Charles

IPS is investigating a possible security exploit reported to us a few hours ago. We are developing a fix for this issue now and anticipate its release tomorrow. Until the fix is released, clients are advised to delete the following file from their community: interface/ipsconnect/ipsconnect.php This will disable the IPS Connect service which is our system to allow for multiple sites to share one login. Most clients will not need this service but if you do use it then we still suggest you temporarily disable until a fix is released tomorrow. IPS Community in the Cloud clients: we have already disabled this feature for you so you are not impacted by this exploit. Update: Patches are now available.

We are happy to release the second beta of IPS Community Suite 4.0! IPS welcomes any clients who enjoy testing beta software to participate and post bugs in our bug tracker. These beta releases help us to provide a more stable final release and the more people who participate in testing the better it is for all. This release makes available: Forums Blog Gallery Downloads Calendar This release does not contain Commerce (formerly IP.Nexus), Pages (formerly IP.content), or Chat. These three apps will be released soon as a separate download. The upgrade system is now available and you can upgrade from IP.Board 3.4.7 to test this system However: do not upgrade your live community! IPS does not provide technical support or services for beta releases. You can append "-TESTINSTALL" on to the end of your license key to allow to a separate install for test purposes. Downloading You can download IPS Community Suite 4.0.0 Beta 2 in the client area. Go to your Purchases section, select your license, and click the download link. IPS Community in the Cloud clients do not yet have access to the beta. That will be coming soon. You will be able to upgrade from Beta 2 to Beta 3 when it is released and to all future betas through final release. If you are not interested in downloading our beta releases you can still check out our IPS Community Suite 4.0 preview site to see the new version in action. Note: If you are already running Beta 1 you can upgrade in your AdminCP. You will see a notice on your Dashboard. Discussion Please post in our special Beta Releases forum on the preview site for anything about Beta 2. Enjoy! We will be upgrading our own site next week. Stay tuned! Update: Pages pre-release now available.

We are happy to release the first beta of IPS Community Suite 4.0! IPS welcomes any clients who enjoy testing beta software to participate and post bugs in our bug tracker. These beta releases help us to provide a more stable final release and the more people who participate in testing the better it is for all. This release makes available: Forums Blog Gallery Downloads Calendar This release does not contain Commerce (formerly IP.Nexus), Pages (formerly IP.content), or Chat. These three apps will be released soon as a separate download. The upgrade system is now available and you can upgrade from IP.Board 3.4.7 to test this system However: do not upgrade your live community! IPS does not provide technical support or services for beta releases. You can append "-TESTINSTALL" on to the end of your license key to allow to a separate install for test purposes. Downloading You can download IPS Community Suite 4.0.0 Beta 1 in the client area. Go to your Purchases section, select your license, and click the download link. IPS Community in the Cloud clients do not yet have access to the beta. That will be coming soon. You will be able to upgrade from Beta 1 to Beta 2 when it is released and to all future betas through final release. If you are not interested in downloading our beta releases you can still check out our IPS Community Suite 4.0 preview site to see the new version in action. Discussion Please post in our special Beta Releases forum on the preview site for anything about Beta 1. Enjoy!

If you like living on the edge and testing new products we would love your help in testing IPS Community Suite 4.0! We now have pre-release versions available for download if you are an active Community Suite license holder. Pre-Release vs. Beta This is a pre-release which means we are not quite done adding/changing some areas of the Suite. It also means that you cannot upgrade between each pre-release. Once we reach Beta stage you will be able to upgrade from Beta 1 to Beta 2 and so on. Important Information This is a preview of unfinished software. Do not install this on a live server or attempt to upgrade your current community. Please. You cannot upgrade between pre-release builds so you will have do a clean install each time we update this package. This will change when we reach proper beta stage. Only download this preview if you are comfortable testing software with known issues and want to provide bug reports and feedback. We provide no support for these pre-release builds. Please post any bugs you find in the bug tracker and feedback/questions on the preview site. We are getting close to a public beta and the final, supported release of IPS Community Suite 4.0 and appreciate your help getting there! Download Pre-Release Now Note that Nexus, Content, and Chat are not yet available for download but will show up on our preview site soon.

The IPS Community Suite 4.0 preview site is open and ready for you to start browsing our new software! We have had the site quietly open for a few weeks now getting feedback and addressing issues. We want to make sure everyone is aware so you get a chance to look at what's new. Register and have a look around at what's new. Read our updates forum to check out videos demoing the system. Get involved in feedback and bug testing. Everyone at IPS is very proud of 4.0 and really hope you enjoy it. Public beta releases of 4.0 are not yet available but are just around the corner so take this opportunity to become familiar with IPS 4.0 so your community is ready when it's released. See you on the preview site! Please keep all feedback about 4.0 on the preview site so we can keep things organized. Thanks!

