TWF

The mobile market for communities has exploded and we have responded by offering a great, new mobile skin for IP.Board and its applications. There are inherent limitations in a mobile skin that are difficult to work around such as image uploading, logging in, and more that are either impossible or just tedious on a mobile device.


IPS is happy to introduce a new iPhone app to solve these issues and add new options!


Easy Login to all your IP.Board Communities



You can add a list of all the IP.Board-powered communities you visit and save your username/password to those communities in the app. You now have one-tap access to all the communities you visit. No need to tap out your login each time you wish to visit the community of your choice and easily switch between all the communities you visit!

Uses Standard Mobile Skin



When you visit the community, you will see that it uses the standard IP.Board mobile skin available standard in the platform. We considered creating a native interface within the iPhone app but there are several advantages to using the built-in mobile skin:

• Common user experience - regardless of a user visiting through the iPhone app, normal browser, or any other mobile device they will have a similar browsing experience on your community
  
  
• Design control - As the owner of your community, you want complete control of the look, feel, and branding of your community. If we were to create a native, standardized interface then IPS would be in control of that look: not you. We obviously never wish to get between you and your visitors so using the mobile skin allows for you to have complete control of the look of your community.
  
  
• Advertising Control - Much as above with the look and feel: IPS does not want to get between you and your advertising revenue. By using the standard mobile skin, you are free to place your own advertising and sponsorships. Tap into the mobile market without worry about a third-party getting in the way!
  
  
• Native Interface Option - If you did want a native iPhone interface, there are great skins available from third-party skinners in our community that will make your community look like it's running right on the iPhone while still maintaining the three advantages above.

Member Status Updates



Your members can update their IP.Board profile status right within the app without having to navigate to any other page. Even better, if you use IP.Board's built-in Twitter and Facebook integrations, your members can even update the status on your community, their Facebook, and their Twitter all in one click! This allows your community to become the center of their online social experience.

IP.Gallery Integration



If your community has our IP.Gallery image gallery software installed: your members will be able to upload images, videos, and camera shots directly from their iPhone to your community! Members can select their source, write a caption, description, and even choose from the albums they have created on your community to upload their media.

Sharing



Two simple but easy sharing functions are available: open in Safari and email. Found a great topic on a community you visit and want to share it? Just click email and send it to a friend. You can also open the community in Safari to bookmark a page or perform other functions available in the OS browser.



Pricing and Availability

It's already done! Please note that the app will require IP.Board 3.1 is installed to communicate with your community. Also please note that this is not an application which is supported via the Ticket System. For all assistance with it, feel free to use the Peer to Peer Support section that was created for it, here:  http://community.inv...ne-app-support/

We are happy to say that the IP.Board iPhone app will be available totally free to all! There are no ads from IPS in the app or anything intrusive that will distract from your community.

Future Ideas

This is the very first version of the iPhone app and we have tons of great ideas to improve it and will continue to do so over time.

Yes: we will be creating an Android platform app as well. (highlighting since many have been asking and didn't notice this line)

We will also be creating an option, for a small fee, to create a private-label version of the app for anyone who wants one that can only be used on your community. Information on the private-label service will come after the app has gone through a few maintenance updates.

Other fun features like mobile access to the Community Directory and Push Notifications for new activity on your community are already in progress! Stay tuned!




Important Notes

Because of Apple's approval process, the version of the app available in the App Store is now a couple weeks out of date. It therefore has a few known issues that have already been addressed. We have submitted an update to the app for approval to Apple that will fix these issues and are waiting for its approval. The update will show in iTunes like any other app.

As of this moment, you can use the app here on the IPS Community. We will be releasing an update to IP.Board 3.1 Beta 3 (and included in final version, of course) to support the app.

If you find issues, please post in our bug tracker and if you have suggestions we would love to hear them in our feedback forum.

Security Update for IP.Board 3.0.2
It has come to our attention that there are two potential SQL injection vulnerabilities present in IP.Board 3.0 which can be taken advantage of via careful URL crafting.

Resolution
The attached zip contains two files which fix the issue. The files are for IP.Board version 3.0.2 only. Those still running 3.0.0 or 3.0.1 will need to upgrade to 3.0.2 as soon as possible.

The main 3.0.2 download zip was updated at 10:15 am EST August 18, 2009. If you download 3.0.2 after this time: your files are already updated.

Simply download the attached zip file and upload the files contained within to your IP.Board directory on your server. No other action is required.

