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Boatbuilder
John
Administrator
Lowestoft Online Addict
Gender: 
Posts: 4752
I've learnt to take everything life throws at me!!
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There are no options in this version for those additions, other than what is there at the moment. As the owner of the site has the responsibility for all that and he hasn't visited us for over 9 months, there's not a lot we can do. The site requires upgrading but that seems to be the least of his worries. I have responded to your query about the reply with quote in the other topic you raised it in. It is not a problem in any browser if you follow the instructions as written. This was done in Firefox. I myself use Safari most of the time.
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 An Oyster 575 |
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funkychick
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What the heck are skins thought they were the stick on things that went on laptop tops or ds tops etc cricky always thought it was what kept my body in place but caught up with the fact you stick them on the outside of things too now got to learn something new -
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Boatbuilder
John
Administrator
Lowestoft Online Addict
Gender:
Posts: 4752
I've learnt to take everything life throws at me!!
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Skins are variations in the colours or styles that the website appears on your computer. You will find that applications such as Windows Media Player will give you options to change them on that application. Look under the 'View' option on the toolbar when running WMP.
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An Oyster 575
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funkychick
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Just wondered BB dont want to change anything happy as it is
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Boatbuilder
John
Administrator
Lowestoft Online Addict
Gender:
Posts: 4752
I've learnt to take everything life throws at me!!
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I was only answering your question, "What the heck are skins", FC. I didn't think you would necessarily want to change them, just giving you an example there. The two variations available on the ML site are a 'sort of' skin.
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An Oyster 575
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funkychick
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Oh sorry BB did my answer sound rude? I didnt mean it that way I know you were just giving me info thanks and sorry
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funkychick
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Phew, had me worried there sometimes things dont come out on paper as they do in my head 
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IrMarky
Full Member
Gender:
Posts: 50
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There are no options in this version for those additions, other than what is there at the moment. As the owner of the site has the responsibility for all that and he hasn't visited us for over 9 months, there's not a lot we can do. The site requires upgrading but that seems to be the least of his worries. I have responded to your query about the reply with quote in the other topic you raised it in. It is not a problem in any browser if you follow the instructions as written. This was done in Firefox. I myself use Safari most of the time.
I see now, strange tbh lol.
and yes a nice upgrade would be vbulletin, alot more functions, plugins and capabilities.
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snowdrop
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you did't know what skins are fc, i not the only dumbo on the site then
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funkychick
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Well I bought my grandaughter a 'skin' for her DS at Christmas but obviously not the same 'skin' as IR is talking about
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Mel
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I didn't know what skins were neither, I know sausages came in skins and that hippies used skins to skin up their joints but I didn't know about the computer skins.
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JollyJapes
Guest
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I see now, strange tbh lol.
and yes a nice upgrade would be vbulletin, alot more functions, plugins and capabilities.
Afraid I disagree. I use to run a forum, and had an 'owned' license for vBulletin alongside vPortal. vBulletin is one of the better forums, but I do not think it is as user-friendly as people here would prefer. The only way to get a good look to the site would be to use vPortal, which gives a more friendly feel to the site. The front page to this forum is actually hand coded by Darren, the forum owner, and as such it is hard to update.
I personally would set the site up using Joomla as a base with one of the compatible forum software, this would help to get chat rooms and online games easily available alongside easy updating, as well as having forum software. But Darren is rather busy with his various businesses and is not currently available to upgrade the site software.
Many members here do not understand how this website operates, and see no reason to change or upgrade it. They fail to understand the various issues and problems this website is facing, including the security implications.
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Meg
Global Moderator
Lowestoft Online Addict
Gender: 
Posts: 11280
I love Lowestoft but I love Oklahoma more!
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I believe you once said JJ that Darren would not sell the site to you.Next time I looked that message had disappeared.This is Darren's site and whether he does upgrades or not a lot of us will stay with this site.It may need work but I for one am happy with it.
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JollyJapes
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Without going into details, there 'are' security issues with the website not being updated. The reason why software gets updates an average of once every few months is because hackers find loopholes in popular software and exploit them.
