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Having  just removed beta 1 a few weeks ago, skipping beta 2 with the intention of waiting for beta 3, I have installed beta 3 into a test directory.

I’m not sure if I’m convinced with version 3 yet or not. Yes it looks new, and some areas are good; but at a first look there is too much content stuffed in, for no reason at all.

Looking through the admincp, I can see the board is still tied to the 2.x series; which is a disappointment. Many of the features could have been enhanced, and operate better than they do/have done.

Load times, wow. In the admincp these are sloooow. One of the main features for the update was reduced load times. Fail. Hopefully everything runs smoother in the final version.

Comparison to ZetaBoards. This really surprised me actually, many of the features in ZB outweigh IP.Board quite a bit; and I’m not being biased here, these are the features that are tied to the 2.x series that should be overhauled, since IPS has the ability to make awesome software run flawlessly.

The ZetaBoards admincp is less complicated, it took me about 40 minuets on and off to work out where everything is; whilst the IP.Board admincp is cluttered; awkward; flow-less and painful to navigate.

I haven’t tested the board much, as I just couldn’t be bothered. I had more fun setting up my secret lair.

I’m planning to upgrade our community forums some time after the 3.0.1 release of IP.Board, as this gives us a chance to see through the updates; and check out any new modifications. I’m also aiming to design a theme this time. I never found the time to do it for 2.3.x

2009 never started out too well for me, almost everything sucked. Until February rolled along…

On Friday the 6th of February 2009 I was promoted to Support Staff at Zathyus Support.

“What?” I hear some of you ask. For those of you who are un-familiar, Zathyus Support is the official support board for InvisionFree and ZetaBoards, both of which are free message boards that allow you to create an online community; from Guild Clans and RPG’s, to Animals and Sandwich Making.

I somehow have a small dedication to the Zathyus Network, even though our community forums are self hosted. I think it has something to do with the in-ability to break free. They lock the gates tight on a night; and have scary security peoples too.

During some random moment on IRC, I was approached by Stephen who told me the staff team wanted me and asked if I was interested. I was speechless; shocked; and surprised at the opportunity. It’s certainly a great honour to be apart of the community, let alone the staff behind it.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings, and look forward to many anniversaries as Support Staff.

I’m certainly on something this week.

For the first time ever, I think, I have an image in my Zathyus signature.

I was slightly bored yesterday, or possibly the day before, I hadn’t slept for quite a while; and decided to make an image, which actually turned out pretty good.

The little fluffy kitty on it is something I came across in Google, so if you made it; or know the person, leave a comment so I can praise you. It’s soooo cute.

You can head over to my Zathyus profile and have a look at me.

Since you’re here now, my guess is you stalk me anyway.

Not so long ago the ZetaBoards IRC channel was sort of semi took over.

A message from Kezzie & Tony: “On behalf of your supreme master, Stanley, this channel is now ours!”

As no-one seemed to be around it was decided that we would stage a topic change, on behalf of our beloved leader Stanley.

It may not be the channel takeover of the year, but it’s good enough! If anyone wishes to dispute it, Stanley will feast on your remains.

Over at Zathyus Support, a user requested some support to edit the colour of their portal sidebar links.

Being a nice guy, I linked them to two topics that would give them all the help they would ever need when styling the portal. This is where it became worse.

The user either hadn’t read the topics, or just skimmed over them and then stated that nothing worked. OK, that’s fine, so I post up the method they would need to use, again hoping they would read it. They never read it, stating that what I posted changed the backgrounds according to the image from one of the earlier linked topics. Hmm, so now they have read the topics, but it seems apparent they haven’t tried what I posted.

This is where a nice little rant comes in to play. I growled a bit, then moaned a bit, and guess what. The previous post I made suddenly works!

I implore everyone to rant nicely every once in a while. People may start to learn, and not just take take take.

The Zathyus Anniversary has come to an end after three weeks of celebrations, and it couldn’t have ended better.

First of all, the staff have done an awesome job organising the events and I wish to say thank you once more, so thank you!

Time for some of the best news now! Throughout the games we had the chance to earn points by participating in, and winning, the events. Some of the games, like Zathyus Trivia, gave us the opportunity to gain hundreds of points towards our totals. After three weeks of gaming I have managed to amass myself 869 points, which is a lot!

So much so that the next person only had 540. With a clear 329 point lead I was declared winner of the anniversary events. Woo!

Not only do I win bragging rights, but I have prizes from the staff, which include:

• A user group change; group icon; and coloured name for four weeks;
• Two months of ZetaBoards Premium, for free;
• 25,000 Ad Removal credits, for free;
• and a $25 gift card for threadless.com from my Boss Lady.

I’m slightly surprised I won, as I never thought I would. Especially by the margin that I did.

I want to once again say well done to the other winners, Tim and ElementalAlchemist, and DanT for winning the iPod Touch. Well done guys.

Now I have to decide who to pass the board related prizes on to.

Over at Zathyus Support, as part of the Anniversary, we had the chance to create a few items for the staff in the Extreme Makeover Competition.

Quite a lot of the entries are really good, which you can see for yourself.

I had a go at an emote for Brian, and he has decided to use it. Yay, ph34r my ImageReady skills.

This is the emote I created:

I’m almost happy with it, I just don’t like the cards. There is still excess white in the background, but that was due to the default base .png having it. If I messed about with it everything would have been ruined. I have now since solved the issue of excess white, and edited the icon slightly to optimise the layers and change several frame rates.

Hopefully the emote will stay with Zathyus for a long time. That would be really nice.

Woooaaa, after tallying up the point totals I’ve come to realise I’m now in third place overall. :D

Yay, I’m good at stuff!

I’m somehow also second in the Zathyus Trivia, which is surprising since I barely know anything about what’s happened through the years. (I have had to do a lot of searching to find the answers I’ve gave).

The current question has me stumped though, as well as the random hidden trivia. St00pid trivias!

I’ll just have to try my hardest and remain at the top of the rankings. I wonder if I’ll still get my bonus 5 points for keeping score?

Over at InvisionFree/ZetaBoards Support I have been given the task of points keeper for the Anniversary Celebrations.

It’s an honor to be given the opportunity to be involved in the community at such a level, and would most likely be even better if I wasn’t also in it for the chance to reduce my months suspension by a couple of weeks, or in full, if Stephen allows.

For the next few days, to a week, I’m Hazels slave. It’s not as bad as you might think, I’m really enjoying the task and am really involved in it.

I’m also going to see if I can be an assistant in Deal With The Devil! for one of the games, as that would be fun. I doubt I’ll be allowed to be the devil though. Staff only perk I think.

If you haven’t checked out these celebrations yet what are you waiting for? Get over there and earn some points.

Yes you read it right. I have been suspended from IF/ZB Support for one whole month!

Now before you start to worry, I wasn’t doing something I shouldn’t have been, it was my ‘prize’ from Deal With The Devil. A game based around Deal or No Deal, being played during the InvisionFree and ZetaBoards Anniversary.

I probably had the worst game ever played, and it was my first time, with all but two of the good prizes going in the first few rounds. This left all of the bad ones, with a couple of good deals from The Devil, but I’m stubborn and persistent so carried on playing.

I can’t exactly blame the luck of the draw, as I could have accepted The Devils offers but curiosity can destroy anything!!

I’ve just checked out the topic for the community signatures, and Stephen is offering 5 points to someone who will tally up each signies points. I have expressed my interest in this, 5 points is 5 points after all, and he’s responded with an offer to reduce my suspension in half. How cool is that?

I wonder if he will reduce it completely if I write a topic praising him, which was one of The Devils offers.