XOOPSer of the Month & XOOPS Innovation Awards

XOOPSer of the Month

  • Mowafag Ragas (Mowaffaq)

    Mowafag Ragas
    (
    Mowaffaq
     Libya

    This month we would like to recognize Mowaffak Ali (Mowaffak), for his endless support for XOOPS, his XOOPS Web Tools, his News Block, and his teamwork and collaboration on modules of other authors, and his support for Arabic XOOPS users.  

    Where are you from, and where do you live now? 
    I'm from Libya, I was born and grown up in a small beautiful city called Derna, but now I moved to work in the capital,Tripoli.

    How long have you been programming? 
    I started learning PHP in 2004 but mainly I'm a web designer and I began developing and making xoops modules in 2007, so I like what my friend trabis said: "You can call me a : wanna be developer".

    What is your expertise? 
    Though I got my BSc degree in completely different area (Laboratory Medicine),I had a great interest in computing and IT for more than 10 years ago, so my expertise is years of experience.

    What got you to XOOPS? 
    My first experience with XOOPS was about 4 years ago, A friend of mine from Libyan Linux Group recommended XOOPS to me when I asked him to move from PHP-NUKE to other CMS, and really I enjoyed what I am doing with XOOPS!

    What do you like the most about XOOPS? 
    XOOPS gives me what I want and it is the effective reason of the most of progress and success in my life.

    In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why? 
    Making new hacks and Improving modules, this is what I always do, and also to support new XOOPS members.

    What you you major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 
    As I said programming isn't really my main area, but I have many ideas crossing my head and I am planing to join new work team to do it. Mainly, I will release some simple usefull modules and hacks.

    What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 
    Drawing, travel and listening to Quran.

    You favorite dish and drink? 
    Fish dish and Mango juice.

    What about movies and music? 
    I love watching Lion of The Desert (Omar Almokhtar ) movie, Tom & Jerry and classic music.

    Since your birth date matches this mont,what was your last achievments to celebrate it? 
    Well, I just finished update new version of latest news module, I participated in supporting Mydownload module, and finally, I just came back from ECIA Conference at Sharm Alshaikh, Egypt where I gave speech about online payment and XOOPS.

    If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 
    Love and Peace for all.

    If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 
    It could be anywhere, just plug me to high speed internet !

    Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 
    Marcello Brandão (Suico) to play GTA4 game. 

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  • Rune Hauge (Runeher)

    Rune Hauge 
    (
    Runeher
     Norway

    This month we would like to recognize Rune Hauge (Runeher), for his countless modules, his work on the International Support Team, and his contributions to XOOPS support sites in Norway and Nordic area.  

    Where are you from, and where do you live now? 
    I was born and raised in Stavanger, Norway's fourth largest city, but now I live and work from a closed down farm in Denmark which I'm rebuilding.

    How long have you been programming? 
    I have been programming in PHP for a few years and even longer in Flash.

    What is your expertise? 
    My expertise is actually in creative design and digital art.

    What got you to XOOPS? 
    My first experience with XOOPS was about 3-4 years ago. I needed a change from PHP-Nuke and stumbled over XOOPS. Soon after, all my sites was XOOPS...

    What do you like the most about XOOPS? 
    It's complex, yet still it's so user friendly. With some experience you can transform it into any kind of site.

    In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why? 
    I'm using most of my breaks from ordinary work to play with XOOPS, updating my sites, making modules and acting as International Support team leader.

    What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 
    I have too many to mention and they change with age, hmmm... But for the moment my absolute favorite hobby is training my five dogs, 4 bitches in heat and a very lucky and happy male dog, he he...  

    You favorite dish and drink? 
    Must say McDonalds and Coca Cola, I'm afraid... (hey,... I'm not fat!)

    What about movies and music? 
    I love sci-fi movies and I need AC/DC, KISS, Dire Straits or ZZ Top in my iPod when I'm working (I'm from that generation and I'm glad to be stuck there!!).

