beta

What bbPress Needs To Really Work

April 1, 2008 By Thord Daniel Hedengren

I’m a dedicated WordPress user, and I know the system if not inside out so good enough to do more or less anything I want with it. That means I’m pretty psyched about the bbPress forum software, AJ’s written about it previously, the popular guide post. That was a while ago, October 2006 actually, but I’d say it still works out if you want to give bbPress a go. It might be a bit easier and polished today, but not much.

bbPress is still a bit from 1.0. Quite a bit, honestly. While I do think a forum system should be pretty slimmed down, not including everything I don’t need (but offering it as great kickass plugins), there are some things that bbPress lacks that just have to be in there.

Subscribe to updates. There is a RSS option, but I want an e-mail digest as well, telling me when someone posted in the thread I’m interested in.
Individual forum access. Sometimes you want locked forums, so why not let me set access on a per user basis? Or, failing that, for groups of users at least? And please let me have users in several groups, thank you very much. (Need private forums today? There’s a plugin, at least, although it is a bit lacking.)
User bling-bling. At least some bling… You know, avatars, signatures, those kind of things. Actually, those two would get bbPress a long way. Not being able to set up a signature even, that’s pretty weak if you ask me.

bbPress is still a bit from 1.0. Quite a bit, honestly.

One could also argue that bbPress needs more themes and plugins, since although there is quite a bunch of the latter, they aren’t really as refined as you’d think they would be, it being a sister project to WordPress and all. Also, the presentation is miles behind, especially now when WordPress is in 2.5 and sports a brand new look.

bbPress is in version 0.8.3.1 at the moment. While they say it’s not quite ready yet – obviously – I’d say it is pretty stable. I’m using it for some closed groups at least, but that’s about it.

Well, there are plans now, so I need to decide if bbPress is ready. In my opinion, it works, but it doesn’t work as well as it should.

What do you think? Is bbPress ready for a live site?

Photoshop CS3 Beta Preview

December 15, 2006 By Devlounge

The first Photoshop CS3 beta was recently released to the public, and we wasted no time jumping in to see what was new with this release and just how things are coming along. Within 10 minutes of learning about the release I had it downloaded, and it was time to begin the installation process and get this rolling.

Install

Before installing you are first required to extract the files to a temp folder first. Once the extraction finishes (less than 5 minutes), you are then presented with the installation screen with a glistening blue hue that has a very lot of “Vista” feel to it.

Photoshop CS3 Beta - Install Process

The Installation process itself takes about 10-15 minutes. The installer is broken down into multiple parts, starting from the System Check (make sure you don’t have any other programs open during install because you’ll have to quit the installer to exit them before it lets you install) all the way to the second to last step when it actually installs. The Options screen lets you add or remove various components before install, and there are a lot of them.

First Launch

When you launch the product for the first time, you’re asked to enter in a serial, which can be obtained from Adobe for free if you enter your CS2 serial on the Photoshop 3 beta site, or “Try Photoshop for 30 Days”, which is supposedly only two days. Adobe has taken the time to blacklist all the cracked serial numbers generated from some of the best Photoshop CS2 keygens, so don’t think it will be a walk in the park if you do not have a real, valid copy of CS2.

Photoshop CS3 - Layout Overview

Updated Interface

The interface has been updated and now sports rounded windows which can be expanded and collapsed, along with, whatelse, closed. Windows are organized a lot more, and some toolbar tools have been updated and changed slightly, but not too much.

Photoshop CS3 Beta - New Layout

Improved Performance

CS3 seemed to perform tasks much quicker than CS2, which was really nice to see, especially since it’s only at beta stage at the moment. I was able to work with large images and create some large files without much effort and little slowdown. Always good to see.

Various New Features

Using the Workspace dropdown you can select “What’s New in CS3”, which will highlight all the new features over CS2 in blue in the menus. Some of the new features we noticed: A check in feature for keeping track of who and when PSD’s were last updated, a new “Device Central”, Open as Smart Object, a new Animation window (no more need for Imageready), and various updates / additions to Adjustment layers.

New and Updated Tools

With CS3 also comes updated versions of Adobe Stock Photos and Adobe Bridge, as well as the introduction of a Device Manager, which allows you to preview and manage your devices, as well as save files for a specific device, for example, mobile phone or PDA. The device manager looks pretty cool, and gives you an example of what an image would look like in a particular device.

Photoshop CS3 - New Device Manager

Bridge also sports a new interface, but it is very hardware demanding. If your computer is a few years old, don’t expect Bridge to run. I received warnings that I did not have enough ram (512MB recommended) and a fast enough processor, and as soon as I made it onto Bridge it crashed, so I wasn’t able to play around with it as much as I would have liked to.

Adobe Bridge CS3 - Layout Overview

Progress

Overall, for the first beta, CS3 is on the right track. I like the new features and I expect they’ll be even more before the final release, schedule for the spring of ’07. The performance improvements of this release is what I really liked, because not having a super high tech powerhouse computer I was still able to get things done quickly, and that’s something I definitely liked.

Try it for yourself

You can download CS3 and give it a try for yourself today. What do you think of the release so far?

Adobe Releases PS CS3 Beta

December 15, 2006 By Devlounge

Adobe has released a brand new beta of Photoshop CS3, the next in line in the Photoshop family. You can grab it here (Note: Requires login to Adobe). I’ll put together a review in the next day or two after I’ve had a chance to play around with it.

Another important note: To use the beta longer than two days you’ll need to have a licensed version of Photoshop currently installed on your computer. See the download site for more information.

Migration Patterns: A Flock Review

June 19, 2006 By Devlounge

Earlier last week our buddy Paul published the Definitive Flock Review. It was an excellent review that covered just about every aspect of flock, from installing to each one of it’s highly talked about features. The review explained so much, it convinced me to finally take the plunge and download flock.

What is it

Flock is the newest browser to be based off of Mozilla’s Gecko Rendering Engine. Before you roll your eyes and say, “another one”, take a look at what flock has to offer.’

Flock was set out to be a “social browser”, allow the incorporation of Flickr, social bookmarking, and even blogging directly from the browser, regardless of what page you were on.

Visiting Flock

Visiting flock for the first time, you instantly fall in love with the simplicity of the site design. The redesign, handled by Bryan of Avalonstar (easy to tell once you look at the colors and fonts), conveys Flock message clearly and easily, even using some flash to showcase some of Flocks’ features.

Download and Installation

Flock is a generally small download, weighing in at just under 8MB. Installation is quick and easy. Upon launching flock for the first time, you are given the chance to import settings from both Firefox and Internet Explorer, and then there is a short setup wizard that follows. You are then taken to the flock welcome page, highlighting all of its various features.

Worth A Look

There are many wonderful features that Flock has incorporated. Personally, my favorites are built in rss reader and live search, that scours the net for search results while you continue to browse around.

Flock still has a ways to go, but it is off to a wonderful start. I suggest you have a look at Paul’s full flock review, and then take Flock for a test-drive of your own.