The site eGullet.org was literally the first client of Invision Power Services when our company was founded over 12 years ago. Steven Shaw, along with his partner, stepped up and supported IPS in its first days and stayed with us all these years. They were our first paying client, our first hosting client, and often the first to get early betas of our releases. It was with great sadness that I read today of the passing of Steven Shaw. Steven was a friend and mentor to me personally. He advised me as IPS grew, provided valuable feedback, was our first attorney (he actually registered the first code copyright of IPB), and was always on board to hear out ideas. My first trip to New York City, my first cruise, and many great dining ideas (the man who convinced me to try wine) were all based around his friendly advice. He honored me with a copy of his book when it was released. And of course he introduced me to the joys of Julia Child by shipping me some old recordings of her show. Steven Shaw will be missed. I personally am in debt to his generosity and advice over the years as is IPS as a company. For other great tributes please Google his name.

We have seen a huge increase in people switching to us over the last year or two and want to take advantage of this momentum and offer an exciting conversion promotion. But first some information... Our Pre-Packaged Converters Our conversion scripts make it very easy to convert your existing community to the IPS Community Suite. The process is very simple: just install IPS, upload the converters, and then tell the converters what software you're coming from. It will ask you a few questions and then copy over your data to our format. For many systems we even include scripts to 301 redirect your old links so internal references and search engines don't get lost! Our converters are free to use and well-tested with thousands of successful conversions. Of course converting is not an exact science and things change all the time so we are always releasing updates to make them better and faster. Need some help? But some clients really do not have the desire to take on the process of converting data themselves. In this case we do offer professional services for a fee to have us do it for you. Normally these fees range from $500 - $1000 but for the month of December we are offering a flat-rate fee of $350 to convert your community to IPS if it is on the list of one of our pre-made converters. Just contact sales@invisionpower.com to get started. Even better news: if you're converting to IPS Community in the Cloud we will convert your existing database at no cost! Contact sales@invisionpower.com for full information. Converting from something else? If your software is not listed on our pre-made converter list we can still assist in converting. Maybe you're using something that's old, niche, or even custom. We have a lot of experience converting people to our platform and would love to assist you. Contact sales@invisionpower.com with questions. What about 4.0? If you follow our blog entries you know we are hard at work on the next version of our software: IPS Social Suite 4.0. When version 4.0 is released if you have an active license you will of course get access at no extra charge! Upgrading from 3.4 to 4.0 will be very easy and our staff can even do it for you if you like. vBulletin Converter Update Over the last several months we have seen a huge increase in interest from vBulletin users wanting to convert to IPS. As we are asked so often, we want to highlight some of the key reasons to switch to us. We do not make you re-buy with each new major version release. So long as your IPS license is active you get access to new versions. We do not limit your support ticket access or charge extra fees. With an active license you get private access to our support staff. Our staff will install our software on your server at no extra charge. Our staff will even install major upgrades on your server at no extra charge. We have a whole community suite: forums, blog, gallery, CMS, chat, ecommerce, support, and with the flexibility of our platform the possibilities are endless. The IPS Marketplace is a great resource for our clients to get enhancements for their community. Think Apple's AppStore but for IPS products. IPS makes community software and services. That's all we do and our focus is helping you succeed not working against you. Ready to convert? Have Questions? You can download our free converters to give them a try. If you have questions about IPS before purchasing please email sales@invisionpower.com and we would be happy to assist. And as a reward for reading through the end there's one more thing: use the coupon code SWITCH through the end of December for 10% off your order.

IPS is happy to offer 15% off starting now through Monday on all new purchases for both new and existing clients! This includes all software licenses and Community in the Cloud hosting. This is a great time to add on those extra Suite applications you're missing or to go ahead and try out IPS if you have always been considering us. Just use the coupon code HOLIDAY2013 at checkout. Conversion Promotion Coming Soon... Are you using another community software and thinking of switching to IPS? We will be posting a great conversion promotion on Tuesday for those wanting help in converting their community data to our format. So take advantage of the 15% coupon above to order your licenses or hosting services now and then stay tuned for our conversion promotion next week!

We have a few updates to our services to share with you. Community in the Cloud For over 11 years IPS has provided hosting services for clients that want a turn-key approach to their online community. Over time we have become more and more focused on community hosting solutions so it seemed like a good time to drop the older "hosting" term and adopt a new name for our service: Community in the Cloud. Granted it's the buzzword of the day but we were in the cloud before the cloud was a term :smile:. Right now it's all that you had before but presented in a much easier to understand format. Check out our new information page: http://www.invisionpower.com/cloud-pricing This name and presentation change is just step one. We will soon be increasing our storage quotas and have some other great changes on the way! New Support Package We often get clients who are looking for a higher level of support beyond just tickets. They want training, schedule upgrade service, consultations, and more. Of course offering that level of support is intensive and in the past we have always custom-quoted such services. Now to streamline we we have created a new Premium Support package that includes: Implementation Scheduled installation time Initial training & consultation by phone or live chat Post-deployment best practices training Custom migration from other platforms* Custom skin design* Custom single sign on (SSO)* SupportSame business day ticket response Scheduled upgrade times Custom skin upgrades between versions* Security updates applied before public release Monthly MaintenanceLogs checked for signs of problems Advise and schedule if upgrades are available Database maintenance Settings reviewed for optimal performance Best practices reviews * Custom services may incur additional fees The new Premium Support package is $500 every 6 months and is available for purchase or upgrade today. If you have any questions feel free to email sales@invisionpower.com and we will be happy to help. Transfer Promotion If you are interested in moving to IPS Community in the Cloud we are offering a promotion that should make now the best time to make the switch. From now until 1 September 2013 we will offer free transfers and free conversions. This means if you are already using IPS Community Suite on your own servers but want to switch to the CiC we will move your data for you. It also means that if you are using a different community software provider and are ready to upgrade to CiC we will both transfer your data and convert it using one of our pre-made converters.

