IPS Community Suite Benefits

On May 24, 2010, In News, By admin

In addition to the great software that IPS offers in its Community Suite line, we offer many great benefits that go along with the products to enhance your community, make it easier to manage, and allow you to focus on your members rather than software management.

As the first supported release of IP.Board 3.1.0 and its applications is nearly here, we thought we would take this time to review all the great benefits you get along with the software suite itself.

Spam Monitoring Service [more info]

The Spam Monitoring Service is a great, free service for all active IP.Board license and IPS Community Hosting clients. The Spam Monitoring Service leverages the many thousands of IP.Board community installs all over the web to help track and catch those spammers attempting to register on your community. It works like this:

  • Someone attempts to register on your community.
  • Your local IP.Board install contacts IPS Spam Monitoring servers to see if that user registering is a known spammmer.
  • If so, the service gives the account a score of the likelihood it is a spammer and your IP.Board can ban them or put them up for manual approval depending on your preferences.

The Spam Monitoring Service can “learn” from the thousands of communities reporting registration statistics to it and spot trends. For example, a real human would never be able to register on 50 communities in a matter of one minute but a spam bot could so the service learns from this and bans accounts it sees doing that sort of behavior.

For the privacy of you and your members registering, the service does not store any member information permanently.

Skin Generator [more info]

The free Skin Generator is a great tool to get you on your way to customizing the look and feel of your community to make it your own. For both novice and advanced skinners, the Skin Generator speeds up the process of creating a skin with custom colors, header, and other options. From there you can continue to edit it to further create your own, unique look for your community!

Community Projects [more info]

There are many great products that IPS itself doesn’t have time to make. To fill those gaps, some of our great community of customers have come together to volunteer their time to create free products that work right with IP.Board as any other application. All are offered for free to active license holders and done for the fun of it by the volunteers. Be sure to thank them for their time and expertise!

Resources Section [more info]

We have some amazingly talented people in our customer community and many of them create great articles, tutorials, graphics, skins, and modifications to the IPS community suite. Many are free, some have a small fee, all can be useful enhancements to your community.

Take a look through the directory of articles for interesting tutorials and tips for your community. The Downloads section is full of graphics, skins, modifications, and more for your community. Finally, be sure to subscribe to receive updates (or the RSS feed) on the Resources Blog where our community of contributors can post updates on their latest creations!

iPhone App [more info]

Our new iPhone App for IP.Board has already been a great success and is free for both you and your members! Now your members can visit your community quickly and easily while on their mobile device. They can upload Gallery images and even update the status on your community and, if enabled, Facebook and Twitter all at once.

The iPhone App is brand new and we will continue to enhance it with your feedback. An Android platform app is on the way too!

Technical Support

Included with every IP.Board license and IPS Community Hosting account is great support. You can feel free to ask us a basic question, request we install or upgrade the community suite software for you, or query us on an advanced question. We are here to help your community grow and let you focus on your members rather than technical issues.

IP.Chat [more info]

Having Live Chat on your community adds a unique way for your members to interact. The IP.Chat service includes 5 online users for free with your suite and you can upgrade to higher levels for a very low yearly fee.

Your chat logs are available right in your AdminCP (with IP.Board 3.1) and you can easily kick, ban, or even privately chat with members by simply clicking their name right in the chat room.

Community Directory [more info]

The new Community Directory allows any IP.Board community to be listed right on your site. Show off your community and get more traffic! The Directory is brand new so be one of the first to list your community. Also, for even greater exposure, a future version of our iPhone App will include mobile access to the Directory.

We hope you enjoy all these benefits to using the IPS Community Suite! We will continue to innovate and add more benefits all the time. Everyone at IPS is looking forward to the release of the first supported version of IP.Board 3.1.0 on the afternoon of June 1 (Eastern time). Thank you for your support!
IPS Community Suite Benefits

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IPS Introduces iPhone App for IP.Board Communities

On May 21, 2010, In News, By admin

The mobile market for communities has exploded and we have responded by offering a great, new mobile skin for IP.Board and its applications. There are inherent limitations in a mobile skin that are difficult to work around such as image uploading, logging in, and more that are either impossible or just tedious on a mobile device.

