World of Xoops (WOX)

WOX (World of XOOPS) Newsletter # 43 (April 2011)

Mamba  02-May-2011 00:12 11366 Reads   8 Comment(s) 
WOX - World Of Xoops

Welcome to the April 2011 issue of WOX (World of XOOPS) Newsletter. Also this month we're a little bit late. I hope, this month we'll catch up!  (see here previous versions

And as always, as the first thing in each newsletter we wanted to express our gratitude to all of you who have donated moneyey to XOOPS Foundation! We truly appreciate your trust and support!  This month our only donor was Ian Underwood. Thank you! If anybody else would like to donate - please don't be shy!

Highlights of the last month:

Summary



Please help us spread the word about XOOPS!! .

If you are a happy XOOPS user, let the world know - please blog about XOOPS, share your experiences with others, rate and review us on SourceForge and other Websites. We need to let the world know about XOOPS!!!

And if you're not happy with something in XOOPS, please let us know so we can fix it and improve! Better yet - help us fix it and improve it!

Remember - XOOPS is powered by YOU!!!!

01. Donations

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Donations

If you like the XOOPS system, and would like to give something in return, you can make a donation to the XOOPS Foundation! Simply use the XOOPS Donation System and use your PayPal account or your Credit Card to donate .

Your donation will be used to promote and advance the use and development of the XOOPS system. The XOOPS Foundation is a registered not-for-profit organization in the USA, dedicated to promote XOOPS! All donators will get the Friend of XOOPS rank here on this website. Thanks to all the Friends of XOOPS for their donations and continued support!

If you wonder what is happening with XOOPS money, please read the 2009 XOOPS Financial Report. The 2010 XOOPS Financial Report is coming soon.

This month we've got only one donation:  

  • Ian A. Underwood: $25

Thank you Ian so much for supporting XOOPS!!!!

03. Team Reports

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In 2010 we are re-introducing monthly Team Reports from our XOOPS Teams.

Core Development Team

- XOOPS 2.5.1a Quick Fix Release
- Converting old modules to XOOPS 2.5.0 GUI: Tutorial
- Updates on Xoops Engine and XOOPS 2 development
- XOOPS 2.5.1 Final Is Released

Documentation Team

- new Wiki page for module Tutorials:

- Converting old modules to XOOPS 2.5.0 GUI: Tutorial
- Debugging XOOPS with FirePHP/Firebugg
- XOOPS 2.5.x Operation Guide - Feedback needed
- XOOPS 2.5.0 Installation Guide Released

Module Team

- Voltan is working on extGallery, fmContent, and News
- Zyspec is working on MyLinks and XoopsPartners
- Mamba is working on Marquee, extCal, Contact, XoopsPoll, xSiteMap
- Mage is working on TDMDownloads
- Luciorota is working on AjaxFileManager
- Standardizing XOOPS Module GUI (help in testing needed)

Theme Design Team

- several new themes
- First community-developed themeheme">community-developed theme for XoopsEngine
- HTML5 theme for XOOPS

Community Coordination/Support Team

Standard maintenance of the Website, and keeping it current.

International Support Team

See Support Site Guidelines. Unfortunately some support sites do not anymore offer the quality of support we are looking for so these sites will have to be removed as official support sites and no longer linked to from the International Support page. This will however, open the opportunity for other webmasters in these regions to start and maintain a local XOOPS Support site, which is a lot of fun and you'll help a lot by spreading our great CMS to your area and language. To apply for official status, use this form (login required).

XOOPS on Facebook: join the main XOOPS group  on Facebook

Communication/Marketing Team

WOX newsletter, keeping press informed about Xoops Engine, additional PR:

XOOPS @ PHP Community Conference in Nashville

 

Talking with Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP creator) about Unicode and PHP 6, and about XOOPS with Zend Framework gurus: Matthew Weier O'Phinney and Ralph Schindler

04. XOOPSers of the Month

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Our "XOOPSer of the Month" Award is given to XOOPS members who show extraordinary dedication to XOOPS, and go the extra mile for XOOPS. Sometimes they do something spectacular, but most of the time they just do something everyday, but by doing it day-in and day-out, they make a BIG DIFFERENCE in life of XOOPS community. And we thank them for that!!!