The IPS Marketplace is the place to go for plugins, skins, language packs, full applications, and other resources provided by the IPS community. Some resources are free and some have a small fee. It's a great way to find ways to personalize your community and expand its functions. Some updates... I wanted to share some general statistics on the Marketplace (yes, I'm channeling Apple here). Yesterday we reached a great milestone: Since its inception, we have paid out over $250,000 to contributors. Yes over a quarter million dollars has been paid out to those that sell resources in the Marketplace! What's even more exciting is the growth we are seeing. In fact over 40% of that total payout was done just this year! Because I love any excuse to play with Excel here's a chart showing growth trend: We also now have over 500 individual contributors that are providing both free and paid resources in the Marketplace. Improvements coming soon We are in the process of doing some cleaning up to make resources easier to find. Expect to see new categories based on what things do (moderation tools, promotion, utilities, etc.) rather than what they are (hook, mod, app, etc.) which we think will make finding resources for your community even easier. A new ability to allow us to feature more than one resource at a time has already been launched. Take a moment to browse the IPS Marketplace and see if there are any resources that would benefit your community. If you find one don't forget to thank the contributor!

IPS is always looking for ways to assist our clients in monetization and promotion of their community traffic. After we saw so many clients successfully using VigLink on their community we decided to bundle it directly in the AdminCP under the Community Enhancements section. Since then many clients have reported success in using their service. Many clients have also since looked into other monetization options and have started to really grow. Information from VigLink: If you want to give it a try simply visit your AdminCP and click Community Enhancements to turn VigLink on and start earning. IPS does benefit from this relationship however we do not take any of your commission of course.

We have launched our new blog The Development Channel to allow our development staff to more frequently update our clients on everything that goes on behind the scenes. From the technical aspects, to fun insights, and new feature announcements you can follow The Development Channel to follow our software being made.

We are happy to report some really dramatic improvements to the IPS Converters. If you have been considering switching to IPS from another community software now is the time. Performance Improvements One area for improvement we focused on was the overall time it took to do a conversion. Doing a conversion is always going to be a time consuming process as it involves translating all of your data from your old format to IPS format. But we have made two big improvements: MySQL queries, where possible, now do one 'extended' query rather than thousands of smaller queries. This means your data is fetched in one, large batch and stored rather than many smaller batches. The member conversion routine has been sped up dramatically. Some test conversions are seeing an 80% speed increase on members alone. Example statistic: 15 million post community converted 1000 posts a second and about 800 topics a second. Converted completely in 4 hours. The old converter could take more than a day to do the same. That's a huge improvement! Software Specific Improvements vBulletin Subscriptions now directly import to IP.Nexus Gallery 5 support Photopost 8 support XenForo 'likes' converted. XenForo personal conversations converted. vBulletin conversions now use the same forum/topic/post/member IDs on IPS Community Suite. This is great for SEO. Feedback Appreciated We are continuing to work on improvements to our converters. If you perform a conversion please submit a ticket and let us know of any issues you might experience so we can assist you. Special Switch Promotion If you are considering switching to the IPS Community Suite we would welcome you as a new IPS client. We are happy to provide 10% discount on new license purchases using the coupon code SWITCH at checkout. This coupon code is valid until 15 December 2012. With the recent release of IP.Board 3.4 now is a great time to take another look at IPS!

We are nearly ready to release the supported version of IP.Board 3.4 and are very excited to get this great new release out to you. Beta Testing We are currently doing a public beta test of IP.Board 3.4. If you are comfortable testing pre-release software please consider testing and letting us know any bugs you might find. You can find the pre-release on our forums but you will need to login as an active IPS Client to access. The more people who test our beta releases the better for everyone! What's New Please read these blog entries for a full list and explanation of what's new in this release. IP.SEO Removed (we have removed IP.SEO and merged all its functionality right into IP.Board!) Editor Improvements IPS Connect (please note that with the release of Connect our old Converge product will no longer function) SEO Improvements VigLink Integration Best Answer Feature AdminCP Interface Enhancements Bulk Mail with Mandrill Miscellaneous Enhancements IPS CDN Service In addition to the specifics in the blog entries we have fixed many issues and made many smaller improvements. New Backup Service Delayed We had announced a new Backup Service however this service will be not be available at release time. We want to be sure the service works reliably and would rather delay a bit than give you something that may not work properly. Obviously something as important as backups on your community is something we want to feel confident about offering. Depending on how our beta testing goes we hope to release IP.Board 3.4 by the end of November. If you are comfortable testing we encourage you to do so so we can be sure this release is as stable as possible. Thank you!