    If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 
    Live your life to the fullest... If you have a job you don't like, quit and do something you like. Remember that you only have about 30.000 days to live if you're lucky. Use them well!

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  • Simon Roberts (Wishcraft)

    Simon Roberts
    (
    Wishcraft
     Australia

    This month we would like to recognize Simon Roberts (Wishcraft), one of our new members of the XOOPS Development Team, and a very energetic and innovative programmer. Some of his recent additions are: x-Cake 1.1 , x-Torrent 1.32 and X-Soap 2.3

    Where are you from, and where do you live now? 
    I am from Sydney, Australia, I live with my partner in Sydney still.

    How long have you been programming? 
    I have been programming since the age of 8, my first computer was a commodore vic 20 which was a 32k eprom home computer, I moved over to IBM in the 386 days where I started to program in Turbo C++ from Borland. I later moved over to Visual basic which was my staple language for sometime. Around 4 years ago I started exploring web design and HTML Parsers and decided to learn PHP. I started by looking around for a library to learn with and decided to explorer xoops after building a few simple pages.

    What is your expertise? 
    Programming from a young age, and working in various industries, not all the time in the computer, My expertise is years of experience. I have not really wanted to sit in a learning institute and get a degree as most of the people I have met from University (at least fresh mans) have little experience and not much skill and are generally really prudent about what there course was. I find this being a bit of an anarchist and activist annoying, as well as enjoying music and culture. What got you to XOOPS? I was doing a contract with a client #1 Computing that never paid their development bill due to there dodgiest mentality, but they where using xoops for a system of roms.. I decided to check it out and decided to learn about it more.

    What do you like the most about XOOPS? 
    It flexibility and age of the project. A lot of CMS are very young and not matured but xoops has a resource and management system of websites that most people are use to. For example, when I was giving a demo of a site people where ‘ohh it is like myob’ which I felt was a great comment about the administration side of the site; also the fact it behaves much like most libraries being a very good RAD. You can have a simple module together in an hour or so that is working on the system. It also has a fantastic group of developers and support groups behind it.

    In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why? 
    Recently, I have been contributing to the modules repository, documenting these on the wiki and putting my 2 bits worth into most sections of the site. Kris_FR put me on the design team, which was a great honour, but I feel I would be more suited being a coder to module or core development, even though I am busy with work. I contribute to XOOPS, to make a better community for all, I also contribute to get more contacts and business, as I work from home and would like to expand my business to a few developers and an operation specializing in xoops.

    What you you major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 
    Well it was a couple of visual basic application, I wrote something called The Nexus Billing System, which took 5 years it was a windows application with a mysql backend that would provided interfaces with free radius etc, for billing ISP etc. The other achievement was coding a fractal encryption set (FES).

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

    You favorite dish and drink? 
    Butter Chicken and mixed dalh, I like a butterscotch snapps and soda water to drink.

    What about movies and music? 
    Rap, Psychedelic Trance, Punk Rock & Easy Classics.

    If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 
    One World, One Unity with a pictures of people with there computers networked.

    If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 
    I like Sydney, but I would consider living in Cyprus or England.

    Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 
    I would like to meet the queen of England to ask why sports stars should be knighted and not computer profession who are the staple foundation of the world communication are not knighted.

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  • John A. Vesey (JAVesey)

    John A. Vesey
    (
    JAVesey
     UK

    This month we would like to recognize JAVesey, our main Forums Moderator, and a BIG help. John spends countless hours helping XOOPS users, directing them to the right solutions.

    John, thank you very much for everything that you do for XOOPS!!! You help is very much appreciated.

    Where are you from, and where do you live now? 
    I'm originally from a village called Disley, which is about half-way between Manchester and Buxton, Derbyshire. I now live in Cardiff, South Wales. I came here to University in 1983 and have been here ever since. I'm married and have two lively young boys to cope with 

    How long have you been programming? 
    Programming? Wassat?