For example, a web design client had his website hacked just 2 weeks ago, and a hacker from India managed to gain access to the hosting account; he then placed a Paypal phishing site in a sub-directory. It took me around 6 hours to get the whole thing sorted, and then another hour to try and track the hackers down. The problem of course is that the police simply arent interested in this type of thing, as there is little chance of a successful prosecution overseas.
To give you another example, my disco website was hacked back in 2005 by a hacker claiming to be from Iran. That was merely a childish attempt, simply replacing the main page with one complaigning about the West, but it too was achieved by hacking. And a 3rd example, another web design customer last year had his website hacked, and spam was sent out from his hosting account. This one happened due to a contact form in his website not having been updated to the latest version, and a hacker took advantage of a loophole.
From the viewpoint of a website owner, it is the highest importance to make sure that all website software is updated regularly. This forum runs on Simple Machine Forum software (SMF) and was last updated in 2008. This means that it is currently 4 years old, and many updates out of date. This means that from a security point of view it basically has a 'all hackers welcome' sign on it! If you are not familiar with website designing, you would not be aware of these issues, and as I originally said, you would not realise anything was wrong.
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freelance
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I think somebody has already hacked in. They keep telling us about dead people, many of whom we didn't know.
Also repeating all the news that has been in the papers and on most TV programmes.
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paulears
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Don't underestimate what hackers can do without you being aware. I have a few small websites, and I don't have time money to spend on housekeeping. As a result, Google flagged one of them as containing malware, and on checking they were right. There was some code in there that was not there the week before - and all it does is redirect your browser to visit a site that is trying to get you to invest money with them - foreign of course! Now - the server the web site is on tell me absolutely that nobody can get access without my password, and I know that the password is a complicated one I actually keep hidden on my phone, as somebodies name and address details. The hacker turned out to have got into the server by a back door on somebody else's site - apparently, a "known exploit". What details have you provided to the forum when you joined? Anything you would not like to be spread around? even if it's just your email address?
Another forum I use is off at the moment because it got hacked - and if you don't understand computers - would you know what this means, for example?
The DVdoctor forum was the victim of a hack on Friday Jan 20th 2012. This was possibly because of a vulnerability in our version of vBulletin.
The site will be offline while we move to a more secure bulletin-board program. This is unlikely to be completed (at the earliest) until work has been carried through the coming weekend - Jan 28th/29th.
The vBulletin database was accessed during the hack. However, we store our passwords in a double hashed, salted format. This means that even though the hackers had access to the password hashes, they should not have been able to derive your passwords from them. We are confident that our data storage mechanisms stood strong while the hackers were in the system.
The people who run it have spent a week trying to fix it - and they know what they're doing. If this forum suffers a similar attack - then if the owner is absent - it's dead!
Without constant updating, it's an attack waiting to happen - and that's not even taking normal failures into account!
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Paul Johnson
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Alice
Administrator
Lowestoft Online Addict
Gender:
Posts: 5263
I need to change this pic.
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Keeping these forums updated requires some luck, a bit of skill and a lot of time. Skins that will personalize the color and arrangement of a site can be added (not this one, it's too old, other sites), but each skin must be tested and fiddled with before it's put on because many are created by hobbyists and because of that have bugs that can make the whole site come crashing down.
Hackers with malware are always a problem and the BB creators are always looking to keep one step ahead of them. The big sites have full time people who watch out for incursions. Fortunately, sites like this one have too small a client list and no money accounts to be interesting. What this site would be used for is as a mirror or redirect site for illicit emails/viruses/etc.
Unless you have access to the server and to all of the administrator privileges (which none of the admin here have) you can't update this site or add any of the features you see on other sites. LOL is what it is. Personally, I think the crew here should be a bit wary of updating this site. I really wonder, with it being so old, if it CAN be updated. Sometimes when programs get too old the new versions simply wipe out the old version, along with all of the data, passwords, etc. If that ever became an option, we'll have to look a the SimpleMachines FAQ's and research it.
alice
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paulears
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Bit of a thankless task then - but I'm sure we all appreciate what you all do.
Paul
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Paul Johnson
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