The new IPS Backup Service is our latest addition to our Community Enhancements services being introduced in IP.Board 3.4. This service allows for remote-backups of your community database processed constantly without any work on your part. How it Works The service works by logging all "write" queries to your database that are processed by the IPS Community Suite. What this means is that any time a database entry is inserted, updated, or deleted a log of that action is created. We ignore what we call transactional tables like sessions and topic markers that are updated often but if you were to lose those tables it does not really matter to your community. When you first activate the service it populates an entry in this log table for all existing items in your database to start the process fresh. The Suite then takes these logged queries and, every so often on a task, will collect a certain amount of the oldest queries and send them to the IPS Backup Service servers (over a secure connection of course). It limits how many it sends per-cycle to ensure we don't run out of memory or reach any post limits. Once those queries are successfully sent to the remote server it will delete them from the log. Using this method we do not have to create huge database dumps of your community which can cause all sorts of issues with timeouts, disk space, bandwidth requirements, and general hosting problems. Security and Protection When your data is sent to our servers it is stored on what we call our Internet gateway server. This server is a sort of dumb system that just accepts the incoming data and temporarily stores it for later processing. The "real" storage servers that permanently process and store your data are not even connected to the Internet. Of course we also implement other security measures that we will not get into but by starting with this very basic approach of not even being on the public Internet you can imagine that we take security seriously. Your data is stored in three states: active, archive, and snapshot. Active is your database that exists as it processes the incoming data. It's always the most recent copy. Of course the problem with this is if someone were to get into your community and prune all your posts that prune action is also sent to our backup servers meaning that your remote backup would also be pruned. Obviously that's an issue. To mitigate such risks we also automatically take a weekly archive of the active backup. We keep two of these archive backups (two weeks) at a time. This means that if someone were to do a prune of your topics or, for example, actually just shut off the backup services in your AdminCP you would still have a recent archive on our systems. The snapshot state is basically the same as an archive but it's one that you can manually request in the Client Area that's taken when you tell us. Failure Support At any time various things can happen that might make your remote backup no longer be of any use to you. Maybe there was an issue in your IPS Community Suite that caused an important query to not be logged. Perhaps you manually ran a query outside of the Suite. Maybe our remote servers suffered an issue. You never really know and that's why the system has two-way failure support. If the backup processing on your install has issues, or you manually do something, you can request a reset of the service in the AdminCP. This will basically start you from scratch and empty your remote backup to start from the beginning (note that archives are kept to keep this from being used maliciously). On the other hand, if our backup service has a fault (or it detects that there is some mis-match with your data) the service will do the reverse and self-delete then tell your Suite to restart from scratch. The idea here is to think ahead and recognize faults can happen and have the ability to both manually and automatically refresh a backup as needed. Accessing Data The last step in the process is of course accessing your backed up data whenever you may need it. We employ a dual authentication process to protect you: [*]Later when you might request to access your backup an email is first sent to the stored email address in step 1 with a download key. [*]Once the backup is ready a second email is sent to the current email address on record on your client account with a download link. [*]You need both the download key and the download link to access. So why do all that? The scenario we are concerned about is if someone were to gain access to your client area account on our site and change your email address to their email address. In that case they could download your whole database through our system. However, since we store your old email address that cannot be edited this makes it so they cannot access as they need to be able to check that email account too. If you lose access to one or both email addresses we will have alternate procedures in place. Of course this is not a 100% solution, nothing really is when dealing with account security, but we think it's a great extra level of protection for you. Pricing and Service As you can imagine this sort of service will require a lot of fine-tuning and will also become a mission-critical component of your community so we want to be sure we get it right. Therefore, we will initially be launching the IPS Backup Service as a beta service and there will be no cost to use it. The service will improve over time while in beta based on your feedback and, once we are comfortable that we can stand behind it and you can trust it, we will be able to announce pricing and full support. During the beta stage will be engaging our clients who are comfortable with database management to simulate failures and restores to confirm the viability of a backup. This service is very important so it's also important we check every angle possible. We are very excited and hopeful that the IPS Backup Service will be a welcomed addition to the IPS Community Suite. The service was created because of the sometimes heartbreaking situations we see in technical support from people who lose years of community data because their host fails. We really hope that this service will help people out in those horrible situations. Note that if you host your community with IPS we already perform backups for you. [*]When you first activate the IPS Backup Service your current client area email address is stored.