    The first programs I wrote were in Fortran IV on a VAX VMS whilst at Uni. Then absolutely nothing at all until I got into websites about 10 years ago. In truth, I do very little programming at all, although I have recently bought a copy of "Learning PHP & MySQL" and am working my way through that.

    What is your expertise? 
    I'm not a computer/php/code professional at all. By profession I'm a Chemist and I specialise in Air Quality/Health from a regulatory perspective.

    What got you to XOOPS? 
    I coach a junior football (i.e. soccer) team and the team's website is a XOOPS site. I saw it, looked about the web for details and stumbled upon www.xoops.org. I started building my own XOOPS site in the autumn of 2006 and this went "live" at the start of 2007 - http://www.llanmon.org.uk/. The theme used is an adaptation of the Black2 theme from http://2bcool.net/.  I merged it with a well-known XOOPS theme so that the bottom blocks work and changed a few of the graphics. I call it "Cool2BeBlackHue" which tells you which themes it's made from  

    If anyone wants it they can contact me!

    What do you like the most about XOOPS? 
    I like the www.xoops.org community best, everyone was very helpful when I was asking some rather elementary questions in the beginning. Like all communities, there are the occasional arguments and these can be depressing at times, but by and large everyone "rubs along okay" for most part.

    As far as the code goes, I like the permissions system and the fact that there's always more than one way to do something.

    In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why? 
    I guess that I contribute by giving my time to the community, moderating the Forums and trying to point folks in the right direction for modules and solving problems. It's for others to say whether my time is well spent!

    What you you major achievement in programming that you're most proud of? 
    Programming? Wassat?

    The only thing that I've done, apart from the theme, was to make a very minor hack to xcgal to allow keywords to be entered when uploading more than one picture. Don't think I broke anything doing it, so that's an achievement!!

    What are your hobbies, when you're not coding? 
    My website gives the game away........bellringing!! That's church bells rung in the "English style", i.e. full-circle ringing. It's mainly a UK thing, but there are towers in the USA, Australia and some of the other former colonies (not being provocative, honest!), too.

    My other passion is motorbiking.

    You favorite dish and drink? 
    Curry washed down with a cold beer. End of!

    What about movies and music? 
    My favourite movie is Bladerunner (the original version rather than the Director's Cut), but I do like all the James Bond stuff too.

    As for music, too much to list - everything from Frank Sinatra to Opera. I love anything that I can play my air guitar to or sing in the shower - and that usually ends up with "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin. So cool.

    If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say? 
    Make the most of your life, See things that you want to see and do the things that you want to do when you have the chance. Don't spend your life pursuing money to the exclusion of everything else - you can't take it with you.

    If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why? 
    This is the hardest one of all........the truth is that I can't decide. Long ago we had more simple lives but there were wars, sickness and disease. Now we live longer and can do more but we're ruining things for future generations.

    So I'll vote for "Wembley Stadium when England won the World Cup"!

    Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 
    Can I meet two people at the same time? George Bush and Tony Blair so that I can tell them what I think.

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  • Gerard Vanderveken (Ghia)

    Gerard Vanderveken 
    (
    Ghia
     Belgium

    This month we would like to recognize Gerard Vanderveken (Ghia) for his continues support of XOOPS users.  Gerard is another example of those XOOPS supporters who spend their time helping other XOOPS Member and and help to keep the community going. Thank you!!!!

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

    I live in a little village called Ottenburg, that is part of Huldenberg in the province Vlaams-Brabant and not so far from Brussels, the capital of Belgium in the EU.

    How long have you been programming? 

    I made my first program at the university college Groep T in Leuven in 1978. It was a Fortran program encoded in a stack of punch cards to resolve quadratic equations.

    What is your expertise? 