IPS is happy to introduce a new iPhone app to solve these issues and add new options!

Easy Login to all your IP.Board Communities

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You can add a list of all the IP.Board-powered communities you visit and save your username/password to those communities in the app. You now have one-tap access to all the communities you visit. No need to tap out your login each time you wish to visit the community of your choice and easily switch between all the communities you visit!

Uses Standard Mobile Skin

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When you visit the community, you will see that it uses the standard IP.Board mobile skin available standard in the platform. We considered creating a native interface within the iPhone app but there are several advantages to using the built-in mobile skin:

  • Common user experience – regardless of a user visiting through the iPhone app, normal browser, or any other mobile device they will have a similar browsing experience on your community

  • Design control – As the owner of your community, you want complete control of the look, feel, and branding of your community. If we were to create a native, standardized interface then IPS would be in control of that look: not you. We obviously never wish to get between you and your visitors so using the mobile skin allows for you to have complete control of the look of your community.
  • Advertising Control – Much as above with the look and feel: IPS does not want to get between you and your advertising revenue. By using the standard mobile skin, you are free to place your own advertising and sponsorships. Tap into the mobile market without worry about a third-party getting in the way!
  • Native Interface Option – If you did want a native iPhone interface, there are great skins available from third-party skinners in our community that will make your community look like it’s running right on the iPhone while still maintaining the three advantages above.

Member Status Updates

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Your members can update their IP.Board profile status right within the app without having to navigate to any other page. Even better, if you use IP.Board’s built-in Twitter and Facebook integrations, your members can even update the status on your community, their Facebook, and their Twitter all in one click! This allows your community to become the center of their online social experience.

IP.Gallery Integration

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If your community has our IP.Gallery image gallery software installed: your members will be able to upload images, videos, and camera shots directly from their iPhone to your community! Members can select their source, write a caption, description, and even choose from the albums they have created on your community to upload their media.

Sharing

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Two simple but easy sharing functions are available: open in Safari and email. Found a great topic on a community you visit and want to share it? Just click email and send it to a friend. You can also open the community in Safari to bookmark a page or perform other functions available in the OS browser.

Pricing and Availability

It’s already done! Please note that the app will require IP.Board 3.1 is installed to communicate with your community.

We are happy to say that the IP.Board iPhone app will be available totally free to all! There are no ads from IPS in the app or anything intrusive that will distract from your community.

Future Ideas

This is the very first version of the iPhone app and we have tons of great ideas to improve it and will continue to do so over time.

Yes: we will be creating an Android platform app as well. (highlighting since many have been asking and didn’t notice this line)

We will also be creating an option, for a small fee, to create a private-label version of the app for anyone who wants one that can only be used on your community. Information on the private-label service will come after the app has gone through a few maintenance updates.

Other fun features like mobile access to the Community Directory and Push Notifications for new activity on your community are already in progress! Stay tuned!

Important Notes

Because of Apple’s approval process, the version of the app available in the App Store is now a couple weeks out of date. It therefore has a few known issues that have already been addressed. We have submitted an update to the app for approval to Apple that will fix these issues and are waiting for its approval. The update will show in iTunes like any other app.

As of this moment, you can use the app here on the IPS Community. We will be releasing an update to IP.Board 3.1 Beta 3 (and included in final version, of course) to support the app.

If you find issues, please post in our bug tracker and if you have suggestions we would love to hear them in our feedback forum.
IPS Introduces iPhone App for IP.Board Communities

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IP.Board 3.0.x Security Patch Released

On May 14, 2010, In News, By admin

A security issue has been discovered in IP.Board 3.0.x that could potentially allow a malicious user to insert JavaScript or other code into your community.

The damage this sort of attack can do is mitigated by IP.Board’s use of HTTP-only cookies and other security measures.