IP.Board 3.4 is approaching and will be released soon with all sorts of great enhancements such as SEO improvements, upgraded editor, login enhancements, core performance improvements, lots of minor changes from feedback, and more still to be announced. This is a great time to take a look at IPS if your community might still be running another software. Perhaps you have a friend or a site you visit frequently using another software and you want to encourage them to switch to the IPS Community Suite. By starting the switch process now you can have your community ready to go, be familiar with IPS software and services, and have any questions answered so when IP.Board 3.4 is released you can jump right on this new version! Advantages of IPS IPS prides itself on a few key points that have driven our success for over 10 years making community software. While there are many points these are the key factors: Our staff is engaged in the community We use our own software Great customer service Active, responsive development Switching to IPS If you are using another software provider and are ready to switch to IPS please check out our converter page on our site. We offer a free converter script that supports many existing packages. If yours is not listed please contact us and we will do our best to assist you. The converter script is very easy to use and makes a copy of your old data so you are free to try a few test conversions before going live. That's a great way to be sure all is well as switching software can be disruptive to your community so the more careful you are the better. Depending on what software you're switching from, our converter scripts can convert various data in your community. For many software packages we also offer 301 redirection scripts so your old URLs will automatically redirect to their new location. This allows for as minimal an impact as possible to your SEO and search engine exposure. Of course changing software will always have a short and medium term impact to your visibility but these scripts are a great way to help mitigate that. Ask Us or our Clients If you have any questions, need some advice, or want to get first hand experience just email sales and we will be happy to help. You might also consider posting in our pre-sales forum where you can get first-hand information directly from IPS clients. By talking to IPS clients directly you will get a realistic view of what's involved from others who have done it. There's no better way to decide if IPS is best for you than to talk to clients who use our software and services. Special Promotion We are running a special promotion now through 1 October 2012 for anyone wanting to switch to IPS Community Suite. Use the coupon code SWITCH at checkout to receive 10% off your entire order. This is in addition to the existing bundle discounts you get when purchasing multiple IPS apps! Take this great opportunity to have a look at IPS Community Suite. Tell a friend or convince a web site you visit to have a look. Try our free demo to experiment with our Suite for a few days. Ask our sales team questions or post in our pre-sales forum to get information from existing IPS clients. Our community and staff are welcoming and here to help! Current IPS clients can also use our SWITCH coupon code. It's a great time to get another license... We talk to clients, joke with clients, and listen to feedback. Sometimes we cannot implement every bit of feedback we receive (image the chaos if we tried!) so we try to spot trends to pick out what is clearly a must have change. Both on our company forums and our own web site we use what we make. Nearly all of our staff comes from a background where they also ran their own community giving us a unique perspective as both creators and consumers of our services. The technical support services we offer are second to none and any IPS client will tell you that we always do our best to help a client out with technical problems as quickly as we can. Perhaps our biggest advantage and difference is our continual development and improvements. You will never see us sitting around idle. There is always something new in development or something old getting improved. Sometimes these are big changes and sometimes they're small but we are always doing something behind the scenes. We never abandon our clients and allow our software to stagnate.

IPS is introducing a program whereby we nominate a charity to receive our attention and support. These nominated charities are chosen by IPS for the work they do and how they might impact us personally. The first nominated charity is Autism Speaks. You can find out more information on our charity page. IPS and our Client Community It is our goal to expose various charities to our client community and organize our many thousands of clients to do something good. We make community software and sell that software to our clients who use it to create thriving online communities. We believe that IPS and its clients share a common goal of communication and conversation - be it online or offline - and can work together for a greater purpose. Every so often we will change up our nominated charity to spread around the good will of our client community to other worthy causes. Please consider donating to this or other charities we may nominate in the future. We will collect all funds and distribute them to the charity and IPS will also donate funds as a company.