    I have made and modified a lot of programs for PLC, PDP, Palm, PC, weighing terminals, etc in various languages as assembler, Fortran, TL1, C and Delphi.
    It's difficult to single some out, because they are like children and you love the ugly ones as much as the brightest (without designating them as such). 
    Among the things that I have realized are production and weight registration systems in retail and various industries such as carton mills, glass factories, chemical and pharmaceutical plants and slaughterhouses; an athlete training system and a telephone number portability system, just to name a few.

    What got you to XOOPS? 

    I was starting a year ago a website for my badminton club and I accidently singled out XOOPS in the installable CMS scripts from cPanel.

    What do you like the most about XOOPS? 

    It's rich possibilities by the choice of modules.

    In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why? 

    I give some support on XOOPS.org and frXOOPS.org. For XOOPS.nl I could also, but I'm in doubt and I have some reservations.

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

    Reading books, badminton, swimming, walking and I have a big garden which I regulary neglect.

    You favorite dish and drink? 

    I have as all the people from Belgium Burgundian roots, so we enjoy a good meal amidst our friends or family. Typical dishes are: Steak and salade, Flemish Carbonades or Mussels, all with frites. And I think you all know the Belgian Waffles and Chocolates. Our region is also known for its glasshouses with grapes and I own one myself, so in the season I can enjoy plenty of this exclusif fruit.
    I like to drink a good beer.

    What about movies and music? 

    My favourite writer is Jack Vance. I liked very much the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I'm also in for action, romantic or comedy movies. For music I like mostly rock, but also more contemporary music, as turned daily on my favorite radio station Studio Brussel (live), without forgetting old time favorites as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep,  Hawkwind, Brownsville Station, David Bowie, etc.

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

    I agree with Albert Einstein who has said: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." So, I believe whatever I say in such a commercial will have very little or no impact at all. But for the record: We are borrowing a lot from the future to sustain our current lifestyles. It's now time to change and to think how we can sustain the future, otherwise our centuries will be cursed for millenia to come.

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

    I believe all places and times have their merits, but not more or less then what we have. Anyway the law of conservation of misery is in effect, so on one side you will always loose what you have gained at the other.
    This way,  there is no use to pursue happiness elsewhere. You better make the most of it, right here and now.
    You could dream of some unreal places, but if they become reality, what will then be left to dream of?

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

    Nobody.

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  • Jiang Taiwen (phppp)

    2005

    Jiang Taiwen
    (
    phppp
     China

    Xooper of the month is a new section in the wox, replacing 'Site of the month' as we felt that it will provide a more communal area to the newsletter by focussing more on the community itself. For our 1st Xooper of the month we decided on Phppp.
    As you are aware phppp is very active in the XOOPS community, so we asked him a few questions (below)

    m0nty: You've been an active developer for XOOPS for quite some time, when did you 1st start to use XOOPS and what reasons did you choose it over other CMS?

    phppp: In Jan 2004, it was the first time that I was told of a CMS named "XOOPS" when being asked by a friend to choose a program for him, XOOPS was suggested as a candidate. I had played with a variety of stand alone PHP scripts and been maintaining several community sites. I was so excited to find such a flexible, extensible system, just an ideal framework for both PHP+MySQL study and production site. Since then, I have been a XOOPS geek. Apart from technical considerations, goghs, the creator of XOOPS has inspired me from the beginning as he is from my country and we have a similar family background.

    m0nty: Do you have any tips you could offer to new XOOPS users to help them get all they can out of using XOOPS for their websites?

    phppp: As a developer, I have no extensive experiences in building XOOPS sites. However, as a local support webmaster, I wish my suggestions could be helpful to new XOOPS users. First, get XOOPS installed successfully: English users are lucky to have XOOPS FAQ and the biggest support forum at xoops.org. For other language users, just feel free to ask for help at your local support site, do not be shy. Second, choose proper modules: For a production site, the simpler the better. Ask advice from your local support site or check Yet Another XOOPS Site (YAXS) at xoops.org to get a reasonable module candidate list. Don't forget "Site of the Month" presented in previous WOX.
    Good news, Mithrandir and his team are preparing packages for different application purposes. Themes, really a hard choice. Be careful, playing with themes could make XOOPS an addiction to you:) I would strongly recommend the XOOPS Stand Alone Server (XSAS), either as a sandbox for webmasters or as debug toolkits for developers.