As part of our continued dedication to security enhancement, we are releasing a simple patch for IP.Board 3.0.5 to address this issue. If you are running IP.Board versions less than 3.0.5 simply upgrade your software version. Note that this issue does not exist in IP.Board 3.1.0 Beta 2 and beyond.

Download Patch

Simply upload the attached file to: admin/sources/classes/bbcode/custom/defaults.php

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Complete the Suite Promotion

On May 11, 2010, In News, By admin

We are happy to announce a new promotion specifically for our loyal, existing customers. This promotion will allow you to fill in the gaps in your IPS community suite licenses at a discounted price.

New customers can get a discount based on how many IP.Board applications they purchase when they order. However, these discounts have not been available to existing customers who might wish to pick up application licenses they do not have to complete their IPS suite lineup.

Anyone with a current, active IP.Board license (Standard/Business/Perpetual/Lifetime) will be able to purchase the following applications at the reduced price listed:

  • IP.Gallery: $64.99 … $45
  • IP.Blog: $49.99 … $35
  • IP.Downloads: $49.99 … $35
  • IP.Content: $49.99 … $35

That’s a total possible savings of $64.96!

Do you already have IP.Board and IP.Gallery but always wanted IP.Blog? Now is the time to purchase IP.Blog at a discounted price. Perhaps you have everything except IP.Content and are ready to power your whole web site with the IPS suite? Perfect time to give it a try!

To order: login to the client area, click the Complete the Suite link on the client area home page and pick the IP.Board license with which you wish to associate these new purchases.

Act fast! This promotion ends June 1, 2010.
Complete the Suite Promotion

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Photography

On May 11, 2010, In Uncategorized, By admin

Photography with the use of a camera dates back to the first decades of the 19th century. These photographs, rather than paintings and sculptures, were able to grab a brilliant array of details that, despite how fantastic an article might have been, were unattainable in other forms of impressionism. Since the creation of the camera, different photographic techniques have developed—both for reasons of technology evolving, but also the technology evolving because these techniques were in such demand by photographers.

Black and White

All photographs used to be monochromatic. That means that it was a single hue of a color. In this case, they were all black and white. At first, this was the only way that photographs could be created; however, as time went on, it became more of a personal choice—due to both cost of the film and the traditional look a black and white photo gave—that black and white photography to this day is still used. It is not uncommon, for example, for a bride to request certain photos be in black and white from her wedding. It adds a sense of antiquity and elegance to the photographs. And, it adds a level of art to the photographs.

Color

The first color photograph was made in 1861 using three different cameras—one with a different color filter. However, it wasn’t until 1935 that Kodak developed a tri-color pack for its cameras. This brought about the age of color photography. However, as mentioned above, black and white still was used predominately because of how much more expensive it was to develop color photographs in comparison to black and whites. In 1963, Polaroid released their instant color film which allowed for people to take color photographs and have the image there and in their hands seconds after.

Full-Spectrum, Ultraviolet and Infrared

This type of photography is less for the random photographer and more for serious application. In this form, an individual is trying to get access to different wavelengths of light. Therefore, by implementing different lenses and filters, they’re able to block out visible light and instead focus in on the ultraviolet or infrared. The primary use of a full-spectrum camera would be for applications such as forensics and law enforcement. However, geology and fine art photography have also tagged on for use.

Digital

The final and newest form is known as digital photography. Unlike the other three types of photography that actually have a physical film within the camera, the digital camera takes an image and digitizes it. This turns it into a file that can then be transferred from computer to computer. When the time comes to print it, the image can either be sent to a film lab or it can be printed directly from the computer. The Nikon D1 was the first DSLR camera which would be the first camera used by professional photographers. Before then, they only used film cameras.

These are the four main categories of photography. Some are traditionalists and prefer to only take black and white photos with a film camera. However, the digital camera has been released with the capability of doing black and white, color as well as full-spectrum. This has opened the market for many different types of digital cameras to be developed.

 
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