The license changes that we blogged about back in May are now live! License Structure Changes The main change is that IP.Board is no longer be the "root" license item. You now have a license to the IPS Community Suite and will then have the various applications as additions under that root license. Anyone with a current IP.Board Standard License or IP.Board Business License will see this change happen automatically in their client area in the coming weeks. There will be no change to your services of course. Those with an IP.Board Business License will see a new Priority Support package listed. Here is how licenses worked before today: IP.Board Standard License IP.Blog IP.Gallery IP.Nexus IP.Content etc. Here is how licenses now work:IPS Community Suite IP.Board IP.Blog IP.Nexus etc. Renewal Consolidation We have also consolidated renewal dates on your packages. It was very cumbersome for both IPS and our clients to have the various apps under a license have different renewal dates. So we have changed this to prorate purchases so they all have the same renewal dates. Of course the renewal frequency and amount will not change from how it is now. For example, if you choose to add IP.Nexus to your existing IPS Community Suite license the order system will automatically give you a credit based on the number of days until your next renewal cycle so everything balances out. When we switch over to this new setup your existing purchases will also be prorated and your renewal date for your licenses will adjust based on a formula that gives you credit for all days remaining on all of your licenses. This means your renewal date will change slightly as the system gives you credit for prepaid renewals. If your license is currently expired then you will still be put into this new structure but just in an expired state so nothing will change. Legacy license holders will see no change to their license terms but will also see an adjustment in the structure shown here. FAQs What if I don't want to renew a particular app? No problem! Just log into the client area, click the app you don't want to renew and then click Cancel. This will cancel the renewals on that app and adjust the renewal rate on the IPS Community Suite license. How do I cancel my IPS Community Suite license? There is no need to cancel the IPS Community Suite license as it does not have renewal charges unless you have an active app under the license. If I do not renew one or all of my apps what happens? If you do not renew you will lose access to support, upgrades, and services related to the applications you chose not to renew. It's of course in your best interest to keep up to date with our latest releases for performance, features, and security plus access to our great support services. If you let your services expire you can of course renew them at any time by going to the client area, clicking your expired package, and then selecting Renew Now. What happens when I purchase a new app? If you want to extend the capabilities of your IPS Community Suite by purchasing a new app you can easily do this in the client area. Just order the app as normal and then you will associate it with your Suite license. Your purchase price will be automatically adjusted to account for the next renewal date on your license to keep everything in balance. Why the change? Not only is this structure easier for everyone (just one renewal date for everything) but also goes along with our future plans of releasing all of our products as one Suite rather than individual apps under IP.Board. It's an exciting project and we cannot wait to roll it out over the next few releases.

We have started work on IP.Board 3.4 and this blog entry will give you a general idea of our goals and also introduce some important license changes and future plans from IPS. It's an important entry so read on! IP.Board 3.4 As always we will be blogging about specific features as they are completed. IPS does not post traditional roadmaps as roadmaps are subject to change. Instead, we post blog entries when a topic is completed and include screenshots and details so you know what you see is for sure going to happen. Here are the three high-level areas of interest for IP.Board 3.4: Very few front end changes so version 3.3 skins will work with little changes on 3.4. Focus on back-end improvements (AdminCP user experience, SSO integrations, SEO options, and so on). Versions 3.2 and 3.3 were more about front end experience so now it's time for the AdminCP and other areas to get some focus. Work will be put into making areas that are difficult for non-technical/non-designer clients to use. Examples include skinning system, Visual Skin Editor, and upgrade system. Three areas of focus will result in a lot of great changes and of course we will be doing other, smaller changes outside of those three areas but these will be the focus. Beyond this we have some bigger things planned but that will be revealed later. In addition to IP.Board: IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery are receiving large updates and other apps will receive smaller updates for maintenance and consistency. We do not currently have a release date for IP.Board 3.4 (and if we did ... well you know :smile: ). Our continuing goal of offering the most stable platform possible will see continued maintenance releases on the 3.3 series and other applications. Expect to see an IP.Board 3.3.3 release coming out soon. License Changes To make our licensing system easier to manage for everyone we are going to be restructuring how they work and are displayed. Here is how licenses show now:IP.Board Standard License IP.Blog IP.Gallery IP.Nexus IP.Content etc. Here is how the new structure will be implemented:IPS Community Suite IP.Board IP.Blog IP.Nexus etc. The main change is that IP.Board will no longer be the "root" license item. You will instead have a license to the IPS Community Suite and will then have the various applications as additions under that root license. Anyone with a current IP.Board Standard License or IP.Board Business License will see this change happen automatically in their client area in the coming weeks. There will be no change to your services of course. Another change we are making is consolidating renewal dates. It's very cumbersome for both IPS and our clients to have the various apps under a license have different renewal dates. So we will be changing this to prorate purchases so they all have the same renewal dates. Of course the renewal frequency and amount will not change from how it is now. For example, if you choose to add IP.Nexus to your existing IPS Community Suite license the order system will automatically give you a credit based on the number of days until your next renewal cycle so everything balances out. When we switch over to this new setup your existing purchases will also be prorated and your renewal date for your licenses will adjust based on a formula that gives you credit for all days remaining on all of your licenses. Said formula is a bit involved so check out this topic if you are so inclined to pull out your calculator :smile: Finally, if your license is currently expired then you will still be put into this new structure but just in an expired state so nothing will change. Legacy license holders will see no change to their license terms but will also see an adjustment in the structure shown here. This will all be implemented soon after IP.Nexus 1.5 is released which offers many great enhancements. So why are we doing all this? Future Plans IP.Board 3.4 will be a milestone in the history of IPS because it will be the last release of IP.Board as we know it. It's pretty amazing to think that after 10 years this will be the last time IP.Board is released on its own as the flagship product. After IP.Board 3.4, we will introduce the IPS Community Suite. The new Suite approach will see IP.Board become an application under the Suite just as IP.Gallery, IP.Nexus, and all of our other apps are today (hence the license structure change). There are some huge advantages to this way of doing releases: Of course beyond these changes we have lot of exciting changes in store for IPS Community Suite 4.0 but that's for the future after IP.Board 3.4, new versions of IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery, and continued laser-focus on stability. Summary To clarify everything here is a summary timeline: Very soon: IP.Board 3.3.3 maintenance release Near future: Blog updates about IP.Board 3.4, new versions of IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery, and working toward releases After next release cycle: Changes to the license structure Then we will start work on IPS Community Suite 4.0! The good news here is that we are not talking a long period of time. Since the IP.Board platform is very stable we can develop these releases in months rather than years. We have disabled comments on this blog entry as a lot of various subjects were presented that clients will surely want to discuss and comments would get overlooked. However, feel free to start topics in the Client Lounge. Thank you for your support and continual feedback!Only one versionCurrently we have a version number for each of our products. This gets very confusing for everyone to know what version works with what other version. When we release IPS Community Suite 4.0.0 at that time all of our Suite will also be on 4.0.0. No longer will each application have its own release cycle and version numbers. Just one version number for you to look to when you are checking to be sure you're up to date!Suite consistencyAs we will be releasing our entire Suite at once for both new features and for maintenance releases you will always know everything is consistent and up to date. For example, if we add a new feature to moderation in one area it will be available in all areas without having to wait for a separate update.Tighter integrationIPS community products have always had great integration with each other. Our new Suite offering will further this integration by offering total uniformity and compatibility between all the features of the Suite.No forums requirement Currently if you want to use IPS products you are required to buy IP.Board even if you don't need a forum. Even though you might just need a commerce platform or a CMS you have to buy IP.Board as it is also the "core" application. No more with IPS Community Suite. You will be able to run a community with just a gallery, blog, and member list if you so choose. Maybe you are just looking to run a site and need a CMS and commerce system. The ability to mix and match our great product line will finally be here!

