total Quality Control (TQM) is that you need to have the clients or users working together with the developers so that the user gets what they want from the software and the developers learn what works and what doesn't making it a constant feedback and with each version or bug fix the software gets better and better.

To promote these software packages we need some publicity either some magazine either online off offline or public forum where it can be made more visible. Maybe even a sponsor to hold a public event or a webinar to display some method of using our software.

i checked the meta tags and they are empty

<meta name="keywords" content="" />
<meta name="description" content="" />

perhaps add some SEO to them so that people know of this existence
words like open source, free, GPL, developers, windows xp, windows 7, install, software install, unattended, deployment, slipstream, optimize, tweak, setup, realbasic,

pacav69 wrote:I don't think it makes too much difference where the developers hang out too much but from my experience in Total Quality Control (TQM) is that you need to have the clients or users working together with the developers so that the user gets what they want from the software and the developers learn what works and what doesn't making it a constant feedback and with each version or bug fix the software gets better and better.

You're right of course, we should leave it open to all. It'll primarily be a developers' forum and should include users

pacav69 wrote:i checked the meta tags and they are empty

<meta name="keywords" content="" />
<meta name="description" content="" />

perhaps add some SEO to them so that people know of this existence
words like open source, free, GPL, developers, windows xp, windows 7, install, software install, unattended, deployment, slipstream, optimize, tweak, setup, realbasic,

This is easy to do... but does it really work?

pacav69 wrote:To promote these software packages we need some publicity either some magazine either online off offline or public forum where it can be made more visible.

Would some of the links listed here do the job?

pacav69 wrote:Maybe even a sponsor to hold a public event or a webinar to display some method of using our software.

This might be feasible but would the most difficult to pull off. And probably later down the road. But still, I had never considered such a thing so nice idea.

And now a possibility for file hosting using torrents: Repository (torrents)

So far my tests have proven this as feasible and very promising.

Pros:

• Free (seeding).
• Unlimited speed (for torrents but I suspect this will be the file-locker's seeding speed which could be rather high).
• Unlimited number of files per account. There also seems to be no total space limit either.
• The torrent files themselves can be hosted here (bandwidth requirements are negligible).

Cons:

• Maximum file-size 1GB. Fortunately, very few (if any) Repository files are this large.
• No conveniences of directly downloading from a url (http://...). But there is the possibility of coding the bt-protocol itself into our tools.

Add Filezilla FTP server to that list (first post)

Major updates:

• phpBB 3.0.11 --> 3.0.12
• XAMPP 1.7.3 --> 1.8.2
• Apache 2.2.14 --> 2.4.9
• MySQL 5.1.41 --> 5.5.36
• PHP 5.3.1 --> 5.4.27
• hMailServer 5.3.3 - Build 1879 --> 5.4.1 - Build 1951

Currently:

• phpBB v3.1.9
• XAMPP v1.8.2 which handles the following:
  • Apache v2.4.10
  • MySQL v5.5.39
  • PHP v5.4.31
  • FileZilla Server v0.9.41
  • OpenSSL v1.0.1h (not sure if site is using or how to activate if not)
• hMailServer v5.6.6 - Build 2383

FYI, I tried to "Thank You" for your last post, but it failed with an "Invalid thank" error, whatever that is.

EDIT: Then it apparently did it anyway?

Cheers and Regards

bphlpt wrote:I tried to "Thank You" for your last post, but it failed with an "Invalid thank" error

It worked okay for me though.

I tried to "thank" your above post and got the following error, same as I did previously:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Twig_Error_Loader' with message 'Unable to find template "@gfksx_ThanksForPosts/user_thanks.txt" (looked into: ).' in D:\xampp\htdocs\sstek\forum\vendor\twig\twig\lib\Twig\Loader\Filesystem.php:215 Stack trace: #0 D:\xampp\htdocs\sstek\forum\phpbb\template\twig\loader.php(107): Twig_Loader_Filesystem->findTemplate('@gfksx_ThanksFo...') #1 D:\xampp\htdocs\sstek\forum\vendor\twig\twig\lib\Twig\Loader\Filesystem.php(139): phpbb\template\twig\loader->findTemplate('@gfksx_ThanksFo...') #2 D:\xampp\htdocs\sstek\forum\vendor\twig\twig\lib\Twig\Environment.php(312): Twig_Loader_Filesystem->getCacheKey('@gfksx_ThanksFo...') #3 D:\xampp\htdocs\sstek\forum\vendor\twig\twig\lib\Twig\Environment.php(378): Twig_Environment->getTemplateClass('@gfksx_ThanksFo...', NULL) #4 D:\xampp\htdocs\sstek\forum\phpbb\template\twig\environment.php(166): Twig_Environment->loadTemplate('@gfksx_ThanksFo...', NULL) #5 D:\xampp\htdocs\sstek\forum\vendor\twig\twig\lib\Twig\Environment.php(347): phpbb\template\twig\environm in D:\xampp\htdocs\sstek\forum\vendor\twig\twig\lib\Twig\Loader\Filesystem.php on line 215

but it actually did "thank" you after all, as I found out by opening a new tab and checking the thread again. So it "works" for me as well, but it throws the above error.

Cheers and Regards