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Introduction
Those of you in the shoutbox have been getting glimpses here and there as I link to it but I wanted to make a formal discussion thread about what's going on.
vBulletin Solutions, an Internet Brands company, is streaming along with their new version of vBulletin - vB 4.0. With this new version comes a Content Management Suite (CMS), the forums that we have now, and Blogs.
They originally released Beta 3 to forum owners with valid vBulletin licenses. A week later they released Beta 4. The rumor is that the next beta will actually be Release Candidate (RC) 1. The last version of VB had a few RCs before it eventually went Gold. I'm hoping that we will have a Gold release by the middle of January but I'm not quite sure. Once they release the Gold version we will be migrating our forum over to the new vB 4.0.
Migration Plan
When vB 4.0 is Gold, I will schedule a weekend to work on migrating us over to the new version. What I will be doing is backing up our site 100%, then disable all of the modifications and do the upgrade. I will then install all of the modifications that we have now that are available for vB 4.0. We might be missing a few features here and there but overall I think it will be very beneficial to migrate early and make it easier for ourselves.
Why Upgrade?
The biggest reason is security. Every version of vBulletin improves on security. The most noticable reason: Security Tokens. I'm sure a majority of you are familiar with the "Security Token" error message that pops up when you try to upload an image that's too big in file size. What happened is that vBulletin rolled out this new security feature in a patch and it broke stuff. Aside from that - vB4.0 has a lot of new features that I really think everyone is going to enjoy. The Blog is going to be cool because I want to use it instead of our Project forum. People can have a running blog of the projects they're working on and the progression. Another cool feature is the Asset Manager. The Asset Manager lets you keep a little private portfolio of your images that you can use ANYWHERE. So imagine all those times you uploaded a picture of your car to a thread and then a few weeks later you want to use that pic again. You have to hunt the thread down that you used the pic and then hope that you can get it to display properly in the post you want to use it in. Not anymore with Asset Manager - every time you upload an image to the site it goes into your private portfolio and can be accessed in the forums, in the blogs, etc. Think of it kind of like the CarDomain pics - it's not really a gallery that's on display for everyone but it's your pics that you have uploaded that you can use on any page. I imagine it will be cool to use your favorite smilies that aren't used on our site. You can upload them into the Asset Manager and then use them anywhere by using the thumbnail button just like you were going to attach it again. Plus a lot of other cool little features.
If you would like to take a look at the beta version of the site, check it out here:
http://www.mifbody.com/beta/
Please keep in mind that it's a work in progress as far as the colors of the site are concerned. I've only really worked on the "Home" page.
Those of you in the shoutbox have been getting glimpses here and there as I link to it but I wanted to make a formal discussion thread about what's going on.
vBulletin Solutions, an Internet Brands company, is streaming along with their new version of vBulletin - vB 4.0. With this new version comes a Content Management Suite (CMS), the forums that we have now, and Blogs.
They originally released Beta 3 to forum owners with valid vBulletin licenses. A week later they released Beta 4. The rumor is that the next beta will actually be Release Candidate (RC) 1. The last version of VB had a few RCs before it eventually went Gold. I'm hoping that we will have a Gold release by the middle of January but I'm not quite sure. Once they release the Gold version we will be migrating our forum over to the new vB 4.0.
Migration Plan
When vB 4.0 is Gold, I will schedule a weekend to work on migrating us over to the new version. What I will be doing is backing up our site 100%, then disable all of the modifications and do the upgrade. I will then install all of the modifications that we have now that are available for vB 4.0. We might be missing a few features here and there but overall I think it will be very beneficial to migrate early and make it easier for ourselves.
Why Upgrade?
The biggest reason is security. Every version of vBulletin improves on security. The most noticable reason: Security Tokens. I'm sure a majority of you are familiar with the "Security Token" error message that pops up when you try to upload an image that's too big in file size. What happened is that vBulletin rolled out this new security feature in a patch and it broke stuff. Aside from that - vB4.0 has a lot of new features that I really think everyone is going to enjoy. The Blog is going to be cool because I want to use it instead of our Project forum. People can have a running blog of the projects they're working on and the progression. Another cool feature is the Asset Manager. The Asset Manager lets you keep a little private portfolio of your images that you can use ANYWHERE. So imagine all those times you uploaded a picture of your car to a thread and then a few weeks later you want to use that pic again. You have to hunt the thread down that you used the pic and then hope that you can get it to display properly in the post you want to use it in. Not anymore with Asset Manager - every time you upload an image to the site it goes into your private portfolio and can be accessed in the forums, in the blogs, etc. Think of it kind of like the CarDomain pics - it's not really a gallery that's on display for everyone but it's your pics that you have uploaded that you can use on any page. I imagine it will be cool to use your favorite smilies that aren't used on our site. You can upload them into the Asset Manager and then use them anywhere by using the thumbnail button just like you were going to attach it again. Plus a lot of other cool little features.
If you would like to take a look at the beta version of the site, check it out here:
http://www.mifbody.com/beta/
Please keep in mind that it's a work in progress as far as the colors of the site are concerned. I've only really worked on the "Home" page.
357ci LT1, cammed, stalled, and driven. 
burn rubber!
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