Referencing our coming soon blog entry ... Apple was fast and has already approved our new app! Download now A few things to keep in mind: The app will work on all IP.Board 3.3 versions for the most part but will be much smoother with the soon to be released IP.Board 3.3.2 Please submit bug reports as we will be releasing updates to address any issues often over the next few weeks. Be sure to keep your app up to date! Your feedback on how to improve the app is appreciated. There are some known issues with those using IP.Content as their front end that will be addressed. We will be releasing frequent maintenance updates to polish this new app. Please let us know your feedback but we will not be adding new features until we also have our Android app released. Once both iOS and Android are out and working great then we will start adding many fun features on our roadmap. We think it important to keep iOS and Android on equal footing as much as possible. Once we are happy with the quality and stability of the app we will start promoting it to the broader audience but you as an IPS follower can get a head start and let us know how we can improve. IPS is very excited to be investing in our mobile services and we look forward to continued development on our mobile apps!

UPDATE: The app is now available! We are happy to announce that the new version of our iOS app is in the Apple App Store review process now! Once approved, the app will be available for members to enjoy for just $1.99 one time. The new app will work with all IP.Board versions 3.3.2 or newer. This new version has a native interface, push notifications, iPad support, and multiple community support. Check out this video for a walk through of the new app: [media=] Admin Control As an administrator you can also upload new image packs for the app to use for the interfaces. You can change colors and such to match your community branding. Another great option will be admob integration for administrators to monetize users browsing their community through our App. IPS will not get involved or take a cut so it's directly between you and your visitors. More to come... IPS is investing in the mobile space and has brought on new staff to continue development in this area. An Android version is in development and will soon follow this release (really it will). We have also opened a new forum for feedback and a bug tracker category so you can report any issues. Features coming very soon include uploading files on your phone as attachments to posts, images to IP.Gallery, and camera shots directly to IP.Gallery. Future feature ideas include integration with IP.Nexus for on the go customer service, more push notification options, and more fun ideas!

