Bungie Studios, a division of Microsoft, launched a new version of their web site that contains a revamped version of their forums which is powered by Ideal BB.NET.  Their forums have over 10 million posts spread across 12 public forums.  There are also private forums on about 450,000 boards, one for each fan club. 

The revamped forums have a new look and several new features.  Members are already raving about them saying that they are cleaner, run faster, and are more user friendly.

The new forums can be seen here.

We moved our servers to NYC this week as part of our upgrade to a new data center.  The move is part of our plan to increase the capacity of our hosting & services business.  This business has been rapidly expanding with new customers signing on to have us host and manage their forums.

There could be some minor glitches in our web site as a site effect of the move.  We’ve managed to iron out most issues, but if you have any problems, please contact us so that we can remedy the issues.

For more information about our co-location center please see the Telehouse America web site.

I hope everyone had a wonderful new year and a good start to 2007. The weather seems to have returned to normal so I do not foresee any more office closings. There are great things coming up this year including a new Beta release sometime next week. Current customers will receive a notification email when the upgrade is available for download in the Ideal Science store. Please feel free to leave comments, especially if you want/need a feature that is not yet available in the Ideal BB.Net forums or if you have a question for the development team. We are always open to suggestions!

We are currently experiencing an ice storm that has created dangerous road conditions so Ideal Science will remain closed Tuesday, January 16th and will re-open the following day. We should be available via email to assist in any customer service or technical support related matters. We appologize for the inconvenience.

Ideal Science is pleased to announce Ideal BB.Net Version 3.1.6 Beta 1 is now available to download at the online store today, December 1, 2006! At Ideal Science, we pride ourselves in providing our customers with the highest performance forum software available on the market while continuing to meet customer needs. In constantly improving Ideal BB.NET, I feel these new features and fixes will contribute to the success of your business.

New Features:

• Upgraded to .Net 2.0 Framework. Incremented the major version number to 3.x.x.x. series and since we were on 2.1.5.0 before the upgrade we are now on 3.1.6.0 for the next version.
• Added the ability to upload your own avatars via the edit profile page. Custom avatars are store for each user so that users do not see other user’s avatars. You can pick custom avatars already uploaded via the avatar selector. Only images with .jpg, .jpeg, or .gif are supported.
• Added a sample project for grabbing the last 5 most recent posts by consuming the RSS feed on the new posts page.
• Added list uploaded avatars view to the admin section so that admin’s and moderators can easily remove uploaded avatars that don’t meet the board’s terms of service. Resetting an avatar replaces and deletes the uploaded avatars with the default avatar. (Which can be set in the admin section.)
• Registration link is now hidden on login page when using active directory.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug in topic_getTopicsPaged that caused a syntax error when paging topics.
• Fixed a bug that caused AD to not work correctly for new users when anonymous access was disabled.
• Fixed bug with RTE (Rich Text Editor) where firefox browsers would lose formatting after clicking submit.
• Fixed small CSS issue with login box error messages in firefox.
• Fixed bug that caused links to get messed up after editing a post with a link in it.
• Fixed bug that would cause the quick reply to create multiple posts.

I hope you find these upgrades valuable as we have eagerly anticipated this launch to better serve a company’s individual needs.  Upgrades are a feature of the yearly maintenance package which also allows for continued technical support.  When a company purchases Ideal BB.Net forum software, a year of support and maintenance is included.  Each subsequent year, maintenance will be 20% of the original license fee.  These maintenance renewals can be made over the phone at 512-401-9811×200.  We look forward to continuing all efforts to make your business better.