500Espot.com

All:

I've implemented a new feature to allow you to "embed" YouTube movies directly into posts. You can do this very easily by obtaining the "embed" URL from the YouTube page where the video is shown, or from the video box at the end of the video once it's done playing.

Then, you just do as follows in any post here on the forums:

[ youtube]PASTE EMBED URL FROM YOUTUBE HERE[ /youtube] (remove spaces)

And this will embed the video right into the post so that you can see and play t having to launch another browser tab or window and go to the YouTube web site.

You can also do this with Google Video too, with the same syntax as above except using [ googlevideo]PASTE EMBED URL HERE[ /googlevideo]

Below is an example of a YouTube video embedded:

Cheers,
Gerry

Thanks Gerry. This will really come in handy!

All,

Due to an increasing amount of Russian spammers getting onto the site, I have changed the registration settings so that all new registrations are no longer self-activated by the applicant. Rather, all new registrations are put "on hold" and the site admins are alerted, and must individually approve them.

The next revision of the phpBBB software, which is due out within the next month or less, has significantly more advanced self-registration systems. I expect that after I update the site software with this next revision, that I can reset the registration back to a "self-registration" mode.

Thanks for your patience. Unfortunately, the Russians have found this board and are doing their darndest to try to take advantage of it. Thanks to Glen for his admin work in eliminating and banning spammers as he comes across them. It's a thankless - and never-ending - task.

Cheers,
Gerry

My favorite thing is catching a spammer when he's on the board and doing his thing "live". I just delete his ass in mid-stream, then he's gone. Just love that. One second there and spamming away, the next second zapped.



Cheers,
Gerry

All:

I'm in the process of uploading the extensive collection of E500E-related magazine articles I've collected from all over the world.

There are several dozen, so this process is going to take a few nights. In any case, the first batch has been uploaded as of now. These are mainly English-language publications.

500Espot.com will live up to its mission of being the most comprehensive informational resource on the Internet for the E500E cars. This article repository will greatly assist this mission.

Cheers,
Gerry

Added 8-10 new "smilies" tonight, including a couple of good ones

Also lots of historical docs and photos from MB press archives.

Hope you all find it enjoyable!

Cheers,
Gerry

November 17, 2009
12:32 PM London time

All,

Just noted that the latest version of phpBB has been released today. There are major upgrades on this release in terms of the functionality, the registration process (eliminating the 5-10 spammers who attempt to gain access to this board daily), and performance (caching data).

I am currently overseas but will plan to update the board in about a week or so when I'm home, so that any bugs in the initial release of this version have been ID'd and worked out. Of course, I'll make sure that everything is properly backed up and a copy of the board is made so that no data is lost. In addition, the board may be down for an hour or two during the upgrade process, but a message will be posted noting such. I'll perform the upgrade in the middle of the night West Coast time so as to minimize the downtime for most users.

If you'd like more information on this latest release of the phpBB, you can find it here:http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1859035

Cheers,
Gerry

Site has been updated tonight. I apologize for the inconvenience if you tried to log on. There are quite a few new features and capabilities, many of which I haven't explored and/or turned on yet. I will update this space when they are. We may have more adjustments and tweaking over the coming days but the site should be up and operating smoothly for now.

Please let me know if you experience any bugs or issues.

Thanks
Gerry

All,

I've enabled a new "quick reply" feature that allows you to immediately reply to a post right from the reading screen. If you want to use advanced features like smilies, etc. then you can click on the "Full Editor" button to obtain them. This should ease your ability to participate in message threads.

Cheers,
Gerry

Cool, much easier to reply to posts now. Thanks!

All:

It appears that the "view unread posts" link is not working for some users, including me. New posts are included on the forum with the colored icon, but clicking on the "view unread posts" near the top of the page does not show the unread posts.

I am researching the issue, but it appears as if it is a bug with the new release of the software. In the meantime, I'd recommend that everyone LOG OUT of the board and then log back in to see if this resets the cookie that the board uses to communicate with your computer for board settings.

I will provide an update as soon as I have a solution/fix. Hopefully it will be quick and relatively simple.

Cheers,
Gerry



It appears if you use the "View New Posts" link instead of the "View Unread Posts" then it will show all posts since your last presence on the board. That said, for cookie's sake, I recommend you logout and then log back into the board.

Personally, I like the "View active topics" option best.

Same here. That is the only link I use.

I will be updating the site to the latest small revision of the phpBB software in the next few days. The site will be down for perhaps a couple of hours during this time. I will try to do it on Friday night so that it is of minimal disruption to everyone.

This is a small revision with not a lot of new functionality, but mainly a bug fix with some security related updates. I've been happy with the latest revision as it's solved nearly all of the issues with the weak security mechanism that allowed spammers to sign up automatically. I think we've only had one or two spammers in the past few months, as opposed to 10-15 per day in the past.

The big news is that I have purchased the vBulletin software and will be migrating this board to that over time. vBulletin is not open-source, but a subscription-based system that is much more full-featured than the free phpBB software that this board currently runs on. It also has much more in the way of cool features and functionality. It was a long decision but I decided to make the investment anyway. vBulletin is the same software that Scott's 500Ecstasy board is running on, FYI.