This month, we would like to recognize  Jim Garrett (ZySpec) from the USA, for his help on various modules, incl. xDirectory, and recently several modules from the upcoming "XOOPS Basic Modules Pack", especially MyLinks!

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I am from the United States. I was originally from Illinois (mid-west US) and moved to Texas approximately 25 years ago.

How long have you been programming?

I started programming in the late ‘70s. 

What is your expertise?

I am actually a hardware design engineer by training. As part of my education I became skilled in low-level assembly language programming. This gave me a good foundation for evaluating code for improvement. It also provided me with a strong background in code structure and architecture. After working as a hardware engineer for a number of years I managed large groups of both hardware and software engineers. I also worked for several years as a systems architect for a large computer company and managed a group of systems engineers which gave me a good foundation in systems specification and development. I have programmed in BASIC, FORTRAN, C, Assembly (microcontroller and microprocessor), and of course PHP among others.

What got you to XOOPS?

Initially I had a customer who had a XOOPS site that was not working the way they wanted. I made some modifications to modules and the rest is, as they say, history…

What do you like the most about XOOPS?

The XOOPS community.

In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why?

I have mainly contributed to module development. I have had many customers request either custom modules or customizations of existing modules. While I have created a few themes over the years I feel it’s better to leave themes to the designers so I can focus on the ‘back end’.

If you could add one feature to XOOPS, what would it be?

An events handler for system wide notifications. I believe this would allow for additional stability and an overall improved system.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of?

While I’ve done quite a bit in XOOPS my biggest programming achievement was several years ago when developing a microcontroller based touch input system for the medical instrumentation industry. I was able to produce a very low cost, highly reliable system to supplement blood gas analyzer and the schedule to complete the task was extremely short.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding?

Reading books, listening to music, coaching baseball, helping local non-profit organizations and of course working on my ’72 Cutlass ( see my avatar )

You favorite dish and drink?

I would have to say a good, thick steak would probably be my favorite food. Followed by a rich, dark chocolate cake with a great cup of black coffee – now that’s a meal!

What about movies and music?

I typically like spy and action movies. I listen to jazz, classic rock (‘70s vintage mostly) and numerous modern singer-songwriter performers. Of course some occasional reggae sprinkled in never hurts.

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say?

Step away from the ‘things’ in your life and pay attention to the people around you.

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why?

Could there be a more exciting time than now? Things are changing so quickly. The quality of life makes our ability to influence the future unprecedented.

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

Thomas Jefferson. Whether you agree with his political views or not he had an incredible mind and was a very influential figure in his time. He was a lawyer, inventor, philosopher, psychologist, and statesman serving his country as an ambassador, secretary of state, vice-president, and President of the United States.

 

05. XOOPS Innovation Award

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Our XOOPS Innovation Award is given to people who create something very unique and very innovative for XOOPS! We are clear that XOOPS can only succeed, when we push the limits of our creativity, imagination, and innovation to "infinity and beyond" . And therefore we would like to recognize people who create this "WOW!" effect, when we see what they've done. The XOOPS Innovation Award is not a monthly award, i.e. theoretically, there might be a month where we won't give one, but we certainly hope that this will never happen

   Xoops Innovation Award Xoops Innovation Award

 

This month, we would like to recognize Charly Cobben (chco2) from Netherlands for his work on QRCode module

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I live in the south of The Netherlands (or some call it Holland) in a city called Oosterhout.

How long have you been programming?

It started with my Commodore 64. First Basic and then Machine language. It evolved to the Amiga and finally PC where I've been using Delphi for PC Applications and started off with Perl for web applications.

I guess about eight years ago I started using PHP and dropped Perl.

What is your expertise?