 180809.zip   13.73K   7984 downloads

Support Note: While our technical support department will apply this patch for you on request for those with support service, we strongly suggest you apply this patch yourself whenever possible. Applying the patch is a simple matter of uploading files to your server and, once done, your community is instantly protected without having to wait for our technicians to do the upload for you.



Impacted Versions:
3.0.0
3.0.1
3.0.2 versions downloaded before posted time or unpatched

Not Impacted:
2.0.x
2.1.x
2.2.x
2.3.x


The vulnerability information was purchased by Beyond Security's SecuriTeam Secure Disclosure. The discoverer of the vulnerability requested to remain anonymous. IPS thanks this group for bringing it to our attention.

We are pleased to announce our new Spam Monitoring Service

Our new Spam Monitoring Service will assist with the ever-growing problem of spam account registrations on communities across the web. This service will use a central database, hosted by IPS, to track those that may try to register an account on your IP.Board-powered community and stop them from registering.


How it Works

Each time a user tries to register, your IP.Board will contact the service and report the IP address and email address attempting to register. The service will scan a list of known spammers and give the account a score of 1 - 4. There are various options you can configure to control what behavior happens based on the score such as banning the account, letting it through normally, or queuing it for approval.

By harnessing the power of the many thousands of IP.Board communities, the service can "learn" over time what accounts are spammers. For example, a real human could never register on 5 IP.Board communities in just one minute so the service would see that account as a probable spam account.

The service will also monitor the "mark as spam" feature now included in IP.Board. This means that, as you and your moderators manually mark an account as a spammer, the information is reported back to the service to help stop those accounts on your community and other IP.Board communities as well!

Through these methods we are creating a service that learns from the collective data gathered from all IP.Board communities who choose to participate in the Spam Monitoring Service.



Privacy

IPS will collect various registration information to track and catch spam accounts. Information that is not from a spammer is only kept temporarily (to detect trends so we can catch spam accounts) then deleted. The only information permanently kept is for those known to be spammers. The service is completely optional and no IP.Board is required to participate.

Activating the Service

The Spam Monitoring Service will be available in IP.Board 3.0.2 and is already being tested here on the IPS company forums. Once you have IP.Board 3.0.2, simply login to the IPS client area and activate a special key used for the service and put that key on your IP.Board AdminCP.


Pricing

To further our continuing efforts to not only enhance the products we offer but also the services around those products: this service will be offered at no additional charge to those with an active support and service license for IP.Board and for IPS hosting customers!

We are pleased to announce Invision Power Board 3.0.0 and its Applications have been released.

This is the first supported release of Invision Power Board 3.0.0! We would like to thank everyone who has helped beta test the product so we can release as stable a product as possible today.

Products Released

• Invision Power Board 3.0.0
  
• Invision Power Gallery 3.0.0
  
• Invision Power Blog 2.0.0
  
• Invision Power Downloads 2.0.0
  
• Invision Power Converge 1.1.0

Please note that this is the very first supported release of these products. As with any large software product, it can take several maintenance releases to work out most of the remaining bugs or oddities left in the software which are only discovered when many thousands of installs are done. We had an extensive beta period and a staggered launch of IP.Board 3.0.0 to catch most issues. Initial feedback on 3.0.0's first supported release has been great but, even so, we do expect to have a 3.0.1 release in the next couple weeks.


Downloading and Installing

You can download all products you have a license for in the IPS client area. There are no upgrade packs as this update requires you upload all files in the download.

Be sure to follow the install upgrade instructions. Remember that any skins, modifications, graphics, etc. on your version 2.x IPB will not work on IP.Board 3.0. You will not lose any posts or member information in the upgrade.


Technical Support

Technical support is now available for IP.Board 3.0.0 and the Applications. Please be patient during this initial launch phase as response times may be longer than normal due to the increased volume of requests. Phone support will also be delayed.

Important: If you would like our staff to install or upgrade for you, please be aware that there can be delays of many days for install or upgrade services during this initial launch phase. Whenever possible, please consider performing the install or upgrade yourself to save time waiting.



Above all: enjoy the new products! We have worked hard on the updates and wish you continued success with your online communities!







Subscriptions Manager and MS-SQL Database

The subscriptions manager and MS-SQL database driver are not yet available. They will be released separately very soon. Our apologies for the delay. Rest assured we are making these releases a priority.

New IPS Web Site

We are also launching our new company web site on invisionpower.com today. Please forgive any navigation issues on the site while we apply the new content.