I will try to make this migration as seamless to everyone as possible. At the same time, I will be changing the hoster to a more reliable one and migrating back to the 500eboard.com domain. When everything is up and running, you will be able to type in either 500eboard.com or 500Espot.com and the new board will pop up. Again, this is some time off and there's lots of work to do.

My first priority at present is to complete the 560SEC head rebuild, and this is going to take several more weeks to a month to do (depending on how fast I get parts, and how fast the machine shop and coating company do their work). This migration will be my next priority. I've got the new board already up and running in prototype fashion but that was just a test mule. Lots more work to do.

Cheers,
Gerry

All:

I updated the site today to the latest stable release of the phpBB code, version 3.0.7 which was released in early March, and quickly updated to 3.0.7-PL1 a day or so later because of some niggling bugs.

This is primarily a maintenance release of the code, with a few minor features added. Those features are detailed below.

However, as I mentioned before, the future path for this board is going in a different direction. We'll be moving the 500Espot board to the more full-featured vBulletin system, which is what the 500Ecstasy board uses. This will give us many more features. I will be kicking off this process of the migration very soon, and when that system is stable I will be redirect this site to that one. Everything will be seamless and you should see very little change other than the "look and feel" of the vBulletin board, which I hope to make more attractive than this one.

This board will continue to be called 500Espot / 500Eboard and will eventually be accessible through either domain.

I will keep you all up to date as to the status of the changeover, but this process will be beginning in earnest very soon.

Thanks and regards,
Gerry



Changes to the latest phpBB software for this site:

Minor feature additions to phpBB 3.0.7

* You can now see private forums in your ATOM feeds using HTTP authentication by passing the GET parameter "auth=http".
* The INTTEXT token was added to custom BBCodes to allow for non-ASCII letters in html attributes.
* You can now enable quick reply in all forums with a single click.


Small functionality changes in phpBB 3.0.7

* Warn users about potentially dangerous BBcodes.
* Forum feed no longer includes posts of subforums.
* Speed up topic move operation by adding an index for topic_id on the topics track table. (Bug #56545)
* Move redirect into a hidden field to avoid issues with mod_security. (Bug #54145)
* Log user activations through inactive users ACP. (Bug #30145)
* Alter ACP user quick tools interface to reduce confusion with the delete operation.
* Show a proper preview for the Q&A CAPTCHA. (Bug #56365)
* Send time of last item instead of current time in ATOM Feeds. (Bug #53305)
* Split "All topics" feed into "New Topics" and "Active Topics" feeds.
* It is no longer possible to persist a solution for the login CAPTCHA.
* Friends and foes will not show up as private message rule options if their respective UCP modules are disabled. (Bug #51155)
* Offer for guests to log in for egosearch and unreadposts search before the search permissions check. (Bug #51585)

All:

I have moved the domain "500eboard.com" to another, more reliable internet hosting service that I think will provide better long-term service and support to fit my needs for this forum.

Secondly, over the weekend I installed the vBulletin forum software on this hoster (you can see it in test mode only - the board is de-activated at present - at URL http://www.500eboard.com/forums/).

Thirdly, I did a successful "import" of this forum, including all users, posts, photos and attachments) into this vBulletin software over the weekend. A previous attempt to do this a couple of months ago was less successful, but this weekend's test import was nearly perfect. In the coming weeks, I will complete one last test import into the vBulletin system to hone my technique and ensure that all comes across well.

Upon completion of that, I will do the full migration of this forum into the new vBulletin system. At that point, I will redirect this 500Espot.com URL to the 500Eboard.com URL so that typing either URL will bring you to the new site. After that stage is complete and well, I will migrate the 500Espot.com domain over to the new hosting service.

Again, I am planning all of this out very slowly and deliberately, testing everything along the way to eliminate disruptions for everyone. I would expect the final migration to the new system to happen in perhaps a month or six weeks.

Just wanted to keep everyone up to date on what is going on.

Cheers,
Gerry

Hello all,

Quick update on the site. I've added a few more smilies to keep things interesting for y'all, and deleted some ones that weren't used very often.

As far as the migration to the new software..... we will be migrating soon! I need to do one more test import of all of this site's information to the new vBulletin BBS system, and then will do the final import and move to the new system. This site will be down probably for about a half-day while this final import is happening. After this is done, this URL for this site (http://www.500espot.com/forums) will redirect to the new domain, which is the old http://www.500eboard.com URL. Eventually this site's domain will then be transferred to the new hosting provider. Most if not all of this should be seamless for everyone, so nothing will fundamentally change except for the look and feel of the forums.

However, when I implement the new forums, I promise to maintain a bright look and feel, and not to adopt the "dark" and difficult to read system that Scott updated 500Ecstasy to. The lighter board backgrounds are much easier to read and appealing IMHO.

Anyway, I will be doing this final test import to the new system over this long holiday weekend, and depending on how this goes, will do the final migration to the new vBulletin system within the next month or so. Of course, I will give everyone plenty of warning. Like I said, the actual migration should occur overnight, so hopefully it will be seamless for everyone. It will take some time after the migration to work out the kinks (smilies, etc.).