My main working experience is in Marketing. Many years ago (decades ;) ) I was the European Marketing manager for Advanced Gravis Europe, the Europen part of the Canadian based Advanced Gravis. A company back then that created UltraSound soundcards and the PC Gamepad etc.. (some may still know them ;) ). Budgets were low so all marketing material was made by myself and that gradually evolved in my own company called Designburo.nl. Besides graphical work, building engines for websites became part of the work and that lead to XOOPS. Next to that I'm personally very into 3D work. Love the fact that you can create anything in your mind within a 3D world. Lightwave3D has therefore become a passion also and gets me some nice jobs aside ;)

What got you to XOOPS? 

Guess I answered that question with the previous question. The need for a good base upon building websites. As a company we (that means me and plenty of freelancers I work with) like to deliver a project, website in this case, that the client can easily maintain without having to call upon us for every little detail. XOOPS fits that profile perfectly. Tried many different CMS's but XOOPS suited us best!

What do you like the most about XOOPS?  

For me XOOPS is freedom, ease, flexibility and features. Lately even more since I got to know more programmers that use XOOPS. XOOPS works for many cases straight out of the box with one or two additional modules. The extended features like comments, notifications and user roles make it very suitable for more advanced projects like Intranets within companies. And with the experience I have it is easily extendable.

If there is a glitch somewhere, there are always plenty of people willing to help you out, so the community is very helpful!

Why did you decide to work on the the QRCode?

Well, basically it started with the Module Xurl. We needed a URL shortening module with the ability to create QRCode for QRCode marketing campaigns. We expanded hugely upon the base of Xurl and I figured some the features might be interesting to the XOOPS community. QRCodes are very popular so at first I decided to create the QRCode module for other developers to be able to create QRCode e.g. in their bookmarks etc. Mamba gave me the idea to expand that a bit by adding a complete QRCode generator within the admin section, so no programming is needed to actually create a QRCode.

What are the future plans for it? Any other modules you're planning?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to e.g. create a block for the module so webmasters can add a QRCode generator to their visitors as well. Besides that, more and more usage is found for QRCodes, so updating the module from time to time to fit the needs of the public will be done.

More modules? That is most likely as clients always seem to come up with different needs If it can be shared, it will!

If you could add one feature to XOOPS, what would it be?

XOOPS as a CMS is doing its job very nicely! To figure out what makes it tick is sometimes time consuming. So as developer extensive (developers) documentation would be my first thought.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of?

There are a few things I'm proud of, but most recently it would be the 2lk.nl website based on XOOPS, the XURL module (that gave birth to the QRCode module) and the complete QRCode marketing campaign manager that runs it. There's not many activity on the forums and such, but we can see from the database it is used pretty heavily and that was our goal. Now it needs to start earning money as well :)

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding?

First thing would be my kids! I love being with them as much as getting away from them But they are the biggest part of my life right now and I would not have it any other way! Next to that it's definitely Lightwave3D. If you can imagine it, you can create it for sure. Love creating 3D artwork!

You favorite dish and drink?

I love to cook! I prefer Italian dishes, but the I also like the Dutch food, French, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Greek food! Oh, and the Belgium kitchen is very nice as well. When I am traveling abroad I always order either a Steak or Lasagna. It's funny that I've been to many places and ate a lot of steaks to eventually find the best stake right here in Oosterhout. Eating their "Bife de Lomo" gets me going for a month
Next to that I very much like a real good and heavy red whine. And in the evenings I like my whiskey cola (bit too much).

What about movies and music?

Movies ? Too many! Really! I like SF, fantasy, thrillers, comedies and action. But also documentaries. I do own some collections like Stargate-SG1 but also the complete original "The Incredible Hulk" series as well as "The Saint" and "The Persuaders".

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say?

That only takes 5 seconds: "Make religion your guide, not your goal or prophecy. Do not be a fanatic about it and appreciate others in their way of thinking." Many of the world's problems relate to religion, it should not control your life and especially give you control over somebody else's life!

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why?

20's! Love the hats and courteous way back then. I would miss computers though

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why?

