Looking for some feedback ...

[Todd Wiedemann]

Hi gang ...

I've been kicking around a collection from our loyal members with the hope of upgrading the bulletin board system. It's hard to believe that 6 months have passed since our first 'group' meeting on 01/24/02. We collected $65.00 that day, with the money going to securing the domain name.

I'd like to get to the version of UBB threads that hometheaterspot has and include some type of moderated chat system. Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Again, thanks to Tom and Trivera for donating this UBB system and hosting space !

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Todd.
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Mitsubishi 55819
Panasonic TU-HDS20
Apex AD-600A

[This message has been edited by Todd Wiedemann (edited 06-19-2002).]

[RobbQ]

I'd say that you can count me in. Any idea how much money would need to be raised? What would you like each member to contibute? Is there anything we could do for fundraising if member donations wouldn't quite make it? Do you suppose we could get any local stores to donate something that could be auctioned or raffled?

[Matt Heebner]

I am also willing to kick in whatever is needed.
Matt

[RickNeff]

I'd be willing to contribute something since I wasn't lurking around when the group first met.

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Richard Neff
Proud Toshiba 56x81 owner!

[rnelson]

HI Todd

I think you'll find that we'll all support you. Just say the word.

Roy

[MesaV]

<font size +1>$$$</font> <U>Not a problem!</U>

[Gregg Lengling]

We're behind you all the way to the bank!

[Tom Snyder]

As long as we're willing to chip in, we might as well pick a board that has all the features we like.

The current version of the software we currently use is the one that Home Theater SPot uses... (ours is an older version). The new one is $299 (http://www.infopop.com/order/ubbthreads/)

AVS Forum uses VBulletin... that one is only $85 for one year license.
http://www.digibuy.com/cgi-bin/order.html?vbulletin

No live chat, but with the money we'd save with the cheaper option we can probably find some pretty sweet chat software. Just a thought.

If you guys have other ones that you like, or if you have a strong prefernce for one over another, let's use this thread to discuss so we reach a consensus.

I bought my Web company back (http://www.trivera.com/news/), and so I can continue hosting this site indefinitely, and I have programmers who will install and configure whichever board we buy free of charge to the group here.

So let's let the discussion begin.


[This message has been edited by Tom Snyder (edited 06-18-2002).]

[Joseph S]

How much? http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

I'm in. Maybe Fox and ABC would sponsor too. http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/ubb/wink.gif

I like AVS's vBulletin over Infopop, but it's not a big deal either way.

[Todd Wiedemann]

You guys are great. Thanks for the support.

I'd like to keep the cost at a minimum, obviously, the $85/year option is great upfront, but we'd need to collect every year.

What with the rate that WI$N is progressing, we'll be here til' the cows come home !! http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/ubb/smile.gif

Does anyone know of a chat 'system' ?? Are they integrated into infopop or vBulletin ?

Well, thanks again ... let's keep this thread going !

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Todd.
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Mitsubishi 55819
Panasonic TU-HDS20
Apex AD-600A

[Gregg Lengling]

Well actually if you want to be really cheap we could just use Yahoo Chat, just log on and everyone sign into the chat and we could do it. Not as nice as the chat feature we have now but pretty close and the price is right...FREE!

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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
gregg@camelcomm.com

[Todd Wiedemann]

You know, Gregg, I had considered that.

I don't think you were around for the Yahoo group that preceded this website, but we have an established milwaukeehdtv yahoo group.

My goal is to have a chat similar to the JS Online type where all questions go to a moderator and the mod then feeds each question to the guest. Jim Hall handled being barraged quite well, but others may not.

Speaking of which, perhaps better in another thread, we should host another chat ... ideas ??

Anyway, I'm going to do some digging and post results here.

[Gregg Lengling]

You know another chat might include a type of tech support. We have some gurus here (myself included being the the Wireless world). They could relate to antenna problems, switching schemes (multiple switching for component video in with only a single set of jacks on the set), or just general discussion of remediating problems or whatever. I would be happy to help out...I'm sure we've got enough persons around we could even help out the less fortunate (in my business we call them appliance operators, they have no idea how it works) with installs and the such...


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
gregg@camelcomm.com

[Steve Mann]

Count me in. I would be glad to chip in.

Also, I would 'vote' for vBulletin. I'll keep an eye out for some 'chat' solutions too.

[Pat]

I'm in.

[Matt Heebner]

The vBulletin I think would work fine. You can collect money, and whatever is left over can go to next years license, and chat software. I know that HomeTheater Forum uses a chat program called Shadowfire or something like that. Seems to work pretty good.

Matt

[Steve_Miller]

Hello All,


Just an Idea, but look at <a href="http://www.phpbb.org/">phpBB</a>, it is a great FREE bulletin board system that a lot of groups use, it has a lot of support and looks great... oh yeah an it is Free!

<a href="http://www.phpbb.org">http://www.phpbb.org</a>

Just my $0.02...


Steve

[This message has been edited by Steve_Miller (edited 07-26-2002).]

[Tom Snyder]

We have both PHP and Perl on our servers, so there are no technical limitations on which one we choose.

However, one thing we'll need to consider is the new BBS's ability to import and convert the old BBS stuff. Lots of valauble stuff here that would be a shame to lose.

The newest version of UBB does that automatically. I don't know about any of the other ones. Even if they say they do, we've learned first hand that a bunch of stuff can be lost in the conversion.

BTW... this BBS is supposed to have a spell checker, but I'll be darned if I can find where it is or how to turn it on. I'll keep looking.

[This message has been edited by Tom Snyder (edited 07-27-2002).]

[MesaV]

As for the spell checker, has anyone ever thought of entering your data in MSWORD, duh, and I hear cut and paste works just fine too!