    m0nty: What do you think of the support of the XOOPS Community? Do you feel that XOOPS provides better support than other CMS programs and do you think it could be improved at all?

    phppp: Powered by you! XOOPS has the most active and fast growing community. A XOOPS user can always get timely help from the community. I am extremely glad to learn that, besides a technical support community, several management teams are just kicking-off, including teams of WOX, News, promoting, and more. Power of the community will for sure make XOOPS management effective and benefit the community as return.

    m0nty: You have contributed some great modules for the XOOPS community such as the Digest module and Newbb2 aswell as your most recent CBB Forum based on Newbb2. As i read that CBB was meant for chinese users initially and with your departure from the Newbb development team, there is still some confusion with users regarding the status of these modules. Could you give any insight into the future of newbb or CBB as many users are wondering if CBB is to replace newbb officially?

    phppp: I am proud having contributed several modules to XOOPS community and several for Chinese community, among of which NewBB 2 was the one that I had been loving most. It was a great collaboration with my friend Marko Schmuck since I joined the NewBB 2 Project. We had a very comfortable time and formed an effective work pattern.
    In Feb, on a high request for customizing NewBB 2 from XOOPS Chinese community and with other concerns, I decided to quit NewBB 2 project and to focus on CBB and several other projects. It was a hard decision but I had to manage to continue my support and development life. CBB was meant to be a "Chinese version of NewBB" and I am glad to see it now targets a "Community Bulletin Board". NewBB 2 is a native module based on XOOPS codebase, highly object oriented and, most important, completely integrated with XOOPS framework.
    Based on NewBB 2 and with great assistance from XOOPS community, including bug report, feature request and improvement suggestions, CBB is towarding a fast, secure, stable and user friendly forum product. To speed up the process, a project team is going to be established with coders, layout designers and graphics. It is not important whether CBB is going to be an official takeover of NewBB, but for sure CBB will be kept on the top of my priority. As the further development of NewBB 2, CBB is going to keep the dirname of "newbb" and I wish Marko will come back once everything is settled down.

    m0nty: What developments are you working on at the moment (if any) or have you any new modules planned for the future? I hear WF-Sections 3 maybe on the go, can you tell us a little bit more about these projects?

    phppp: I would like to use the same "C" from CBB to CMS, Community Management System. Wfsection 3 is another major module I am working on with WF Projects Team led by Eike. It is at internal test stage with some features: cross-category, easy-clone, interaction with other modules, XML support, basic/adv edit mode, and more. However, Wfs 3 is more like a conceptual project with some experiments for backend coding and front feature, and it will be expanded to a community based multi-use blog project "xblog", along with which remote content repository (expanded from XMLine module) and social bookmark will also be implemented.

    m0nty: it's also good to hear that you have become a XOOPS core team member along with Hervet & marcan, this must be a welcomed move for you as i'm sure your skills and contributions will make XOOPS better for everyone.
    phppp: It is a great pleasure that I have the chance to make contribution to XOOPS core. I hope we will help improve XOOOPS from various aspects based on our experiences.

    m0nty: From a user point of view, what would you say is the best features about XOOPS?

    phppp: XOOPS is a most competitive open source CMS and the first choice for Chinese and Asian users. Security, comprehensive permission system, easy to install and convenient/active community support are among the biggest contributors.

    m0nty: and from a developers point of view?

    phppp: As a developer, I stay with XOOPS for I could not find a better framework that provides well designed architecture allowing me just to focus on application development. And the lead developers provide XOOPS with promising and reliable perspective.

    Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, and for your continued support of xoops.

    Additionally, Phppp is looking for Users to help him with development of CBB in various areas

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