Well.. one is hard to meet since he already died ;) (see the question relating music).
Besides that I'd love to have a chat with William Shatner. A man at the age of 70 (!) still manages to create so many projects and be so active, I'd like to know what makes him tick! Have you seen his www.myouterspace.com website he launched ? Love that!

 

06. XOOPS Innovation Award 2

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Xoops Innovation Award Xoops Innovation Award

The second Innovation Award goes to Grégory Mage (Mage) from France for his work on ModuleAdmin class. He is also author of the TDMDownloads module to be updated soon. 

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I come from Switzerland from a small town near Genève (Lully).

How long have you been programming?

I have been programming since 2001. I have started with programming on ADA95, C and C++ during my study. Since 2008 I have been interesting by PHP and took some lessons to improve my knowledge.

What is your expertise?

I am an engineer in microtechnology, and I work in a watchmaking industry, I'm in charge of technical development of new models

What got you to XOOPS?

I discovered XOOPS in 2006. I researched for a CMS for an association I am active in, and XOOPS was the only one that fulfilled my requirements.

What do you like the most about XOOPS?

Xoops has a great community, I like the cooperation between users, there is always someone to help, also the architecture of Xoops is really genius, you can create modules easily and quickly

Why did you decide to work on the ModuleAdmin class?

When I was with the TDM team,we have tried to make a standardized administration. We found that it was important to have the same administration design of our modules. But we have never programmed something to be automatically generated.

Few months ago, I was creating many modules for a websitehttp://www.woc-rock.com/ and in order to save time, I created a class to manage the administration area.

Several weeks ago Mamba told me about a project to standardize the administration and I told him that I have already worked on this topic. So we have improved the whole class. This is mainly a team work with Mamba !

You are working now on a new version of TDMDownloads. What are the future plans for it? Any other modules you're planning?

I noticed that TDMDownload was widely used in the xoops community and unfortunately I had just dropped, so I decided to launch a new version. It's always difficult to maintain a module. Fortunately, a small team is helping me a lot in this version : Mamba, Voltan and Mariane.

I am also working on many other modules and projects, for example:

- a website with Muss
- launch of new website:http://www.freexoopservices.com with Mariane, for the management of new themes and modules, this website will be available in the few upcoming weeks.
- Finalizing of many modules : Concert, Biography, and discography (modules created for this website http://www.woc-rock.com)
- 3 other modules, but for the moment I keep them a secret

If you could add one feature to XOOPS, what would it be?

- integration of the ModuleAdmin Class into the system module
- improving classes that are managing the DB in order to make tables joins (maybe it exists but I am not aware of it)

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of?

I am coding a new module now, and it will be really my best module. Check with me in few months to see it.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding?

I like sports like badminton, skiing and climb. Climbing is my favorite sports because I like nature (mountains, etc ...)

You favorite dish and drink?

My favorite dish is : "Saucisse à rôtir" with potatoes. I like cider, cocktails and wine.

What about movies and music?

I have a preference for DIE HARD trilogy and NCIS series. Concerning music, I listen to old rock, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Dub Incorporation and my brother's groups "Wind Of Change".

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say?

I think that I would deliver a message to respect Earth for next generations

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why?

I would like to live in "Valais" (mountain area in Switzerland) because I love montains

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why?

I would like to meet "Patrick Edlinger" because he is the best climber and he contributes a lot to this sport

Congratulations to all of our Winners. Starting this year, all Winners will receive a free book of their choice from O'Reilly. Also a free copy of PHP Storm from JetBrain


07. New/Updated Moduless

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08. New Hacks

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Xoops Hacks
    • no new hacks this month

09. Security Issues/Alerts

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10. YAXS, Sites using XOOPS

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11. Tutorials/Add-ons/Documentationn

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12. New/Updated Themes

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13. New Translationss

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Translations

XOOPS 2.5.x:

Earlier versions:

We are still looking for more translations!!! Can you help? See the list here

14. News from around the World

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