Following on our previous blog entry about our enhancements to the IPS Community here at http://community.invisionpower.com ... A few more things to note that you may be interested in that we recently changed. These changes are related to us getting ready to release IP.Board 3.3 and generally our continual process of review and refinement of everything we do. Enhanced Access for Expired License Holders We have opened up previously restricted areas to expired license holders as mentioned in our previous blog entry. Expired license holders can also now read and post in our feedback forums and can now also have full access to the IPS Marketplace! We are sure that everyone will enjoy a larger user base with access to the IPS Marketplace from both clients and those that contribute to the IPS Marketplace while still ensuring that the security and trust-level is maintained in the IPS Marketplace by restricting access to known persons. Visitor and Guest Access Guests and Vistors (those with an account but who have never been a client) can also now read and post in our feedback forums. They can also now read (but not post) in the support forums. Note that sometimes feedback from non-clients could be moderated as we often get off the wall feedback from people who have never actually used our products. We even sometimes get feedback from people who think we run our clients' sites! It's hard to explain to someone who is confused that we provide the community software but don't run the community. Upcoming Documentation Improvements We are investing a lot of time and effort into our documentation section to go along with 3.3's launch. We admit and own the fact that right now our documentation is weak and really want to make this a key area of improvement. Rather than try to document every button and function in our software (which really is pointless and impossible) we will be doing a lot of tutorial based documentation. Yes, as if often requested, narrated video demos will be heavily used. We all know that a 30 second video can explain things better than pages of text. There are many obvious things we can document and once those obvious areas are finished under our new format we will be opening suggestions up to our community on what areas could use some more explanation. Also, once the core documents are done, we plan on merging in the community article sections so all the great knowledge in our client community can be harnessed. Our clients come up with unique solutions to specific situations that are sometime really fun to read. Finally, one area we think will benefit all in the long run is a greater link between development and documentation. Once we get into client feedback on documentation we are going to keep internal track of areas that, while they work just fine, cause our clients to have to stop and scratch their collective heads. I am sure you have all had to pause at times and say "ok now how do I do this?" when trying to customize your community. One of our long term goals that we started on with IP.Board 3.3 was making things more obvious and flow better. One could easily argue that if a feature needs documentation then we didn't make that feature very easy to use. That is an area we will continue to work on in future updates. Mobile Apps Yes we are in the process of making all new mobile apps. The iOS version will be out soon after IP.Board 3.3's release. No details yet (sorry!) but the app is shaping up very nicely. I personally cannot wait. So yes boring stuff and some future plans in this blog entry but I hope you all enjoy the overall approach we are taking. We are very proud of IP.Board 3.3 and want to be sure that all the other areas around a release (documentation, future planning, spotting client trends, etc.) are of the same quality and attention to detail you expect from IPS.

We are well into beta testing for IP.Board 3.3 and IP.Content 2.3 and so far it's going very well. Practically no bugs are being reported and often times our staff have literally 0 open general bugs in our bug tracker. That is quite an accomplishment and something of which we are very proud! If you are an IPS Client and are comfortable beta testing we would love for you to take some time in the next day or two and visit the pre-release testing forum. There you can download the latest beta releases to try out yourself. Please report bugs to the bug tracker so we can fix any issues before we go for the final, supported release. One of our primary goals for these releases, in addition to feature changes and enhancements of course, was to fix as many issues as we possibly could. While there will always be bugs and such in any software package, we are very proud that we have been able to address every general operational bug report that has come in. That's not something many can say. Of course once this release is used by thousands of people we will need maintenance releases but going out of the gate with basically no known issues is a great way to start! Thank you to everyone who has assisted in beta testing so far. The final, supported releases will be here before you know it thanks to your help.

We are happy to announce that we have made a few changes to enhance the community experience here on the IPS Community. Access to Support Forums Based on client feedback and the mass of good will from many helpful clients who want to assist others, we have opened up access to our support forums to both current, active license holders and those that may have a license but it is expired. As our support forums are peer-to-peer we thought this only fair. Please keep in mind that IPS Staff do not actively post in the support forums but many helpful clients do and it is a great place to get help from your fellow clients. If you ever need official support from IPS please submit a ticket in the client area. Community Tips We have created a new Community Administration Tips forum that we hope everyone will use to learn and share your experience. We already have some great discussion going on in this new forum and encourage you to post a topic with your own ideas. Feel free to link to your own community as a great way to promote your own community. Share your experience and learn from others! OpenID in IP.Board 3.3 Just a quick note regarding IP.Board 3.3: IPS is removing support for OpenID as a login method in IP.Board 3.3. While OpenID seemed to show promise several years ago it has been overtaken by other login methods. More importantly, the PHP libraries that we use to connect to OpenID have been all but abandoned by those that created them and they do not work on the latest versions of PHP. As more and more people will start upgrading their PHP versions, OpenID will start to work on fewer and fewer installs due to the incompatibles in these abandoned libraries. Therefore we will be removing support for OpenID in IP.Board 3.3.

Ten years ago today Invision Power Services was born and we continue to go strong today providing community software to thousands of clients. Ten years on the web is practically forever and we are proud to have reached this milestone! IPS has grown over the years to one of the leading providers of community software. To our many thousands of clients including large, well-known brands like NBC, NFL, NHL, many music artists and more we have been able to offer a quality community experience. Our staff, past and present, have made this possible through their dedication to providing quality software and great support for our clients. We apply the feedback we receive from clients, experience from running our own site, and information from running our own hosting to our product line to create a community suite that is stable, innovative, and easy to use. Thank you to all of our dedicated clients who both give us the feedback we need to improve and also promote us to their friends and colleagues as the best choice for community software. The future is bright for online community solutions. After all: from day one the web was all about communicating and sharing information. Through the crazes of newsgroups, personal web pages (Geocities anyone?), everyone having a blog, MySpace, Second Life, Facebook, Twitter, and whatever is next the common theme has always been communicating and sharing. IPS will continue as it has for the past 10 years with a focus on connecting people so they can share their world online.