Author: Olly

  • Converting vbulletin 3.6.7 to MyBB 1.2.12

    I am forever changing maxxd.com, but quite recently i havent really done much to it. I was having to piss about with vbulletin’s really over confusing admin system just to make slight changes to stuff, and everything for it costs money.. I wanted a seo mod, and its like as much as the frickin software!

    My other forum (SSDB crew!) runs MyBB and has done for over a year, and its the best forum software i have ever had the privilege if using. I have used EVERYTHING at some point or another, and none are as easy to work with, customise and enjoy as MyBB is!

    So, after plucking up the courage for weeks and weeks, i planned to shut the vbulletin forums and start moving the stuff over to the new fresh shiny MyBB installation that i had installed onto a subdomain.

    I needed to gather the scripts i needed to perform the merge, i got myself the latest version of phpbb installed, and mybb, and installed easyphp onto my computer.

    I got a converter for vbulletin 3.6.7 to phpbb2 from here, and did a bit of swatting up on peoples previous attempts to see if they ran into any problems. I installed phpbb onto my local machine, and started downloading the vbulletin database. The mybb merge system was downloaded from the mybb website

    Due to the fact the forum was fairly large, and vB stores attachments in the database, the mysql db was huge! The last time i did something like this the most time consuming task was splitting the database down to workable sizes.

    As i was installing it on my local machine i was able to copy the db (once it had finished downloading) to a directory on my local machine and edit a config file so that it was available in a drop down box on the file import screen of phpmyadmin. And although at times i thought it had crashed – it finally finished loading and the db was imported successfully.

    I then realised that in order for the vB to phpbb merge to work, all the tables needed to be on one db. Ah shit. So i removed the one i had jsut created, and opened the phpbb db. Did the import again, and it worked.

    I then ran the phpbb merge script and followed the instructions on it. I noticed that on the first step it claimed to not have picked up the vB tables in the db. But it actually had! I had to adjust the timeout limit in php.ini as a few of the steps (thread and post conversion) timed out.

    Once i had finished, i removed the old vb tables, and removed the mer4ge script so all i had was my forum in phpbb format. I then exported the db from my local machine to a sql file on my desktop. It hadn’t copied the forum permissions, usergroups or attachments, but i wasnt bothered. The lack of attachments meant the db was TINY in comparison.

    I then imported the db to my webhost, and started the mybb merge system. I have to say that their merge system is much better than the one i used a few steps ago, much more stable and professional. It didnt take that long to complete apart from the post and thread parts. As i had chosen to only do 200 per page, and there was over 30,000!

    After it finished, i was left with all my forums, users, posts, polls and threads. No attachments or PM’s but that was a small price to pay to now be running the best forum software available. One thing i had to do was go into the admin panel and go to the recount & rebuild section in order to rebuild the “Last post” bits on threads and the forum index.

    After a day of re-doing the groups and making it look pretty it was done. I have been slowly adding plugins to make ti better, so far i have the latest attachment gallery, the warning system and the SEO plugin. I had the image resizer oen too but it was messing up large images, saying something about hotlinking not allowed. I turned it off and the images work fine now!?

    Anyway, i thought i would share this with the world, to maybe try and persuade a few other people to move away from vbulletin to a much better piece of kit. MyBB 🙂

  • What runs through these peoples minds?

    I understand that not everybody has the same point of view as me on nature, and the great outdoors. I would be so happy living on some beach or up some mountain miles away from anyone (as long as i had the internet somehow hee hee) with just my girlfriend and my poochie to talk to. To me, that is the perfect existence.

    Since gettin bonnie i have done lots of walking and both me and gem have both started appreciating the outdoors even more. We walk her in the mornings around this huge field thing right next to our house. There is a big bit of overgrown grassland, a old road that go’s right round the back and if you walk up that a fair bit you can cut across to this HUGE sand field. Its a really good walk for her (and me) in the mornings as there is lots of room to throw sticks into the grass and on the sand bit. Bonnie loves it!

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    Our first beef with this walking area, was the dog shit. My latest beef, is with the bellamy road scumbags who see no harm in dumping their shit along the road at the back of the wasteland. There is a lot of rubbish around anyway, as i dont think the land is looked after by anyone, but we went out the other morning and there was two HUGE piles of shit. Carpets, bags full of polystirene, old fencing, boxes.. Even some old plant pot type things! You name it, it was there.

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    And we were out this morning, and someone had burnt out a (probably stolen) mini motorcross bike.  The wheels were in fine condition, and to be honest the engine didnt look bad, but all the plastics were melted so it would of been impossible to fix. It was just lying burnt out in the middle of the track. Why?

    Why steal it in the first place?

    Why burn it out?

    Why blatantly litter a lovely little trail that MANY people walk dogs along?

    Why why why??!?!

    Its times like these i wish i had patience, cos id sit there for days and days waiting for the little bastards to come back then set them on fire and leave them to burn in the middle of the road – see how they like it!

    When i have a jeep, or when the pickup is working, im gonna go down the track and tidy it up i think. There are lots of bricks and stuff im gonna steal and build a BBQ in the back garden, and the rest of the stuff i will take to the tip.

    Then i think im gonna do some flyers, and post them in every door in this area so that people know i have cleaned it up, and that im watching the fuckers and if i see anyone flytipping ill ring the police after shooting them from my bedroom window!

    One day these inconsiderate fuckheads will learn and witness my wrath!

  • Tesco must of read my blog

    Becasue they have put their unleaded petrol down to 99.9 a litre. Its so much more satisfying going and putting£10 worth of juice in and getting MORE than 10 litres 🙂 – it is still extorsionate though isnt it!

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  • Lime Green Nokia N73

    As you may remember from an old post, i painted my N73 fascia as im poor and cant afford a new phone. This was going swel for a while until a lot of the paint started to peel off, so i used my skillz and took the cover off again – and set about painting it once more. I opted for a chrome look, so i sanded most of the bright orange off, gave it a matt black under coat, then a chrome-look top coat. I let it dry for a day.. Was still wet.. Left for 2 days.. Still sticky.. Hmm

    All the paint had reacted, and NEVER set right, so the phone would stick to my face, and the thing you listen to people through was blocked with paint so i couldnt hear anyone. It was a disaster!

    So i searched on ebay, and found that replacement fascias from china were only going for about £7 – so i looked about and found a really cool one and bought it! A week later, it arrived, and i set about fitting it to my phone!

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    I first removed the old cover, and wasnt bothered if it was damaged as it was going in the bin, it was most satisfying ripping it off and screwing it up into a ball.  I then compared the bits i had removed, to the bits i was gonna put on – they all looked about the same so i started cleaning the phone so that when the new case was on it was nice and sparkly.

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    It didnt take long for the new case to fit on, and what a fit! It was as if it was made by nokia! The only thing i couldnt replace was the joystick thing, as it didnt come with a little pole thing, and the pole thing in the old part wouldnt come out. Apart from that the front, back and keypad were all new – making my Nokia N73 look like a new phone! Not bad to say its over 2 years old!